2. Scott
two
Scott
B ending my best friend’s little sister in half is a mistake. Her plump little ass bumps against my thigh, dangerously close to my cock, and the itty bitty black number she wears rides up her thick thighs.
At the moment, though, modesty ain’t that high on my list of priorities when she’s going bright red in the face hacking out a lung, so I ignore the way she’s bent over and smother all thoughts of Travis’s sister with her skirt flipped up, her panties pulled aside, and my dick buried in her sweet, hot cunt.
Nope. Not thinking about sex with the girl next door.
Not even if she’s a grown ass woman now.
And, apparently, my perfect match according to some online matchmaking site someone else signed me up for in a misguided attempt to inspire me.
I glance over my shoulder at the guilty party, my city-slick cousin-turned-personal assistant who gives me a double thumbs up. Five minutes ago, I learned he’d tricked me into coming to Wintervale Resort’s restaurant for a nonexistent business meeting.
Turns out, the little loveable shit set me up.
“Bullshit,” she says again as she glances over to Jasper. “I’m supposed to be meeting…” Her voice trails off as her eyes rake over me like hot coal, singeing every part of me that she takes in. She jerks her head in my cousin’s direction. “Who is that? Is that Hunter?”
“That’s Jasper, my cousin and personal assistant. Though I’m having second thoughts about that personal assistant part.”
“I heard that.” Jasper calls out, waving as he glides over, giving up his attempt at blending in with the crowd. “I’m Jasper Tate, Scotty’s extraordinary PA. This man would be lost without me.”
“I believe it,” Kelsey says, smiling gently as she extends a hand. “I’m Kelsey Greer.”
“I’m not here to intrude. Just thought I’d introduce myself since I know he was about to talk shit.”
“Don’t worry, I know that’s all he talks.”
Jasper flaps a hand between Kelsey and I. “So, you two know each other?”
“Since we were kids. I didn’t know he’d be the type to lie on a dating site, though.”
“Ouch.” I rub my chest as if wounded. “I didn’t lie about anything. You know damn well that some people call me Hunter. Anyway, I didn’t even sign up for the damn site. That’s all this guy’s bright idea.”
“Oh, so… Jasper’s my perfect match?” she asks, turning to him.
The thought of anyone else but me being Kelsey’s perfect match sends a sharp spike of jealousy running through me, and I lean back against the bar to look at the pair of them.
“You ain’t got the right equipment,” I drawl. “Jasper here plays for the other team.”
“I’m gay, honey,” my cousin laughs. “But if I wasn’t, I might give Scotty here a run for his money.”
“Oh.” She flashes him a warm smile. “Well, it’s my loss, then.”
“Nobody’s losing here. Scotty’s a sweetheart, even if he doesn’t look it.”
“Hear that, Muffin? Even Jasper thinks we may be meant to be.”
Her eyes narrow to slits and I wonder for a moment if she’s going to kick me in the shin like she did that one time when we were kids.
“That’s not what he said. And anyway, I’m not holding my breath.”
“Good. Don’t. I like you breathing.” I reach over to tuck one of her curls behind her ear, and she watches me with banked heat dancing in her eyes.
It’s been a few years since I saw her last, but Travis’s little sister has grown into every single one of her curves and seems far more comfortable in them than she had when she was younger. Now, Kelsey Greer’s a woman who exudes total control.
Control that I can’t help but want to unravel by toying with a thread and pulling on it until she comes apart for me.
Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to bury my fingers in her hair and kiss her until it’s good and mussed just so I can find out what sort of noises her perfect little mouth makes against mine.
“So, you’re home, huh? How long are you visiting for?”
“A while,” I say. “Came to escape the city, rest and recharge. Write a song or two.”
Or a whole album, inspired by you as so many of my other ones have been.
“Welcome back, then.”
“Thanks, Muffin.”
She scrunches up her nose. “How many times do I need to remind you not to call me that?”
“What should I call you, then?”
“How about my name? Kelsey?”
I grin at her. “How about wifey?”
“Oh my god, you’re so full of it. I can’t believe these so-called matchmakers got it all wrong again. Just like they were dead wrong about all the previous dates they sent me on. It’s a total scam, and I’m going to tell them so first thing tomorrow morning when I call to cancel my membership.”
Her quick dismissal cuts deep, and I force myself to smile like she didn’t just take aim and fire.
“What makes you so sure they’re wrong about us?”
“Really?” she deadpans. “Scotty, I’ve known you all my life. You’ve been nothing but a pain in my backside.”
“Have I?” I ask, leaning to the side and making a show of checking out her lush, rounded ass. “Want to show me where, exactly? Maybe I can make it better.”
She splutters, and I laugh. I shouldn’t tease her. I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t help it. There’s something in me that enjoys the way her gray eyes flash like a spring thunderstorm and her rosy pink cheeks flush anytime she’s flustered.
She keeps those storm cloud eyes leveled on me. “That sort of cheesy talk work for you with the ladies who chased you down in Nashville?”
“Read up on that, did you?”
Her eyes narrow. “No, they didn’t. That story can’t be true.”
I flash my teeth at her and don’t answer the question written all over her beautiful face.
“You really not going to tell me?”
“I’ll tell you. Just as soon as you tell me what the story is behind why you hate the nickname Muffin.”
She glowers at me and presses her pretty peach lips together. “Not today, sugar.”
“Okay, then.” I lean back and grin at her. She makes quite a picture standing there, framed by the falling dusk and the mountain peaks. There’s a hum of something warm and pleasant stirring in my belly, a low kindling fire that feels as if a part of me is waking again after a long slumber. “I missed this, Kels.”
“What, annoying me?”
“Being home,” I clarify, reaching for her beer and giving it a sniff. Before I can sample it, she snatches it out of my grasp.
“That’s mine, thank you. You can get your own.” She brings the glass to her lips and tips it up for a long drink.
I watch as she gulps and the delicate muscles in her throat move. Each swallow sends my thoughts careening in the wrong direction.
“Good idea. Then we can have a drink together and catch up. You can tell me how the business is going. Travis says you’ve been busy turning it into something more than a mom and pop coffeshop.”
Her eyebrows lift nearly to her hairline. “Oh, no. We’re not doing this. We’re not old friend. This isn’t a catch up.”
“You didn’t always hate me, Kels.”
“I don’t hate you. Not even now. I’m just…” She shifts in her seat. “You set me on edge.”
“Is it because I caught you checking me out? And ‘cause this is supposed to be a date?”
“I wasn’t checking you out. This isn’t a date. This right here is a coincidence.”
“Is it? Because you’ve had a hard time taking your eyes off me since I caught you undressing me with your eyes.”
She blanches and her cheeks go pink. “I-I wasn’t doing that . I was looking for someone. The service said the man I was supposed to meet was tall, stocky, and had light hair.”
“Uh huh,” I lean in, twirl the edge of one of her curls around my finger. “Me.”
“I was trying to work out if your hair was the right color and if you were the right height.” Frowning, she pulls the strand free of my grasp and lets her gaze roam over me as I sit before her, knees spread slightly with my boots hooked onto the footrest and elbows propped up against the back of the bar. “You seem about the right height. How tall are you again?”
“Six-three.”
Her gaze rests for a fraction of a second on my crotch area and I will my cock to not leap up and beg for attention.
When her gaze lifts back to mine, I note the slight dilation of her pupils and wonder if that’s the beer… or something else that’s too dangerous to name.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a terrible liar?” I ask, gesturing to the dwindling liquid in her glass. “You want another? Or, are you after something else?”
“Like what? Sex?” The words fly from her lips and she claps a hand over her mouth like she hadn’t meant to say it.
I chuckle. “I was thinking dinner, but if you’re offering…”
“No! Definitely not.” Her face is bright red, and she looks ready to sink into the floor. “This has been an unmitigated disaster. There’s no reason to drag it out further. After this, I’m heading home. Alone.”
“Must be some kind of record. I ain’t ever had a surprise date sprung on me and had it deemed a disaster in under twenty minutes.”
“No? I knew this was going to be a disaster when I came in here. But I gotta give you credit. None of the others lasted this long.”
“So, I never had a shot to begin with, huh?”
She snorts. “Please. You’ve never been interested in me like that, Scotty.”
The truth is there, on the tip of my tongue, ready to fall into the wide gap between us, but I know she’d never believe me. Instead, I slide off the barstool and she watches my every move. Our bodies are close, nearly touching, and I don’t think she even realizes that she’s leaning in, closer to me, with her fingers play with her necklace and her teeth sink into her lower lip.
“How do you know?”
“Because you only like to rile me up because you find it entertaining. It was so irritating. I remember how you teased me all the time, cracked jokes, pulled my hair, and all jump scaring you subjected me to. Not to mention the times I’d catch you leering at me, just looking for your next opportunity to drive me nuts.”
“ Leering , huh?” I laugh, a small smile tugs at my lips. She never saw it, then. My heart on my sleeve, the admiration in my eyes. But we’d both been young and I didn’t know any other way to get her attention. “Well, what if I was checking you out, and I just thought you’d weren’t interested in me like that?”
“Well, that’s ‘cause I’m not—I mean, I wasn’t. And I’m not. What are you doing?” She frowns as I pull out my wallet and drop a few bills onto the bar to cover her drink.
“You don’t have to do that. This wasn’t a date, remember? I can pay for myself.” Then she digs into a flap on her phone, and I reach over to cover her hand with mine.
The contact is electric as I press her phone case shut and relish in the feel of her soft, warm fingertips under my calloused ones. “It’d be my pleasure, Kels, to treat you for once. To take care of you, for once. After all, it seems I’ve got some sins to atone for. Besides, what are perfect matches for?”
“We’re not a match.” Her eyes search mine, confusion creasing her brow.
Even after one beer, her cheeks glow with a light blush pink that makes me think of the phrase “a blushing bride”. And suddenly, picturing her in white is all I can think about even as my throat constricts and my fingers itch for a pen and paper.
“Then prove it.”
“Prove what? That we’re totally unsuitable for each other?”
“Yeah.” My gaze drops to her parted mouth just as her tongue darts out to slide against her lower lip. “I have to admit, I’m curious to know why they’ve matched us. And I’m willing to find out if you are.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Why not? I’m in town for a while, and we know each other pretty well. I think I’d like to test your theory against theirs. Let me take you on a date or three. And for longer than twenty minutes.”
“Why the hell would I do that?”
I lean in, catch a whiff of deep, dark roasted espresso beans clinging to her and murmur, “Because deep down, I think you’re curious, too. Whether you want to admit it or not, I reckon we may have a more in common than you think. And for the record, if you had been offering sex earlier? I would’ve said hell yes.”
Her thighs clamp together as she shifts in her seat.
“Ha! My brothers would kill you.”
“Ain’t none of them here, though, are they? Besides, I can take your brothers.”
She lets out a guffaw. “Blake’s a master hunter, Mason’s made a living boxing, and Travis is a trained killer—”
“—Soldier,” I correct. “Turned… well, whatever he’s doing these days in the private sector.”
“Not that anyone’s even heard from him in the last six months,” she mutters, swirling the last of her beer in her glass.
“He’s fine. He’s working. I see him from time to time.”
“At least one of us does.”
“It’s touching that you’re worried about me, though.”
“I’m not ,” she grunts.
I grin at her and slide past her, brushing up against her body and hearing the hitch in the her breath as I do. Knocking her off her stride has been one of my greatest pleasures in life, and seeing her again after all this time drives home one hard truth.
Crushing on Kelsey is a lifelong affliction. One that’s fueled nearly a decade’s worth of songs that have gone gold and platinum. Mining my thoughts and emotions about this woman is nothing new to me.
But what is new, is finding out someone out there thinks we’re meant to be.
That validating thought has taken hold of me, and I can’t let it go.
Hell, maybe she’s the real reason why I felt the need to come home. Maybe it’s time to finally convince her to see me as more than her brother’s best friend.
“What’s the matter, Muffin? You scared I’m going to sweep you off your feet and prove your theory about us all wrong?”
Her eyes flash with irritation as she drains the rest of her beer and slams down the glass. “Fine, it’s your funeral. I’ll prove we’re not a match. One disaster date at a time.”
I tip my hat to her and walk out thinking I might have to let Jasper keep his job after all.