Chapter 1
DOLLY
This is what I get for trying to do something nice for my brother’s grouchy best friend. The flat tire, caused by a broken beer bottle in the driveway, has left my vintage butter-yellow Ford Bronco leaning to one side. I huff out an exhale, wiping the sweat from my brow.
“Damn you, inferior nearsighted eyeballs.”
I didn’t wear my glasses or contacts to bring Sam Seymour an I’m sorry your grandfather died and he was your only living relative coffee cake. I can’t see without my glasses on, but my contacts make my eyes water. I’m prettier without them both.
I’ve had a ridiculously huge, tragically pathetic lifelong crush on Sam.
It started the day we met. He looked at me with his lonely ocean blue eyes, reddish brown curls flopped over on his forehead, and I knew a little piece of my heart would always belong to Sam Seymour.
He was skittish at first, until my older brother Duke asked him to skip rocks over the pond at Moonlight Ranch.
After that, they were nearly inseparable, and I was always trailing behind them like a shadow. Duke was annoyed by me, but Sam never seemed bothered.
When Duke told me Sam’s grandfather passed away, I decided to bake him my award-winning signature coffee cake. The award was from the county fair when I was fifteen, and I’ve never let my four older brothers forget it.
Not only do I want to offer my condolences and check up on him, I’ll jump on any excuse to see Sam when Duke isn’t around.
I open the passenger door to the old Bronco that belonged to my mother, extracting the still-warm dessert.
I check my lip gloss in the side-view mirror, comb down a few flyaway dark hairs, and push my boobs up a little bit.
They’re not huge, but they fill out my B-cup bra nicely.
The pale pink corset baby-doll sundress makes them look perky.
I smile at myself in the mirror to check my teeth for any stray artifacts. I have to lean in close enough so that my vision focuses, noting that there’s nothing amiss and my lip gloss isn’t too obvious.
“Him noticing that I got fixed up to come over here is exactly what I don’t need right now,” I mumble.
I slam the door shut and start marching toward the enormous cedar and stone ranch house.
It’s three stories high, with massive black-framed windows and a stone chimney that’s ten feet wide, stretching to the sky.
It has a wraparound porch on the first and second floors, with a small balcony on the third floor.
I’ve been inside the house a handful of times with Duke, but I’ve never been here alone or seen much of the inside.
My stomach feels like it’s full of the gravel rocks at the river bottom as I march up to the front door.
I exhale and sniff my armpit to make sure the Texas heat hasn’t caused any unseemly body odor to seep out of my pores.
It’s early fall, but the air hasn’t cooled down much from summer yet.
I spritzed myself with my wildflower perfume before leaving the house.
I raise my fist and firmly knock on the thick, ten-foot-tall double doors.
I wait, counting to five in my head before knocking again. I don’t hear anything inside the house, but to my left, a black Lab dog pants as he trots up to me.
“Hi, Belly Flop! You’ve gotten so big. I heard you made some babies with your ol’ lady—is that right? Are you a daddy now?” I bend down to pet him, scratching behind his ears.
A creak from behind me makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“Yeah, he’s a daddy now,” a deep voice growls from behind me.
Sam.
My entire body feels like it’s purring when he speaks.
I’m like a damn cat in heat when I’m around Sam.
It started when I was eleven years old. I’ve had so many fantasies about Sam Seymour that I’ve lost count.
Sadly, I can count on one hand the amount of times he’s intentionally looked in my direction.
The first time was when I was thirteen. I started my period, but because I didn’t have a mom and my dad didn’t think about it after having raised four boys, I bled through my jeans while out driving the truck while the guys were throwing hay bales on the trailer.
I had no choice but to get out of the driver’s seat and go tell my dad that I needed to go change and buy my first pads.
My brothers and Sam were all sweating in the Texas sun, watching me with confused stares as I whispered in my dad’s ear and he led me back to the truck, bloody jeans and all. I remember glancing at Sam and meeting his eyes.
I was embarrassed, but I also had the fleeting thought of, You see that I’m a woman now, don’t you? I’m not just your best friend’s little sister anymore.
Apparently, he didn’t think that because it wasn’t until three years later that he looked at me again, when I was sixteen and wore a bikini in front of him with actual boobs and an ass to fill it out. One subtle double take with those bright blue eyes was all I got, but, damn, I didn’t forget it.
I slowly stand, the cake still in my left hand.
I pivot to face him, lifting my chin. His ocean-colored eyes meet mine, blinking slowly.
His face is … destroyed. He has a green-and-yellow bruised eye on one side and a split lip that’s in the middle of healing.
He lifts a bottle of amber liquid to his lips, slurping on it silently, gaze draping down over me.
“Whatcha doin’ here, sis?”
Did he really just call me that?
I form an annoyed smile. “I’m not your sister.”
He shrugs. “Feels like it.”
What the actual …
I stand up taller, stretching to my full height of almost five foot two. “I brought you a coffee cake. An award—”
“Award-winning coffee cake?” he finishes, smirking at me.
He tosses back another gulp of the amber liquid, peering down at me even as he leans against the doorframe and towers over me. I can smell the stench of liquor from several feet away.
He’s shirtless, abs faintly visible under his freckled, tanned skin. Bruises in the middle stages of healing stretch from the bottom of his sternum to the middle of his abs.
Sam’s hair is reddish brown, with gorgeous curly pieces hanging over his forehead. He has a week-old beard on his strong jawline and a spark of sadness that never leaves his eyes.
“You’re here to tell me how sorry you are that I’m alone forever and my only living relative is dead. I get it, sis; you’re a do-gooder, and I’m your closest neighbor. I applaud the Southern hospitality. Don’t worry that pretty little head too much on it. I’m rich as fuck now.”
His knuckles are red and crusted with scabs. He wipes a stray drop of liquor from his full lips, and I watch the movement with rapt fascination, like any virgin would in the presence of her shirtless older brother’s best friend.
Especially one who looks like Aaron Taylor-Johnson in a Western-themed Calvin Klein underwear ad.
Even now, the CK logo is peeking out over his sweatpants.
“Stop calling me your sister. We’re not related.”
He chuckles, standing up straighter and turning to walk into the house. “Do you drink? How old are you now? I have … some kind of girlie shit from when Keely was last here.”
Ew, no thanks.
“You know very well that I’m quite old enough to drink.” I’m twenty-three, only two years younger than Sam. “And it’s ten a.m. On a Tuesday.”
“So?” He stumbles through the house, and I follow warily.
Even though it’s a cloudless day, it’s dark inside, the drapes drawn on most of the windows.
Takeout and pizza boxes are stacked in the corner, along with crushed thirty-pack beer boxes and liquor bottles.
I spot a few empty water bottles among it all, but I’m alarmed at how unkempt and filthy the house is.
The last time I was here, I noticed all the custom leather furniture and expensive-looking Western art on the walls.
“I don’t usually drink in the mornings, especially on weekdays,” I offer.
Sam collapses into an oversize leather armchair.
His gray sweatpants are slung low on his hips, leaving little to the imagination through the thin fabric.
He surveys me with unwavering eyes, the most attention I’ve ever received from him.
My skin feels like it’s about to spark a fire.
The heat between us could roast a full bag of marshmallows.
He runs his tongue over his top lip, eyes trailing down over my body. “You’re just here to bring food?”
I freeze, my knees nearly knocking together. “I can stay for a little while, if you wanna talk.” My voice trembles as I speak.
Does he think I’m someone else?
Sam has all but ignored my entire existence for over ten years.
His sudden undivided attention is unnerving.
He’s not a player. His one longtime ex-girlfriend, Keely, is the only girl I’ve ever seen him give attention to.
He hangs with the boys and minds his own business.
He likes bow hunting, cattle roping, and bull riding for fun occasionally.
Sam slurps down another gulp from the liquor bottle. I watch his blurry Adam’s apple bob in his throat, feeling mine go dry at the sight.
“Should I put this in the kitchen?” I ask, my voice sharp and high-pitched. I lift the coffee cake.
He shakes his head. “Bring it to me.”
My eyes widen. Wooden steps move me closer to him, my bones suddenly feeling bendy and fragile. I find myself crossing the large room to stand in front of him, the master of the house, looking up at me with shiny, inebriated eyes.
Sam’s attention is like a drug I never knew I was already addicted to.
“Feed me a bite of it, sis. My hands hurt.”
“Stop calling me that, and I will,” I hear myself say.
This is an out-of-body experience, like I’m watching it from a distance and not physically participating.
He grins, his handsome face shooting daggers into my melted heart. “What would you prefer, Dollface?” His voice is gravelly, deep, and half drunk.
Dollface is good …
“Anything else, literally.” I’m slightly breathless.
He leans his head back, resting it against the chair. “Can I have a bite now?”
I look down at the cake, my fingers trembling as I pull back the plastic covering.
The cake is meant to be cut with a knife, but I pull apart a gooey cinnamon-and-sugar-coated piece with my bare fingers.
I step closer to him so that I can see him clearly enough and not accidentally poke him in the eye with my hand.
I hold it out in front of his face, intending for him to take it with his hand. He waits for me, eyes twinkling with mischief as he looks at me. I jolt when I feel his hand on the back of my knee, tugging me a step closer.
“I don’t bite, Dollface, not unless you ask nicely,” he murmurs, his fingers brushing against the tender skin of my leg.
Fireworks explode around the point of contact, and I nearly buckle over.
“Do you want me to feed you?” I force out, my voice almost a whimper.
He reaches out to grab my wrist with his other hand, dragging me toward his face. “Yes, just don’t tell your brothers.”
I gasp, shifting as I push the cake into his mouth.
His teeth sink into it, grazing against my forefinger as he bites down.
Both of his hands reach around to grasp the back of my thighs, pulling me close until I’m basically in his lap.
He pulls away from my hand, a groan from the back of his throat filling the space around us.
My core throbs with need and desire, my fingers sticky from the sugar. Sam chews slowly, eyes rolling to the back of his head.
“Fucking hell, that’s good.” He takes the last of the piece into his mouth.
I watch in a daze as he chews it, his throat bobbing with the movement.
I stare at him like an obsessive freak, admiring the curve of his jawline, his golden skin, the way the veins of his neck stick out when he’s experiencing pleasure.
He leans forward one more time for more, but it’s gone.
Instead of asking me to get another bite, he sucks my fingers into his mouth, tasting the last of the cinnamon sugar and sending sharp bursts of need between my legs with the feeling of his wet tongue on my skin.
“Has anyone ever told you that you taste better than that cake?”
His deep voice reaches my ears, and I wonder if I really am stuck inside a dream.