by Kit Tunstall
Blake feels coerced to take out his best friend’s sister while she’s in town. He remembers her as a chubby, awkward teenager with a crush on him. When Erin shows up at his door, he’s blown away. She’s all grown up now and a lush, curvy beauty. He’s never gone for Rubenesque women before, but he wants her desperately. To his consternation, Erin doesn’t seem to like him at all. He needs to figure out if he’s too bad-boy for the good girl, or if her apparent dislike hides something else—like a mutual desire she’s fighting to control, due to her own self-esteem issues and a refusal to be another one of Blake’s conquests.
Blake took a quick look around his living room, making sure he’d tidied up well enough not to appear like a total slob. His house still looked like a bachelor’s pad, but wouldn’t send anyone screaming from his home. It probably didn’t matter anyway. It was unlikely Erin would actually come in.
As if thinking her name had summoned her, his doorbell rang. Bach barked and growled, running to the door like a steak salesperson waited on the other side. The dumb chocolate lab did that every time he heard the doorbell. “Knock it off, Bach,” said Blake with a gruff edge to his tone. The dog immediately fell silent, looking down at the floor with contrition.
To ease the reprimand, he rubbed Bach’s head as he passed him. “Sorry, boy.” He didn’t mean to be grumpy, and it sure wasn’t his dog’s fault he’d let his best friend convince him to take his little sister out for a meal while she was in the city for an interview. He hadn’t seen Ethan’s sister in at least eight years, not since the Christmas he’d spent with the Hollings family during his senior year of college. What could he possibly have in common with a twenty-three-year-old girl? She was just starting her career, and his was established. All he remembered of her was she had been a chubby, annoying teenage girl, who blushed and ran from the room any time she’d seen him.
Praying her teenage crush had died long ago, he opened the door, blocking Bach’s escape attempt with his knee. “Hi. I’d invite you in, but I doubt you want dog hair all over your clothes. Give me just a minute to grab my keys.” In a rush, he closed the door and took a few steps away, taking a moment to catch his breath.
Wow. His friend’s little sister was all grown up. She was still chubby—maybe even overweight by some standards—but she had gotten hot. Her frizzy mud-brown hair was now a sleek bob with golden highlights. He hadn’t gotten much of a view of her in his hasty greeting, but he’d seen enough to have the beginnings of a hard-on. Maybe this dinner “date” wouldn’t be so unpleasant after all. As he scooped up his keys and regained his composure, he debated if seducing his best friend’s sister violated the Bro Code, and if so, by how much?
Erin stood on his doorstep, where he’d left her, dressed casually in a khaki skirt and red twinset. She gave him an uncertain smile when he closed the door. “Hi. I thought I’d squeeze that in.” The gleam in her eyes let him know she was teasing.
“Sorry about that, but Bach loves company, and you would have had brown fur on your sweater.” It sounded lame even to his ears, and he did his best to change the subject. “So, what do you think of Seattle so far?”
She shrugged. “I like it. It’s very laidback compared to New York.”
He frowned. “Were you in New York? I thought your brother said you were in South Dakota for school?”
“San Diego,” she said with a little laugh. “Practically the same thing.” Erin shrugged. “I had an interview in the city last week. The job would be fantastic, and the pay is phenomenal, but I’m not sure I want to live there.”
“Seattle and New York are pretty opposite.” They reached the end of his walkway. “Do you have a dinner preference?”
She cocked her head, making the waves in her bob frame her face in a way that had his mouth going dry. “Seafood? I love chowder.”
Blake nodded. “I know just the place. Are you up for a walk? It’s about six blocks, all downhill—until we come back. The hills can be a killer if you aren’t used to them.”
She shrugged. “Sure. I’d like to see more of the area, and I think I can handle the hills. My prospective employer is only a few blocks over.”
Blake looped his arm over her shoulder in a casual manner to steer her in the right direction, but didn’t drop it when they had crossed the street. What he felt before she stepped away told him her body was curvy and soft—whereas he was getting hard. He cleared his throat and tried to keep the conversation light. “Ethan didn’t say what the job was?”
“Biomolecular research.”
He blinked. “Really?” Brains and beauty? Nothing irritated him more than trying to have a conversation with someone who was a complete twit. She was getting hotter by the minute.
She nodded. “What about you, Blake?”
“I do forensic accounting.” He gave her a grin. “It’s more interesting than it sounds.”
“I’m sure.” Erin shrugged. “Who am I to judge? I spend all day looking at molecular structures on a computer screen, and I love it. If it makes you happy, that’s what counts.”
He couldn’t help feeling she had a marked lack of interest in him. Ethan had told him Erin would be lonely in a new city and convinced Blake to “volunteer” to take her out one night during her stay. Why did he get the impression she didn’t want to be here? It irked him. Without false modesty, he knew he was damn good-looking, with golden-blond hair, hazel eyes, a toned body, and a sharp wit. He was never without a shortage of female attention. Maybe there was someone else?