“They have matching monogrammed robes?” Blake sighs. “Why are they like this?”
“They” refers to my dad and his college friends. They’re like brothers, only the way-too-close, always-in-each-other’s-business kind of brothers. They talk daily in their multiple group chats. Vacation together. Share obscure inside jokes and running pranks that none of the kids understand or care to try. It’s…intense.
“Maybe once you’ve worn a hockey uniform for most of your life, you need your name on every other piece of clothing you own,” I answer. “I’m pretty sure they got these made after Tucker built that sauna out back for Princess Alex.”
As Blake heads for the door that leads into the house, I drop my sweatpants and boxers and throw on my own robe. It fits me fine, but I’ve got almost a foot on Blake in height and at least seventy pounds of muscle. I leave our discarded clothing on the bench. I’ll throw ’em in the dryer later. Right now, I need to get warm.
I follow her into the kitchen. She pushes some wet strands away from her face, and a droplet of lake water squeezes out from the bottom of her hair. Just a teeny single drop. I follow it with the intensity of a dog watching his owner’s dinner. It slides down her neck to her shoulder and disappears beneath the terry cloth like a taunt. Then the robe slides off her shoulder again, exposing smooth skin.
I bite down a groan and turn away.
This no-sex thing was supposed to help me combat my writer’s block. According to Cole Tanner, my former bandmate, celibacy restarts your creative juices. Allows for no distractions, fostering nothing but pure focus. Artistic soul ecstasy over mindless bodilyorgasms.
But my buddy clearly didn’t account for Blake’s naked body beneath that robe.
The last time she and I were alone, it was also in a kitchen.
With a counter.
Which I lifted her onto and then splayed her across like a feast for me to devour.
And I almost did. I still remember how good she smelled, like coconut and strawberries and pure temptation. Fresh and sweet, just like Blake herself. And when I was dragging my tongue over her neck, kissing and sucking on her silky skin, she tasted so fucking good.
I’d like to blame the alcohol for what I did that night, but that would be bullshit. I wasn’t that drunk. Iwantedto taste her. I wanted to spread her legs and let her feel how hard she made me.
In that one reckless moment, I allowed myself to bite into the forbidden fruit that is Blake Logan.
Before that, I’d successfully managed to avoid her for two years, ever since she confessed to having a crush on me. She was sixteen at the time. I was nineteen, turning twenty. If I’m being honest, I never once looked at her in that way before that day.Reallylooked at her. But I’m a guy, and when a girl tells you she wants you, it plants the seed in your mind. Makes you think. So I started paying attention. I started to notice.
And I noticed things I shouldn’t.
Like how impossibly blue her eyes are.
The pitch of her laughter, how it sounds like a song.
Her sarcasm.
Her walls. I don’t know why they’re there, but I’ve always been attracted to walls.
But she was too damn young, so I shut it down hard. Wouldn’t letmyself even go there.
Until Christmas Eve, when she showed up at our house looking hotter than she had any right to look, with that dark wavy hair that begs for a man’s fingers and those big blue eyes surrounded by sooty lashes. Talking about some douchey football player who wanted to make her his girl, all the while sneaking glances at me, practically broadcasting that I could have her if I made a move.
Like an idiot, I made a move.
And then pretended not to remember.
I’m a fucking prick.
“I need to infuse hot tea into my veins,” Blake announces. She walks to the electric kettle on the gleaming counter and goes to fill it up with water.
“That sounds good,” I admit. “Can you make me one?”
She glances over her shoulder, waiting. “Please?”
“I’m not saying please to the girl who threw me into the lake.”
“Youpushedme—” She stops, her eyes widening. “Oh no.”
