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  Her sharp intake of breath told me I was heading in the right direction.

  “Beckett, you are a bad, very bad idea,” she murmured even while she turned her head and kissed my jaw. “I don’t have time for you.”

  Okay, that stung my pride a little, or a lot.

  “I don’t have time for you either,” I declared. But it was a dirty lie. I would make time for this girl.

  “But, God, Beckett,” she hissed as I finally gave into temptation and kissed her throat.

  “I promise I’ll be good again, Britte,” I whispered against the fleshy part of her ear. What the hell was I thinking? I in no way wanted to be good with this girl.

  “I don’t know,” she hesitated, pulling back again.

  I let my lips trail a path down the column of her neck, inhaling her as I went. I wasn’t even close to drunk; the half glass of beer I’d consumed did nothing to affect me. But hell, if she wasn’t more intoxicating than alcohol.

  “As long as we—”

  She was just about to let me have my way when a clearly masculine voice spoke from over my shoulder.

  “Oh, hey, Britte,” he sounded awkward after interrupting what we had going on. He should feel uncomfortable, damn it. “Sorry. I was just looking for the keg.”

  “You found it,” Britte laughed nervously. She shoved my shoulders so I would step back. I stopped kissing her, but I earned this spot between her legs. I won it, and I was an f-ing athlete and competitor to my core. We never gave up our trophies. Fed up with me she growled lowly, “Move, Beckett.”

  I wasn’t one to force my way with any girl, so I obliged by backing up and leaning against the counter space next to her. I turned my attention to the guy who’d ruined everything for me tonight, meeting the curious stare of Jameson McKay. He was the last person I wanted to see. But he was one of my little sister’s friends and so that made this...obnoxiously polite.

  “Hey man,” I nodded.

  “Hey, Beckett,” he nodded back. “Didn’t know you were back on campus.”

  “I got in last night,” I offered. I put a palm on Britte’s knee to stake my claim—but she shoved it off and huffed like I was annoying.

  Me? Annoying? Impossible.

  “All right, well, see you guys around,” Jameson tipped his full cup our direction and then rejoined the party.

  “Oh my God, Beckett,” Britte groaned. “You have got to leave me alone!”

  An outrageous thought slithered down my spine, and I instantly bristled at the idea. “You don’t mean because of McKay?” I pointed at the still swinging door that led to the rest of the party. Then I glanced back at Britte; she was blushing crimson red.

  Hell, no.

  “Please, Beckett, just, can you leave me alone?” she whispered, her voice shaking with embarrassment.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  I didn’t realize I had competition. What the hell?

  But it wasn’t exactly like I could do anything but what she asked. I was a good guy. Or at least I kept telling myself I was. If she wanted me gone, then I had to go.

  I stood up and walked to the middle of the sticky linoleum floor and turned around to face her. I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms—classic tough guy look. Maybe I could intimidate her into what I wanted, you know, typical good guy actions. I stifled a frustrated groan.

  “Beckett,” she pointed a stern finger at me, sliding off the counter. “I don’t have time for this.”

  “You already said that,” I reminded her dryly. And then I decided I didn’t want to be the good guy anymore. I gave it a shot. There had to be a better way, a speedier, more efficient way. “I’ll make you a deal.”

  Her eyebrows furrowed suspiciously, “What kind of deal?”

  Smart girl, she shouldn’t trust me. “I’ll leave tonight and you can go…you can go back to the party.” The idea of what or who she was going to do at said party made bile rise in my throat like before any important game. My muscles tensed and my fists clenched. Game face. “If you go to coffee with me tomorrow afternoon.” I didn’t drink that bullshit, but from experience, I knew girls loved that kind of pumpkin flavored shit.

  “No way,” she shook her head quickly.

  Time to put the pressure on, “Fine, let’s go find Jameson then. I’ve been wanting to ask him about…his running program anyway,” I lied.

  “Liar.”

  “Really? Because I could talk to him about running all night long. I have a million questions about running. I can’t wait to ask him about running.” Okay, now I was just being an asshole, but I’d make it up to her tomorrow.

  She glared at me for a full minute. When I didn’t flinch or back down, she huffed out an irritated, “Fine. Fine. I’ll have coffee with you, just go. Now.”

  I broke out into a smile. Victory. I loved to win. But I wasn’t going to stick around for her to change her mind either. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow at three o’clock.”

  “No, I’ll just meet you—” she tried to counter.

  “You know what?” Now I was just taunting her. “I’ve always wanted to know how they train for hurdles. That’s Jameson’s specialty, right? Or is it lunges? Or long jump? How do you think they—”

  “Fine, Beckett. Pick me up. I don’t care. Just get out of my hair tonight.” She shoved my bicep, obviously exasperated with me.

  “See you tomorrow, Britte.” I swooped down and pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth. She didn’t move until I was finished. She let me have my wicked way with her. When I pulled back, I couldn’t help but grin at the glazed look in her eyes.

  Tomorrow.

  I would get more tomorrow.

  I turned around then, leaving her sputtering and bright red. Good. She could hang out with Jameson as often as she wanted as long as she had my mouth on her mind.

  Chapter Two

  Britte

  “Eleanor!” I screeched at the top of my lungs. “Eleanor, where are you!”

  I heard something slam into the open door behind me and then my roommate’s exasperated voice. “I’m here. Good God, B, I’m right here. Where’s the wreck?”

  “I need your perfume,” I demanded desperately while I tossed clothes behind me on the bed. “And a pair of your earrings. And…oh! A scarf! Do you still have all your old scarves?”

  I glanced over my shoulder and fought my dark hair out of my face. Ellie scrunched up her nose and then wrestled her chestnut colored hair into a messy bun on the top of her head. She was such a nerd in her short red track shorts, high school track t-shirt, and white knee-high socks. Her boyfriend was supposed to stop over in a few minutes, and this was how she planned to meet him.

  I didn’t understand her decisions sometimes.

  But then again, Fin seemed to love her no matter what she wore, so I didn’t question it.

  “I think I gave most of them to Goodwill,” she said. “But maybe I kept one or two? Why do you need them?”

  I started to explain, “I—”

  “Are you stealing my identity? Oh, my God, Britte, please don’t steal my identity!”

  I laughed because I couldn’t help it. “I am kind of stealing your identity, but not like Tara the Terrorist. There will be no gambling or selling all your possessions, and as long as you don’t ask me for three more days, I’ll be able to pay my half of the rent this month.”

  Her mouth lifted in a relieved smile. “Okay. Please explain what you are doing.”

  I stood up and turned around. I hadn’t figured out what I was going to wear to coffee with Beckett yet, so I was still in jeans and my bra. Ellie stood waiting for my explanation, unfazed by my state of undress.

  “I ran into your brother last night,” I confessed. A smile threatened to erupt on her lips, but she did her best to suppress it. Which probably saved her life, judging by the mood I was currently in.

  “And?”

  “He wants to have coffee today.”

  Her eyebrows rose expectantly. “And?”

&nbsp
; “And he convinced me to say yes. So now I have to convince him to get over this, this, thing he has for me.”

  “B—”

  “Els, stop playing matchmaker. This isn’t true love. This is your horny, superstar brother not used to getting shut down. He doesn’t want to sweep me off my feet into a happily ever after. He wants to slip a roofie into my latte and mark another notch on his bedpost.”

  “That’s not very nice.”

  It was my turn to raise my eyebrows at her.

  “But probably accurate. Except for the date rape. He would never do that.” She crossed her arms and tensed defensively as I continued to stare at her mockingly. “Well, he wouldn’t.”

  I sighed. “It was a joke.”

  “It was mean.”

  “Help me!” I squealed. “Please.”

  “Okay, fine,” she groaned. “I’ll dress you up like me and then be super weirded out when it doesn’t turn him off.”

  I finally smiled. “Yay!”

  Nerves fluttered through me. What if she was right? What if it didn’t work and he didn’t care that I reminded him of his sister? Not because he was a weirdo, but just because he didn’t even notice the lengths I’d gone to.

  On the other hand, what if she was wrong? What if it did work? What if I managed to turn him off and he never wanted anything to do with me again? Disappointment swirled through me. Something panged inside my chest. It felt very much like hurt and sadness and regret.

  Which didn’t make sense.

  I didn’t want this. Mostly.

  Mainly I just wanted Beckett to leave me alone and today was how I was going to accomplish that.

  “It’s not going to work, babe,” Ellie insisted.

  “It’s going to work.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Get dressed and then I’ll rub my clothes all over you.”

  Ellie left me to it, and I finally got to work dressing. I wanted to turn Beckett off for sure, but I was just vain enough to still want to look nice. I finished buttoning up my skinny jeans and tugged on a loose gray tunic that slid off one shoulder. My makeup was already done in my usual tones with some green eyeliner to pull out my green eyes and enough coats of mascara to make my lashes seem lush.

  I tugged on some strappy flats and a long locket on a chain that had once belonged to my grandmother—my dad’s mom. My mother’s family was dead to me. I finished the look with pink lip gloss and a cluster of bangles.

  I wandered into Ellie’s room and stepped over her open textbooks that were scattered along her already messy floor. Clothes and shoes piled everywhere amidst schoolwork and empty soda cans.

  “Isn’t Fin coming over soon?”

  She chucked a scarf at me. “Yes, he’s staying for a few days.”

  Ellie’s boyfriend Fin had recently moved a couple of hours away to attend grad school. They usually tried to see each other on the weekends. Either he would stay with us for a few days or she would visit him for a weekend.

  They were so obnoxiously happy even though the long distance was hard for both of them. Plus, they were pretty much the cutest couple ever, so they deserved all the relational bliss they brought each other.

  When Ellie caught me eying her incredibly messy room, she sniffed. “Fin loves me for me.”

  “You’re just hoping he’ll clean this up for you.”

  She pressed her lips together to hold back her smile. “I just don’t want him to get bored while I’m working on homework.” She gave me a sideways glance. “Plus, he likes to clean.”

  I snorted. Fin had enough homework to keep him much busier than Ellie, but I didn’t point that out. A good best friend supported her friend no matter what, even when she was innocently manipulating her boyfriend. And it was true that Fin liked to clean. Maybe that was the wrong way to say it. He liked things neat, orderly and controlled. Ellie drove him crazy because she was none of those things. But I also knew that was why he’d fallen so hard for her to begin with.

  A knock at the door made us both jump.

  “Relax,” she whispered with saucer-sized eyes. “It’s probably just Fin.”

  “What time is it?”

  She glanced at her clock before squeaking, “2:58 p.m.”

  We both made another squeaking noise. The knock came again, followed by a muffled, “Britte?”

  “Shit,” I mumbled.

  “It’s going to be fine,” she assured me. “Stop freaking out.”

  “I’m not freaking out.”

  “You’re totally freaking out.”

  “You’re making me freak out. Stop it!”

  “You stop it!”

  “Britte?” Beckett called out again.

  “Just a minute!” Ellie shouted back at him. Then to me she said, “Here, put this on.”

  I looked down at the pretty cotton infinity scarf with mustard-colored chevrons woven throughout. “I really like this one.”

  “Thanks. I’m kind of bummed I gave them all away. I had a seriously impressive collection.”

  “I’m kind of sorry I made fun of you for wearing these all the time. I’m starting to see the appeal.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. “It’s not going to work, B. He’s very focused when he finds something he wants.”

  “Well, he needs to focus on someone else.”

  She patted my shoulder as she walked by. “And he likes to win.”

  I grumbled something offensive under my breath, and tugged on the scarf. I looped it around my neck twice and checked myself out in the mirror while Ellie answered the door and let her brother inside. They talked animatedly while I sprayed on some of Ellie’s signature scent and slipped a pair of her silver studs in my ears.

  There. I looked as much like Ellie as possible. And I smelled like her.

  I was pretty sure this would be a major turnoff for Beckett. He was obviously a man-whore, but someone that looked and smelled like his baby sister would surely be off limits for even him.

  I didn’t want a relationship with Beckett, not that he was offering one, but I didn’t hate the guy. He was actually pretty decent as far as best friend’s brothers went. And he adored Ellie and always made sure she was taken care of.

  However, I didn’t have the same faith that he would treat me the same way. I had been skittish with men my whole life, and I wasn’t about to open up to Beckett only to have him break my heart the next morning.

  See, the problem was that Beckett was a player. And I wasn’t the kind of girl that could handle getting played.

  I could barely handle when a guy didn’t call me back after our first date, which happened way more often than I wanted to admit.

  I didn’t seem to have problems getting the first date. It was after that date when the trouble began. Most men seemed to find me slightly neurotic and way too focused on school.

  Beckett would be just like everybody else if I gave him a chance. Hell, he might not even last all the way through the date before he abandoned me in the restaurant and ran for the hills. The boy had a short attention span, to say the least. And he’d left a trail of broken hearts across campus. I just could not be that girl. I didn’t have time for it.

  A knock on the door pulled my attention from my terrified expression and straight to Beckett’s sharp gray eyes. “Are you done hiding in my sister’s room?” he asked me with a devil-may-care smirk on his too-perfect face.

  God, Beckett. Go easy on me.

  It just wasn’t fair that he was so good-looking.

  Muscles, check. Tall, long, lean body, check. Mysterious gray eyes that lasered straight through me, check. Smile that made me want to kiss him every time he shot it my way, double check.

  He stood there in low-slung jeans and a baseball t-shirt with his dark hair tousled and falling just so on his forehead. There was nothing spectacular about his outfit and yet, I wanted to lick him.

  That was so not a normal reaction.

  “I’m not hiding,” I told him courageously. “I just finished get
ting ready.”

  His eyes traveled down my body, taking in every inch and ounce of me. I watched him frown at the familiar scarf, and his eyes did this surprised double-take thing. Then they seared a path up to my face where he met my gaze and lifted a challenging brow.

  He jerked his chin toward the hallway and commanded, “Come on then.”

  That low, rumbled demand did something to me. Something I wanted to call anger. Something I knew was decidedly not anger.

  I gathered my scattered nerves and nodded slowly. I didn’t want to go to coffee with him this afternoon. I didn’t want to go to coffee with him any afternoon. I just wanted to hide in the apartment I shared with Ellie and collect cats.

  At this point in my failed dating career, I was pretty sure my soulmate was a cat.

  “Where are we going?” I asked Beckett once we were both in the hallway.

  “Coffee,” he answered simply. “Bye, Els,” he called out once as we walked through the living room. I stopped to talk to her, but he wrapped his big hand around my wrist and tugged me through the front door before I could put a sentence together.

  “Have fun, you two!” she called after us. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

  I glanced back at her, wide-eyed and desperate for her to shut up. She stood in the doorframe waggling her eyebrows at me.

  Some best friend she was. I needed an upgrade apparently. Just kidding. I loved that woman with the fire of a thousand suns.

  Beckett led the way to his car. We stayed silent most of the way. It wasn’t until he opened the door to his fancy black car that I even looked him in the eye.

  “You’re so quiet,” he commented as I awkwardly climbed into the passenger’s seat.

  I shot him a look. “You haven’t said anything either.”

  One side of his mouth kicked up into a crooked smile. “Maybe I’m nervous.”

  Yeah right. The day a girl made Beckett Harris nervous was the day I… did something out of character.

  Like eat vegetables by choice.

  He shut the door behind me and jogged around the front of the truck. I ignored the way he held his shoulders back and dipped his chin. I ignored the way he swung into the driver’s seat with a grace that belonged to a jungle animal, not a human. I ignored the way his long fingers wrapped around the keys and turned them in the ignition or how they settled on the gear shift or how they stretched and flexed as he wrapped them around the steering wheel or…