Firm hands closed on her shoulders and turned her around. He gave her a little push toward the house.
“We can revisit the topic in ten years.”
Chapter One
“Bugger me, Booker. You’ve been lusting after one woman for ten years?” Booker’s soon-to-be brother-in-law’s voice held a note of incredulity even the windy ride in the convertible Jag couldn’t cover.
“I’ve known her for ten years,” Booker corrected, and stared at the full moon shining down on him like an interrogator’s spotlight from the unrelenting blackness of night sky. “Lust didn’t factor in for the first few. When I was a rookie, she was Montenido’s poster girl for at-risk teens—a high-school kid with the body of a bikini model, zero parental supervision, and a rebellious streak a mile wide. I felt protective, because she attracted every predatory asshole within a fifty-mile radius, and she was too young to know better.”
“Okay,” Aaron inclined his shaved head, and moonlight glanced off the ladder of silver rings studding his right ear, “I stand corrected. But after she graduated?”
Yes, after that his protective instincts had turned into something trickier, because he’d been forced to face the maddening reality he could no longer bust any adult male who came sniffing around. But for him, she’d still been off-limits. “You mean when she was eighteen and I was twenty-four?”
Aaron had the decency to wince, because despite the shaved head, beard, tats, and tendency to swear like a sailor—albeit a British one—his moral compass aimed due North. “Point taken. Still, somewhere between past and present, you never thought, ‘Now’s the bloody time’?”
Sure he had. Sometime during the last handful of years, Booker’s life had become an exercise in self-restraint as he’d watched her sample men like candy. Fair enough. She deserved a chance to indulge her curiosity. Life had afforded him the same opportunity, and he’d taken full advantage.
She’d never shown an interest in going back for seconds, which made it easier to bide his time, but the I-dare-you flicker in her eyes every time she glanced his way told him he wasn’t the only one feeling the pull between them. Pull or no, he wasn’t interested in being the flavor of the night, so timing counted.
“Now’s the time,” he muttered.
“Huh?” Aaron pulled up to a four-way stop behind a red Mercedes. “What are you going to do, wankstain? Make the turn or sit there and blink your signal all night?”
Booker ignored the rhetorical questions aimed at the driver in front of them. The past twelve months, he’d found himself running out of noble reasons to resist the temptation of Lauralie Peterson. Now, he was flat out. He couldn’t tell himself she was still playing. She’d gotten serious—professionally, at least. She’d opened Babycakes Bakery, and invested every bit of her talent, energy, and hard-earned capital into it. With her business taking off, he figured she was ready to bring a similar sense of purpose to her personal life.
Well, ready might be an overstatement. The woman had an inborn pride that demanded she always stand on her own two feet. She wasn’t an island, mind you. She had friends. She had family—the fucked-up variety, but still, the ties existed. Yet heaven forbid she need anyone.
She had to get past that particular hang-up, because there was going to be need between them. A whole hell of a lot of need. He’d do his damnedest to satisfy every one of hers, but when he’d resolved to make this the year he tugged on the invisible tether binding them, he’d known getting close would bring a crash course in need. For both of them.
Odds seemed good she’d require a push. Fine. He knew how to push, and he knew when.
“Now’s the time,” he repeated, a little louder. When he’d hauled her underaged ass home from Nido Beach on New Year’s Eve a decade ago, and refused her reckless offer to show her appreciation, he’d told her they could revisit the topic in ten years. At the time, he’d tossed the answer out as a way to brush her back, and emphasize how much growing up she still had to do regardless of how physically mature she looked. But ten years had turned into…well…ten fucking years, and time was up. Tonight.
“Far be it for me to criticize a man’s timing, but did you not just spend the better part of the evening going shot-for-shot with my bride-to-be?”
Booker glanced over in time to catch the look Aaron cast at him. “So?”
“So, no offense, mate, but you may not be in the best shape to make your move.”
“What, you think I’m impaired?”
“I reckon, yeah, and it would serve you right. What kind of plonker gets shitfaced with his sister on New Year’s Eve?”
“I didn’t get shitfaced. And for the record, she challenged me. If she hadn’t been cheerleading Mom’s efforts to pair me up with an eligible bachelorette of her choosing in time for the wedding, I wouldn’t have resorted to drinking her under the table.” When Kate had tossed out the bet—if she downed the most shots, she got to pick his date for the wedding—he’d willingly cracked the seal on the bottle himself. His sister was notoriously overconfident when it came to wagers. A hundred and twenty pounds and a preference for wine ensured him an easy victory, and the only thing four shots of Jack prevented him from doing tonight was getting behind the wheel. “I only wish my mother was as easily outmaneuvered.”
“Your mum didn’t build Best Life into a billion dollar brand by being easily outmaneuvered,” Aaron noted.
“No, she did not. She got there by being bossy as hell and thinking she knows what’s best for everyone. And now, thanks to you and Kate infecting her with wedding fever, she’s decided what’s best for me is a trip down the aisle. It’s past time she accepted a simple fact—I don’t need her help managing my life.” He folded his arms. “I’ve got my own plans.”
“About your so-called plans…are you storming into this party with your balls out and your guns blazing, or shall we aim for something a tad more discreet?”
“You get rid of the guests. I’ll handle the rest.” He could already picture her, breathless and ready as he braced her against the nearest surface and unleashed half a decade’s worth of repressed longings. Fuck her so thoroughly she’d have no standing to dismiss the event as a heat-of-the-moment hookup. He was coming for her. Her, dammit, and he hadn’t waited this long only to be shown the door after one energetic encounter.
So yes, he’d use the chemistry to land him in her bed, but from there it was on him to convince her the connection between them couldn’t simply be sweated out of their systems. He had to get it through her hard head and fortified heart that he intended to stick around, and figure out where “they” led. Storming in tonight with the element of surprise on his side might work. Or it might blow up in his face. Either way, he was done waiting.
Aaron’s eyes widened as he pulled to the curb in front of her apartment. People milled on the front lawn, and the small porch. Music blasted from the open windows of her ground-floor unit, layering over the sounds of laughter and conversation. “Oh, sure. I’ll just wave my magic wand and make everyone disappear.”
“Delaney’s is within walking distance. Drinks are on you. Say it loud and then step aside.”