Falling for the Good Guy (Can't Resist #2)(5)

Connor was right. It was best for all of them to see his plans through. To find out where Abby’s heart belonged once and for all.

“It’s true, Beth was my first love, the girl who taught me how to love since we both know my parents hadn’t. Hell, she and I grew up together. Loved, lived…and even died together. In a million different ways. For everything she was in my life, she will always, always have a huge, permanent place in my heart.” He caught Abby’s chin and pulled her closed gaze back to his. “But you…you’ve had a place in my soul that I never knew I’d been missing until I met you. You came into my life and we just…fit. You got me in ways Beth never did,” he grinned wryly, “and never wanted to.”

That had been a running joke he used to share with Beth, yet another thing she’d been grateful to Abby for. The weird habits he possessed that Beth had only tolerated, Abby used to get a kick out of. Shared some of them with him, even. Thus, the sheer presence of Abby in his life had made him considerably less annoying to Beth as a result.

His smile faded at Abby’s stubborn expression.

Letting out a harsh sigh, he charged on, determined, “Even if you don’t want me to kiss you at midnight—or especially if you do—you have to know that what you mean to me, how you fit in my life is never going to change. You’re always going to be my best friend, Abby.”

Abruptly she scrambled up off the couch and backed away from him. “Those are all the reasons we shouldn’t kiss. We’re best friends. Period.”

He closed the gap between them quickly, and watched her eyes drift back up to his lips again as if she couldn’t help it. Hell, this was torture. Brian knew that if his brother were standing here right now, he’d just swoop down and kiss first, ask permission later.

But he wasn’t his brother.

“Let me kiss you, Abby. Just one little New Year’s kiss. To help you move on.”

Right. Like he was just that altruistic.

Abby closed her eyes and slowly tilted her lips us to his. “Just a New Year’s—”

Brian didn’t let her finish. He cupped her jaw with one hand and edged her back against the wall while doing everything humanly possible to keep his other hand from straying higher or lower than her hip. He fit her body to his and marveled at the return of that same long-lost feeling he’d had when they’d first met years ago…they just fit.

The first brush of her lips against his stole his breath. The second, his sanity. Primitive and possessive now, his arms instantly banded around her, and his lips sought hers for a true and proper kiss.

That nearly brought him to his knees.

The only thing that stopped him from deepening the kiss more, from staking an even bigger claim on her right then and there was the sound of Skylar hollering at the top of her lungs from the guestroom, “Catch the pink rabbit and THEN the green one!”

Damn video game junkie.

Abby’s incredulous burst laughter effectively ended their brief moment.

“Here I thought everything was suddenly so different,” she confessed between chuckles.

“That’s the beauty of it,” replied Brian, twining his hands behind the small of her back, “everything is different.”

“Grab the amulet! Grab the amulet!”

He shook his head with a smile. “And yet utterly the same.”





CHAPTER TWO



ABBY GROANED at the early morning sunlight filtering into her bedroom and debated hiding out under the covers for the rest of the day. Not the standard response to an amazing New Year’s kiss—ditto on the way she’d fled the room like a bat out of hell shortly afterward—but then again, nothing about any of this was standard. Zero standard guidance was available for this situation.

Brian had kissed her last night.

Even worse, she’d kissed him back.

The second that realization had clobbered her after the kiss...the very moment she’d looked into his eyes and identified something far more than standard friendship there, she’d cut and run down the hall and locked herself in her bedroom.

Whispering a thousand silent apologies to Beth the entire way.

What the heck had she been thinking last night?

Plucking herself out of bed with a wobble to her step, she silently, stealthily shuffled out to the living room—quite a feat considering how hungover she felt.

Emotionally hungover, that is.

Brain-jumbled, gut-in-her-throat, still-a-little-drunk hung over…from the tall drink of perfection that was sound asleep on her couch.

Shirtless.

Lord, but he was beautiful. For well over a decade, Abby hadn’t allowed herself to acknowledge that fact. Not once. But she was definitely making up for lost time now.

Brian had always had that effortlessly charming farmer-boy-next-door look to him, complete with the infectious 'can Abby come out to play' smile and a generous heart worn right there on his sleeve. Not to mention the body of an All-American football god that belonged on a billboard selling grit-covered denim and boots like it was going out of style.

He was the perfect, unjust combination of strong and sweet.

And apparently, her immunity to the man had somehow worn off.

Her once impenetrable vaccination against things like that gorgeous hair of his? Gone. Now she absolutely noticed its kaleidoscopic shades of brown from all his time in the sun, tousled in that just-out-of-bed country-perfect ease, which usually made him look slightly overdue for a haircut…and all the sexier for it.