Five First Dates (Sassy in the City 2)

What the actual hell was happening? Oh my God. I stepped back, tripping over the bench I had by the entrance to my apartment. “Come in.”

Before all my neighbors heard this seemingly flirty conversation. I hadn’t grown up in the city. I still had enough small-town girl in me that it bothered me to think my neighbors would know my business. I glanced back into my apartment out of instinct to make sure my son was okay, even though there was no way he could have moved from his pumpkin seat.

Still there, strapped in. I had plopped him in there when Maddox had buzzed from the front door downstairs. Sully’s adorable moon face calmed me down. Geez, I’d made a cute baby. I turned back to Maddox, reaching up to adjust my bun, which had gone off-kilter during the imprisoning hug from the Hulk. “Wow,” I said to him. “I guess a lot has changed in five years.”

Maddox had his suitcase and he set it down on the hardwood floors and closed my door. His gaze found Sully. “It sure has. So, let me meet the man of the hour.”

I bent down and clicked the strap open and lifted my son out, giving him a big smile. “Hi, baby!”

He rewarded me with a huge gummy grin. I set him on my hip. “Meet Maddox, Uncle Steven’s friend.” I looked up at Maddox. “This is Sullivan Joseph Preston, but I call him Sully ninety-nine percent of the time.”

Maddox took Sully’s little hand and emulated shaking it. “Nice to meet you, Sully. We’re going to be buddies.”

They were. Maddox was going to be staying with us for the next eight weeks while he was working on a reality show at a tattoo shop. It had seemed like a fantastic arrangement for both of us when Steven had approached me with the idea. Maddox needed a place to stay. I needed a part-time nanny.

Now all I could think was that I needed to rethink everything about how I approached this situation because my baby brother’s sweet and quiet scrawny best friend was now a walking female fantasy.

“You should change your T-shirt and I’ll throw this one in the wash for you,” I said. “It’s going to start to smell sour.” He may be a walking fantasy, but I wasn’t. I was a new mom, and a bumbling one at that. I might be feeling inappropriate things, but there was no way he’d look at the hot mess I was right now and feel anythin

g other than sympathy.

He probably had a girlfriend.

Feeling more stabilized and normal, I smiled at him. It had just been a shock to see him so filled out. Otherwise, it was no big deal. He was still Steven’s best friend and like a brother to me. He’d practically grown up at our house. And this whole bad boy thing? So not my type.

I wanted a businessman who worked on Wall Street, wore a suit, and would be happy to move to Connecticut in the not-so-distant future. I wanted a white picket fence and a garden and dinner parties. Book club.

Yep. No big deal.

Maddox reached behind his head with one hand and peeled his shirt off. My mouth went dry. He had tattoos everywhere, sprawled artistically across muscle after muscle. Six-pack? He had it. Biceps? For days.

I tried not to stare.

But there was just so much to look at.

I swallowed hard. “That’s a lot of ink,” I finally managed to say.

I couldn’t tell you exactly when I’d started having dirty thoughts about my best friend’s sister, but it had been sometime around late middle school or early high school.

I’d waited a long-ass time for this moment, when Savannah finally saw me as a man, instead of an annoying little second brother, and you know what? It didn’t fucking disappoint.

She was staring at my bare chest, her eyes wide.

“I like ink,” I said simply.

“Apparently.” Her finger came out like she was going to touch one of the images, but then she dropped her hand hastily. “You’ll have to tell me what all of that means later.” She ripped her gaze off my body and up to my face. “Did you eat anything? I can make dinner.”

Savannah yanked the shirt bunched in my hand away and turned without waiting for my response. “I’ll throw this in really quick. Sorry about that. Nursing has its unexpected complications.”

It sure in the hell did. One unexpected complication was that I had found myself staring at her tits, which were absolutely huge. Porn star size. For a split second I’d had the dirtiest thoughts about what I could do with my cock between them, then I had realized she was nursing and I was a filthy bastard for wanting to touch every inch of a new mother.

Old habits were hard to break though, and I’d wanted Savannah for as long as I could remember.

She looked the same, only better. As a college student, Savannah had been a beautiful redhead, perfectly put together every time I’d seen her. That was her age of duck face selfies and sexy Halloween costumes, all which had fueled many a fantasy for my teen self. I’d rarely seen her without makeup and never like she was now, exhausted with her guard totally down. And yet, she was even more gorgeous than I had remembered. Yes, her hair was a mess in a pile on her head, and she had bruised skin under her eyes from lack of sleep, but she just looked beautiful to me, with her welcoming smile and offers to take care of me. When she was the one barely standing on her feet.

That’s what had always appealed to me about her in addition to her beauty. Savannah was kind and generous and holy shit, I still felt all the same desire for her.

But just like when I was younger, Savannah, and her tits, were off-limits to me. According to Steve, that is. He’d known back in high school I had a thing for her and he’d made it clear he’d murder me if I so much as tried to touch his sister. The idea that I would then had been laughable. Savannah was the hot girl and I had been a nerd. Not the tape-on-his-glasses kind of nerd, but the dude who liked art, manga, comic books. I had been quiet and awkward and would have never had the balls to so much as hint to Savannah that I wanted to strip her naked, touch every inch of her gorgeous body, marry her, and give her everything she ever wanted.