On Dublin Street (On Dublin Street 1)

I stopped short at the kitchen doorway and felt that all too familiar squeeze of lust. Standing pouring milk into two mugs of coffee, Braden was hot. He had pulled on his suit pants but was of course shirtless. The muscles in his broad shoulders moved as he did and I couldn’t help but remember how good they felt moving underneath my hands.

“Two sugars, right?” he asked before looking over his shoulder with a small smile.

That smile hit me in the chest like a punch. It was intimate. It was affectionate.

It hurt like hell. My expression hardened. “What are you still doing here?”

“Making coffee.” He shrugged, adding the sugar and stirring.

“Don’t you have work?”

“I have a meeting in a few hours. I have time for coffee.” He smiled again as he crossed the kitchen to hand me my drink, my hand wrapping around the hot mug just as his mouth came down on mine. Addicted to the taste of him, I kissed him back. It wasn’t a long kiss. Short but sweet. When he pulled back I was scowling.

Braden sighed and took a sip of his coffee before asking, “What now?”

“You’re still here.” I turned on my heel and headed into the sitting room, tucking my foot underneath me as I curled into the corner of the couch. Braden sank into the armchair and I tried not to ogle him. My scowl deepened. “And you’re shirtless.”

His mouth quirked up at the corner like he knew exactly what the sight of him half-naked did to me. “I need coffee before I can function, and since I was making coffee for myself I thought I’d make one for you.”

“Surely you can function enough without coffee to call a cab?”

“And we need to talk,” he added, as if I hadn’t said anything.

I groaned and took a big gulp of hot coffee. “About what?”

“About your shifts at the bar for one thing. I might need you to accompany me on weekend nights. Any way you can see about having your shifts changed?”

I answered with a saccharine smile.

Braden raised an eyebrow. “Is that a yes or a no?”

“That’s a big, fat hell no. Braden, I’m not changing my schedule for you.” I shrugged. “Look, I’ll meet you halfway at best. If you have somewhere you want me to be and you give me plenty of notice, I’ll make a shift swap.”

He nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Is that it? Are we done?”

His eyes narrowed and I felt a sudden change in the air. Braden leaned forward and I leaned further back into the couch even though there was a coffee table between us. “Stop treating me like a one-night stand you can’t get rid of, Jocelyn. It’s getting on my last nerve.”

I was seriously confused. “You said this was just sex.”

“I also said we were friends and you agreed. Are you this rude to all your friends?”

“Sometimes.” He gave me a warning look and I exhaled heavily. “Look, I just don’t want this to get complicated. Don’t you think spooning and then making me coffee in the morning is a little…”

“A little what?”

“Uch.” If he was going to be obtuse about it, I was giving up. “I don’t know.”

Braden put his mug down and stood up, coming towards me slowly. My eyes followed him half-warily, half-lustily, my gaze trailing up his six-pack to his throat. I really wanted to kiss his throat. He sat down, close, his arm reaching along the back of the couch so I was caged in. “I’ve never done this before. I’ll bet that you haven’t either. So, let’s play it by ear. No rules. No preconceived ideas of how this should be. Let’s just do what feels natural.”

“You’re wrong,” I muttered. “I have done this before.”

To my surprise, I watched Braden’s expression change instantly from soft to hard. The look he gave me was unfathomable as the muscle in his jaw ticked. I felt like he was trying to bore inside me, but I couldn’t look away despite how uncomfortable it felt. “Done this before?” he asked softly.

I shrugged. “There was nothing in the deal about sharing our sexual histories. Suffice to say I know what I’m talking about. And there is no spooning or coffee in the morning in these kinds of deals.”

“Done this before?” he repeated. “I thought you said you hadn’t had sex in four years. That would make you eighteen the last time you had sex.”

Oh, I saw where he was going with that. I narrowed my eyes. “So?”

“When I was eighteen, most of the girls I knew thought they were in love with whoever they were shagging.”

“And?”

Braden shifted closer, trying to intimidate me. “So when have you done this before?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Fucking hell, Jocelyn, can you not answer one personal question?”

Anger blazed through me. I knew it. I freaking knew it. “That’s it, we’re done. This was a complete mistake.” I moved to get up but found myself tackled back onto the couch, flat on my back with Braden lying over me. I stared up at him wide-eyed. “You are such a caveman!”

An all-too-familiar pissed off Braden breathed dragon fire on me, his face inches from mine. “We’re not done. We’ve barely even started.”

I shimmied under him but that only concluded in him pressing his hips deeper into mine, and that only led to him hardening against me, and that only led to my skin flushing as my panties grew damp. Shit! “Braden, this isn’t going to work. I’m not your girlfriend. You said no touchy feely emotional crap.”