Read Online Touch & Go by Mira Lyn Kelly - Free Book Online Page B

big enough for him.
    “You sweet thing. I bet she was totally buttering you up too. Let me guess—she started telling you about all the special meals she’d make for the guy who married me?”
    “There was Jell-O Pretzel Salad as often as he liked. And she assured me there would be perks, like Ava’s husband got the biggest crusty pieces from the honeyed ham first.” Sam let her go with a wink. “I’m telling you, I was in—until your douche brother told me to forget it.”
    Ford scoffed, “Douche? I was ten! Protecting my sister from guys who only wanted her for her mom. Besides, you didn’t need to marry Ava. Man, they loved you like their own.”
    Sam’s head ducked, the small smile at his lips bittersweet. “Yeah, I know they did.”
    For a moment, the mood weighed heavy, as all who knew her parents remembered them. But then Sam slanted Ford a look. “So
douche
might be too much. Dick? Dork? Sister-hoarding dweeb?”
    “Ah, come on.” Ford grinned. “I shared. And after all these years, she’s as much your sister as she is mine. Wouldn’t want it any other way, man.”
    Until a week ago, Ava would have taken Ford’s comment in stride. Hating it, and yet knowing it was true. But no more.
    Sam didn’t think of her as a sister.
    Not even a little.
    He loved her; she didn’t doubt it. But not like that. And not the other way either. Just in the way of friends who were as close as family and had had a single night of scorching hot, wildly creative, wet, dirty amazing sex between them.
    She was good with it.
    And though her own fantasies of marrying Sam had sprouted that very first day when he’d helped her climb the tree her brother had said she was too small for, then sat with his arm around her so she didn’t fall—now, Ava knew she didn’t need anything more.
    —
    Jesus.
Sister?
    It took about all the tight-lipped self-control Sam had not to set Ford straight on that one.
    But something told him giving in to the impulse to toss out a single, stern “Not really, dude” would be about as self-destructive and uncool as giving in to the impulse to show Ava how very unbrotherly his thoughts had been about her this last week.
    How close he’d come to doing something seriously depraved with those keepsake panties he’d promised himself he wouldn’t violate anymore than he already had.
    And it didn’t help when he caught her sly, knowing glance and sexy secret smile.
    Or maybe that was just her looking at him the way she always did and him seeing things that weren’t there because he hadn’t quite managed to slot Ava back into the friend zone the way he’d thought he would.
    But it was that mouth,
Christ.
    And those berry-tight little—
    “Hey, Sam. What’s your schedule looking like coming up?” Tony cut into his thoughts, stepping between him and—
shit,
Ava, whom he’d been staring at while he thought about things he really shouldn’t be thinking of in front of her brother.
    Or anyone else.
    Or at all.
    “ ’Cause I was thinking about putting a bar into my living room like you built for Ava. What do you think?”
    Sam wrestled his brain back and in gear and focused on his cousin. And the job he wasn’t going to take.
    “Tony, you rent. I can’t build anything into your place.”
    “Ava rents,” he countered with a shrug.
    “Yeah, but she rents from her brother, who gave her free rein to modify anything she likes. Your landlord probably doesn’t feel the same way about you.”
    Sam listened to Tony go on about all the shit he’d change in his apartment with half an ear, grabbing another beer while they watched the rest of the game before heading out.
    Sister.
    He’d never thought of her like a sister.
    Another slug of beer.
    Laughter rang up around him and Sam moved his mouth into the same smile everyone else was wearing, falling back on the old trick he’d made himself master in order to blend, to survive. Something he didn’t need to do anymore but in that moment seemed