HELPLESS DESIRES FOR MY BROTHER'S BEST FRIEND

Chapter 3

"Uh huh," I drawl, watching as his hand gently takes mine and squeezes.

He smiles, still looming over me. His hand drops from mine and returns back to his side.

My eyes sink to the joggers covering his legs and back up to his eyes, feeling my cheeks heat up. This man is not human. He's tall and angular and dripping with s*x appeal. Christ, I'm dripping just looking at him.

He clears his throat and steps away.

"Well," he says, "what's mine is yours."

I sit up as he walks over to the kitchen, eyeing his frame as he walks away. My mouth might even partially be open. This boy is hot. Capital H, capital O, capital T. I don't think I've ever seen a human being so attractive.

I know for sure that my jaw has never physically dropped for a man, and yet here he is. With golden skin and blue eyes and a voice that's liquid gold.

I can feel my entire body filling with heat, my breath visible in the cold room. I wet my dry lips and give him another once-over, seeing how the cotton of his joggers shapes around the muscles of his thighs. I put my thumb into my mouth to bite down on it.

He steps behind the counter again, pottering. Cutting up onions and boiling water on the stove. I can't take my eyes away from his frame, worried that I've hallucinated this man who's suddenly cooking in my brothers kitchen.

"You're going to burn holes in me," he chuckles without turning around.

My cheeks flame.

"Sorry," it comes out meek, like a whimper.

"I'm going to make some pasta if you'd like some?"

"You cook, too?" It falls out of my mouth before I can stop myself.

He turns around then, smiling at me gently. A dimple popping in his left cheek.

"Too?" He asks.

I am truly, sincerely, royally f****d.

He tells me his full name when I ask.

Noah Laurier. It rolls from my tongue, leaving a trail of fire in its wake.

With his back to me, I continue to watch him cook. Wishing he'd take off the hoodie. Wishing he'd take off everything.

Fuck - there's no way I'm already thinking about Matt's best friend naked, my brother would kill me. But then again, Matt didn't tell me his best friend was a walking, talking epitome of s****l allure. He conveniently left that out every time he talked about Noah.

"So what is it you do?" I call to him.

"I'm a mechanic," he answers, turning with a spoon in his mouth, tasting the tomato sauce he's creating. "It's not fancy like accounting, I know."

And he's a mechanic. Who works with his hands. He's spends all day getting dirty underneath cars.

Possibly, he's a walking cliche of masculinity and I didn't think this 'alpha-style' man would've made my breath hitch and my panties wet just by standing in the same house as me.

(But I can't deny that my panties definitely are not as dry as they were ten minutes ago.)

He's certainly not the type of person I've embarrassed myself for in the past. Although I don't think I've ever been this close to someone who could be a model for Vogue or Sports Illustrated, so perhaps I've just never had the opportunity.

"I think that's pretty cool," I reassure. The reply sounds lame to my ears but I can't think straight watching his arms stretch the fabric of his hoodie as he reaches up into one of the cabinets.

I kick one of the blankets off and start subtly fanning myself.

As if Matt had sent this man to test me, suddenly his hand is pulling at the hood on his head. My eyes blow wide. It almost happens in slow motion.

He pulls on the hood, lifting it over himself; his white t-shirt rides up his frame, following the hoodie like a dog on a lead. A sliver of tan skin is first revealed and then more of his toned back, also covered in tattoos, as he pulls it completely off in one smooth maneuver.

There are dimples in the smooth olive skin of his lower back, symmetrically lying there, begging me to kiss them. I would take so many shots off you.

I need to cool off.

I throw more blankets away from my legs, continuing my eye-assault on his body as he throws the hoodie to one side and pulls his t-shirt black into place.

His arms are littered with tattoos. There isn't a patch of skin on them left to be covered. I find myself gulping as I flit between the images on them, straining to see him around the counter.

His biceps are pressed against his t-shirt.

"And you?" He asks. "You work in marketing, right?"

I blink, nodding frantically even though he's not looking at me.

"Yeah - yes. In sports."

"Cool," he smiles, turning around. "Do you play?"

"I used to play rugby at university," I admit. "I could probably tackle you."

I choke at my own confession.

Why would I say that? What evil spirit has possessed my body and put this man in front of me tonight? This man, may I add, that I probably could not tackle; considering he looks as if he's about 6 inches taller than me and a regular at the gym. His bench press is probably double my f*****g body weight.

(My God, is my v****a fluttering?)

His laughter rings in my ears.

"Oh yeah, sweetheart?" His tone is warm and the grin is evident in his words. "I think I'll take your word for it."

I turn back to the TV with wide eyes, willing myself not to look back at him as he continues to cook. Eventually he begins humming a tune so I start to pay attention to the re-run of Friends playing on the TV.

She's your lobster, Phoebe is saying.

"What position did you play?"

"What?"

"In rugby?" Noah asks, still pottering around the kitchen.

"Oh. Hooker." The word makes me blush, a spoon clattering in the kitchen. "Do you play anything?"

"No, nothing serious anyway." He replies. "I do a lot of weightlifting though, if that counts."

It certainly counts in my book, especially with biceps like that.

The click of the kitchen light going off

startles me. Noah approaches holding out a bowl with a fork tucked into the side. I scrunch some of the blankets towards myself to give him room to sit on the couch, accepting the bowl with open arms.

Trust Matt to only have one couch. The stars truly have aligned to plan this meeting for me, though I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to the Gods dangling an actual deity in front of my nose; one who I no doubt could not get in a million years.

At least it's a three seater couch - there'll always be an empty seat between myself and temptation.

"Smells great," I tell him quietly, picking up the fork. He sits down and stretches his legs out in front of him, sending me a killer smile one that I'm sure he doesn't even realise is killer. "You met Matt at University?"

He swallows the food in his mouth and shrugs as I bring the fork up to my own mouth.

"Sort of," he murmurs. "He was studying but I wasn't. I just worked near the campus and used their bars to get cheaper booze. We met at a bar and-"

"Oh my God," I moan. "This... this is good," I point down to the pasta. He shifts in his seat and laughs lightly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. This is good though. Really."

He bites down on his lip and I zero in on it, watching his neck move as he swallows. I look back to the TV quickly, shoving more pasta in my mouth. Down, Maddie.

Matt's friend. Matt's friend. Matt's friend.

Matt's best friend.

"Well," he smiles. "We met at a bar and that was that."

Matt didn't bring up Noah until they moved in together over a year ago, and even that was a fleeting mention in the family group chat. Mum had pushed, even Paul had questioned this apparent stranger Matt was adopting, but all my elusive brother would say is that he'd known Noah quite a while and they were good friends.

Mum asked, regularly. Matt never truly elaborated, hence the rumour that Noah didn't exist and was simply a figment of Matt's imagination.

His fork clatters against his bowl, drawing my attention back towards him.

The sharpness in his jaw is accentuated when he chews and I think again that Matthew has sent this person to test me because it's not humanly possible that one of his friends looks like this.

My brother never had hot friends. Not fancying his mates has always been a strong suit of mine since he was obsessed with math growing up and hung out with people who usually couldn't say two words to women.

His friends were jelly around me, and even if they did get the courage to say two words Matt's presence usually dissolved the attempt.

So if this is a test, I'm failing.

We sit and watch TV in relative silence for a little while then and once I've finished the pasta I find my eyes drooping a little more.

I glance over at him, watching the muscles in his arms move as he leans to put his bowl on the table in front of us. Staring is definitely going to become a problem in this household.

"Thanks again for dinner," I tell him, just to watch that killer smile appear across his lips again.

"It's not often I get to cook for a pretty girl," he drawls, and it's so obviously a line that it shouldn't affect me, but I feel my cheeks blaze once more.

Matt's friends in high school certainly didn't have lines like that.

He collects our dishes and takes them back to the kitchen, flicking the light on and beginning to fill up the sink. He does the dishes too - of course he does.

"Did you manage to get through to your estate agent? Matt said they're useless."

"I left them an out of hours message," I tell him mindlessly. "Honestly, they never fix anything in that flat. I don't know why I bother reporting issues with it."

We make small talk about houses and apartments as I watch TV and he does the dishes, until I hear a clatter and a muted, "f**k," hiss from his mouth.

It's obvious he's hurt himself. Like a real life Disney princess, I jump up from the couch to run to his aid. I don't let a beat pass by us, ignoring the cold biting at my legs as I jog over to him.

"Are you okay?" The words fall from my lips but I can already see the blood pooling along the palm of his hand. "Oh - ah, uh..." I fumble, glancing in every which direction to see what we could put on it.

Blood isn't my strong suit. It's not like it makes me pass out or anything, but I've never actively sought it out in an emergency situation. Usually I leave the fixing up to everyone else and fade away from the scene, though apparently I will now use any excuse to get within two feet of Noah Laurier, even if that means mending a bloody hand.

My gaze settles on a teatowel tucked into the oven door and I pull it out, grabbing his wrist to begin wrapping the fabric around the injured hand.

He sucks in a breath and I feel a smile at my lips, ready to tease him.

"I think it's possibly life-threatening."

"Oh piss off," he laughs, watching me press the towel down.

I feel his eyes on me then and look into them briefly before continuing to dress his hand.

The cold air continues to brush against my bare legs. I become suddenly all-too-aware that I'm wearing my pajama shorts and a tank top that's probably a size too small for my body. Too much skin for a first time introduction. Too much skin for meeting one of your brothers friends, full stop.

Part of me wants him to look - the part of me that's burning inside and begging him to perform some sort of routinely MOT on my body.

Shaking my head does not dispel the thought.

Trying to ignore my own brain, I pull him over to the tap and take the teatowel off, guiding his hand under the water once it warms up a little. The blood begins washing away.

My eyes travel up to his wrist, where yet more tattoos little his skin.

"So you're like - really into tattoos then?"

"Uh..." I meet his eyes, and they flick up to my face. "Yeah. I started getting them when I was sixteen and I just haven't stopped since."

"And you're twenty-three now, like Matt?"

"Twenty-four," he corrects. I begin wrapping his hand up again after inspecting the cut running across it. "You aren't required to nurse me back to good health, you know, as much as I'm appreciating it."

I look up at his face through my lashes, threading the end of the towel through two of his fingers. They bend towards my hand.

"Do you want me to kiss it better?" I murmur.

I feel my own heart beat out of my chest as I realise the words that have left my mouth.

Oh s**t. Oh s**t.

My head jolts up to look for his reaction and in doing so I pull on his arm and make him stumble. So, inevitably, like a demon has arranged for my worst nightmares to align, I headbutt his chin.

There's a moment of panic where my limbs don't quite know what to do with themselves and my own thoughts are pouring out onto the tiled floor beneath us, but I reach out to steady him after the accidental assault.

I then reach up towards his face.

My eyes follow my own hand as if something else is moving it. It doesn't feel like a movement I'm doing. Certainly isn't something I should be doing. But there it goes, my own hand, cupping the left side of his jaw.

Noah's eyes widen. His bleeding hand is gripping the counter, still covered in the faux wrap I'd made.

"I'm sorry," I spit out in panic, feeling how hard his jaw is beneath my touch. I feel part of his neck move as he swallows and press my legs together. His head drops down to watch me do it. Somehow his eyes are wider when he looks back up. "I'm just going to stop touching you now."

"Alright," he breathes.

I put my hands awkwardly to my sides, firmly holding my pajama shirt so I don't touch his skin again.

Firmly holding because I can't trust my own body not to do something stupid around this man I met not even two hours ago.

"I'm going to go back over there." I point to the couch.

"Alright," he states, in the same breathy way.

I walk away from him in a daze and drop down into my previous seat, daring to look back at him again only to find him already staring at me. I quickly pull a blanket over myself and look back at the TV.

This is going to be a long few weeks.

I'm a puddle on the couch, burning with the feel of his eyes on the side of my face.

Matt's going to hit the roof the second he see's the jelly I turn into around his friend.

All I can think about as I force myself to keep my eyes on the screen is the feel of his jaw beneath my hand, and it takes everything in me not to look back at him.