Author: Bella Andre

He was halfway across the living room when he turned and said, “If it weren’t for the puppy of mass destruction over there, I’d invite you to join me.”

Ah, there was the man she could so much more easily fight her attraction to.

“If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.”

She turned her back on him as she stuffed feathers and ceramic shards into the trash. When she heard Zach turn the shower on, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Rocking back on her heels, she looked over at Atlas, who was watching over Cuddles from his spot by the door.

“What have we gotten ourselves into, Atlas?”

He raised his dark eyebrows at her question, but he didn’t look away from the puppy. She didn’t blame him for being completely wrapped up in the cute, but very naughty, little dog.

Lord knew she couldn’t seem to pull her thoughts away from Cuddles’s equally cute and naughty temporary owner.

Chapter Six

Zach still couldn’t believe the way the puppy had gone to town on every piece of furniture in his house, but it was worth it. Because Heather was here.

After the way she’d tried to blow him off last night, he doubted anything else could have gotten her to agree to come over as quickly.

His sisters, Lori and Sophie, had been itching to redecorate his place for a while, anyway. Lord knew they’d probably never stop laughing when they heard what had happened. His siblings were going to love this. Chase had probably already spread the news about Heather to everyone after yesterday’s photo shoot.

Zach put on jeans and a T-shirt to head into the living room to help Heather clean up. He stopped at the end of the hall in surprise. “You’re done already ?”

She smiled at him from the open kitchen at the other side of the living room. “I’ve participated in more than my fair share of puppy cleanups. It looked worse than it was. Although your couch is definitely a goner.”

He sniffed the air. “Are you cooking something?”

She flushed slightly. “I didn’t get a chance to eat breakfast and I figured you must be hungry, too. I hope you don’t mind that I helped myself to your fridge.”

With a kitchen towel tucked into the waistband of her jeans and her hair starting to come out of her braid as the sun rose in the kitchen window behind her, she was hands down the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his life. His chest clenched as he watched her stirring eggs and buttering toast.

Apart from his mother, no woman had ever made him breakfast before. Many had wanted to, but he’d never let them, had never wanted to share anything so intimate just in case they got the wrong idea. If someone had told him he’d welcome a woman in his kitchen, and that he’d be trying to find even more reasons to get her to stay with him a while longer, he’d have told them they needed psychiatric help.

The thing was, he wanted Heather bad enough that he was willing to break a few rules for her. Not the big one, of course. He wasn’t going to fall in love with her or anything.

But breakfast, and wanting to spend more time with her than he usually did with a woman, wasn’t that big a deal.

She looked over at him from around an open cupboard door, clearly surprised to see that he was still standing in the same place. “I can’t find your whisk.”

He finally got his feet moving, but when he got to the kitchen, he stood there and stared at the cabinets.

“You don’t have a clue where it is, do you?” He could tell she was laughing at him, which he’d take any day over her shutting him down the way she had last night.

“I don’t even know what a whisk looks like.”

When she started to laugh out loud, he leapt to cover her mouth with his hand. At her alarmed expression at his manhandling, he whispered, “Cuddles might wake up!”

Heather nodded her understanding, then covered his hand with hers to pull it off, but not before he felt how soft her lips were against his palm.

And not before he noted the way her eyes darkened as her hand covered his to slide it away from her mouth and cheeks.

He’d wanted her from the second he’d seen her stuck in the bush at his garage. And there was no stopping the kiss from happening anymore. Not when she was in his kitchen, and she was so close and warm and soft against him.

Her eyes went soft as he lowered his head to hers and he could already taste her. One kiss wouldn’t be nearly enough to take the edge off his desire, not when she was all he could think ab—

A high-pitched series of barks had her jumping out of his arms.

Cuddles had picked one hell of a time to wake up.

Zach and Heather turned to watch the puppy dash across the room to make a flying leap onto Atlas. The big dog remained still as the puppy rubbed and wriggled against him, but Zach could see how happy he was about the affection.

Quickly turning to action, rather than letting them get close again, Heather grabbed two plates and ladled on scrambled eggs.

“I can’t believe how fast those two bonded. It’s like they were always meant to be together and were just waiting until they could finally meet.”

Zach tried to ignore the way his chest clenched again at her words. It was just that she was so damn sexy as she sat down at his dining table, kicked off her flip-flops, and tucked one leg under her.

“It’s really amazing how good she always is around Atlas,” Heather commented. “It’s almost like she wants to impress him.”

“In that case, you guys should move in for the next two weeks.” Purposefully ignoring her as if look, he sat down and took a bite of the eggs. “These are so good, you could cook for me every morning, too.”

“Really? Could I?” Sarcasm dripped from every word.

“Sure thing,” he responded with a grin.

She shook her head, but he could see her fighting the urge to grin back at him. If only he’d been able to sneak in that kiss in the kitchen, he wouldn’t have to work so hard for her now, or keep moving so slowly.

He thought about how long it took him to rebuild a classic car from the engine out, and how satisfying it was not just to get the final product, but every minute he spent wrenching on the intake manifold or working under the rear end.

Could it be that rushing things with Heather wasn’t the way to go, either?

“Oh, I almost forgot,” she said getting up from the table to hand him a photo, “I found this under a pillow. The frame is broken, but I don’t think Cuddles did any damage to the picture.”

It was an old black and white photo, one of the only ones he had with his father in it. His mom and dad had their arms around each other and Marcus, Smith, Chase, Ryan, and Zach were doing their best to hold still for the photographer.

“If it wasn’t black and white, I would have thought the man in the picture was you.”

“It’s what everyone says. I’m the carbon copy of my father. When I was a kid, we would spend hours under the hood of some junky car he was trying to put back together.”

“How old were you here?”

“Four.”

His father had died only three years after the picture had been taken. Three years and two weeks. The anniversary of Jack Sullivan’s death was never a good day. Zach’s crew at work had learned to steer clear of his shitty mood once a year.

“You look like you’re dying to rip off that bow tie,” Heather said with a small smile. One that told him more about the way she felt about him than she’d willingly given up to him so far.

“You know the way the living room just looked?” He grinned, remembering. “Multiply that carnage by five after this picture was shot and we were let loose.”

He loved the sound of her laughter, the way it pushed away the dark clouds that came from thinking about his father.

“I wouldn’t think a woman as beautiful as your mother could deal with so many boys,” Heather commented.

“Even when she was yelling at us, you could have sold a picture of her to a magazine.” He smiled down at the black and white, keeping his focus on his mother rather than his father this time. “Even now, after everything we’ve put her through, she’s still a great-looking broad.”

He looked up to see Heather staring at him as if she’d never seen him before this very moment. Damn it, he’d never had a problem with flapping his lips around women before. It was usually the other way around, when they couldn’t stop telling him how excited they were to be with him, how much they were hoping to meet his famous brothers.

“I thought there were eight of you?”

“Mom was pregnant with my brother Gabe in this picture. Lori and Sophie came a couple of years later.” He decided to break the ice for her, just in case she’d been holding out on him. “Smith is that one. And there’s Ryan.”

She looked at the picture again. “Who are the other two?”

He frowned. Didn’t she care that Smith was one of the biggest movie stars in the world and Ryan was the star pitcher for the Hawks?

“Marcus and Chase.” He studied her face carefully to make sure she wasn’t putting him on. Sure, if she wasn’t a sports fan she might not know who Ryan was, but she’d have to live under a rock to not know who Smith was. “You watch movies, right?”

“Of course I do.” She got up, picked up their empty plates, and took them over to the sink. “Seen anything good lately?”

Atlas pawed at the screen door and Zach got up to let the Great Dane go take care of business. Of course Cuddles went with him. He hoped she’d learn something about using the grass rather than his hardwood floor in the near future.

“You really don’t care that Smith Sullivan is my brother?”

He didn’t know why he was pushing her so hard on it. But he didn’t want to be disappointed later when it turned out she’d been secretly angling for an invitation all along.

She paused with a plate in one hand and a sponge in the other. “He is?” She laughed at herself. “I should have put two and two together earlier, shouldn’t I? I’ve been so busy with my business this past year that I guess I don’t get out as much as I used to.” She shot him a look as if she was afraid she’d offended him by not caring about Smith’s fame. “But I hear your brother has been really great in his recent movies. Is there one I should make sure to see?”

He joined her at the sink, drying the dishes she’d just washed. “Seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.”

“I can tell from the way you talk about all of them how much your family means to you,” she said softly.

“I’d take a bullet for any one of them.”

“You would?”

He didn’t have to think about it. “We’re family.”

“Family.” She was silent for a long moment. “They’re lucky to have you.”

Wanting to erase the shadows that didn’t belong in her pretty eyes, he said, “That’s what I’m always telling them.”

She shook her head. “Go check on the dogs, would you? I think we should get away from the scene of the crime for a bit to do more training. I’ll finish up in here.”

He was heading out of the kitchen when he realized he’d forgotten something important. He walked back to where she standing on her tippy-toes to put the clean plates back in his cupboard.

Before she realized what he was doing, he kissed her on the cheek.

“Thanks for breakfast, Heather. And for coming to help with Cuddles. I’d have been completely lost without you.”

Her skin was so soft, and she smelled so good, he wanted to do so much more than kiss her cheek. Instead, he forced himself to step away and head toward the backyard. He hadn’t given up his quest to get her into his bed, but just then it didn’t seem right to try to seduce her the way he normally would have.