Five First Dates
Erin McCarthy
Copyright © 2020 by Erin McCarthy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Erin McCarthy
Chapter 1
I should have worn a bra.
That’s all I could think in the hazy five seconds after I opened my apartment door, expecting to see my brother’s best friend exactly how he’d appeared five years ago when I had last seen him. At eighteen Maddox Malone had been lanky and baby-faced, with soulful eyes like an owl, a serious and somewhat nerdy counterpart to my brother, Steven’s boisterous swagger.
Then was then.
This was now.
Standing in front of me was not a boy fresh off of a Dungeons and Dragons game.
It was a man. A tall, muscular, brooding, tattooed everywhere hotter-than-hell bad boy who looked like he’d just stepped off his motorcycle. After taking his girlfriend against a wall and making her scream in pleasure.
His gaze swept over me.
My cheeks went hot with confusion at my very female reaction to him.
No, no, and no. He was practically family, what the heck was I thinking? I had to put this back on normal footing.
“Maddy!” I exclaimed, opening my arms to give him a hug.
I totally should have worn a bra.
Because he gave me a smile and put his arms around me (did I mention they were ridiculously muscular and tattooed?) and pulled me against his chest, which might have been mistaken for a cement wall it was so hard. I was absolutely stunned at the transformation. Someone back home should have warned me Maddox had morphed into a man that would make any woman drool. A text, a DM, a Snapchat, anything, people.
Hey, Savannah, Maddox got hot, wear a bra. A thick sweater. Baggy, not-sexy clothes.
I had the not-sexy down pat. I was coming off another night of total sleep deprivation, my hair in a messy bun, showering a distant memory. Was it yesterday? The day before? I wasn’t sure. No bra because my nipples were killing me.
So why did I suddenly wish I looked thoroughly pulled together and adorable and desirable?
It had to be the lack of sleep. They say it does freakish things to your brain, causing hallucinations and everything. I don’t know who they are but I was willing to buy it because I was absolutely exhausted and yet, was unnervingly attracted to Maddox.
“Hey, Savannah. It’s good to see you. It’s funny to hear you call me Maddy. I’m not a skinny kid anymore. I haven’t heard that nickname in years.”
Right. He definitely was not a kid.
My boobs were huge from nursing my six-month-old baby, Sully, and were pillowed against that massive wall of muscle Maddox called a chest. I felt trapped in his hold and I was flustered and awkward. I hadn’t expected to feel either of those around a boy I’d known my entire life. But he wasn’t a boy. Right. Not. A. Boy. My mind was blown but my body seemed to have figured it out more quickly.
I hadn’t had sex since Sully was born (actually, seven months before he was born, so do the math) and my inner thighs chose now, of all freaking times, with my little brother’s best friend, to decide it remembered how much fun the naked tango was.
Unnerved, I stepped back out of Maddox’s embrace.
Only to see there were two little wet spots on the front of his T-shirt.
Holy hell. I had leaked breast milk on him.
I was a big advocate for nursing if you want to as a mother, that it’s natural and bonding. I had really enjoyed it for the most part.
However.
Seeing the dampness on Maddox’s black shirt had me wiping fabric, like I could make it dry with the magic of my fingertips, and babbling. “Oh! I’m so sorry. That hug… you squeezed me too tight and got me wet.”
Maddox was eyeing me with amusement. His eyebrows shot up at my words. “I always wanted to do that,” he drawled.
“Wait. What?” I stopped fussing with his shirt. “Do what?”
“Get you wet.”
My mouth fell open. Who was this man and what had he done with quiet Maddy? “Was that a sex joke?” I asked, which was stupid. Of course, it was a sex joke, which I didn’t need to point out.
I’ve always been known for blurting out my thoughts, but honestly, it had gotten way worse since Sully was born. Sleep deprivation had removed whatever filter I had to begin with.
He didn’t seem to mind. “It was one hundred percent a sex joke.”
“Maddy!” I smacked his arm, shocked. “I should punish you for that.”
Now the corner of his mouth turned up in a dirty, mischievous smile. “Go for it.”
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.
Not that Steve had known the full extent of my crush. He’d thought I just wanted to bone his sister. Which I had. Still did. He hadn’t understood that at sixteen I’d been convinced if I just hung on and grew up a little, Savannah would be my future.
Now here she was in front of me.
Everything had changed. And yet, at the same time, nothing.
I still wanted her.
“Don’t fuss over me, Savannah. You’re the one with a baby. Point me to the washer and I’ll throw the shirt in myself.” I glanced around her apartment, curious to see how she lived. The place was small, which was no surprise for Brooklyn. I was just impressed she was able to support herself at all in New York.
The apartment was on the third floor of a townhouse-style building. The exterior had been a hodge-podge of different architectural styles and alleged improvements over the years, giving it a confused appearance. The interior had been left alone, the old thick woodwork intact, and the brick fireplace centered on the living room wall. Savannah’s style was feminine, heavy on the pink with lots of throw pillows.
“It’s no trouble,” she said, not glancing back at me.
I followed her into the kitchen. It wasn’t an open-concept apartment. The kitchen was a little galley hallway, cramped and narrow, but it did have a stackable washer and dryer at the end by the window. That would be a definite plus with a kid. When I was a kid and my mother had been working two, sometimes three jobs, I hated having to lug our dirty clothes to the laundromat on her day off.
“Let me hold the little guy at least.” I moved in really close to Savannah because there was nowhere else to go in the small alley of a room. Her son was propped on her hip, his small fist bunched around the fabric of her shirt, causing the neck to pull down. The swell of Savannah’s breast rose in a way that was hard to ignore, but I focused on the baby. He was a cute kid. Big blue eyes and full cheeks. He was watching me with a general suspicion.
I made faces at him and was rewarded with a brief smile. “He likes me.”
Savannah turned and jumped a little. “Oh, wow, you’re right on top of me.”
I wished.
“Come here, Sullivan.” I held my hands out.
“You’re not wearing a shirt,” Savannah said in protest.
“So?” I was entertained, I’m not going to lie. Savannah was unnerved by me being shirtless and I loved everything about that. “We need to get to know each other. Kids this age have separation anxiety when their mom leaves.”
“I don’t even know why I said that,” she admitted, bending over with Sullivan and tossing my shirt in the washer. “Can you tell I pretty much haven’t sleep in two weeks? I thought we’d reached a good spot. Sully was sleeping six hours straight but now he’s been getting up constantly. I don’t have a clue why.” She stood back up and blew out a heavy breath. “Here.”
She handed me the baby. Having spent my teen years surrounded by babies after my mother married my stepfather and had my four siblings back-to-back I was comfortable with her son. I held him up, mugged faces at him, and settled him against my chest. He didn’t cry. He didn’t necessarily look like he trusted me, but he didn’t protest either. I figured that was a good start.
“Is he teething?” I asked. He was a little young for hard-core teething but that would explain the sleepless nights.
“What?” Savannah stared at me blankly.
“Teething,” I repeated. Savannah looked exhausted and confused. “Listen, why don’t you lie down and take a power nap?” I was pretty sure she’d started the washing machine without adding soap and now she was leaning on the wall like she needed the support to stay vertical.
“No, I’m fine,” she protested. “You just got here. I want to help you settle in and we have a lot to talk about with the schedule, and how to take care of Sully. I want to hear about the tattoo shop.”
“We can’t do any of that if you’re dead on your feet. Come here.” I took Savannah’s hand and drew her out of the kitchen.
She looked down at my hand like she couldn’t process what was going on. “Where are we going?”
“To bed.” It wasn’t hard to find her bedroom. It was three feet down the hallway from the living room. It had one small window, a full bed, and Sullivan’s crib. It looked like pre-baby Savannah had been org
anized with sorters, shelves, a shoe rack. But now it was cluttered with all the needs of a kid. Diapers, a monitor, stacks of clean clothes, and three pacifiers on the dresser.
“I shouldn’t…” Savannah protested, even as she looked at her mattress with naked longing.
If only she’d look at me that way. Damn. She wanted that bed, bad.
“Just get in bed.” I put my hand on the small of her back and urged her forward.
“He just ate,” she said, glancing back at me. “He shouldn’t be hungry for a couple of hours. Wake me up after twenty minutes, okay? Not a minute longer.”
“Sure. Of course. Trust me, we’ll be fine.” I eased back out of the room, pulling the door closed after me. “It’s you and me, kid,” I said to Sullivan.
He sneezed. Onto my bare chest.
That was a cool mist I could have done without. “Nice aim.”
He gave me a toothless smile and a little squeak. His arms went up and down. He was a really cute kid. I had been expecting a ginger, like Savannah and Steve, but he looked more blond. So far, anyway. His hair at this point was more a promise than a reality. Just a few wispy strands.
“This is what we’re going to do,” I told him as I carried him back to the living room. “I’m getting a clean shirt out of my suitcase, then we’re going to jump in the shower together while Mommy is sleeping. I want to wash the germs from riding the bus all day off of me. Not to mention your snot.”
Sullivan probably neither understood nor cared, but I figured the sound of my voice might keep him calm and not crying. I wanted Savannah to get a decent nap. And no, I wasn’t waking her up after twenty minutes. I was going to let her sleep until she woke up or until it was clear Sullivan needed a meal.
There was a play mat on the floor in the middle of the living room and I set Sullivan down on it so I could unzip my suitcase. My phone buzzed in my pocket, so I pulled it out. It was Steve.
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