Page 1 of Sweet Twins For My Brother's Best Friend

Chapter One

Hannah

I hear myself gasp.

As Chris walks into my new CPA office, I’m totally unprepared for the shivers of desire that go through me, causing me to flush and stammer as I greet him.

I’ve known him for years as my brother’s best friend. I never thought I’d actually be attracted to him. My eyes feel glued to his slightly open lips until my gaze wanders down his body over his broad shoulders and achingly smooth skin.

I swallow hard, embarrassed to find that I’m literally salivating. I glance up at Chris’ eyes and think that maybe I see him lick his lips for half a second before he meets my stare.

“Are you okay?” my brother, Tyler, asks me, trailing behind Chris with a drink carrier of coffee cups in his hand. He ducks under Chris’ arm to get inside the office.

“Did you have to hold the door like that, you monkey?” Tyler asks him, grimacing as he sets the drinks down on my desk.

“I’m – I’m fine,” I tell him, tapping the bottom of my pen against my desk as I try to make myself look away from Chris. Something about the lighting, maybe, or the fact that his tank top is stretched snugly across his torso and is practically a rag that barely covers his bulging, sweaty muscles – I seem powerless to stop staring at him.

“What are you two doing?” I ask in an attempt to make my drifting eyes seem normal. I point at the cups in Tyler’s hand. “Did you bring me some coffee?”

“No, Ma’am, these are all for Lucy, yes, they are, yes, they are!” Tyler’s voice rises up a few octaves as he plucks the smallest cup from the carrier and removes the lid to show a cup full of whipped cream. He squats down and holds it out to Lucy, my golden retriever, who lies sleeping like an angel beside my desk. Her nose twitches as the smell of dairy makes its way into her dreams. I picture her dreaming of a cartoon scene, where she’s floating towards the animated airy pixels of the scent.

“Please, Tyler, don’t. Last time it gave her the runs,” I protest, but Lucy’s long, purple tongue is already lolling out of her mouth, her big brown eyes slowly opening like the broken shades of an old house.

“Great, thanks, Ty,” I sigh in exasperation as Tyler turns his one available palm up in a gesture of unarticulated confusion.

“Give him a break, Handy, he was so excited to bring Lucy a treat,” Chris says defensively, pulling a cup out and setting it in front of me. “Here, drink your coffee and cheer up. Jesus.”

Squinting, I squeeze the lid off the coffee to let it cool down. “Don’t call me that,” I warn through gritted teeth, lowering my hand to pull Lucy’s tail through my hand and feel her smooth, silky fur. I remember now why I’ve never liked this cocky jerk, even if he is my brother’s best friend since college.

“What? Handy? Why not? Tyler does.”

“Tyler’s my brother.”

“We’re practically siblings, too, Handy, come on. I’ve known you almost as long as he has.” Chris sits at the other side of my desk and crosses a leg over his other ankle. He winks at me and sips his drink.

“Even if that were true, which it’s not,Tylercalls me Handy.Youcannotcall me Handy. You are not my brother.” I shoot daggers at Chris, my earlier lapse in judgment long-gone and replaced with the annoyance that Chris always stirs up in me.

‘Handy’ is a nickname Tyler gave me when I was just a little kid, a play off partly on my name and partly because I was always so helpful. What started as something cute, helping my dad withchanging the oil in the car or mowing the lawn, turned into something else when Chris got his hands on the nickname.

Chris took something cute from my family life and started calling me Handy when I went off to college. He did it in a way that implied something rather smutty; something probably obvious to everyone except me.

It’s as if he knew I was a virgin and was embarrassed about it, probably because I walked around as if I had ‘virgin’ written on my forehead. I think he therefore thought it would be funny to imply the exact opposite.

Young and fresh and incredibly vulnerable, I fell for it a few times, thinking he was simply calling me ‘Handy’ the way my brother did.

But that was before he gave himself away one year, really laying it on thick at Thanksgiving when I brought a boy home for the holiday.

I’ve thought of him as an arrogant prick ever since and can hardly stand to be in the same room with him. I wouldn’t put up with him at all, under any circumstances, if he weren’t Tyler’s best friend.

Now, as a 25-year-old virgin, well, the nickname has only gotten progressively more ironic and painful over the years, though I have no idea if he’s aware of my virginal status or not.

I mean, he can’t be. How could he?

“What’s the difference?” he asks, smiling coyly from behind his coffee cup, revealing a dimple in his left cheek that deepens as he holds in a laugh.

“All right, all right. Chris, you’re not really helping your case here,” Tyler warns from the floor.

He’s sunk onto the floor completely and pulled Lucy’s big head into his lap, where she can lazily lap at the bottom of the cup without having to move at all.

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