Page 42 of Definitely (Maybe) Dating
“I believe you kissed me.”
“However you want to play this, Boots.” He held her between the hard tree trunk and his harder manly trunk.
“I’m not playing at anything,” she whispered.
“Neither am I.”
12
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Josh spentthe better part of the morning trying to fix the permit problem, and the last half trying to figure out how to tell Piper that no amount of pastries could get an emergency permit approved with only a month’s notice.
“It’s like you’re not even trying,” Owen said, pinning Josh to the mat.
Every Tuesday and Thursday, whichever brothers were in town met at Lucky’s Gym to beat the shit out of each other. Today, everyone was there except Clay, which meant they all had a fighting chance of coming out the victor. Even though Owen had three inches and thirty pounds on Josh, Josh was used to winning.
Not today.
Today, his mind was on Piper and that kiss they shared. It had been five days, but he could still taste her strawberry lip gloss. Remember the way she felt pushed up against him. All the years of wearing suits, he’d never dated a woman who used his tie as foreplay.
It was hot. And sexy. And all the other scenarios of what could come after that he’d played out in his head.
Josh was still thinking about how silky her skin felt beneath that sweater when he stood and out of nowhere, Owen rushed him and took him to the floor hard. They both groaned at the impact.
“What the hell was that?” Josh asked, rolling onto his side to get up.
“You being a sissy,” Gage said from outside the ring, his arms lazily resting on the ropes.
Sissy?” Josh laughed. “Seriously, who’s the one whose man card needs revoking?”
“You got kids? No? Then shut the frick up,” Gage said, and Owen took the moment to go for a cheap shot, landing a boxing glove above Josh’s right eye.
“Jesus, Bro! I have court tomorrow.”
“Better not bruise his pretty mug,” Rhett said, and the guys laughed.
“Ha-ha, but the next time one of you needs a lawyer, remember this moment.”
The brothers had been boxing since the day Josh, Rhett and Owen got into it over a Power Ranger action figure and their mom shoved them through the screen door into the back yard, then locked the house and didn’t let them back inside for an entire night. The next day, their dad signed them up for Aikido. When that didn’t help, except for expanding their torture tools, their mom enrolled them in boxing.
Twenty years later, they still needed a way to blow off steam and work through problems.
“No wonder Heinz is gaining on you,” Rhett said. “If Owen can take you, then a little prick like Heinz should have zero trouble.”
“I could take you in my sleep, little man.”
“If you miss another Friday night family dinner, Darcy is going to kick my ass, then yours,” Gage said.
“Since when are family dinners at your house?” he asked because family dinners had always been at his mom’s or the bar. Always.
“Since Mom started thinking that dinner on her turf justified verbal Krav Maga on Darcy. So we moved it. Three weeks ago,” Gage lectured, and Josh realized why his mom had been bugging him about family dinner night. “Three weeks and you haven’t come once.”
“Tell Darcy, I’ve been busy at work but I’ll make it up to her,” Josh said.
“And deliver that pathetic apology? Hell, no! I like my sex life just the way it is, thanks.”
“Then tell her I owe her,” Josh said, hoping to hell Darcy wasn’t going to have one of her single friends at family dinner brought for Josh. Darcy had set him up with three women, which was part of the reason he’d skipped a few dinners. Now, if she’d brought her sexy, single, photographer friend with the strawberry lip gloss, he’d be the first one at the door.
