Free The Doctor's Pet by Loki Renard Page A

sight.
    “Hello.”
    “Hi!” A young man with bright blue eyes and a shock of pale blond hair grinned at him with a smile Kirk had seen on Tessa’s face.
    “I’m Kirk Saunders, Tessa’s boyfriend.” He reached out to shake hands and was instead offered a spatula.
    “I’m her brother, Tim,” the young man said. “She’s not getting the good mayonnaise anymore.”
    Tessa had never mentioned a brother. Kirk wasn’t sure why that was. She didn’t talk about her family at all, he realized. Tim looked like your average college senior, a bit of a mess, but charming enough.
    “Can you turn that?” Tim pointed at the food in the pan. “I need to see if she’s hiding it. She hides it sometimes.”
    The apartment door slammed at that moment, and Tessa came barreling in. “Dammit, Tim!” She yelled her brother’s name. “I had Angus here the other day. He took two thousand dollars off me!”
    “Sorry,” Tim called out. “I’m good for it.”
    “No, you’re not,” she said, storming around the corner. “You’re not good for… Kirk?”
    She stopped dead and stared at him with a markedly guilty expression.
    “Hello, Tessa,” Kirk smiled. “I was just introducing myself to your younger brother here.”
    “Uh… yeah,” Tessa said. “This is Tim.”
    “So I gathered,” Kirk said. He couldn’t help but notice that Tessa looked horrified at seeing the pair of them together. It went well beyond mere surprise at finding her boyfriend and brother chatting casually in the kitchen. And what had she meant about the money?
    Tim didn’t seem nearly so concerned. He took the spatula out of Kirk’s hand and served up his snack, stuffing it into his mouth in an attempt to avoid conversation.
    “Tim, this is Kirk. We’re, uh, dating.”
    “I gathered,” Tim said in muffled tones that could have been intended to mimic Kirk, or not. “Listen, Tess, I gotta crash here for a few days, okay?”
    “Uh…”
    “That’s fine,” Kirk cut in. “Tessa can spend some time at my place. We need to talk about a few things anyway.”
     
    * * *
     
    Tessa’s greatest nightmare had come true. Kirk and Tim in the same room. Kirk’s intense gaze running over Tim with obvious judgment. Tim wasn’t doing himself any favors. He was wearing ratty old jeans and a man’s tank with geographical designs and, now, a mustard stain.
    “That’s real nice,” Tim said, grinning like an idiot.
    “I don’t want any… unexpected visitors coming here, Tim,” she said, trying to choose her words carefully. “Especially not Angus.”
    “I thought you, uh, took care of Angus?”
    “I did,” Tessa said, trying not to lose her temper. Tim was trying to get on board with being subtle, but he was bad at it. He had a certain glassy look in his eyes that strongly suggested he’d been imbibing illicit substances. “But you and Angus seem to hang out together a lot these days. I don’t want him here. He’s not good for… the furniture.”
    She shot a glance at Kirk and saw him looking at her with a measured expression, his dark eyes giving nothing away.
    “I get it,” Tim said. “No visitors. No parties.”
    Tessa felt Kirk’s arm loop around her waist. She looked up at him and saw his wickedly intelligent gaze looking down at her. Oh, damn. She was in trouble. He knew everything. Well, maybe not everything, but enough to matter.
    After a few more forced pleasantries, Tessa found herself being ushered out of her place and down to Kirk’s car where she sat tensely, trying to make small talk to distract Kirk from the conversation he must have heard owing to the fact that she’d screamed it.
    “So,” Kirk said once they were driving. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on between you and that brother of yours?”
    “Oh, Tim,” she said, trying for a lighthearted laugh. “I think older sisters always worry about their younger brothers.”
    “Maybe, but older sisters don’t always have, what was it, two thousand