Free Basic Attraction by Erin McCarthy Page A

he found nothing.
    Chirping between his teeth, he called for the cat. A quick search of the rest of the house revealed no cat.
    “What the hell?” He scratched his unshaven chin and wondered how he had managed to lose two cats in a matter of days. His cell phone rang—his brother Jake.
    “Hello?”
    “Hey.”
    While glad for the distraction, he didn’t really have any burning desire to talk to Jake. “Hey, what’s up?”
    “Listen, ah… Don’t get mad.”
    Now that was a surefire way to tick him off. “What did you do?”
    “We just broke a table. That’s all. A complete accident. I told Eddie a bowling ball toss wasn’t a good idea, but he wouldn’t listen.”
    He closed his eyes and counted to ten. “Anything else broken?” Why he had ever thought it made sense to leave his business in the hands of his brothers was a mystery.
    “No. And we won. We whipped the Laurel brothers.”
    The doorbell rang. He forgot about his diminishing bar profits and thought of Sheri standing on the other side of that door. “Someone’s at the door. You’re off the hook for now. Just don’t break anything else. Talk to you later.” He hung up and eagerly strode to the door.
    He opened it, and Sheri was standing there, smiling shyly. She had gone home and changed her clothes after work. She was wearing denim shorts that were blissfully short, showing her toned thighs off. A sleeveless lime-green tank top gave him a full and unabridged view of her amazing chest and lent her eyes a brighter green glow than usual.
    Her hair was down, softly flowing around her face, and her head tilted as they exchanged a look of awareness, acknowledgment of what they had shared the night before.
    He was falling in love with her.
    The thought came unexpectedly and frighteningly to the front of his mind. Could that happen in like a minute of knowing someone? Hell, he didn’t know. He’d never really been in love before. But it was definitely happening. Somewhere between her backing away from him screaming and when he had woken up this morning, lust had turned into something deeper. The exact moment wasn’t important.
    What to do about it was.
    The answer was as simple as his feelings. As simple as the feeling he had experienced the minute they had first met at Angel’s rented cabin. She was meant to be his. And he would convince her of that or die trying.
    Maybe that was a little dramatic, but he didn’t have a T-shirt for this particular occasion. If he did, it would say ‘Take Pity On Me.’ She wasn’t going to just agree to date him, especially long distance. He wasn’t even entirely sure that she liked him. She’d called him disgusting, so he didn’t have a lot whole to work with here.
    Just his dick, which she seemed to like just fine.
    “Hi,” she said softly.
    “Hi.” Even to his own ears, it sounded like a growl. She was right. He growled. He reached for her and pulled her into his arms, dusting little kisses across her forehead, her nose, her chin. “How was your day?”
    “Sleepy.” She fluttered her eyes closed.
    Walking backwards with her, he slammed the door closed with his foot. “Sleepy? You didn’t get a good night’s sleep last night?”
    “Someone kept waking me up.”
    “That’s so rude.” He cupped her breasts and carefully kneaded the full flesh.
    “Isn’t it?” Her head lolled back.
    The neck of her shirt was stretchy, and he started moving it out of the way so he could taste and suckle her neck. Luke sucked hard, filled with the caveman urge to mark her as his with the imprint of his mouth.
    She gasped and dug her fingernails into his shoulders. “I’m hoping to get better sleep tonight.”
    Pulling back, he laughed. “Fat chance. I hope you brought an overnight bag.”
    No answer. The beet-red flush on her face gave her away though. His desire increased, if at all possible. Oh, yeah. She wanted him too. Not that he’d doubted it in any way, but her residual shyness was charming and damn