Prologue
Kelsey, Nine Years Prior
College had been an utter waste of time.
Though part of that was probably due to the fact that she was graduating with her Master’s when her peers were snagging their high school diplomas.
She wasn’t bragging. She was just really smart.
College courses at twelve. Bachelor’s (with a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science) at sixteen. M.S. in Engineering by eighteen.
And . . . she’d never been kissed.
Never gone on a date.
Which was great news, according to her overprotective father, who wanted to pretend she would be his little girl forever. Not so great when she had the social life of a leaf. A fallen leaf, dried out and crunched underfoot in the middle of winter when all the other leaves had gone to the movies and prom and lost their virginity in the back of Tommy Peddlenton’s car.
She digressed, but that was Kelsey. Her mind going in a million different directions at once, even as she did something completely different with her hands.
Brilliant had been a description of her more than once, and again that wasn’t bragging, that was merely how her teachers had always described her. It was why she’d been offered an outrageous sum of money to work for the government beginning in a few weeks, and also why she’d turned down a dozen other offers from the private sector. But her big ole juicy brain—she had her older brother Devon to thank for that lovely description—was also a big reason she was lonely.
She’d been untouchable, undateable. Yes, as complete and utter jailbait until her eighteenth birthday just the month before, she understood exactly why that was. She was glad for it, glad the men she’d gone to school with had treated her with respect and consideration and . . . fine, also like she was asexual.
So that part she wasn’t exactly grateful for. The rest of it, for sure she was.
Sighing, she fixed her gown, adjusted the colored stole that signified her exit from graduate school, and strode out of her room. Most of her family was downstairs, all wearing proud smiles, even her brother Sebastian, who tended toward quiet and closed down and definitely not verbose with his praise pulled her into a hug and murmured, “Proud of you, Kels.”
“Thanks,” she murmured back.
“Devon is going to try to make it for the party, sweetheart,” her mother said in her softly musical voice. “His plane was delayed, but he’s going to get here as soon as he can.”
“Okay,” she said and meant it. Dev was a professional hockey player, and his team was knee-deep in the playoffs. The fact that he had left, that his coach had allowed it, meant more to her than him seeing her walk across a stage. “Warn him, he owes me extra hugs when he gets here.”
Her mom’s lips twitched. “I’ll do that.”
Dev gave the best hugs ever. Probably because he was a giant, and so being hugged by him felt like being enfolded against the chest of a very large teddy bear, but his hugs were also good because he didn’t let go. Didn’t treat hugging like cursory contact—a wrap and release. He held on like he meant it, and . . . it was impossible not to feel like the most precious object in the universe when she was in his arms.
More digression.
“You know,” her dad said, holding out his arms. “I taught him to hug.”
Her mom’s eyes sparkled. “I’d like to think I had something to do with his hugging ability.”
“Nope,” her dad said. “He got his slapshot from you. His hugs are all mine.”
Kels laughed.
Sebastian grinned.
Her mom made an affronted noise and reached for her, but no sooner had her mom’s arms closed tight than Kelsey found herself tugged out of the embrace and against her dad’s chest. She giggled, then she was tugged away again, but this time into Sebastian’s arms. He rivaled Dev in the hugging department, and she was enjoying the contact, the attention, when she was tugged away once more.
She let herself slide free, went willingly, assumed it was her dad claiming her again.
If she’d known who was reaching for her, she never would have allowed the contact. But she’d had her eyes closed, was soaking up her brother laughing and joking and being so fun and loose, a rarity compared with Sebastian’s normal demeanor, and so she wasn’t paying attention to who’d snagged her.
Wasn’t paying attention until she found herself smack nose-first into a chest that was hard and broad, but definitely not comforting. Spice and male assaulted her nostrils, and she went from laughing to quiet, every cell in her body standing at attention.
She knew that scent.
Oh shit, she knew that scent.
She’d stolen his sweatshirt because of it and wore it to bed every night, no matter how hot it was outside. The smell, the feel, the image of it covering all of Tanner’s hard muscles never failed to have heat coiling through her limbs, soaking deep into her abdomen.
Quite simply, that scent made her want.
And the object of her want was currently holding her tightly against his chest, hands running up and down her spine.
He glanced down at her, one half of his mouth curved up. “What do you think, Kels?” Was it her imagination or was there a trace of heat in his expression?
“About what?” she whispered.
“Do I give good hugs?” He tugged her a little closer.
She rubbed her nose across the half-circle of skin exposed above the collar of his sweater, inhaled deeply, trying to absorb his scent into her pores. His breath caught and she leaned back, definitely not missing the heat in his eyes this time.
“Yes,” she murmured. “You give good hugs.”
His lips curved, his smile hitting her in the gut like a punch.
But it was a good punch.
Because that was the moment Kelsey Scott fell in love.
She’d been crushing hard on Sebastian’s friend for years, though he’d never shown her the least bit of interest—other than acting like another brother who was there to tease and annoy and steal her Pringles.
That hug had changed her. Changed them.
She’d catapulted over the edge from mere infatuation to offering her heart on a platter when Tanner’s arms wrapped around her.
Love. Heady, intoxicating first love.
But feelings aside, that was also the moment she promised herself she was going to get Tanner to hug her again, only the next time, neither of them would be wearing any clothes.
She grinned and stepped away, knowing this was just the beginning.
In some ways, she was right.
She got another hug that night—in fact, many more hugs in the weeks and months that followed—and some of them were of the naked variety.
Unfortunately, she was also very wrong. That moment wasn’t a beginning.
It was an end.
And it wasn’t first love, heady or intoxicating or otherwise.
It was first hate.
She hated Tanner Pearson with a passion.
One
Kelsey, Present Day
She opened the door of Bobby’s, the local bar she and her friends liked to frequent, and paused for a moment, enjoying the crispness surrounding her.
It was one of those perfect end of summer evenings, warm during the day, but with the promise of fall in the air. She snuggled into her hoodie and smiled, thinking about how happy her brother, Sebastian, and his fiancée, Rachel, had been that evening at dinner.