Chapter Four

Steven

Wow! Ruby Westin had somehow morphed from a scrawny awkward teenager, glasses, braces, and crazy-ass hair into the bonafide hot piece on the other side of the welcome mat. Damn! When she first opened the door, I wondered if I’d gone to the wrong house. Something that would have been insane, considering how many times I’d walked up to the front steps over the years spanning from third grade to the summer after graduation. It was also one of the last places I went before shipping out for boot camp.

Ruby crossed her arms and managed to twist her face into a slight scowl. I tried not to stare at the soft, rounded tits peeking out from beneath her V-neck sweater, propped up all the more by her arms. “Brace face.” She shook her head, her shoulder-length waves dancing around her shoulders. “I forgot you two assholes used to call me that.”

I laughed softly. “Sorry.”

A smile twitched at her lips. “Where have you been all these years? Marines, right?”

“Navy, actually.” I pocketed my hands. “I’m on leave for the next four weeks and thought I’d come see Rick. We’ve been emailing a little bit back and forth and he mentioned he’d be in town for a few days before Christmas.”

Something sparked in Ruby’s eyes. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and nodded. “Yeah. They’ll be here until Christmas Eve. But, uhm, he’s not here yet. Probably getting checked into their hotel. Vanessa didn’t want to stay here with us.” She gave a slight roll to her chocolate brown eyes. “Anyway, you wanna come in and wait for him?”

Damn it, I did. Not a question about it. But I also didn’t trust myself not to make a pass at Ricky’s sister.

Now, there was a thought I never expected to cross my mind.

All throughout our school years, Ruby had tormented Rick and me just as much as we tormented her. There was barely a full year between them and she always insisted on getting into whatever we were doing. And if we didn’t let her join in, she’d run off to daddy and she had him wrapped. I smirked at the flood of memories of those years, trying to reconcile them with the gorgeous woman in front of me.

The purple colored sweater clung to her figure, showing off hourglass curves that had my fingers aching to touch. A pair of jeans wrapped her long, lean legs all the way up to a spectacular ass. She was probably 5’7, a good half a foot shorter than me. Perfect fit. Her eyes were dark and glittered with amusement. I faltered at her lips. They were full and inviting and I momentarily lost myself, thinking of the way they’d feel wrapped around my cock.

I blinked hard, forcing the image away.

Damn it, Maxwell, she’s Ricky’s little sister. It’s Ruby! You cannot go there. No way.

“I don’t bite,” Ruby prompted, smirking at me. Was she flirting with me?

I had to get out. Now.

“Ya know, I’ll come back by later. What time do you think he’ll be here till? Or—” I stopped and took a couple of calculated step back, getting a few more paces away from the temptress guarding the door. Her arms were still crossed and an amused smile lingered on her full lips. “Or, just have him call me. Ya know, when he gets a chance.”

Ruby’s eyes flicked past mine at the sound of a rumbling engine. In the blink of an eye, the smirk dropped from her face and a look of terror took hold. I whipped around, following her gaze and spotted a large freight truck pulling up along the curb opposite the Westin’s home. “Shit!” she hissed.

“What’s wrong?”

She was already lost to me, no longer hearing my voice. At least, I didn’t think so. She raked a hand through her hair, dragging it up and away from her face before letting it go. She squeezed her eyes closed. “Shit, shit, shit. It’s not supposed to be until after—”

I reached out, brushing the back of her hand. “Ruby? What’s wrong?”

I turned again and studied the truck. A man—the driver—hopped out of the cab and came over to the start of the walk. He had to be at least fifty, with a beer gut, and a blank expression. Did she know him? Who was he? Was he her ex or something? It didn’t fit. There was no way Ruby would be with a guy like that. But why else would she be having such a strong reaction to his presence?

“Max—” I spun back around to face her at the desperate plea of my name. “Is that your truck over there?”

She pointed at my blue Chevy and I nodded. “Sure is. What’s going—”

“Can you do me a favor?”

My eyebrows knit together, still completely lost, but I nodded again. “Of course.”

“Okay. Thanks.” She moved past me, her hand gently grazing my bicep. “One sec.”

She raced to the sidewalk and met the driver. I kept my distance as they spoke. Ruby was obviously flustered. He presented her with a clipboard and she signed with an agitated scrawl on the places he indicated. After a few minutes, she looked back at me and I jogged out to join her at the end of the driveway. “Everything all right?”

Ruby heaved a sigh and then met my stare. “Okay, this is going to sound insane, but I need to take all those boxes—” she paused, pointing into the back of the freight truck at a small mountain of boxes. “To a storage unit.”

“Right now?”

Ruby bit her lip. “Yeah. Right now before my parents get home.”

“You gonna tell me why?” I asked with a laugh.

“Do I have to?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess not, but I’m holding you responsible if I die of curiosity.”

She giggled and my heart jumped at the lighthearted sound and the sudden return of her beautiful smile. “I’ll take my chances.”

“All right then. Let me back the truck up.”

“Okay. Thank you.” She held my eyes for a moment and I smiled at the relief in her face. “Thank you, Max.”

“Hey, Rubes, call me Steven.”

She gave a slow nod and then a smile spread across those intoxicating lips. “Steven.”

* * * *

We loaded the boxes from the freight truck to the back of my truck in triple-time, both huffing too much to speak. Curiosity was still burning in my mind but I kept my questions to myself. Once inside the truck, Ruby plugged the address of the storage place into my phone and as we neared the destination the only one who’d spoken the duration of the drive was the navigation robot.

“Rubes?”

She turned away from staring out the passenger side window to glance over at me. “Huh?”

“You’d tell me if you were in trouble, wouldn’t you?”

She gave a hollow laugh. “Ma—Steven, don’t worry about me, okay?”

“Shockingly, not reassuring,” I said. The GPS blared the next set of instructions and I turned at the stop light. “Come on, Rubes. We’ve known each other forever. Tell me what’s going on.”

Ruby sighed as she rolled her dark chocolate eyes. “It’s a long and pathetic story.”

I chuckled. “What a coincidence, I love long and pathetic stories.”

She laughed a little. “Well, as much as I hate to deprive you of a whopper of a tale, I’d rather not get into it right now.”

“All right. Fair enough.” I kept my hands on the wheel—firm at ten and two—but kept glancing at her out of the corner of my eye. Her fingers worked through her hair, tugging and twirling the ends as she stared out the window. Something major was stirring inside her mind. And with each passing mile, I was growing more and more curious. I knew it was none of my business—since I hadn’t seen her in years—but I still wanted to help her. Besides that, I needed something to distract me from the way my body was reacting to the smell of her perfume and the sweet scent of the glisten of sweat on her skin after hauling ass to get the truck loaded. She’d worked like a trooper and had ended up just as sweaty as me. The warmth in the cab, combined with the intoxicating smells brought out some primal side of me that was normally caged for months on end.

And I wasn’t planning on fucking my best friend’s sister.

In fact, I’d fully planned on having at least a couple of winter flings while on leave, but none of them had anything to do with my best friend’s little sister.

The thing that blew my mind was the fact that I hadn’t even known Ruby’d turned into such a fox. She’d had to have been in the pictures from Rick and Vanessa’s wedding. Hadn’t I seen those on his Facebook page? Did I just gloss right over Ruby altogether? She’d had to have been featured front and center, right?

I glanced at her again. There was something else that was drawing me to her. It wasn’t just her soft curves or her full pout. It was…something inexplicable. Something delicate.

I shook my head slightly, trying to clear the thoughts away. The GPS alerted us that we’d arrive in another three minutes. Thank God, I didn’t know how much longer I could hold out. I needed some fresh air.

“Sorry,” Ruby said, sighing again as she dropped her head back against the seat. “I don’t mean to be a weirdo.”

I laughed. “You’re not a weirdo.”

“Right. It’s totally normal for me to force a practical stranger into hauling boxes of mysterious crap into their truck and take a twenty-minute drive to then help unload.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m a stranger,” I corrected, giving her a full glance. Her cheeks flushed again and my cock twitched uncomfortably in my jeans.

“I guess not,” she whispered, still staring at me.

The GPS signaled a turn and I struggled to get back on course before blowing a stop sign. “Shit!”

“Woah!” Ruby grabbed onto the passenger side door handle. “Take it easy there, Max. Steven.”

I laughed. “That really is strange from you, isn’t it?”

“Well, you were Max for what…over half my life?”

I nodded. “Guess so. Most of the time I get used to Maxwell. You know, Navy and all. But everyone else calls me Steven.”

“I like it.”

My heart slammed into my chest, and I pushed the gas a little harder, desperate to get to the storage facility and put some distance between us. It was not okay to have these thoughts about my best friend’s little sister. Not at all.

Rick’d have my head. Granted, I could take him. Whereas I’d spent the last ten years in the Navy, and was in prime condition, Rick worked a desk job and the last pictures I’d seen of him, at his daughter’s one-month photo shoot, he’d been rockin’ some pretty serious dad jeans.

Still, he might not be able to take me in a fight, but there were worse things. We’d been friends forever. I couldn’t risk fucking that up now. Not even for a woman as tempting as Ruby.

We pulled into the small lot of the self-storage place and Ruby wasted no time in hopping out and making her way to the front doors of the small office by the front gate. I hung back, admiring the sexy little strut to the way she walked. The unsure, anxious woman from the drive over melted away, and she moved like a woman on a mission. I wondered where all that confidence had come from. The Ruby I knew was loud and bossy when it came to Rick and me, but with everyone else, she was a little bit quiet and reserved.

How had she turned into such a firecracker?

Whatever she’d done, I liked it.

Stop it, Maxwell. Off fuckin’ limits.

Damn! It was going to be a long fuckin’ day.