Page 17 of Christmas with Brother's Best Friends

“Two hot chocolates, please,” Emma orders at the small trailer next to the rink. She rubs her hands together and blows on them to keep them warm as we wait.

I have to keep myself from taking her hands in mine. Instead, I pay for our drinks before she can even take her card out, ignoring her protests. “You managed to get me out of the office. That deserves a reward.”

“You know that sounds kind of sad, right?” She leads me over to a bench so that we can watch the skaters.

“Coming from the person who worked late yesterday and the day before,” I say as I give her a smirk. When it comes to overworking, we’re pretty even. At least I had help from two other guys to start my own business.

Emma sips on her hot chocolate instead of arguing, coaxing a chuckle from me. “We need to relax for a minute. Just a minute.”

I fidget a little as my mind trails to all the work that I have to do today. Meetings, calls, emails to send. Paperwork to look over. Changes to program.

Emma grabs my hand and lifts my cup of hot chocolate toward my lips. “Drink and relax. Don’t make me force you.”

I cock an eyebrow at her. “And what would that look like?”

Emma’s face flushes as I call her bluff. She releases my hand and flips her hair behind her shoulder as her eyes shift forward. “Maybe I’ll steal your work key and lock you out of the office.”

“I can just work from home,” I point out.

Emma rolls her eyes, but an amused smile tugs at her lips. “You are so stubborn. Do you know that?”

“I’ve been told that once or twice.” I move closer and bump my knee against hers. The simple contact affects me more than it should, warmth spreading through me. “I’m sure you’ve been told that too.”

Emma lets her smile break through as she nods. “Just a few times.”

When her eyes meet mine, my heartbeat doubles. It has been great working with her. She’s smart, flexible, and dependable, but the problem is that she’s a huge distraction too.

She makes a damn Christmas sweater look like lingerie. And when she smiles at me like I’m the only person in this city worth looking at, it’s a miracle I’m still sitting upright.

I want her. So much it’s starting to scare me.

But every time I think about acting on it, I see Andrew’s face. Ethan’s. The years of friendship. The loyalty. The rules we never had to say out loud because we just knew them.

She’s not just their little sister anymore. She’s my weakness. And I’m not sure I can keep pretending she’s off limits.

“You look good in this coat,” Emma says as she touches the lapel of my dark gray overcoat. She sets her hot chocolate down on the bench next to her and pulls out her tablet, her fingers plucking out her drawing stylus.

“What are you doing?” I ask her as she scoots away from me and faces me, hiding whatever she’s drawing.

“Practicing,” Emma replies as her eyes flicker back and forth between me and her tablet.

When I realize that she’s sketching me, tension forms in my stomach, and I look away from her, unsure of what to do. She gazes at me all the time during the work day, but right now, she’sstudyingme.

I remember her sketching on the porch steps, feet bare, pencil smudges on her cheek. She used to draw everything—birds, leaves, sneakers, shadows on the wall.

Now she’s drawing me.

I wonder if she knows what that means. If she realizes how much space she’s taking up in my head. If she feels it too—that shift, that heat, that low buzz under the surface whenever we’re alone.

I should tell her that we need to go back to the office and get to work. I think I would do that with anyone else, but she has proven to be a surprising outlier. A curveball that I never saw coming.

“Am I making you nervous?” Emma asks as she continues sketching. She gets more comfortable by stretching her legs out and draping them over mine.

Blood rushes downward, accompanied by heat, and it takes everything in me not to shift just enough to feel the friction between us If she moves her legs any higher up my thighs, she’s going to drive me even crazier than she already has.

And I shouldn’t be letting this happen. Not withher.Not when her brothers are practically my own.

What the hell am I doing?