Crushing On My Brother's Best Friend

CONTENTS Crushing On My Brother’s Best Friend Crushing On My Brother’s Best Friend NEWSLETTER Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Epilogue Extended Epilogue Extended Epilogue Top Reads NEWSLETTER A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS BRATVA BEAR SHIFTERS LAIRDS & LADIES RUSSIAN UNDERWORLD IRISH WOLF SHIFTERS INKED BY LOVE TEXT ME YOU LOVE ME Collaborations About the Author CRUSHING ON MY BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND AN OLDER MAN YOUNGER WOMAN ROMANCE _______________________ A MAN WHO KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS, 317 FLORA FERRARI Copyright © 2023 by Flora Ferrari All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers. CRUSHING ON MY BROTHER’S BEST FRIEND I’ve wanted Bryson Sawyer for way too long. Who wouldn’t? His looks and body are crush-worthy. Unfortunately, he is my older brother’s maybe ex-best friend. Bryson’s thirty-seven, a successful doctor, and wouldn’t look twice at a wannabe podcaster, nineteen-year-old virgin… right? My crush started way too early when Dr. Sawyer cast my broken wrist from a childhood accident. My brother, Adam, would freak out if he knew about the inappropriate, oh-so-steamy fantasies I’ve entertained about Bryson. Not that it matters. Adam and Bryson had a fight last year. It was so bad Bryson moved to the other side of the country. My brother won’t tell me what it was about, but I’m wondering what happened. No way their fight was about me. Now Bryson is back, and I am so unprepared for the bombshell this possessive, jealous doctor drops on me. I never in a million years expected this… An insta-everything, standalone romance with a curvy FL, HEA, no cheating, no cliffhanger, hot alpha male who is just as obsessed as his obsession. NEWSLETTER Get a free, new, original story NOW by joining my mailing list and staying subscribed. CLICK HERE >> Get a FREE book now CHAPTER ONE Harper I stand next to my brother, Adam, feeling his grief emanating from him. It’s in the air, palpable, and it just makes the guilt twisting in my gut even worse. On the other side of Adam stands Bryson. It’s been a year since he was on the East Coast when he and Adam had a huge fight. They’ve been best friends since Adam was a little kid—before I was born. As the words are read, Adam’s wife is laid to rest. Gorgeous Eva was so quick with a smile and a joke and more of a second mother to me than a sister-in-law. I have to stop myself forcibly from turning my head away from Adam and drinking in the sight of Bryson. I saw the doctor when we arrived. He’s six and a half feet tall, his suit tightly hugging his bulging muscles. His face was severe, his ice-blue eyes hidden behind heavy sunglasses, his chest heaving as though he wanted to run at me—to throw his arms around me. To tell me he’s as obsessed with me as I am with him. It’s been this way ever since he first cast my broken wrist when I was a kid. Adam and Bryson are both thirty-seven. I’m nineteen, almost twenty. Our parents took their time with the second kid, which means I had plenty of chances to crush on my brother’s best friend. As they lower the coffin into the ground, I fight off tears, both wishing Bryson had stayed away and so relieved that he’s returned. I’ve got no clue what their fight was about, but Bryson has always been there for Adam, and it’s no different now. My mind returns to the countless moments Eva and I shared, the laughter across the dinner table, her hand ruffling my hair when she and Adam got married. It was almost a decade ago, and she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, grinning down at me. Adam wraps his arm around me, both of us sinking into our grief as my tough brother tries to hold back his tears. In the end, it’s too difficult. We cry together. * * * At the wake, I do everything I can to avoid Bryson. I try not to think about the countless times I enclosed our names in “love hearts,” as I sent messages out into the universe. One day, we would be together. I’d run my hand through his dark black hair… and then, as the years progressed, it would become increasingly silver, with tinges at the edges, and strikes of lightning through the night. I knew we couldn’t be together, obviously. Bryson wasn’t the sort of creep to respond to a kid’s crush with a cast on her arm. That didn’t stop my mind from leaping into the future, imagining myself as the sort of woman who could intensify his expression. I’m sitting in the corner with Mom and Dad, everybody somber, sharing stories about Eva. It’s almost too much to take. I am lifted by the thought that Bryson is here whenever I grieve. He’s back. Is he here to stay? It makes me hate myself, this obsessiveness, but I’ve never been able to stop. It’s like there’s a crazed stalker in my head, intent on making him mine when I should think of Adam and the pain