Forbidden Touch: A Best Friends To Lovers Romance Read online

  Forbidden Touch

  Iona Rose

  Some Books

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  1. Brooke

  2. Blaze

  3. Brooke

  4. Blaze

  5. Brooke

  6. Blaze

  7. Brooke

  8. Blaze

  9. Brooke

  10. Blaze

  11. Brooke

  12. Blaze

  13. Brooke

  14. Blaze

  15. Brooke

  16. Blaze

  17. Brooke

  18. Blaze

  19. Brooke

  20. Blaze

  21. Brooke

  22. Blaze

  23. Brooke

  24. Brooke

  25. Blaze

  26. Brooke

  27. Blaze

  28. Brooke

  29. Blaze

  30. Brooke

  31. Blaze

  32. Brooke

  33. Blaze

  34. Brooke

  35. Brooke

  36. Blaze

  37. Brooke

  Coming Soon: Sample Chapters

  About the Author

  Also by Iona Rose

  Author’s Note

  Hey there!

  Thank you for choosing my book. I sure hope that you love it. I'd hate to part ways once you're done though. So how about we stay in touch?

  My newsletter is a great way to discover more about me and my books. Where you'll find frequent exclusive giveaways, sneak previews of new releases and be first to see new cover reveals.

  And as a HUGE thank you for joining, you'll receive a FREE book on me!

  With love,

  * * *

  Iona

  Get Your FREE Book Here:

  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/v9yit8b3f7

  Forbidden Touch

  * * *

  Copyright © 2021 Iona Rose

  The right of Iona Rose to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the copyright, designs and patent act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  * * *

  Publisher: Some Books

  ISBN: 978-1-913990-98-5

  Chapter One

  Brooke

  “Can you believe we’ve finally done it?” I asked my best friend, Blaze. We stood in the middle of the moldy smelling living room and stared at the two-family townhouse that now belonged to us.

  “Yep, I do,” Blaze said. “Were those cracks there last week?” he asked, wrinkling his nose at the peeling walls.

  I closed the distance between us and placed my hands on his massive shoulders. I stared at Blaze fondly then wrapped my hands around his neck and hugged him. Having a house was my dream, not his, but he had agreed to partner with me in buying the dilapidated townhome.

  The clincher had been that after we finished renovating it, we would each have an apartment. Mine would be on the ground floor and Blaze would take the top floor. With our combined savings and a gift of fifty thousand worth of bonds from my late grandmother, we had done it.

  Now, all that remained was to start working on it.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled into his shirt. He smelled so good. I didn’t want to break contact but I had to. I’d been fighting my physical attraction to Blaze for years. He was my best friend and my secret crush. One that I would never act upon. I reluctantly stepped away. “I can’t wait to get started,” I told him, rubbing my hands together in anticipated glee.

  “Me too,” Blaze said.

  “Let’s go sit on the backyard steps and have our lunch.”

  We had bought takeout grilled chicken sandwiches and bottles of water to toast to our new home. I grabbed Blaze by the hand and tugged him through the kitchen to the back.

  Turning the lock, I pushed the door open. The backyard had been part of the reason why I had fallen in love with the townhouse. It was unkempt with overgrown grass and bushes but the potential was there. I could imagine Saturday afternoons spent outdoors sipping ice-cold wine and watching the day drift by. With Blaze in the downstairs apartment, it meant I would always have someone to hang out with.

  This had a downside to it though. Blaze could decide to live with a girlfriend. Luckily, there was little risk of that happening. He changed girlfriends the way people changed clothes. Blaze was your textbook player, though he insisted he was a short-term one-woman man.

  I’d come prepared and I had a small blanket in my handbag which I laid on the dirty steps and we sat down.

  “Now, this, I can visualize the end result,” Blaze said as he reached for a sandwich and bit into it.

  His words excited me and made me feel less guilty about pushing him into buying a house with me.

  “Yeah, a beautiful lawn with flower gardens at the edges and maybe a table and some chairs,” he said.

  “That right there, is why you’re still my best friend,” I exclaimed.

  Blaze and I had met in kindergarten. We rode the same school bus and I had always found him in the very back seat when I entered the bus in the morning. He had smiled at me the first day and then looked away.

  On the way home, I’d gone to sit with him and we had chatted all the way to my stop, counting all the white cars we saw. Even then, I’d been drawn to him but all we had ever been was friends. Which was a good thing, I told myself firmly.

  There were times when I’d allowed myself to imagine Blaze as my boyfriend. He was hot and all my friends had a crush on him at one time or another. But even in my fantasies, the relationship ended badly. I loved Blaze too much to jeopardize what we had.

  “I’m the luckiest guy in the whole world,” Blaze said.

  “Why?” I asked as I watched the movements of his mouth. Blaze had to be the only guy I knew who made chewing look sexy.

  “I get to have lunch with my best friend everyday!” he said and smiled.

  In addition to being best friends, Blaze and I worked for the same recruiting company. He was a head recruiter, in charge of five other recruiters and I was in the accounts department. We’d worked together for two years now, and the worries I had when he suggested I apply for the opening, had not materialized.

  I’d worried that we’d bring over any conflict we had in our personal lives to work. I had worried for nothing. For one, Blaze and I rarely fought. And two, we were in different departments and company politics did not affect us.

  We ate lunch together everyday in the café next to our office and met for drinks after work sometimes.

  “I love you, Blaze,” I said and leaned on his shoulder.

  “I love you right back, Hot Sauce,” he said.

  “I hate that stupid nickname,” I protested mildly. Blaze had been calling me the name for years and I had grown into it. It had started when we were both fifteen and my body had sprouted curves overnight.

  Teenage pimpled boys had suddenly developed an interest in me and guess who they went through? Blaze of course and he’d started calling me Hot Sauce.

  I thought again about the sacrifices he had made so my dream of being a homeowner would come true. “If there’s anything that you ever want me to do for you, all you have to do is ask,” I sa
id in an emotion filled voice.

  “Yeah?” Blaze said, a playful tone in his voice.

  It hit me then how open my offer was. Definitely not the kind of offer you wanted to make as a woman loving Blaze. Though I wasn’t his type. He loved his women with nothing between the ears. “I’m not giving you a blowjob.”

  He feigned disappointment and then grew serious. “There is something you can do for me.”

  “Sure, what?” I asked.

  “Go with me to Jack and Amelia’s wedding.”

  “To Hawaii?” I shrieked, angling my body to face him.

  Jack was Blaze’s younger brother. He and his fiancée were getting married in a month’s time, if I remembered the dates correctly. Because of how far the wedding was and the coordination involved, they had opted for a small wedding with family and very close friends. “Why are you asking me? Why not one of your many conquests?”

  I couldn’t imagine anything worse than going with Blaze to a Hawaiian wedding. It would be more temptation than I could handle. More than our friendship could handle.

  More than once, when we’d both had a little too much to drink, attraction had sizzled between us but we’d ignored it and our friendship had survived. Blaze was family to me and no matter how attracted I was to him; it wasn’t something I would ever act upon.

  But it didn’t mean I would allow myself to be tempted beyond my endurance. I could just imagine being in Hawaii. White, sandy beaches and the waves lapping at the shore. A sigh escaped my lips.

  “You know how women are,” Blaze said.

  Something sharp pierced at my chest. Blaze never considered me a woman. To him, I was one of the guys. I felt stupid to feel bad that I was one of the guys to him. It meant our friendship was safe.

  “They’ll misconstrue the invitation and make it out to be more than it is. Then of course, there’s my family. They’ll pester me with questions that I don’t want to answer.”

  Everything he said made sense.

  “Everything’s paid for Brooke. The flights, the beach condo. All you have to do is show up.” He turned to face me and then treated me to one of his jaw dropping, panty melting dimpled smiles.

  Having Blaze as my best friend was like being treated to a toothpaste ad, intermingled with an underwear ad, everyday. “I can’t take a week off work,” I said lamely. “I already took my vacation days.”

  “You have ten days remaining,” Blaze said. “I checked.”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised by that. As a head recruiter, Blaze was very thorough in his work and always did his homework. Being prepared all the time.

  That excuse had been my last line of defense.

  Guilt flooded me. I had refused to accompany Blaze to Hawaii when just a few minutes ago, I’d said how willing I was to do anything for him. I meant it too. But going to Hawaii would be a mistake. The end of our friendship. And knowing Blaze, if anything did happen between us, it would only ever be sex.

  That was just how he rolled. He loved women and he loved sex. He hated commitment. I really, really didn’t want to go. Besides, we had just bought a house. I was itching to get started on fixing it.

  “I hope this house is not what is stopping you from saying yes. It’s only a week. Work can continue while we are away.”

  He did sound convincing but I was determined. “I’ll make a deal with you,” I said, suddenly inspired by an idea. Something Blaze could not manage to do. “If you can go a month without sex, I’ll go with you.”

  He laughed. “Easy. Start packing your bags, Hot Sauce.”

  I was sure his confidence was fake. Blaze needed sex the way the rest of us needed oxygen to live. “Deal,” I said and we shook hands on it.

  We finished our lunch, locked up the house and took an Uber back to the office.

  “A penny for your thoughts?” Blaze asked me in the Uber. “You’re very quiet.”

  I smiled at him and said nothing. I felt pretty sure my thoughts would not only shock him, they would disgust him. I kept picturing him in a speedo with his package on display. Madness.

  Chapter Two

  Blaze

  “Home at last!” Brooke said and let herself fall on the unmade bed.

  My eyes roamed over her body, taking in the swell of her incredible breasts and the curve of her hips. She wore a short black skirt and my eyes seemed glued to the view of her creamy thighs. I managed to tear my eyes away but it was too late. I’d gotten hard, so I walked to the window and pretended to look at the view. It had been three weeks since that ridiculous bet with Brook. She’d actually thought I couldn’t survive a month without sex.

  Brooke was my best friend but she knew very little of my private life. Sure, I’d dated many women, but none had ever held my interest for long. I’d even gone out with women for more than two months and not slept with them. Unlike what Brooke believed, I didn’t jump into bed with every woman I dated. There had to be chemistry and some kind of connection. If it wasn’t there, I never bothered to go for the home run.

  I felt proud of the work we'd done on the house. In three weeks, we had managed to get the first-floor apartment renovated to livable standards and today was moving day for Brooke.

  If there was one smart thing I’d done in my life up to this point, was to have Brooke as my best friend. Because of her, I now owned a house. Debt free. Well, it needed a lot of work to make it habitable, but Brooke and I had decided to undertake most of the work ourselves, for the first floor apartment.

  Our bank accounts were crying now, so it was time to put on our aprons and get working. But we had Hawaii to enjoy first and I couldn’t wait.

  “Blaze, come and take a look. There’s a stain on the ceiling,” Brooke said.

  Thankfully, my cock had gotten the message that Brooke was my best friend, not some random girl I had picked up in a club.

  She lay in the same position and she patted the empty space beside her.

  I had no choice but to lie down next to her. “It’s a stain all right,” I said to her. We were both versed in DIY and I did small repairs in both our rented apartments. “Looks like too much moisture. At least, we know that it’s not structural. We’ll sort it out when we get back from Hawaii.”

  “I suppose I should concede defeat and start packing,” Brooke said in an exaggerated sigh.

  I turned to my side to face her. Big mistake. Her scent surrounded me and I found myself becoming hard again. I quickly shifted to my earlier position, facing the ceiling. I loved Brooke like a sister.

  At least that was what I told myself. It also wasn’t strictly true because I’d woken up in a cold sweat in the last couple of years after dreaming of Brooke and me having sex. Mind blowing sex. But those were dreams and I could not control what my fucked-up mind conjured up during the night.

  But I could control what my hands and my mouth did. And what they would not do was screw things up with Brooke. She was the sweetest, kindest human being I knew. A perfect best friend for a guy like me, more inclined to think of the now, rather than the future.

  Except I had moments when I believed Brooke was my soulmate and I was a fool for not dating her.

  “Do you want some help?” I asked her.

  “Not with the packing but you could help me choose,” Brooke said. “I bought some stuff online and I’m not too sure how appropriate they are.” She rose from the bed. “If I can find them that is.” Her bedroom looked a mess but that was expected on moving day.

  Boxes stood everywhere but in true Brooke fashion, they were all labelled with the rooms they were meant to be in. I felt excited too, about moving upstairs. I looked forward to living close to Brooke. It wasn’t enough that I saw her at work, it would be nice to see her at home too.

  But this was only because she was my best friend. The only woman—no, person who understood me and whom I understood. We were soulmates, Brooke and I.

  “Found it!” Brooke said and held up a brown bag. “I’ll go and change in the next room. Promise you’
ll give me your honest opinion. I don’t want to look like a fool in front of anyone.”

  “You would never look like a fool,” I told her.

  She smiled.

  Dammit, my heart skipped a beat. Brooke was all sweetness and sugar and everytime she dumped a guy, I usually went out to celebrate. She was smart and beautiful but she always picked losers for boyfriends. I wanted her to be happy but I didn’t want her to fall in love with some guy. I’d tried to be mature about it and think about the future. Brooke getting married. Brooke having a family with some guy. I hated the idea. She was my best friend and I wanted us to remain exactly as we were… unattached.

  Wishful thinking.

  She was beautiful and sooner or later, some guy would snatch her up. My heart pounded as I mulled it over. I didn’t want to lose Brooke to someone, yet I was frightened of rocking the boat. I’d always had a thing for Brooke. What normal functioning hot-blooded male wouldn’t? Built like a pinup model with curves for days and incredible looking breasts. A body that made me want to do dirty things to her.

  I had a problem and had known it for some time. I wanted Brooke. I always had. If it had been just sex, I would have continued as I always had, wanting her from a distance but respecting our friendship.