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Because she’s an angel, sent from God to be way too fucking good to me, that’s why.And now I feel like a total asshole for sleeping straight through my first day with her.
Scooting to the edge of the bed, I wipe my hands over my face and attempt to rub the sleep from my eyes, but it feels like it’s settled into my bones somehow. It’s late, but I’m not sure I could go back to bed at this point. After…shit,nearly eighteen hours of sleep? But the shower is running, which means Addy must still be up.
I climb out of bed and walk out into the hallway a few minutes after I hear the water shut off.
The bathroom door opens just as I’m stepping up to it, and I smack into a wall of tattooed muscle. Rows of toned abs and a low-slung towel folded above an impressive—“Ahem,”the wallof muscle clears its throat. I drag my eyes upward into a pair of stormy gray eyes.
My breath hitches. Gets stuck somewhere in my…somewhere,my mind trails off, getting lost in the storm. Looking into this guy’s eyes is like looking directly into the chaos of a hurricane. So much happening within them that I’m sure if he pulled me in, I’d drown completely.
Holy shit.I take a step back.
He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t move. He just stares at me, so I stare right back, because I just woke up like three minutes ago and my brain isn’t functioning at full capacity—and it’s late, and it’s dark, andholy fucking shitthis guy is beautiful. Sharp jawline, full lips, pierced nose. Tattoos that span across his entire torso—his toned stomach and his sculpted chest—and climb all the way up his neck, stopping right at that perfect, chiseled jawline.
I drag my eyes back down his body, wondering just how far past the towel they go. When my gaze reaches his legs, I see that they’re covered in black and gray, too. All the way down to his bare feet pressed against the wooden floor.
He clears his throat again. “You mind letting me by?” There’s the smallest trace of an accent in his words, but I can’t place where it’s from though it feels oddly familiar.
Who is this guy? And where the hell did he come from?And what did he say? Let him by? By what? I pull my gaze away from him and realize I’m standing in the middle of the doorway, blocking his exit.Duh.I feel my blush all the way down to my toes.
Stepping backward, out of the doorframe and back out into the hall, I stumble over my words. “Um—sorry.” I shake my head. “About that.”
He doesn’t make a move, doesn’t acknowledge what I’ve said, and now I’m not even sure the words came out of my mouth.He’s a towering statue of quiet and calm, but when his eyes meet mine again, he cracks just the hint of a smirk, and my insides feel like chaos.
Heart racing, stomach trembling.
Does he belong to Addy?
The thought puts a sour taste in my mouth.
My lips part as I take in a shallow breath, trying to make sense of my muddled thoughts. I don’t know if it’s from the lack of sleep, or from how much I’ve overslept, but I think I might be dreaming. This guy is too…everythingto be real.
“Addy’s friend?” he asks, and I nod, my gaze locked onto his. He pauses for a long, heightened moment, and then he breathes out a grunt. “Night,” he says, and he stalks off without another word.
And…What?
______
When I wake the next morning, I register three things in short succession.
First, the familiar smell of Stacy’s famous brioche French toast wafting upstairs. A wave of nostalgia crashes over me, sweeping me up in its hold—all the memories of sitting in the Masons’ kitchen eating the same meal flooding through me. A feeling of home I get to live inside of for a few weeks every summer.
Second, I’ve been here for a day and a half now and I still haven’t seen Addy since the night I got here. I need to rectify that asap.
And third, the sound of grunts and hard body hits making their way through the cracked-open window in my guest room. I come to a stand and throw my arms up above me in a stretch, yawning wide as I make my way over to the windowpane. It doesn’t take much of a scan of her backyard to spot the twodozen or so football players running scrimmages in the field just past the horse stables.
I lower myself down onto the ledge of the windowsill and make myself comfortable, getting lost in the view. There’s something hypnotizing about it—the formation of athletes, the ruggedness and masculinity of it all—hard bodies, skill, and aggression.
Maybe the guy I crashed into last night and gawked at like he was my last meal on death row wasn’t a dream apparition after all, but an actual, live human wrapped up in gear and throwing himself around on that field down there. Or… maybe it didn’t happen, and itwasa dream. Thirty-six hours without sleep, and then sleeping eighteen hours on top of that, can do that to a person. Make them see things in the dead of night that aren’t there. Even if those things are a walking, hardly talking, tattooed wet dream.
Logic says it’s the former.
I wonder which one of those guys down there is him. I try to spot two full sleeves of tattoos out on the field, but I can’t really tell what’s what from up here. Still, I could sit here all day watching. A bunch of fit men in football gear, and the way that gear hugs certain areas to perfection? Yeah, I could watch this all-damn day.
“Caught you looking,” Addy says from behind me, and I jump about a mile high, making it impossible not to look guilty as hell. My cheeks are flaming even though I know she’s not judging me for it, proven when she sidles up to the window next to me and makes an appreciative sound of her own.
I snort out a laugh as I come to a stand, walk over to my suitcase sitting on the floor at the corner of the room, and zip it open, plucking some black jeans and a white tee and fresh pair of underwear from it. “I’m going to go shower and change,” I say,spinning around to face Addy again as I reach the door. “But I’m torn about something,” I tack on.
“What’s that?” she asks, turning away from the impressive view.