Nothing expensive, nothing fancy, but comfortable, cozy, homey.
At the other end of the hallway from the great room was a doorway, which I assumed led downstairs. The great room was empty, so I assumed Sebastian and his brother were downstairs. Heart thudding, I descended the narrow staircase, pushed through the door at the bottom, emerged inside the bar next to the kitchen—
And into a tense, frozen tableau.
Sebastian was wearing a pair of faded, ripped blue jeans and a plain white V-neck T-shirt, which was in no way equal to the task of containing his muscular bulk or hiding his tattoos. I could actually see a lot more of the tats now that he was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, the sleeves of which stopped just above the bulge of his biceps and looked to be so stretched I was worried the stitching was going to pop. It was also stretched across his shoulders and chest, highlighting the breadth and width of his torso, and then draped down to cling to his slim waist.
He was also barefoot and, holy mother of fuck, what was it about a man who was barefoot in blue jeans? So cliché, I know, but shit, it was so goddamn hot.
The tats, though. I actually licked my lips, looking at them. Each image was distinct yet bled and merged with the others on each arm, extending across the back of his shoulders and down each arm. There were a lot of totems, animals, skulls, playing cards, pop culture images twisted somehow into a whole menagerie of images with their own stories.
Facing Sebastian was another man, this one a little shorter than Sebastian by maybe three or four inches, making him about six feet to Sebastian’s six-four, but Jeeeeesus and holy hell, the man was built. I mean Sebastian was ripped, but this man…god, he was on a whole other level of massive. He had the same essential build—broad shoulders, a wide chest, tapered waist—but this other man took the image and ran wild with it. Arms thicker even than Sebastian’s, nearly as thick as my thighs, a chest you could use as an anvil, the man was just…insanely muscled. Yet it still wasn’t bodybuilder bulk…he was lean, hard. Everything about him just screamed DANGER. His head was shaved to the scalp on the sides and had only a thin scruff of brown fuzz on top. He had only one tattoo that I could see, a screaming eagle on his left biceps, the eagle clutching a trident in one talon and a flintlock pistol in the other, with an anchor superimposed in front of it. I recognized the logo, but it took me a minute to put it together; Sebastian’s note had said his brother Zane had spent the last few years “pretending to be a badass.” The logo was that of the US Navy SEALs.
Damn. Probably not “pretending” to be a badass then, I’d guess.
Sebastian had also said Zane would be the “ugliest motherfucker” I’d ever seen, yet, powerhouse warrior’s physique aside, Zane was every bit as sexy as Sebastian. Craggy cliff-side jawline, deep-set dark eyes, high cheekbones, a wide expressive mouth… Yeah, Zane Badd was fucking hot as hell. But where Sebastian was hard, gruff, and rough looking yet with an intoxicating patina of warmth and charisma, Zane just looked…scary. His eyes were cold, dark, wild. Sebastian had that same wildness in his gaze, but Zane’s eyes were just flat out icy. The man had seen and done some truly hellish things in his life, and it bled into his overall aura.
Neither man had seen me yet. They were standing face to face in the middle of the bar, a few scant inches between their massive chests, eyes blazing, fists clenched; they were both pissed. Close to blows, it looked like, to me.
“I had no fuckin’ clue Dad was gonna put any of that shit in his will, Zane! How the fuck could I? I didn’t even know he had a goddamn will, much less that he’d been having heart trouble. He just up and died, in the middle of a shift. He was dead before he hit the fuckin’ floor, and I didn’t hear shit about the will until yesterday. So don’t come barging in here acting like I knew something you didn’t.”
“That rat of a lawyer faxed me a copy of the will, Bast. You got ten grand none of us got. Explain that shit, then.”
Sebastian seemed to be seconds from blowing his top and attacking his brother. Who, from the looks of it, was every bit as close to going in after Sebastian in turn. And given the absurd size and power of both men, I wasn’t sure this bar would survive if they started fighting.
But what was I going to do? I was half their size, didn’t know either of them, and was intruding on a clearly personal argument.
“If you saw the will, and if you saw I got that ten grand—which I haven’t seen a fuckin’ dime of, by the way—then you saw what Dad said in his will. Because I was always the one to step in around here. I took over the kitchen when Mom died. I took over the paperwork so Dad could semi-retire. I ran this place, Zane. Me. All of you guys ran off to chase your dreams and I stayed here to run the bar with Dad. Nobody even asked if that’s what I wanted. So then Dad gave me a few extra bucks as a minor reward or some shit, and you’ve got the balls to act jealous? Fuck…you.”