He’s shirtless, wearing just a pair of loose, dangerously low-slung pajama pants and a damn cowboy hat, and lounging in a deck chair with his hands laced behind his head.
I swallow quickly, my eyes following the lines of his ink across his sculpted chest and torso.
And then he smiles at me - that damn smile, the one I’ve just been convincing myself I’m utterly and completely immune to.
Lies.
This won’t be fine at all.
15
Natalie
My entire internal argument from seconds ago blows away like dust with the ridiculously put-together man stretched out in the patio chair in front of me. My eyes immediately drop from his smirking face to his absurdly perfect tattooed physique - to the hard, chiseled lines of his chest and the washboard grooves of his abs, to the tantalizing lines of his hips curving into the waist of his pajama pants.
I swallow quickly and drag my eyes back up to his face, only to see him smirking at me. I blush, tightening the tie around my waist and reaching up with a hand to close it at the neck.
“Drink?” he nods at the bottle of red wine sitting on the patio table by his feet, and I grimace.
“Yeah, hard pass. I think I finally just soaked the last of last night out of my system.”
“Little hair of the dog,” he says with a shrug, taking a sip of the wine. “It’s actually helping believe it or not.”
I make a cringe face.
He grins. “Better than fucking Gatorade, I’ll tell you-”
“We need to talk about my payment schedule.”
He arches a brow, as his mouth closes into a grin, putting down the glass of wine in his hand. “Yeah, I thought I’d just cut you a check or something?” he frowns. “Do you take checks?”
I raise a single brow and give him a look. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t realize how hooker-ish that would sound before you said it.”
Austin chuckles.
“And yes, I take checks, I’m not a stripper.”
“Well I hope not.” He grins as his eyes drop to my robe. “Because if you are, I think I’m getting ripped off.”
I roll my eyes at him. “Look, I’m bringing it up because I need to buy clothes if I’m going to be living here.”
“I mean, if you’re worried about offending Buckley and me, he and I have a pretty loose rule when it comes to pants in this house anyways.”
“That’s really helpful, thanks,” I deadpan.
He flashes that cowboy smile at me. “I’ll set you up tomorrow so you can get some stuff. Cool?”
“Thanks.”
He nods with his chin at the chair next to him. “You want to pull up a stool and sit a spell?” That honeyed Texan twang oozes from his lips, only magnified by the ten gallon hat on his head.
No, you don’t want to do that. You want to go to bed, the voice in my head screams.
I’m wearing a thigh-length robe with nothing underneath it. And the man I drunkenly kissed in an elevator, and then drunkenly made out with in a club, and then blackout drunk married in Vegas before waking up naked next to is sitting there in sinfully low-slung pajama pants and no shirt.
Offering me a drink.
Such a terrible idea. Such a very, very very terrible-
“Sure.”
You’re an idiot.
I cram the voice inside of me into a corner as I pull my robe tight and sit back in the chair next to Austin.
He sighs as he takes another sip of wine. “I’m a cheap beer kinda guy, but the house actually came with a cellar-full of this stuff, and let me tell you, it’s fucking delicious.”
My brow shoots up when I glance down at the label. “Wow, nice.”
“I know, right? Who knew wine could taste good?”
“Austin, that’s a 1982 Chateau Lafite.”
“A what?” Austin raises a brow at me as he takes a $500 mouthful of wine.
I shake my head. “You don’t know much about wine, do you?”
He shrugs. “I know it’s killing my hangover right now. Why, do you?”
“I know that’s a four-thousand dollar bottle of wine you’re drinking.”
Austin’s brow shoots up as he holds the glass up in front of his gaze and whistles before he turns back to me with a questioning look. “Okay, explain how the hell you know that.”
I shrug. “My father used to keep some bottles around the house.”
He gives me a puzzled look. “I thought you were broke?”
“I never said I was broke, I just…”
“Don’t have any money?”
I look up and frown at the grinning Austin. “Something like that.”
“But your Dad drinks four-thousand dollar wine?” He snorts. “I think I got hustled.”