Directly into the face of the coffee-dampened stranger.
Same flannel. Same pecs. Same beard-stubbled chin.
He’d circled around behind me to grab napkins from the counter.
I froze, mouth agape, staring at the dripping face of the most devastatingly handsome man I’d ever assaulted with bodily fluids. Droplets of coffee and moonshine slid down his chiseled jaw, collecting in the stubble of his beard before falling onto his now drenched flannel shirt. His blue eyes, the color of a high mountain lake, narrowed into dangerous slits. His broad shoulders tensed, their girth suggesting a personal relationship with chopping wood.
“I … um …” Mortification washed over me in waves hot enough to rival the coffee.
“I see you’ve met Samantha.” Brie came to the rescue with a stack of napkins, eyes wide with the kind of fascinated horror usually reserved forLove Islandeliminations. She dabbed over the man’s face and chest.
“My friends call me, Sam.”
“Samantha.” Mountain Man said my name like a curse. Coffee dripped from his nose.
Brie strategically placed her body between us, reaching over to snatch another fistful of napkins from the counter. “Sam, this is Noah. Noah Barrett. He’s my brother.”
Chapter Five
Brie’s brother,Noah Barrett, and I stared at each other for a solid thirty-seven seconds without blinking while Brie sopped up the spills. Eventually, she had to step away to grab more napkins, leaving the two of us alone.
Still staring.
Not blinking.
With a mind of their own, my eyes took a scenic detour over his perfectly shaped lips, framed by that stubbled jaw carved out of mountain granite. Even wrapped in flannel, I could tell his biceps were roughly the same size as my thighs.
“Is there anything else you’d like to spit on me?” Noah asked, his voice low and controlled. A muscle in his jaw twitched. The rhythm of it was so precise I wondered if it was practicing Morse code.
“I’m so sorry.”
I gave him a smile.
He gave me a frown.
“I thought that was water.” I glanced down at the empty glass clutched in my hand like a smoking gun. “It wasn’t water.Can I at least get you a drink to make it up to you?” I asked. “On me, of course. As opposed to the first one, which was on you. Get it?Onyou. As in …” I gestured to his wet clothes.
I gave him another smile.
He gave me another frown.
Brie returned with more napkins and looked at me as if I’d just kicked a hornet’s nest barefooted, then punched a moose in the balls.
“Sam just came in from Los Angeles,” said Brie extra cheerfully, trying to change the subject.
“Los Angeles?” Finally, Noah blinked. “Wait … did LuxeLife send you?” He said the word LuxeLife as if it were a rancid lemon on his tongue.
“LuxeLife! Yes!” I held my breath as his impossibly blue eyes cataloged every inch of me. “I was just grabbing a coffee while I waited for my uniformed chauffeur. You haven’t seen anyone in a black suit holding up a little sign that says ‘Samantha,’ have you?”
“You mean like this?” Noah reached into the back pocket of his faded blue jeans, then pulled out a wad of tattered paper. He unfolded it to reveal a name.
My name.
“Samantha” was handwritten in black marker
“Shit.” I didn’t mean to say it out loud.
Staring at my wrinkled name on the crumpled paper, I immediately noticed two things. The first thing was Noah’s hands. They had the texture of artisanal leather, aged in a barrel of distilled testosterone for twenty years. There were scrapes on his knuckles and a bruise on his thumb.
