There is an odd mix of grooming products in here that suggest a child and a grown man are sharing this bathroom.
This is all too weird. I need to get out of here.
I creep down the stairs, past a wall of family photos I’m too uncomfortable to really look at. They seem like old ones, mostly black and white. I definitely hear and smell someone cooking, and fucking pray it’s Mason in the kitchen I’m clearly about to enter at the bottom of the stairs.
I may have enjoyed some wild nights out and messy mornings after as a twentysomething, but thirty years old just feelstooold to be wandering into someone’s kitchen with yesterday’s mascara on and no idea where I am.
And yet here I am, and that is definitelynotthe man I shared a bed with last night who’s making breakfast. This man is scooping juicy slices of back bacon out of a pan, his back to me, and I stop dead, just inside the sunlit, modern-farmhouse-style kitchen.
The smoky-sweet smell of the meat fills the air and my nostrils, and while I might be half-starved right now, I actually retch.
The stranger glances over his shoulder, sees me, and does not look at all shocked or startled to find a random, bleary-eyed woman retching in his kitchen. Nope. Hesmiles.
“You okay?”
“Uh, yeah. I’m very okay,” I lie. At least, I’m fairly sure I’m not about to actually throw up on the floor.
He smiles wider.
To my dismay, he’s objectively hot. Loose work jeans and a tight white tank top on an underwear-model body, tan skin, white teeth.Sexy scruff on his jaw glinting gold, blue eyes, shaggy blond hair. Sort of Jax Teller inSons of Anarchyvibes but without the tattoos, leather, and angst. And with a tea towel draped over one shoulder.
What the hell is in the water around here?
Or is it the cider? What’s responsible for this breed of men? David Attenborough really needs to make a documentary.
“Well, good morning—afternoon,” he corrects himself. “I’m Mason’s brother.”
Of course you are.
“He told me to expect you,” he adds, eyes sparkling.
I shuffle a little deeper into the room, unsure. Afternoon? Is he kidding? There’s a lot of sunshine coming off this man, above and beyond the light pouring through the windows behind him, so it’s hard to tell if he’s fucking with me or just being friendly.
He’s smilinga lot.
“Okay ...” I clear the frog from my throat, side-eyeing his natural glow with suspicion. “Are we sure you’re related to Mason?”
He laughs easily. “Pretty damn sure. I look like Mom, he looks like Dad, and I’ve been told by the ladies that we have identical asses.”
My face flushes as red as the tomato he’s now slicing as I do everything in my power not to look at his ass.
“I’m Layne,” he introduces himself.
Fuck me. Even his name is sexy. I’d call all my single girlfriends and tell them to come here, stat, if I had any.
And if I had a phone.
“Cool. I’m Sierra. Uh, what time is it, Layne?”
“Just past noon,” he says pleasantly. I watch as he constructs sandwiches—which I now realize are lunch and not breakfast—with the back bacon, plump basil leaves that look freshly plucked from a nearby garden, slices of that bright-red succulent tomato, and fresh, squishy-looking bakery bread, my stomach churning.“If you’re hungry, you’re welcome to join us. I’m just making lunch for—”
“Hi.” A young girl pops out of nowhere, startling the hell out of me.
“Shit.” I think she almost startled the puke right out of me. I press a hand to my mouth and swallow, hard.
She frowns. “Sorry.” She appears to be in early tweendom, with wavy dark hair almost to her waist and wide, dark eyes.
Which explains the Hermione toothbrush I glimpsed in the bathroom.
