“Nah.” Wes drops his duffel on the floor. The camera bag he sets down more gently on the ottoman with a jaw-cracking yawn. “I sleep in my car all the time. This is fine. I’d rather get to the shop first thing so we can get back out there.”
“I’ll get ahold of my brother in the morning. I’m sure he can fit you in for the right price.”
Wes leans back into the couch and folds his arms behind his head in a move that not only shows off the flex of his biceps but the wide expanse of his chest. He doesn’t belong on my secondhand couch with its mismatched Costco throw blankets looking like that. At least he changed his shirt at some point so it’s no longer covered in blood smears.
“Price gouging to help the family business, are we?” Westakes off his hat and lets it fall to the side. His dark hair is just long enough for him to shove his fingers through.
Despite my efforts to not noticeanythingabout Wes tonight, I sure am noticing a whole lot. His easy manner isn’t faked. It’s more matter-of-fact, as though being taken advantage of financially is nothing new for him. And while the bitchy demon on my shoulder insists he can more than afford it, my more reasonable side winces at how often it must happen for him to react this way.
And what the hell has Wes been doing sleeping in his car?
“It’s my brother’s garage. I have nothing to do with it,” I feel the need to explain. My cheeks inexplicably heat when Wes’s attention once again settles firmly on me. “I’d text Eric now but he’s been asleep for hours. The garage opens at nine on Saturdays. I’ll set an alarm and try to get to him before he gets busy. There’s not much in the house, but help yourself to anything in the pantry if you’re up before me.”
Wes nods. “You mind if I grab a shower?”
The last thing my misplaced attraction needs is for him to be naked in my house on the other side of a flimsy wall from my bedroom, but we’re both covered in sweat and dust, never mind the flecks of dried blood along his hairline. “Of course.” I gesture down the hall and hope he doesn’t notice the squeak in my voice. “First door on the right.”
Wes pushes to his feet, taking his time with a long stretch. He’s so damn tall his fingertips graze the ceiling, not that my attention goes anywhere other than the sliver of tan skin exposed by his shirt riding up.
“You could always join me,” he drawls, mischief sparkingto life as his lips curl. “I know how much you hate wasting time. Much more efficient to shower together.”
I’ve never denied that Wes is attractive. He’s built like he chops wood for a living instead of running around the wilderness with his camera, and the combo of dark hair and tattoos is a weakness of mine.
But he’s also a swirling vortex of chaos. My life is chaotic enough.
I force myself to laugh in his face. It doesn’t have the intended effect.
Wes’s smirk only grows, but at least he doesn’t press the issue. “I’ll be quick.”
After grabbing a toiletry bag and some clean clothes, he slides by me. I stand there, rooted to the spot far longer than I want to admit, before I march myself off to the tiny linen closet to grab clean sheets for the couch.
It’s just one night. My brother will replace the windows tomorrow, and we’ll start the drive southeast in separate cars. I can survive less than twenty-four hours of Wes in my house.
Chapter Five
Turns out that showering afterWes, surrounded by hot, humid air smelling distinctly like him, isn’t a cure for insomnia. When my alarm goes off, I swear I’ve only just fallen asleep. My dreams were a hazy mix of images that fade before I even fully open my eyes, but the dampness between my thighs and the accompanying ache of unsatisfied desire linger.
Determined to ignore it, I grab the first thing my hand lands on in the closet—a dress—before the smell of fresh coffee lures me out of my bedroom, still finger-combing my tangled hair. I’m too tired to bother with anything else. The dress has a built-in bra that mostly keeps things contained, and I can get dressed properly after we drop Wes’s car off. It’s exactly the kind of dress my mother would labelsloppy, but it’s one of my favorites.
I’m texting my brother as I stumble into the kitchen, which means I hear the low noise Wes makes before I see him. It’s not the sort of noise that belongs in my kitchen, scraping over myskin in a deliciously feral way, and when I jerk my head up from my phone, there’s something wild in the way he’s staring at me.
My sleep-fogged brain struggles to processes what I’m seeing. Wes stands at my stove, frying bacon that I know for a fact was not anywhere in my house last night. Shirtless and barefoot, his jeans ride dangerously low on his hips, the ends of his hair curling and damp from another shower—which is about when I remember him giving me a hard time at the wedding over wearing a dress.
When his eyes dip to my chest and then lower, where the dress clings to my hips before swirling around my legs, heat crawls into my cheeks. “I didn’t put this on for you.”
“Didn’t say that you did.”
“I wear dresses all the time at home.”
“Your hair is longer than I thought,” Wes says before abruptly turning back to the stove. But not before I catch the faintest hint of color washing into his cheeks and the bird tattoos that spread across his upper chest and onto his left bicep.
I can’t think of a single time in all the years I’ve known him that I’ve seen Wesflustered.
Suddenly aware of the weight of the long waves of hair falling down my back, I fight the urge to twist it into a knot and instead study the vertical tattoo along his spine. My fingers itch to reach out and touch. The piece extends in a long column I’ve only caught glimpses of before disappearing into his waistband. I’m too far away to be sure, but they look like a random assortment of letters and numbers. “Just how many tattoos do you have?”
Wes turns his head slightly toward me, one eye still on thestove. “You asking for a little show-and-tell?” he teases with his usual innuendo.
I scoff and roll my eyes, grateful to be back on more familiar footing. “Hard pass.”
