The Best Men (The Best Men 1)

And a pool in between that’s bigger than my New York apartment.

I’m itching to jump in the water that practically glitters under the sun. I head for the sliding glass door and step onto the mosaic tiles that surround the pool. Beyond that, I catalogue the terrace?where the air-conditioned wedding tent will go?and the emerald-green lawn that stretches into the distance.

Then my eyes stray to something I didn’t notice before. At the edge of the pool sits a little cottage. “Oh. Nice pool house,” I say, turning to Asher.

He’s watching me. No, he’s staring at me. Yet he doesn’t seem to have heard. “St. James? Hello? Did the zombies get you?”

Asher blinks. “Sorry, what?”

I point outside. “Is that a pool house?”

“Not exactly. It’s a guest house. That’s where we’re staying.”

My gaze snaps back to the guest house. Suddenly, my brain is a computer server that just overheated. Warning signs flash on my personal dashboard.

He did not just say that. There is no way he said that. That cottage is maybe ten square feet. Not literally, but it might as well be. There’s no way my desire for him can fit inside it. With him.

Best to double check. “We are?” I croak out.

With his thumbs hooked into his shorts pockets, he rocks back on his heels, and just nods. “We are.”

Newsflash: Getting through the next few days is going to be too hard.

In every sense of the word.

10

MAYBE IT’S THE POLO SHIRTS

ASHER

Mark spins around, and something like wild fear flashes in his blue eyes. “But . . . this is a goddamn mansion. Why would we stay out there?” The question comes out with no space between the words as he gestures wildly toward the guest house.

But I’m having a mental breakdown of my own. For the last three minutes I’ve been trying to get used to a shocking new idea.

Mark Banks is hot for me.

I don’t know how I missed it before. Maybe it’s because I don’t know him that well. I hadn’t learned to read his particular brand of stammers and scowls. And long, lingering stares.

Or maybe it’s the assumption I made about his marriage to a woman.

Actually, maybe it’s the polo shirts.

Or prescription sunglasses.

But there’s no mistaking what just happened outside in the car. When I invaded his personal space, he shivered like a teen girl watching the Twilight movies. His eyes dilated. His breath hitched.

I am shook.

And now he’s waiting for me to answer him. Those unhappy blue eyes are pinched behind his sexy, hot-nerd-style glasses.

Wait. What was the question? Oh, right. “That whole wing in the mansion is reserved for your parents, Flip’s parents, and the bride and groom. Some of your sister’s college friends too,” I say, my voice clipped.

Maybe I sound like a dick right now, but my head is too busy exploding. I need a moment to gather my thoughts. So, bag in tow, I walk off, circling the edge of the pool.

I head to the guest house, unlock the door, and immediately claim the larger bedroom.

He’d expect me to, right? Mark thinks I’m an arrogant fuck.

Or, wait. I honestly don’t know what Mark thinks of me. His attitude suddenly hits me in a completely different light.

He wants me. And he’s struggling with it.

I sit down on the edge of the bed and try to think. I don’t have any sexual hang-ups. I’m thirty years old, and I’ve been gleefully, and successfully, chasing men for half my life.

But not everyone is me. And I don’t just mean that they don’t have my looks or my athleticism. Not everyone is comfortable with all the things they want.

If there’s one thing I know, it’s that Mark is not comfortable with his attraction to me. It could be that he’s curious and inexperienced. It could be that he isn’t out. Or maybe it’s neither of those things, and he just finds it inconvenient to lust after the best friend of the guy his sister is marrying.

This doesn’t change anything, right? Who cares if he gets stirred up every time I get close to him?

I rise from the bed, flip my suitcase open, and head into the bathroom to brush my teeth. This doesn’t matter. It isn’t important to the next four days.

When I look in the mirror over the sink, though, I see my own flushed face staring back at me. Evidence that I kind of dig the hot nerd vibe Mark has going on.

But we’re in Miami, where everything is sultry.

We’re together in this tiny house that suddenly feels even tinier.

We’re alone on this gorgeous property.

I’ve got to keep my mind off Mark’s attraction. I can’t dwell on the way his pulse throbbed at his throat when I got a little too close to him.

And I sure as hell can’t spend time wondering what it would be like to peel that polo shirt off him and put my tongue all over that lean chest.