And still, none of it prepared me for what I actually saw.
“Go introduce yourself. They’re fixing his motorcycle in the garage,” Dad had said when I got home that day.
And though Mom had staunchly planned to come with me, the dirty look she shot Dad wound up getting her caught in a whisper-fight with him, so as they bickered back and forth in the kitchen, I went alone to the garage, feeling my cheeks heat up at just the sound of clanking tools, low voices and boyish laughter.
Just be natural. Be cool, I coached myself on repeat.
But that plan bombed, because the second I opened the garage door, my eyes landed on abs.
Naked, rippling abs as Iain wiped the sweat off his brow with his dirty white T-shirt peeled halfway up his lean torso. His six-pack tightened and un-tightened before my eyes as he caught his breath from working or laughing or both.
Whatever it was, I was hypnotized.
And that was before he even let his shirt down and stunned me with those bright green eyes, that perfect bone structure, and for the love of God, that smile.
I remembered just standing there, squirming in my school uniform and wondering if this was what it was like to watch porn, because it was this instant tingling sensation. The most sudden and unexpected flood of wetness I’d ever felt in my life.
At least until now.
Fuck.
My heart stopped when my eyes found Iain on that upper floor.
He was in the back corner of the room with a large group of friends. No jacket. No tie. Just a white button-down with the sleeves pushed up on his muscled forearms, and the left pulling tight against his bicep as he lifted his glass in a toast. His expensive watch gleamed in my eyes when he took a drink of his neat whiskey, and his sexy dimple caught me off guard as he let out a laugh, saying something or another to easily command the focus of the group.
For God’s sake, he was fully clothed in public, yet everything about him screamed sex.
And power. And though I’d hated that about him the other night, tonight it was tantalizing, because I hadn’t seen him like this yet—in his element. Being smooth, professional, charming. Smiling for people the way he hadn’t for me.
It didn’t hurt either that he looked like a mix of Hollywood and royalty in that luxuriously crisp shirt that was so perfectly fitted to his long, tapered torso, and so starkly white that it served as almost a spotlight for those stupidly sexy, tanned forearms.
“Okay, so that man isn’t real,” Mia said, the both of us staring.
And I had to agree, because in a sea of professional athletes, Iain was still the sexiest by far. He was broad and built but lean, sculpted by the inch to such painstaking perfection that it made everyone around him look bulky, sloppy, and excessive.
Can’t even blame you, I thought as a pretty brunette went up to him, shamelessly boxing out his smirking friends to offer her hand along with a big, flirty smile.
“Oh, fuck that,” Mia said, nudging me urgently. “Well? What are we waiting for? Aren’t we going to get in there?”
I didn’t take my eyes off of Iain as I said, “We can’t.”
We might’ve been in VIP, but apparently VIP had its own VIP, and that was where Iain was—in a special section of the upper floor that was squared off by a bunch of huge, leather couches, and guarded at the entrance by a guy who didn’t give a crap about your special bracelet, since he was only letting in the truly important people whom he actually knew or at least recognized, greeting them with big smiles and those high-five-handshakes.
Mia cursed under her breath. “Well… at least try to get in his eye line!” she protested in a huff.
And though I had an excuse for her already lined up on my tongue, I didn’t use it, because my body had a mind of its own, and my heeled feet were already bringing me in a dazed auto-pilot toward Iain.
By the time I got close to him, he was excusing himself from the brunette, who was refusing to give up on him just yet. I watched her touch his arm and step closer, trying but failing to keep his attention as from the depths of the crowd, somebody called his name. It was the perfect out, so with a goodbye and a polite smile, Iain turned away from her.
But as soon as he did, he found himself facing me head-on from ten feet.
His smile faded as he immediately slowed his step, and I bit my lip as a flash of shock lit his green eyes. A thrill coursed through my body as I watched his eyebrows pull tight and his jaw tick with that signature look of displeasure.
Though it wasn’t just displeasure this time, it was surprise.
Astonishment.
I had him caught off guard in a way I’d never seen before in my life, and I reveled in it. Because for those two exhilarating seconds, I had the upper hand.