This was what I get for signing on with the same agent as my brothers. Even more guilt than I’m already carrying over my decision. But I know it’s one that has to be made.
I text back, “yeah I’m sure” and put my phone away just as Nico enters the living room. He’s walking hand in hand with Goldie like she’s his high school sweetheart, not somebody he met two seconds ago.
The sight of them should disgust me. I take privacy and security very seriously, and them welcoming Goldie into our sanctuary pisses me off. But what Goldie’s wearing is even worse than that.
One of my Death Buddha concert shirts.
“What the hell is she doing wearing my shirt?” I demand. My voice is tight. Not just because she’s wearing my shit without permission. But also because of the sudden eruption inside my jeans. I swear my dick bangs into my zipper, it gets so hard so fast.
Nico smirks. “Oh, is that one of your shirts. I just grabbed the first one I found in Mitch’s room.”
I grit my jaw. Yeah, I keep half a bureau in Mitch’s room. But I don’t believe for a second Nico gave Goldie my shirt by mistake.
Every man is aware that there is nothing fucking sexier than the sight of a hot woman wearing your t-shirt. Saint Nic probably gave her my favorite tee on purpose in the hopes I would suddenly be okay with his and Mitch’s plan to keep her here.
Goldie looks between us, her pretty brown eyes big and wide. “Is this your shirt? I’m sorry. I’ll…I’ll take it off.”
Great, now I’ve got the image of her stripping out of my t-shirt planted in my head. This damn woman acts way too innocent for somebody who offered to sleep with us for money last night. It makes me want to punish her, which downloads more images I don’t need into my mind.
“I’m going to the shed. You two can fix the window she broke yourselves,” I grit out to Nico and Mitch.
Then I stomp off before either of them can protest. I feel bad about abandoning them when we were supposed to be bringing the supplies upstairs today to start our second floor project. But Mitch and Nico don’t get much work done that morning anyway. They’re too busy showing Goldie around our property like she’s royalty they invited over for tea, not some damn home invader we found in Nico’s bed last night.
Last year when we renovated the cabin, we tore off the roof, installed concrete pillars, and framed out a second story. It was my idea to make the entire rear wall floor to ceiling windows. That way, we could enjoy the view of the old pot fields, the lake, and the forest behind the house. Big mistake. When I come into the kitchen to make myself a couple of sandwiches for lunch, it’s too easy to see Goldie walking back through the old pot fields with Nico and Mitch on either side of her.
She’s wearing Nico’s Wisconsin Bears coat again, and her hair’s down now, tumbling in soft golden waves to her waist. Damn if she doesn’t look like the radiant brown version of those country songs Mitch likes so much with the lake and forest framing her from behind.
The hours I spent closed up in my shed don’t matter one damn bit. I’m hard again as if only a few seconds have passed since now and when I saw her last.
“Hey Jeb, you still got that book on farmsteading you wanted us to read?” Mitch asks when he comes in after holding the door open for Goldie.
“Yeah, why?”
“I was hoping I could flip through it,” Goldie answers, peeping up at me. She’s got to be lying about being a former stripper or just really good at playing on the shy hottie fantasy. Either way, I don’t like the effect her nervous glance has on me.
“Nico and Mitch mentioned you’d been wanting to turn the old pot field into a food garden. And I was thinking since y’all are going to be so busy this week, putting in the second floor of the house, maybe I’d work on it.”
So now she’s expecting me to believe she’s a hot girl, willing to have sex with us for money, and she’s not afraid to get dirty with some hard farm work?
Yeah, right. I glance at the cutesy yellow wedges she’s wearing in the middle of the goddamn forest and inform her, “Ground’s frozen. You won’t be able to plant anything out there until late April at the soonest.”
She frowns, but then she comes back with, “Could I maybe start a few things in pots? I noticed y’all are getting plenty of sun through those gorgeous two-story windows at the back of the house. I bet with watering and love, we could get some vegetables going indoors, then you could transplant them outside in April.”