Lord Have Mercy (Southern Gentleman 2)

“They don’t not like you,” Raleigh rolled her eyes. “You’re beautiful, smart, and funny. What’s not to love?”

“Obviously everything,” I muttered darkly, studying the front door. “Why are all the windows tinted? I feel like I should be able to see what I’m about to walk into.”

“I have no idea,” she admitted. “But the cross on the door is kind of cool.”

“The cross on the door looks like an ‘X,’ and it kind of reminds me of ‘X marks the spot’ as in the spot I’m about to die,” I countered.

She snorted. “Come on,” she pushed. “Please?”

“Fine,” I paused. “But I want some of your cookies. Tomorrow. Bring them to school.”

“No!” she said. “If I make cookies, then I’m gonna want to eat them!”

I narrowed my eyes and gave her the ultimatum.

“Either bring the cookies, or I’m leaving,” I ordered, lips thinning.

“I refuse.” She was wavering. I could tell. I wanted to laugh at the indecision I saw in her eyes. “No.”

“I’m not doing this then,” I told Raleigh. “I refuse.”

She’d just opened her mouth, I assumed to give in when an annoyingly patronizing voice called out from behind me.

“Can’t hack it, Presley?” a condescending voice said from behind me.

I gritted my teeth and turned, finding Flint standing there staring at me with humor-filled eyes.

I ran my tongue over my teeth, trying to find something to say that didn’t have ‘fuck’ and ‘you’ put together.

And goddamn, what the fuck was he wearing?

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. At least not to normal people.

But to me, who found this guy incredibly sexy when his body was covered, it was pure fucking torture to see him so uncovered.

He had on black athletic shorts that fit him so tight I could make out every curve of protruding muscle—and that included the length of his dick—that was beneath them.

His shirt was black as well and said CrossFit Gun Barrel on it in large white letters. And although the letters were blindingly white, I couldn’t peel my eyes away from how tight the shirt was on his biceps—which were massive.

And his arms—no longer covered up by the black sleeves I almost always saw him wearing—showed off an impressive array of tattoos that made my heart thump hard.

Oh, God. I was such a sucker for tattoos.

Not that my mother and father would have ever let me have them. So instead of expressing myself with tattoos of my own—because it had never been worth it to listen to my mother bitch for four hours straight about how she went wrong in life when it came to raising me—I admired other peoples’ tattoos from afar.

Not to mention they kind of made me weak in the knees. Adding his muscular arms, with his popping out veins that drove women wild? Yeah, I was a goner.

“I’m not an athletic person,” I finally decided on. “I haven’t ever been good at working out.”

In fact, I was so not good at it that I could barely freakin’ walk, let alone do actual movements with weights.

“Does that translate to ‘you’re a quitter’?” he suggested.

I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not a quitter.”

He huh-ed.

“Could’ve fooled me.” He shrugged.

Then he walked away, leaving me standing there with Raleigh.

“Come on,” she said. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Raleigh,” Croft called, holding out a bottle of water. “You need this?”

Raleigh patted me on the back and then hurried to her brother, who was holding a single water bottle. I pursed my lips, trying to decide if I was offended that he hadn’t offered me one, or happy.

I mean, if I didn’t have water, I couldn’t work out, could I?

Then a water was tossed at me, and I caught it out of reflex more than skill, causing me to glare at the man that’d done the tossing.

“Water. Now you’re good to go,” Flint said sarcastically.

I placed the water on the bench that I happened to be standing next to and sat down to retie my shoes. You could say things were getting serious for me.

Once I tied my shoes, Raleigh was back and standing next to me while she sipped cautiously from her bottle of water. Her brother stopped at her side and didn’t spare me a glance.

But that was okay, because for once, my attention wasn’t entirely focused on Croft. It was focused on the asshole currently stripping his shirt off and tossing it next to a set of keys, a wallet, and a phone in the corner.

I nearly moaned audibly when I saw the tattoos covering the sexy back. Then he turned, and I did moan. Because the back, although beautifully sexy, was nothing compared to the front.

He had the V. The goddamn V that started just above his waistline and traveled down into the waistband of his knit goddamn shorts.

He also had an impressive set of abs that made certain parts of my anatomy start to contract with anticipation.