Page 258 of Handsome Devil
Fuck, he’s coming over here.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
Where the fuck was my helmet? I grabbed it off the desk and slammed it on.Ouch.
Had he noticed me yet?
Was I going to cry?
Maybe not, but I really couldn’t take the risk.
He was partying.
He’d come back to Vancouver… to party. Half-naked.
Did it not occur to him that I might be here? Did he not run into Jesse or Katie or anyone else who knew me at this party?
Did it not occur to him that I might’ve worried about him for the last four weeks straight? That maybe I’d want to know that he was back?
Did he not want to talk to me?
Did he not think we had some shit to talk about??
He walked right up to the coat check desk and pressed his hands to it, leaning. He almost looked in the eyeholes of my helmet, but his eyes skipped right past mine.
He didn’t look at me, or at anyone. Or at anything. Which was when I realized he was hammered.
“I, uh, can’t find my coat check… ticket… thing,” he announced.
“Uh… you really need your ticket stub,” Talia informed him.
He started digging through the pockets of his suit pants. Front, then back. And each time he burrowed his hands into his pockets, all his upper body muscles rippled and flexed under his naked skin. I could feel the brain cells dying off in my head, voluntarily taking one for the team as they sacrificed themselves.
Nope. Never beenthatstupid.
I was not just going to throw myself into the arms of some jackass who married me but didn’t love me, then took off on me. As happy as I was to see him so marvelously alive and in one piece, I was really trying to be mad at him right now.
My gaze drifted down.
The belt was just barely keeping his pants on.
I swallowed the saliva that had suddenly pooled in my mouth and looked away. I glanced at Roni, who met my eyes but said nothing. Talia’s mouth was kinda dangling open. I had no idea if they even recognized that this man was my… whatever he was.
He dumped a handful of stuff on the counter and I resumed staring. Valet stubs, cash, a whole lot of credit cards in shades of platinum and gold. And yes, I could see why Talia was agape.
The granite jaw. The broad shoulders. The thick, silky-looking, dark-blond hair. Kind of light brown, with a soft-gold sheen in the natural highlights. It looked blonder, actually, than it usually did. He looked more tanned.
Wherever he’d been, it was sunny.
My eyes trailed down the solid arms… veiny but not too veiny. The strong hands, manicured.
Definitely manscaped down below. I’d seen that up close.
Many times.
I tried not to look that low.
His chest, as usual, was shaved, but not glossy-smooth. There was a little stubble scattered across his pecs, like he cared about such things but not enough to make it perfect. And no one was gonna kick him out of bed for it.
