Page 50 of Breaking All The Rules
“Well.” He smiled. “Do you need another reason?”
Oh God. She crossed to the sink, then leaned against it as she took a sip of wine, regarding him over the rim of the glass. If only it were that simple. Except, looking at him in this moment, it did seem simple. Or at least possible, anyway. Anything seemed possible with Austin. Including crossing that line she told herself she wouldn’t cross.
Sure, he was younger, but…sleeping with him wasn’t running away with him, was it? More than that, she was at least free to sleep with him—she wasn’t married and she didn’t have a kid or family responsibilities. And, as Austin had said, she was looking for something different to do.
Her situation was not the same as her mother’s situation had been, not at all. So why keep conflating it in her mind?
Bea’s gaze drifted to the way he held his body, the way he stood with his feet evenly spaced apart, the way his clothes fit, both hiding and sculpting the musculature beneath. The way his bulky utility belt sat low on his hips, emphasizing their narrowness and drawing attention to the flatness of his belly above…reigniting the question of that V below.
Frankly, it was a much better way to occupy her thoughts than anything to do with art.
“Beatriss?”
She blinked at the silkiness of his voice, dragging her eyes to meet his, gratified to find them glowing with the kind of heat that quickened in her veins. It was like being plunged into a thermal pool—heat and steam and the warm caress of water on her bare, aroused flesh. Flowing over her aching nipples, soothing and taunting between her legs. Also running down his chest and his abs and funneling lower to his groin, lapping that V she couldn’t stop fixating on.
“What on earth are you thinking?” he asked, his voice dark and low, vibrating between them.
It was plain, from his husky rumble, he knew her thoughts were carnal in nature, but saying them out loud was another thing entirely. “I…” She swallowed, caught between throwing out an easy lie and the temptation of the truth.
“Tell me.”
She cringed. “It’s…embarrassing.”
A small smile played on his mouth as he hooked both his thumbs in his belt. “C’mon, Beatriss. Deep breath. I thought you’d turned over a new leaf and were going to say whatever crossed your mind.”
Maybe it was the challenge he laid down—a clarion call to the new Beatrice. Maybe it was the wine, or bringing Princess to her, or the way he’d admired her sketch and simply said why not about her art when she’d told herself she can’t for as long as she could remember. Maybe it was those thumbs hooked low in exactly the spot she couldn’t stop thinking about. But the thoughts in her head suddenly became words and the pressure to utter them became too much.
“I was wondering if you had that V thing going on between your hips, you know…” She dropped her gaze to the area of his anatomy under discussion. “With the muscles there.”
Austin didn’t say a word as the smile hovering on his mouth faded. He didn’t do anything for a beat or two, either, just drew in a couple of deep, ragged breaths.
Then reached for his belt buckle.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Bea’s heart thumped like a gong as his utility belt hit the floor with a thud. Their gazes locked and her throat went as dry as the Santa Anas in September. He reached for the top button of his shirt and flicked it open before descending to the next and the next.
Oh God, oh God, oh God.
How could she be standing so still and yet her body be in such an uproar? Everything heating and blooming and freaking melting. Bea was so damn hot, she wanted to tear her own clothes off.
Inch by glorious inch, Austin’s chest was revealed. Smooth for the most part, except for a sprinkling of light-brown hair over his pecs and around his nipples. A smattering headed southward, too—down, down, down—to his belly button and down again, arrowing into a single trail until the low-slung band of his pants cut off her view. He tugged his shirttails out, then shrugged out of the garment and tossed it on the floor next to his utility belt.
And now that she could see the whole, her throat went as dry as the freaking Mojave.
A shirtless Austin was something to behold. Acres of smooth golden skin, broad shoulders, and well-defined pecs. Prominent collarbones and that shallow little hollow where the two met. Easily traceable ribs and the dips in between. A ladder of slightly puckered abs bisected by just the right amount of hair.
And yep, there it was. Holy Adonis, Batman. V for victory. V for vice.
V for va-va-voom.
Oh, he wasn’t cut like a lot of guys who pranced around certain LA muscle beaches, and while his pants were sitting quite low on his hips, she couldn’t see what was below, but what she could see showed some muscular delineation going on between the hard ridges of his hips. And it was magnificent.
“So…” She dragged her eyes back to his face to meet his gaze. God, even her eyes felt hot, like they were boiling in their sockets. “That’s a yes, then.” Bea took a giant slug of wine. “You…work out?”
He teamed a slow, lazy smile with a slow, lazy shake of his head. “Ranch work is all.”
“Well…whatever you’re doing…” She flicked her gaze down again for another slow tour of his chest and abs. “It’s working.”
