Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I’d worn my “nicest” flannel today, but suddenly it felt more than a little lackluster. I glanced down at one sleeve, noticing a green stain from when Maddy and I had painted her room over the weekend.
Fuck it. It made me so happy to have my daughter back under my roof more often that I didn’t give a shit if my shirt was stained. These people had hired me to renovate a guest house, not to look like a fashion plate.
Vivienne introduced me to the people in the backyard. The first guy was Kace’s personal chef, hard at work grilling up multiple steaks. The personal chef had his own assistant, and then there was also a head gardener, two members of Kace’s security staff, his publicist, and his physical therapist.
“You’d think Kace Tomlin was royalty,” I told them. “Talk about an entourage. You all are here every day?”
His personal chef flipped one of the mouthwatering steaks over on the shiny grill. “Not all of us. Kace just got back from a long trip, so we had an all-hands meeting this morning. I’m Benny. Nice to meet you.”
I said hello before sitting down on one of the poolside chairs, idly listening to his team talk for a couple of minutes.
When a big, wooden door across from the hot tubs swung open, I glanced over.
And my eyes were drawn like a magnet to none other than Kace Tomlin himself, in the flesh.
Lots and lots of flesh.
And if I’d felt old before, I sure as hell felt even older, now. I had a good body for my age, but Kace…
He looked even better than he did in photos. He was tall, with tan skin and perfectly sculpted muscles. He reached up to run his fingers through his dark blond hair, which was currently still a little wet, sticking up in all sorts of directions. I’d never understood why people got starstruck, and I’d always said that celebrities were just people, too.
But Kace Tomlin looked superhuman. There was no doubt about it.
He was holding a bunched-up white towel in front of his groin for some scrap of modesty, but the rest of him was on full display as he stepped out of the sauna.
He hadn’t looked over toward us yet. I watched as he pulled in a long breath, in a moment of calm after his sauna session, the absurdly sculptural muscles of his ass and thigh on display. Nobody on his team even batted an eyelash. Kace had no shame in the being-proud-of-his-body game, clearly.
If I’d looked like that at 22, I’d have been showing it off, too.
I didn’t know if my mouth was watering now because of the smell of grilling steak or because apparently, I couldn’t keep my eyes off of another man’s body if that man was a professional quarterback who looked like a marble statue.
I was straight, but I had a pulse.
Kace paced over to a bench on the other side of the sauna. He reached over for a pair of shorts, pulling them on before walking over to his team.
“Ten out of ten,” I heard him telling Vivienne. “I really needed that after my trip.”
It was surreal hearing a voice that I’d heard so many times on TV, right here beside me.
“Kace, this is Nathan Wood,” Vivienne said, turning toward me. “He’s here from Fixer Brothers Construction to talk about the remodel work.”
The moment his ocean-blue eyes landed on mine, I understood why Kace had gathered such a rabid fanbase of gay men. He looked at me with a comfortable confidence, like he was drinking me in.
It made something inside me tingle, like every cell in my body was suddenly standing at attention, turning toward Kace. If a woman had looked at me like that, I would have assumed she wanted me, but I knew that couldn’t be true with Kace. I was a regular middle-aged guy in flannel, and he was young, modern royalty.
Shit, I already felt like I’d do whatever he said, and I wasn’t even into guys.
“Kace,” I said, reaching out my hand to shake his. “Pleasure to meet you.”
One corner of his mouth curled into a relaxed smile as he took my hand in his own. It felt like a bear hug in the form of a handshake, with even his fingers feeling otherworldly strong. A lock of damp hair fell in a swoop over his forehead, and I noticed he had a light dusting of freckles under each eye.
“Pleasure,” he said. “I hear your company can help with some changes I want to make.”
“Anything you need,” I told him. “But I have to ask… why are you looking to renovate? Because everything I see here looks close to perfect.”
“Come. I’ll show you,” he said, waving me toward the opposite end of the backyard. He stopped along the way, reaching into a minifridge under an outdoor bar area and grabbing a cold bottle of something green. “You want one?”