Oh, Keep Your Shirt On - Michelle Pennington Page 0,24

edge, dropping down to the bottom of the tub. With my balance off, I fell forward, scrambling for a way to catch myself. I cracked my knee against the built-in seat but managed to catch the edge with my hands. The water sloshed like a whale had just breached, but at least I was steady. I twisted to sit down and once more anxiously checked Damien’s windows. If he’d seen that display of grace, I’d die of embarrassment.

All good.

Wanting to actually relax, I moved around in the bubbling hot water to sit with my back to Damien’s house and finally sank into the bliss of heat and massaging jets.

I’d never been in a hot tub when it was this cold outside. Now that the pain in my knee was easing away, I noticed that my feet stung from the quick change in temperature and the steam in the air around me was blown back into my face like frost every time the wind passed over. Any part of me that had gotten wet now had to remain below the surface so it didn’t turn to ice.

With my head resting on the edge of the tub, my eyes closed, and my mind as blank as I could make it, I did start to relax.

Just a few minutes later, however, I was jarred from the nirvana I’d attained by the crunch of gravel behind me. I sat up and looked over my shoulder to see Damien tossing a folded towel down on a chair and kicking off his sandals. Once again, I found myself having to deal with the perfection of his torso, healing burn marks and all. The guy seriously needed to keep his shirt on.

“You said you weren’t coming.” My clipped tone should have warned him how I felt about his duplicity.

“I lied. Move over.”

I obeyed without argument because what was I supposed to do? Get out of the hot tub? Not happening. With a steely glare, I sank back down in the water to melt the ice on my shoulders. “You rat.”

He grinned and didn’t look the least bit ashamed of himself. “Why should you have all the fun in my hot tub?”

“Because you promised I could.”

“Well, how else was I going to get you out here?” He sank down onto the seat. Because of his height, his shoulders were above the water, but he didn’t seem to mind the cold air like I did. “Ah…this is the best.”

With anybody else, I would have just sat there in awkward silence, but something about Damien made me want to talk. “I couldn’t believe it when I saw you’d gotten a hot tub. Of course, it makes more sense now that I know you own the place, but that’s crazy too.”

His smile was both charming and smug. “Curious about me, huh?”

I flicked my hand at the bubbles collecting in front of me. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“And you own a duplex?”

“I own five of them, actually. And a cabin out on Grapevine Lake.”

My eyes widened. I was both shocked and impressed. Here I was, twenty-five and still struggling to make my rent payment, but Damien owned a ton of rental property. Maybe it wasn’t polite, but I just had to know. “How?”

He laughed. “When my grandpa died, he left me a little bit of money. My parents kept telling me to invest it, so I looked into it. Rental property was not what they had in mind, but I thought it was great. Maybe mostly because I knew it would annoy them. I found a place that was selling way under market value because it needed a lot of repairs, so I fixed it up and got some good renters in it. Before long, I was able to save up enough for a down payment on another duplex. It just kind of snowballed from there.”

“I bet your parents are okay with it now.”

“No. They’re madder than ever. My dad owns three car dealerships and wants me to run one of them. They were sure I’d fail and come back to him for a job.”

“I know how that is. I started working for my mom and stepdad when I graduated from college, staging houses for them. They both sell real estate. I didn’t mind the work, but I need space from my mom. Lots of it. You heard her the other day. She wants me to come back to work with them, and she’s waiting for me to fail.”

Damien shook his head. “Sounds

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