The Wild Heir(47)

I peer through my fingers, unable to keep from smiling. It’s not just the tightness of the shorts, or the fact that they’re so short and tiny that they show off his muscled thighs, the skin pale with a tan line near the top. But he’s also found a red terry-cloth headband and has put it around his head. Combined with his wild hair, he looks exactly like Luke Wilson from the movie The Royal Tenenbaums, if he’d lost his shirt somewhere and was covered in tattoos.

I tell him this and he smiles. “I was going more for Bj?rn Borg. He’s a famous tennis player from Sweden.” He holds out a racket for me. “In fact, I believe he’s taught my father a few lessons.”

I pause before I take the racket. If he’s had famous athletes teaching his father, there’s a good chance they’ve taught him too. “So how good at tennis are you?”

He shrugs and I can tell he’s playing it down. “I’m okay.”

“You haven’t played since you were a teenager?”

“No, I haven’t played here since I was a teenager,” he says, his eyes trailing around the surroundings. “But squash is more my game these days.”

“What isn’t your game?”

“Not much,” he says. “You afraid you’ll lose?”

I laugh. “I know I’m going to lose.”

“That’s not a very good approach to life.”

“Well, first of all,” I say, taking a step back and pointing at him with my racket. “Look at what you’re wearing. If this isn’t a tactic of distraction, then I don’t know what is.”

The grin that spreads across his face is so smug I regret saying anything. “You find my body distracting?”

My eyes tilt to the sky. “As if you haven’t been playing that game this last week. We all know why men wear sweatpants.”

A wicked gleam comes over his eyes. “Oh you do, do you? Please enlighten me. I thought I wore them because they’re comfortable.”

“You wear them because they show off your…your…” Okay. Cheeks are going red. I really need to stop talking.

“My love muscle? My middle leg? The steamin’ semen roadway?”

I burst out laughing in an extremely unladylike way, a combination of a horse snort and a hyena, and I have to turn my back to him to compose myself.

“Am I close?” he goes on. “It shows off Big Dick and the Twins?”

I thrust my palm out toward him, trying to catch my breath. “Please, stop.”

“Are you sure you want me to stop? It seems like you’ve been wanting to talk about this for a while.”

I take in a deep breath and turn back around to face him. “No more talking about your dick.”

He covers his mouth mockingly, eyes wide. “Oh my god. You said dick. Have you ever said that word out loud before?”

“You are such an asshole.”

“Drittsekk,” he says.

“What?”

“It’s Norwegian. Means asshole. Though direct translation is shitbag, which I think is more elegant. I think it’s about time you start learning the language, don’t you?”

“How about we play some tennis first?”

“Oh you want to get your losing over with? Fine by me.”

We head over to the courts and my eyes stay trained to his ass nearly the entire time. He’s got a damn good one, round and muscled and bouncy, completely showcased in those teeny weeny shorts. It’s like looking at the sun again but this time I can stare unabashedly.

He knows I’m staring too. He has eyes in the back of his head. I swear he even wiggles his butt a little.

The court is on the small size, nothing fancy, and it doesn’t look like there’s been a lot of upkeep with fallen leaves scattered all over it. I suppose the estate doesn’t always have a bunch of full-time staffers if there’s no one staying here.

Magnus goes to the opposite side of the net, pops open the canister of tennis balls and sticks all but one in his pockets. Now he looks even more ridiculous.

“Quit staring at my balls!” he yells at me.

“I can’t help it,” I tell him, heading over to center court and trying to adjust my grip on the racket. “You look lumpy.”

He glances at the tennis balls bulging out the side of his shorts like goiters. “It’s a glandular problem.” He straightens his shoulders, flexes his pecs, then throws up the ball.

Before he even hits it I know I’m in big trouble.

The look of utter focus and determination on his face is something to behold, like he’s playing against an Olympian and not me in my baggy shirt and tights.

The ball meets the racket with a satisfying thwack and then whizzes past me at the speed of light, landing right in the lines. I didn’t even have a chance.

I look back at him. “Nice shot.”

He just nods, his jaw set firmly, his brows drawn in concentration. It’s odd to see him so serious.

He serves up the ball again, and again he muscles through with a powerful swing, this time the ball nearly taking me out. I have to sidestep out of the way to save my kneecaps.

“You know you’re supposed to hit it back,” he says to me, fishing another ball out of his pocket and bouncing it up and down with such ease it makes me think he’s used to playing tennis with his eyes closed.