Power Drilled (Roommates, #8)(9)

It was a question I couldn’t answer as I rested my head in my hands. I stayed there, my thoughts swirling in a downward spiral for far too long.

At least until the phone rang again.





4





PENNY





“Are you sure this is the right place?” I asked the Uber driver as I squinted at the house. It was one-story and had an unkempt look to it. The siding was a rather ugly beige, and weeds had won the war against the shrubs out front.

“It’s the address you gave me,” the driver grunted. “Want me to wait?”

Slowly, I shook my head. With my current lack of income, I could barely afford the ride back, let alone extra time on this one. “I’m okay.”

“Good.” He waited a beat. “This is the part where you’re supposed to get out.”

“Right. Thanks.”

I spotted Jackson’s black truck as I approached the house. The cracked driveway extended nearly to the backyard, so I hadn’t noticed his pickup when we first stopped. The back was filled with lumber.

A high-pitched mechanical noise was coming from the backyard. Possibly an electric saw of some sort? That seemed like something a man with a truck full of two-by-fours would do.

The screen was slightly askew as I pulled it open and knocked on the front door, which sported peeling emerald-green paint. Normally that was a color I liked, but not this time. I knocked, waited, and knocked again. Just when I figured I should head to the backyard, the door opened.

There he was, looking as utterly perfect as he had in the art class. The angles of his face looked as if they’d been chiseled by an especially talented sculptor. His short beard and goatee framed soft, pink lips that were curled up at one corner.

To add to the vision of perfection he had his shirt off. His chest was every bit as ripped as it had been the other night when I’d drawn the panes of his abs with such care.

He had on faded blue jeans with torn knees, and it gave him a rebellious air—not that he needed another way to look hot.

He smirked, apparently having noticed my reaction to his divine body. It was a sexy smirk I was well familiar with from the art class.

“Penny?” Jackson’s voice was warm and rich, just like it had been when he’d called earlier.

“Hi,” I breathed, the syllable getting somewhat lost due to how dry my mouth was. I tried again. “It’s nice to see you again.”

Jackson’s smirk grew more pronounced. “You’re not.”

Confusion made me temporarily forget how hot he was. “Not what?”

“Not seeing me again. We’ve never met.” His blue eyes gleamed and then the smirk softened. “I’m Hunter.”

Oh. Clarity came as I realized that Jackson had a twin. That was my first thought. My second was: there are two of these god-like men?

“Hi, I’m Penny.” If I’d felt tongue-tied before, I was extra so now. He obviously already knew my name since he’d greeted me with it.

Hunter stepped back, holding the door open for me. We were in a large, open room that looked as if it had experienced its own personal tornado recently. There were holes in the wall and large swaths where the wooden studs were visible. Dust filled the room, and I immediately coughed.

“Sorry, it’s demo day,” Hunter said, as if I would know what that meant. But then he picked up a sledgehammer that had been leaning against the front wall, and that made me think that the damage to the drywall wasn’t a vindictive act of nature.

Then a second familiar face appeared. Jackson walked out of what I assumed was the kitchen and smiled when he saw me. “Hi, Penny. Thanks for coming on such short notice.” Like his brother, he had on jeans, but his weren’t ripped, and he’d paired them with an olive green button-down that barely fit his impressive biceps.

I couldn’t quite imagine a world in which a woman would ignore an invitation from a man who looked like him—or them, I amended in my head. “Hi.” I gave him a smile that I hoped didn’t look nervous. “Nice to see you again.”

Hunter chuckled. “You’re 0 for 2, hon.”

What? I stared at him, hoping for an explanation, but he strode through a small space with scratched linoleum and opened a sliding glass door. “Jackson!” he bellowed, and a few seconds later, the sound of a saw cutting through wood ceased. “She’s here.”

My jaw dropped as a third gorgeous man entered the room. He, too, was shirtless, but he gave me a full-on smile, not a smirk when he saw me. “Hi again.”

Tremors rocked my limbs as I stared at them. It was just too much to take in. There were three of them. Three men who looked like this. I’d never even known one guy this handsome, and there were three. My head swiveled from one to the next, trying to find differences beyond their clothing, but I didn’t see any. Same dark brown hair with bronze highlights. Same short beard. Same amazing abs, though one had his shirt on. I realized I didn’t know his name at the same time I realized that I was staring—and possibly drooling.

Jackson—it took me a moment to remember which one was Jackson—looked amused. “I take it you’ve met Hunter and Reid?”

“Yes…” I said, my voice rising at the end as if a question. Which was fitting because I was questioning my senses. Never in my life had I thought I’d see three men this incredibly gorgeous.