Eyes On You

EYES ON YOU ‘The Bedford Brothers’ Series Book 3 ANDRA ASHE Copyright © 2023 Andra Ashe No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever in any country whatsoever without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. About The Author A sensualist and a romantic, Andra writes about heroes and heroines who veer from the mainstream to indulge their desires and find love. As a self-confessed genre-hopper, her erotic romances span contemporary, paranormal and historical. When not arm-wresting her Muse over plot lines, or who gets to wear the stilettos, Andra can be found working on her latest slow-stitch embroidery project. She sees sewing as a lot like writing; you start with something that's a rough idea and slowly find its story. Andra lives in Melbourne (Australia) with her wonderful husband and her never-ending TBR pile and hopes her adult children aren't too traumatised by having a mother who writes smutty stories. Contents CHAPTER 1 CHAPTER 2 CHAPTER 3 CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 7 CHAPTER 8 CHAPTER 9 CHAPTER 10 CHAPTER 11 CHAPTER 12 CHAPTER 13 CHAPTER 14 CHAPTER 15 CHAPTER 16 CHAPTER 17 CHAPTER 18 CHAPTER 19 CHAPTER 20 CHAPTER 21 EPILOGUE CHAPTER 1 Hello? That wasn’t a body he recognized. Jace grabbed his towel and unnecessarily wiped non-existent sweat from his forehead so he could check out the curvaceous vision in the gym’s mirror. Milton Fitness had a small, regular clientele and he knew all of them, but not this hottie. And certainly no one he knew in town had cotton-candy-pink hair. That was definitely a city look. Maybe she was just passing through. With an hourglass figure which her over-sized t-shirt couldn’t conceal and great legs in plain black lycra, she definitely wasn’t calling attention to herself like so many of the gym barbies. Her biceps weren’t bad either, he noted as she curled a pair of hand-weights. She wasn’t in front of the mirror, so he couldn’t see her face. She didn’t like being watched? Jace grinned. Not his kind of woman. He lay back on the bench and gripped the barbell above him. He didn’t want to be caught ogling. There’d be more opportunity to check her out once he’d finished his reps. She stayed in his peripheral vision as he moved through his circuit, still elusively keeping her back to him so that he wondered if it was deliberate. Now he was more intrigued by that possibility than by wanting to see her. Sure enough, as soon as he moved towards the chin up bar, she moved on to her next station. Ok, her rowing machine faced a mirror and even if she wasn’t watching herself, if he did some kilometers on the treadmill behind her, he’d finally get to see her face. He hated the fucking treadmill. It was boring and he got enough cardio workout on the other equipment, but it gave him a great view of the sheen of sweat on the back of her neck, beneath her roughly pinned-up hair, and the play of her shoulder muscles as she pulled on the handle. She was serious about her workout and there was definitely something sexy about a woman who put her all into physical exertion. And a woman who obviously looked after her body. Her eyes were down as she concentrated but when the whir of the machine slowed, she lifted her chin, and her black-outlined eyes met his in the mirror. Jace didn’t look away immediately, holding their connection just long enough to give her a smile and take in the flush on her cheekbones. She didn’t smile back and looked away, getting off the machine so quickly that she momentarily caught her foot on the frame. As she caught her balance, turned in profile and headed towards the change-room something vaguely familiar sparked in Jace’s memory. But he didn’t know anyone with pink hair. Or anyone who would dye their hair. He shook off the feeling and stopped the treadmill now that he didn’t need his vantage point. When she walked out of the change area, she was astutely giving attention to the zip of her bag as she walked past him at the knee raise station. Jace watched her walk away, as much as to check out her sweetly rounded ass as to see if anything else gave off a familiar vibe. It didn’t, but he was intrigued. After his workout, as he headed back to his property, he was tempted to detour to his family home. His mother was always up on the latest local gossip. She’d know about anyone new in town. But as he came to the T-intersection he turned towards his own home. He loved seeing his mother, but as he was now the only one of her three sons who wasn’t married, he bore the brunt of her attempts at matchmaking. The hint of interest in a woman would have her declaring two grandchildren certainly weren’t enough and that he wasn’t holding up his end of continuing the Bedford line. He wasn’t anti-marriage, and he’d love nothing more than a woman to share his life with, but he knew there weren’t too many women around who might understand his particular ‘needs’. And if he was going to have an honest relationship, he wasn’t going to compromise on being himself. Supressing desires, he’d seen first-hand, too often lead to deception and that could be a one-way ticket to hurting the one you loved and killing a relationship. He'd rather stay single. But if Julia knew of a new woman in town, she’d make sure he knew about it sooner or later anyway. There’d be no avoiding it. And Ty and Blair would get in on the act, which was fair enough. He’d given his brothers enough grief about women in the past before they’d finally found love and wives. But he needed more. He needed