[caption id="attachment_76292" align="aligncenter" width="612"] Charles Esten, sans underthings[/caption]

I'd make out with Jon Hamm, spend the night with Homeland's Damian Lewis, and get wildly inappropriate with almost any man on True Blood, but at the moment, those dudes are trailing Charles Esten as the hottest slice of man-steak on TV.

In case you're not watching Nashville, ABC's soapy series about music and politics and cowboy booty in the heart of Tennessee, just know that Esten plays Deacon, a tortured singer-songwriter who makes everyone swoon with his talent. (And who makes every country diva want to drop her Tanya Tuckers.)

[caption id="attachment_76291" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Ruggedly what? Handsome? Oh... if you insist.[/caption]

Obviously, Esten is sexy all on his own. He's got the slightly weathered look of a man. Like... you can just imagine behind the house, stripping off his shirt as be builds you a gazebo in the hot sun. And then he gets all sweaty, so you bring him lemonade, and when he gets his stubble wet, you use your fingertip to gently wipe it dry. And his face is a little rough, and a little creased, and he gets so touched by your gentleness that he picks you up and carries you into the...

Well... pardon me.

But what makes Esten especially sexy on Nashville is that he convincingly plays a hunk with a heart. He makes Deacon seem gentle and deeply loving... a masculine man with a tender soul. Pass the lemonade!

As a bonus, Esten always has his shirt off. Who can say no to this?

[caption id="attachment_76290" align="aligncenter" width="300"] My stubble will make you burn.[/caption]

And finally, Esten is funny, which is the icing on the cake of sexiness. How do I know? Because back in the day, when he was called Chip Esten, I watched him on the improv comedy series Whose Line Is It Anyway? When I finally pieced together that Chip Esten was Charles Esten, I swooned all over again, because I crushed on Chip hard. (I was in my college improv group, and as I watched Whose Line, I imagined how I could parlay our shared interest in comedy into a late-night rendezvous.)

So there you go world: Let's enjoy the Charles Esten feast. If they all looked like that in Tennessee, I never would have moved away.

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Mark Blankenship is originally from Chattanooga, which is not that far from Nashville. He tweets as @IAmBlankenship