Salt + Stilettos by Janet Walden-West

Author:Janet Walden-West
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-949090-83-3
Publisher: City Owl Press

Chapter Nineteen

The fresh air should’ve cleared her head.

The exercise should’ve banished her odd restlessness.

Accidentally blundering into Will’s family drama should have one-hundred percent cured her bout of fake-cozy nostalgia. Instead, Brett took extra turns around the park until Inari planted all four feet in protest, muzzle pointed toward home.

Not willing to end up a spectator in another multi-generation free-for-all, Brett snuck into her own house, silently closing the garage door and resetting the locks faster than she’d moved since right after the trial. She and the girls crept through the kitchen to the backyard, giving Will his privacy as he continued with his duties.

She brushed dew off the low patio step and sat while the girls patrolled their domain, Will’s low bass carrying through the glass. After tonight’s kiss, she couldn’t play head-in-the sand. Will wasn’t just a hot guy. He was a hot guy that she was attracted to.

Attracted seemed too tame a word. He had the ability to consume her attention whenever he was near and invade her dreams when he wasn’t.

She ripped off a potted banana tree’s leaf and shredded it, gaining nothing but stained cuticles. Certainly not enlightenment as to why the glow of lights and homey sounds of another person here also brought a weird, tight sensation under her breastbone.

Not another person. Will. Having him puttering around her private space, the promise of a real smile when she went in, that knowledge they wouldn’t suffer a lull in their conversation unless they both wanted comfortable silence—that was the mixture that unsettled her. That wasn’t pure lust.

“Fuck. Me.”

Phoebe lifted her ears and left off tracking a toad, coming to commiserate by sticking a damp nose in Brett’s ear.

“This is all Richard’s fault. He’s getting the mother of all hate mail as soon as I get my hands on my phone.” Phoebe snorted an explosive blast against Brett’s eardrum. “Fine, either hate mail or a bottle of Glenlivet. I’m justifiably conflicted.”

Aside from being a client, Will was Richard’s partner. If she made a misstep, the three of them would be stuck in an uncomfortable business arrangement indefinitely.

Attraction was one thing. Was she really ready to go all in and see someone though? She wasn’t comfortable anywhere at night, she was barely comfortable in crowds during the day, and she hadn’t gone out, much less had sex, since before Lloyd escalated his stalking. She couldn’t shake the itch that it was selfish to use Will as her guinea pig.

But she also couldn’t deny the attraction, stronger than with anyone she’d ever met. She leaned back, elbows on the textured concrete, and stared at the stars through the rosewood slats of the pergola and wondered if he really slept nude. She hadn’t raided his dresser along with his closet. But it was easy to imagine he did, and even easier to picture them tangled together in his bed, her breasts in his skilled hands as he drove into her from behind.

Her patio door whispered open and closed, letting out the last of the buttery scent from their snack and cutting off her mental slideshow.

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