Page 2 of Come in with the Rain
I freeze mid-pry. Stella Hart. I know her face from Google headlines and Ford’s Instagram. Ever since Ford, my best friend, discovered how many gorgeous women post bikini selfies on social media, he’s become a firm believer in Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. And even though Stella Hart doesn’t post bikini selfies, she does post videos of herself in outfits that show off her long legs and the shape of her body. When I’m at the gym with him, Ford always points his phone screen at me to share his half-naked female bounty, and more than once, it has been Stella Hart in a dress that didn’t reach very far down her thighs or leggings that outlined every curve of her.
And yeah, okay, I have looked at Stella Hart’s body with intense male interest, but I’m always drawn to her face, too. Her bow-shaped lips and her high cheek bones and her flat nose, so pretty I have a hard time tearing my eyes from her. And now I’ll forever have a hard time not remembering what she looks like all rumpled and wearing absolutely nothing but the corner of a sheet that just barely covers her breasts.
On the other side of the wall, a shower turns on, and my blood goes hot. Stella Hart. Wet from head to toe. Scrubbing herself clean.
Their bedroom door opens with awhoosh, and I turn my head in time to see Mickey Kline step into the hall. He sticks his head into the bathroom and claps one hand on the doorway. “Thanks, boys,” he says, before continuing down the hall.
Shawn looks over at me, his eyes narrowed. “Why did that feel like an insult?”
I pry up a corner of the countertop and stop to regain my footing before going again. “Because you hate rich people, you’re intimidated by confident men, and you’re paranoid.”
Shawn blinks at me from the other side of the huge bathroom. “That was a low blow, man.”
I shrug and put my weight on the prybar, feeling that deep satisfaction I always get when the glue holding it together starts to make a crunchy tearing noise. I love to rip stuff apart almost as much as I love to put it back together.
A few minutes later, more footsteps travel down the hall toward us, this time the slap of bare feet, and I can’t seem to keep myself from spinning around to watch as Stella Hart’s petite form appears in the doorway. Her hair is wet and her face without make-up when she stops and looks in at me. She knows I was the one who saw her, and I can’t tell from the way she’s schooling her expression if I embarrassed her or not, but she clearly didn’t mention my mistake to Kline, so that’s something.
She doesn’t say anything, just takes me in for a second, before bowing her head and continuing on down the hall at a slightly faster pace.
Shawn rushes to the doorway to peek out, but I stay put, focusing on the countertop, trying to figure out if Stella Hart is on her way to tell my boss that I ogled her. Maybe she doesn’t even know it was an accident.
“Yoga pants,” Shawn says, ducking back into the bathroom and making a sound in his throat like he just took a bite of a sweet apple pie.
“Don’t be gross,” I bark at him, and he just grins.
CHAPTER3
STELLA
“Did he see you like, completely naked? Full frontal?”
I cringe when Abby says it out loud like that, even though she’s trying to keep her voice down and we’re out on the sidewalk, where the wind will just blow the words away. “No, but he definitely got a very good view of my ass.”
“And then all your hot contractors heard your hot boyfriend pound you into oblivion?”
I roll my eyes and dip a finger into the whipped cream on top of my mocha. “I had to walk through the condo afterward with all of them staring. And the one that saw me naked made, like, prolonged eye contact with me. And I never said they were hot.” To be honest, I didn’t even really look at them. After all the culminating embarrassment, I couldn’t look any of them in the eye, so I don’t really even know what any of them looked like. Except for the one who saw me in bed. He was right there in the bathroom when I went out to grab breakfast, watching me with those blue eyes, and I was soawarethat he saw so much of me that I couldn’t even say anything to him.
“How many?” Abby waves to someone behind me, and I’m reminded that her break was technically over five minutes ago.
“Four in the kitchen, two in the bathroom.”
Abby squints like she’s doing math in her head. “Logic tells me that there has to be at least one hot one in the bunch. It’s basically the balance of the universe. Was the one who saw you in the nude hot?”
Don’t picture him. Don’t picture him. Don’t picture him. I keep my brain blank. Because yes. God, yes. He was hot. All muscle and bronze skin and pouty lips. I ignore her question. “Someone is going to report to the internet that I’m horny or that I like to flash people. That’s what people do.”
Abby leans her elbows on the table between us. “Okay, first of all, youarehorny, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And second, I would bet a million dollars that your little peeping friend isn’t going to say a word to anyone because he’s secretly hoping it’ll happen again.”
I groan and bury my face in my hands. “Don’t even joke like that.” From the way he blushed and scurried away, he didn’t seem like the type to sneak around every corner, hoping for another glimpse.
“Maybe I’m not joking,” Abby says, wearing her best smirk. “Maybeyouwant it to happen again. Did you even tell Mickey about it?”
I send her a horrified look. “Of course I didn’t tell Mickey. He would probably murder the poor guy, who didn’t even mean to see anything in the first place.” Not to mention that as soon as Mickey did that thing where he pinches my clit, hits my G-spot, and pulls my hair, all at the same time, I forgot all about the hunky contractor seeing my ass until I was passing by him in the hall, all six feet of him.
“Maybe if Mr. Millionaire knew other guys were interested, he would pay more attention to you,” Abby says, so casually, like she’s commenting on the fact that autumn is just around the corner.
“Abby,” I growl. “It’s not like the guy asked me out for dinner and a movie, okay? I am in a committed relationship.”
Abby’s face loses its humor, which makes nerves settle in my stomach. “Stella, you don’t have to stay with him.”
