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“Will?”

“Brynn.” His voice was low and gravelly. She felt the smart part of her slipping away, and her reckless feeling increased tenfold.

“Hi, um…why are you calling me?” she asked in a too-casual high-pitched voice.

He was silent for several moments. “What are you doing on my front porch?”

Oh God. She squeezed her eyes shut. “You know?”

“I saw the cab and watched you teeter up my walkway in death heels. Pretty sexy shoes for an orthodontist.”

Brynn scowled at that. She hated how he always undermined her career, as though being an orthodontist meant you had to be frumpy and wear clogs.

“Yeah, well, I was just leaving,” she grumbled.

The door opened so suddenly that she nearly fell forward. Their eyes locked for several heated moments, and, moving on unspoken agreement, they silently hung up their cell phones without saying another word.

Will braced his arm on the doorjamb as though barring her entrance.

Not exactly a welcoming start, Brynn thought with a pang.

Then his hand slid up several inches as he lifted his eyebrows in invitation, leaving just enough room for her to slide under his arm if she wanted to.

She wanted to.

Swallowing dryly, she ducked under his arm so she was standing in his foyer. He closed the door with a quiet click, and they still said nothing.

She studied Will closely, waiting for smugness or mockery, but his face was carefully blank.

“I um…I just thought I’d stop by. You know, to say hi, and stuff,” she said, her voice husky.

His eyebrow quirked at the mention of “stuff,” but instead of giving her a hard time, he just nodded and gestured toward the kitchen. “Let me get you a glass of wine.”

“Oh gosh, no. I’ve had plenty,” she said, following him into the kitchen.

He paused in opening the fridge. “You’re drunk?” Something like disappointment flashed across his face.

“No, just a little buzzy. And getting less so by the minute.”

“Coming from a not-so-great date?” he asked, pouring her a glass of ice water.

“No, just a girls’ night.” She lowered herself onto the leather bar stool and fixed her eyes on her glass as he poured himself some sort of amber-looking liquid.

“And you came by to say hi,” he said, taking a long swallow of his drink.

“Mm-hmm,” she said, tracing a drip of condensation down the side of her glass.

The wine buzz was fading, but the recklessness wasn’t.

Her mind kept returning to The Kiss from the car. It had been running over and over through her brain like a track on repeat. And the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to do it again. Take it further.

But not like this. He was supposed to be his usual crude self. She wanted hot, meaningless anger sex. Something she could walk away from without so much as a bruise on her emotions.

This quiet, contemplative Will set her on edge. She didn’t know how to speak with him in any language other than “feud.”

Why didn’t he call her bony or snobby or vapid and set her temper off so that she could storm out? Storming out was immature, but smart. Practical. Necessary. Storming out was very Brynn.

And that was the problem. She was sick of herself. She wanted a break from being the organized, uptight, no-sex-before-the-eighth-date goody-goody.


Tags: Lauren Layne The Best Mistake Romance