Page 66 of Fish out of Water
I spent the rest of the day trying to help the staff of gardeners and landscapers come up with a way to keep the trees healthy without sacrificing any of the other plants. By five o’clock I was dirty and wet and exhausted.
As I fished my bags from the locker my phone went off in my pocket.
I scanned the screen on my way out of the building and thumbed open the text from Collette.
You’re right. He is hot.
I froze as a tingle of awareness crept up my spine, one vertebra at a time.
I slowly looked up, knowing exactly what I would see.
At least I thought I did.
I was wrong.
Chapter Fourteen
Grant
WE WERE DEFINITELY going to be late.
Julia was filthy. Covered in mud. Some sort of greenery was stuck in her hair. Every inch of her was either wet or dirty.
And I’d still pay obscene amounts of money to do any assortment of things to her.
“Come on, Jules. We’ve got to get moving.” I turned, expecting her to follow me.
Her feet stayed planted on the cobblestone path cut through a thick patch of flowering grass. “What are you wearing?”
“You know what I’m wearing. You’re the one who picked it out.” I tried to look irritated with the whole thing. It wasn’t hard since I was.
Just not in the way I should be.
“I don’t remember it looking like that.” Her blue eyes skimmed down my body.
“Everything looks different in a dressing room.” I tipped my head toward the front gate. “Do you still want to do this or not?”
Her gaze finally focused on my face. “I guess I didn’t think you still wanted to go.”
“I bought a whole outfit for it, Jules.”
“Technically you bought two.” She lifted two fingers, wiggling them. “I bought a dress when you left me to pick out the rest of my panties.”
Those fucking panties.
Back again to torture me.
I’d spent half the night trying to scrub them from my brain, hiding from Julia in the basement that was the whole reason I bought the house, claiming I had work to do.
In reality I was just doing any and everything to try to forget she was right there. In my house.
Teasing me with a potential I’d never considered a possibility.
“Of course you did.” I reached out and grabbed her hand with mine, pretending it was because we needed to hurry.
“I can pay you back for it.” She finally started moving, staying right at my side as we wound our way back through the gardens where she worked. “Not the panties though. You owed me those.”
“Can we stop talking about the panties?” I was barely hanging on after just a few seconds with her. No way could I survive an entire evening listening to her lament about the tiny bit of leopard-print lace currently tucked tight against her pussy.
