Every Sweet Regret (Orchid Valley 2)

“I know I’m asking all the favors lately,” Dean says. “You know I wouldn’t if—”

“If it wasn’t for your mom. I know. And that’s why I want to help.” Sighing, I resign myself to a morning of cursing at pipes.

“Mom already left for work. You still have the key?”

“Yeah, but you’re making the first hardware store run.”

He chuckles. “Of course. I’m heading into an appointment, but I’ll be your errand boy as soon as I’m out.”

“You’d better. Does Stella know I’m coming? I don’t want to freak her out.”

Dean grunts. “Nah. I just left, and she was still in bed.”

I swallow. That image isn’t helping. At all.

“I wouldn’t wake her, though,” Dean says. “Let’s just say my spidey-sense tells me she had company late last night.”

This sends a flurry of different emotions through me. Jealousy, annoyance, frustration. And fuck, my pride feels battered. I can’t stop thinking about her, and she’s already dragging some other guy home?

I shouldn’t care. This is Stella. She does what she wants. But I still hear myself mutter, “I can’t believe she brings her hookups to your mom’s.”

“Right?” Dean laughs again, and I grit my teeth. The idea of Stella sleeping so close to where I’ll be working was bad enough, but the thought of her sleeping off orgasms from some other guy? Way worse.* * *I freeze halfway up the walk to Dean’s mom’s when I realize I left my earbuds at home. Fuck. I was planning to distract myself from the sexy redhead sleeping on the other side of the wall by listening to music. Loudly.

Too bad. I just want to get this over with. At least it looks like her company already left—there’s no sign of an unusual car in the driveway.

I use my key to let myself in, and Rusty meets me at the door, tail wagging wildly.

I stoop to my haunches to give him a good scratch behind the ears. “Who’s a good boy?” I ask softly. His tail slaps the wall as he licks my face, and I grin. I should get Hope a dog. Amy was always opposed, claiming dogs stole any spontaneity from your life. “You can’t just run away for the weekend on a whim if you have a dog.” So we didn’t get a dog. Never “just ran away for the weekend,” either. Figures.

Rusty bores of me quicker than he used to and heads back to the living room for what I’d guess is his second morning nap.

I turn down the hall toward the guest bath when I realize even earbuds wouldn’t have spared me from all the evidence of Stella’s extracurriculars.

Her black skirt and yellow top are lying in the hallway between the door to her bathroom and bedroom, as if she—or someone else—stripped it off her there. A hot-pink lace bra is on the floor right beside . . .

I spin around and drag a hand over my face, but no. There’s no unseeing that scrap of fabric, and now that my brain has latched on to the image, it’s on a one-way track barreling toward the sight of her perfect ass framed in pink lace.

Fuck.

I don’t want to want Stella Jacob. I don’t want to fantasize about that perfect body or wake up with an erection that demands I think about her while I get myself off. I don’t want to see her fucking panties on the floor and wish I was the guy who’d stripped them off her. And yet here we are.

Her bedroom door is cracked, and I resist the urge to peek inside. I bet her bedspread is as bright as her personality, and I can imagine the sheets crumpled and her pajamas tossed haphazardly on the floor beside it. Part of me wants to know how she keeps her most private space, but I’m not going to be some creep who peeks into bedrooms and stares at panties, like her old landlord. And I’m not going to let myself think about her bringing a guy here. She’s a fucking grown woman with a healthy sex drive, and she’s going to bring guys home from time to time. It’s easy enough to imagine her stumbling in, tipsy from too many drinks at Smithy’s, that smile stretching across her face as she drags—

I shut the thought down. Because there’s no fucking reason for me to imagine some alternate timeline where I’m the guy Stella brought home from the bar.

Just do the job you came here for.

Ignoring the underwear and the cracked bedroom door, I step into the bathroom and stoop to look under the sink.

There’s a red ceramic bowl under the plumbing to catch drips, and I put it in the sink, turn off the water supply, and then position myself on my back to track down the problem. I have the wrench in my hand and my head in the cabinet when I hear it . . . soft, barely audible whimpers. Sexy, needy, breathless.