Boston Avant-Garde 2 - Crescendo by Maitland Kaitlin Read Free Book Online

but she knew better than anyone that such things didn’t last. She had far too many skeletons in her closet to play spin the bottle with her personal life.
    Flinging her legs over the edge of the bed, she located her jeans. They were wadded up in a ball on the floor, not an appetizing choice for attire in the wee hours of the morning. Her sweater was in somewhat better condition. She disengaged it from the turtleneck, tugged it over her tangled hair, and covered her bare breasts. Fishing around in the stack of half-folded laundry beside Joshua’s chair, she came up with a pair of sweats. They were about a million sizes too big, and the legs pooled around her feet. She cinched the drawstring waist around her hips. If she could manage to walk carefully, she might avoid falling flat on her face.
    Something smelled amazing. When she got to the bedroom doorway, it occurred to her that the scent of food had probably triggered her stomach’s demands. Too bad it was Joshua cooking in the kitchen. She hadn’t eaten since an early lunch between teaching classes back at school. Hunger trumped embarrassment, and she headed downstairs. If she were lucky, he wouldn’t want to discuss what she and Seth had obviously done in his bed.
    The kitchen light threw contorted shadows over the wood floors. Trying not to tread on the legs of her borrowed sweatpants, she peeked around a corner to find Joshua busy at work making something that smelled beyond mouthwatering.
    He was turned away, and she took a moment to appreciate the way he looked in nothing but his dark business slacks. Broad shoulders angled down to a tapered waistline. Muscles flexed and stretched as he reached for a pan and began shaking it over the stove. He had a body that demanded stroking, and her fingers itched to explore his smooth, tanned skin.
    “Do you always lurk in doorways?”
    Heat bloomed along her cheekbones, and she shuffled over to a barstool in her borrowed pants. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure if you wanted company.”
    He glanced up for a brief moment. The single light over the stove burnished his blond hair to gold. The tousled mess looked as though he’d been stabbing his fingers though it. The planes of his face were set in hard lines. Usually there was a bit of the devil lurking in his gaze. Tonight he seemed unbelievably tense.
    She wanted to make it better. She didn’t know why, but she was drawn to him.
    Setting the pan back on the stove, he leaned over the counter. “Are those my sweats?”
    She froze in the act of climbing onto the barstool, trying not to lose the item under discussion. “Uh, yeah actually, they are. Sorry.”
    He shrugged. “They’ll wash.”
    His offhanded comment stung. Apparently her scent on his clothing was akin to a nasty stain of some sort.
    “You hungry?”
    As if on cue, her stomach gurgled.
    “You guys might want to think about sustenance before you fuck each other to death.”
    Was she supposed to comment on that? His dismissive tone was beginning to piss her off. It wasn’t like she’d campaigned to get into this living situation. And the fact that she seemed to have no self-control when Seth was around wasn’t one hundred percent her fault either.
    Scrambled eggs sizzled around the fresh mushrooms, bell peppers, onions, and cheese in the pan. Tilting his hand, Joshua deftly kept the concoction evenly distributed over the gas burner.
    Casting about for something to ease the awkwardness, Leslie latched on to work. That was neutral, right? “Did your dinner meeting go well?”
    He lifted his blue eyes, their gazes meeting briefly before he turned back to the omelet. Obviously even the most mundane question managed to irritate him. “Why do you ask?”
    She gestured to the ingredients scattered across the countertop. “I’m guessing this was for your eating enjoyment before I crashed. So obviously you didn’t get enough at dinner.”
    “Actually, I met a woman for drinks.”
    Why was her heart rate picking up?