No Strings Attached by Randi Reisfeld Read Free Book Online Page B

in this pit stop, let alone sharing a bedroom, was a head-scratcher, but he hoisted his beer bottle in a silent salute. He wished Katie well.
    Deciphering Harper wasn’t so easy. When she wasn’t messing with Katie, she was making herself scarce. She wasn’t here for the company, and she sure wasn’t here for a hookup. Girls gave off vibes—he could always tell what they wanted.
    He didn’t know where the fury and subversive behavior came from. Not that teenagers, and he was sure she was one, needed a reason to be pissed off. But there was something about her that intrigued him. “Something,” as the Beatles famously said, “in the way she moves,” attracted him, was familiar to him. Like the way she stuck her lower lip out when she was pondering something; the way her eyes flashed when arguing with Katie; the unexpected dimples on those rare occasions she smiled; and those coltish, bordering on ungainly, strides even when her chin was stuck out defiantly.
    Who did that remind him of? Between the beer buzz and the quiet, he settled in to ponder. His reverie was rudely interrupted by the slam of the screen door. He bolted up, saw her before she saw him.
    Took in the angry slash of her mouth, the flashing eyesfuriously blinking back the tears, and the deliberate stomping of her heels. Mandy. Their very own menace to society was headed toward the steps.
    Soundlessly, Joss lowered himself, hoping the high back of the couch would conceal him. If he could have, he would’ve rolled under it, disappeared until the coast was clear. No luck.
    It must’ve been out of the corner of her mascara-smudged eye that she’d seen a flash. He heard her pivot on her clicking heels, away from the steps. Toward the sofa. There was no escape.
    Before he could decide whether to acknowledge her or pretend to be asleep, she was staring down at him. Then she was bending over the back of the couch, making sure he got a load of her cleavage popping out of her waitress uniform. What, did she think he’d never seen boobs before?
    â€œWhatcha’ doing up?” she said, righting herself.
    Joss propped himself up on his elbows. “Just got in from work. Looks like you worked the late shift too?”
    He didn’t really want to know the tawdry details of why Mandy looked like a train wreck, but he couldn’t ignore her.
    She sniffed and ran her fingers through her thick red hair. “Yeah, the late shift. You could say that.” She nodded at his beer. “Any more in the fridge?”
    â€œIt’s labeled,” he warned, knowing there were a few bottles left with Mitch’s name on them.
    â€œCool,” she said.
    She flipped direction again, heading toward the kitchen. Now’s the moment he could feign exhaustion, or simply slink away. He didn’t. Not then, or during the ten minutes it took her to go upstairs and “freshen up” either.
    When Mandy returned, she was barefoot and clad in a silky robe. She settled on the sofa. His sofa. She sat on the far end, to be sure, but crossed her legs so the robe would part, revealing shapely thighs. As if he didn’t get the memo, she licked her lips suggestively after her first chug of beer.
    Joss sighed. Could she be any more obvious? He hoped he wasn’t, acknowledging that, sometimes, his body had a mind of its own.
    â€œSo Mitch says you’re, like, a drifter,” Mandy said after a while. “True?”
    He considered, plucked a string on his guitar. “I’ve been traveling a lot lately.” Joss had deliberately stayed away from discussions of his background. It wasn’t hard to do. Most people were more interested in talking about themselves, if you asked. Of Mandy, he asked what had happened tonight, why she looked so upset when she got in.
    She tried to sound casual, but her eyes darkened. “Let’s just say the night was disappointing.”
    â€œYou’re working for