by Joy Avery
Real enough that she’d stared at her phone for a week afterward, waiting for him to call. Like he’d promised after their kiss.
Her response that night kept replaying in her head. Sorry, but I’m not that kind of girl. She laughed bitterly. True, she wasn’t the kind of girl who normally believed in one-night stands. In fact, she wasn’t the kind of girl who got laid at all. Not for a very long time. Not since...
She tried to erase the memory of the scornful mouth and hard, dark eyes she’d once found so intriguing. Sexy even. She’d been wrong about that asshole. Apparently, she’d been just as wrong about Wesley Adams.
The man was handsome and tall with warm brown skin. An athletic body that had felt incredible pressed against hers on the dance floor. And a killer smile. One worthy of a toothpaste commercial. He had the straightest, most brilliant teeth she’d ever seen.
And she loved his laugh, which he employed often. Because he was funny. And smart. And he liked sports. Just like she did. But he wasn’t intimidated because she was knowledgeable about sports and full of opinions she readily shared. He was the kind of guy she could see herself spending time with on those lonely nights she actually got to spend in her own bed back in Huntington Beach.
Wes was the kind of guy she wanted to spend more than one night with, so she’d turned down his offer to go back to his place.
She’d gone to the pub with Bex that night, determined to crawl out of all the insecurities that rumbled around in her head, barely leaving elbow room for her own thoughts.
She went to The Alley that night, intending to take someone back to her hotel. Just once she wanted to be a little naughty. To shed the good-girl image she’d worked so hard to perfect over the past two decades.
She was the scholarship kid who struggled to fit in at a private school, terrified that the kids would find out she lived in the run-down projects. Two of the front stairs missing and not a single blade of grass on their “lawn.”
She’d spent the past ten years creating her image as the perfect spokesperson. A successful player with a feel-good story and the kind of good-girl image that garnered endorsements and kept them. Not the kind of girl who would stroll into a club and pick up a random guy for the night.
In the end, she hadn’t turned him down to protect her shiny, good-girl reputation. She politely turned down his offer because she liked him.
Really liked him.
So she gambled on there being another night between them. Only there wasn’t. Bree was angry at Wes for not keeping his promise. She was angry with herself for not taking him up on his offer.
Bree drew her legs against her chest, wrapping her arms around them. If she was going to be working with Wes Adams for the next six months, she’d have to start thinking with her brain, not her libido. And she couldn’t behave like a jilted lover.
Her heart fluttered, just thinking about how her hand felt in his, even for a moment. A glowing warmth arose through her fingers, making its way to her chest.
She put her head on her knees and sighed.
Letting go of her silly crush on Wes would be easier said than done.
Copyright © 2018 by Roxanne Ravenel
ISBN-13: 9781488081309
Soaring on Love
Copyright © 2018 by Joy Avery
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 3K9 Canada.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
® and ™ are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office and in other countries.
www.Harlequin.com