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“I think so? I mean I wouldn’t say that I would one-hundred-percent be right. But I think I could probably point them out.”
“Okay. Great. This was really helpful, Josie,” Luca said, heading toward the door. “Can we contact you again if we need to?” It was a question, but everyone in the room—Josie included—knew that if he wanted to talk to her, he was going to.
“I, ah, yeah.”
“Matteo knows where to find you, yeah?” he asked, opening the door to the hall, letting in all the noise from the family down the hall.
I had to be honest, a big part of the reason I bought the house even though it needed a lot of superficial work was because it was older. And everyone knew that they didn’t build quite like they used to. So the walls were thick and well insulated. Which meant you could barely tell there was a full-on party going on a couple yards away when in the room with the door closed.
“Ah, yeah. Um, I work at the—“
“Right. Yes,” Luca said, giving her an apologetic half-smile. “We’ve crossed paths a few times. Well, we know where to find you if we need to talk to you again,” he said, leaving me to wince because I could see from Josie’s wide eyes that she was taking that more as a threat than a throwaway comment.
With that, everyone filed out.
Milo went ahead and made sure he got close enough to touch Josie’s arm and “thank her for coming to us.”
That kid was going to out-charm me with the women someday.
I was starting to think a part of me would be happy to hand over the crown to him.
It was getting old.
The thing was, it hadn’t been getting old until, say, a couple of Friday nights ago.
And I was going to go ahead and not let myself analyze why I hadn’t been out to find a woman to bring home since then.
It was Massimo who hung backward, his gaze moving down Josie, and that damn jealousy of mine resurged until he seemed to hyper-fixate on her feet.
“Nice shoes,” he said, making my brows knit. Because Massimo wasn’t exactly a ‘notice a woman’s shoes’ kind of guy. “What is that? Size seven and a half?” he asked.
I watched at Josie’s eyes went wide at that.
“Ah, yeah.”
“Interesting,” he said, turning to give me a long, hard look on his way out the door.
And it was right then that I understood.
He’d managed to catch sight of her shoes in my trunk that night.
Not only had he noticed them, but he thought their presence was strange enough to commit the size to memory.
Shit.
I didn’t know if that was necessarily a bad thing, if he suspected something untoward, or if he was simply imagining that Josie and I had sparked up a secret relationship.
“Please tell me that is a foot fetish thing,” Josie said when he was gone, voice a little tight, “and not a ‘sizing me up to fit me for cement shoes’ type of thing.”
A surprised laugh escaped me at that as I closed the door and moved around the bed to get closer to her.
“It’s not that,” I assured her. “That was a comment at me, not you.”
“Really? Because he was looking at me. Oh, do you… you know… have the foot fetish?”
Another laugh escaped me as I stopped in front of her.
“No. No foot fetish,” I told her. “I mean someone wants a foot massage, I’m game, but it’s not a fetish.” A heated, longing look crossed her face at my words, making a smile tug at my lips. “Feet hurt, huh?” I asked, slowly lowering myself down in front of her before she could even figure out what the hell I was doing. Before I could even think better of what I was doing.
My hand touched the back of her knee, and I heard the inward gasp of her breath at the contact. Goosebumps prickled up on her skin as my hand slowly slid down the back of her calf before gently grabbing her at the ankle and lifting her heel up off the ground.
“What…” she started, but never found the words to finish the question as my other hand reached for her shoe and slid it off her foot. “You can’t…” she tried again, voice already airless as I dropped the shoe and reached for her foot with both of my hands, pressing my thumb in at her arch.
“I can,” I corrected, feeling a stab of desire as she let out a little whimpering sound at the touch. “Unless you don’t want me to,” I added, using both thumbs as I pressed up her arch again. “That would be a completely different thing,” I said. “But you would have to tell me you want me to stop,” I finished, doubling down on the pressure even as her body started to relax above me.
