Page 77 of The Accidental Innkeeper

He huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah.”

The inn hummed around us, alive and working, but now everything had shifted.

And there was no going back.

What the fuck did I just do?

16

SARAH

Istood there, staring at the exact spot where his mouth had been, my brain doing absolutely nothing useful.

Smooth. Very smooth, Sarah.

Dust-guy cleared his throat. The sound alone made my spine tingle, which was extremely unhelpful given that my common sense had already packed a bag and left town. And my lady V was apparently auditioning for a drum solo.

Yup. When I screwed up, I screwed up big.

I couldn’t believe I’d just done that. Me. Kissing him. The last thing I needed right now was… that. I had an inn falling apart, a life mid-implosion, and exactly zero space for bad decisions with a tight ass and spectacular jawline.

Yet, he’d kissed me back.

What the hell did that mean?

“I should go,” said Dust-guy, his gaze everywhere but at me.

“Yes,” I said immediately, inhaling his musk-like cologne, which was very nice. “You should. Definitely. Because… pipes. And walls. And temptation.” There I went again with my mouth-vomit.

His lips twitched.

Great. Now I was flirting in fragments.

He took a step back, putting a very necessary two feet of space between us. The den felt suddenly smaller. Charged. And I felt the sudden loss of his body heat.

“Listen,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “That wasn’t…”

“Planned?” I offered.

“No.”

“Smart?”

“Also no.”

“Mutual?”

He hesitated for exactly half a second. Then nodded. “Yeah.”

Well. When I fall into the crapper, I fall neck-deep.

Silence stretched between us, thick and awkward and humming with everything we weren’t saying. The inn creaked softly, like it was settling in for the morning. Or applauding. Hard to tell.

I flicked my gaze up and found Edna-portrait staring. If she’d been alive and had witnessed that, she’d be mentally sharpening knives already. Loose, she’d call me. Loser, right on its heels. Possibly hopeless, just to round it out.

I could practically hear it, “Kissing a contractor? In my house” She’d never miss a chance to imply I couldn’t even inherit properly.

I swallowed and dragged my attention back to Alex, who was still very much standing there, still very solid, still very real.