Hard Checked (Ice Kings #4) - Stacey Lynn Page 0,42

when Sebastian doesn’t move with him.

“Okay,” I say, because I’m a glutton for punishment. I enjoy things that are bad for me, adrenaline rushes and the unknown.

I have a feeling for the first time with Sebastian, it just might be my downfall.

He brushes against my neck one more time. Emerald green eyes watching and flaring when I can’t hide my shiver from his touch. And then it’s gone, his hand shoved into his pocket.

He clears his throat. “Walk with me?”

I try to resettle my racing heart. “Sure.”

I fall in step next to him and it feels like a step toward my doom, but I’m too enamored to fall back to safety.

We walk for a while, mostly in silence, the patter of Bruiser keeping our attention. I’m not sure how upset I should be, if anything.

He likes being with me. Isn’t that enough? He’s made no promises. Heck, as far as I know, he may have already put me in the friend zone.

But that look when he said, it confuses me.

Yeah… that wasn’t exactly friendly. Still, I need to be careful. He’s a mess.

I prefer the only messes of mine to be my clothes in my apartment.

Kicking a small rock in our path out of our way, I watch it clatter to the weeds to the side. The silence is killing me. Odd, consider I’ve confessed how much I like being alone with thoughts.

Just not these particular ones.

“So, you have a game tomorrow?”

“Home. You working?”

“Always,” I confirm. My eyes squint against the bright sound despite wearing sunglasses. “Will you… well…”

I’m not sure if I should ask, but I’m dying of curiosity.

“Will I what? Play?”

“Yeah. I saw you didn’t last week.”

“Ahh.” His hand scrubs his hair and he tilts his face to the sun. His beard, while growing longer every time I see him, is still neatly shaven at beneath his jaw leaving me a view of his corded throat, the muscles at his shoulders. And hell, I mean, he’s muscled everywhere, obvious beneath his shirt.

“I went to Minnesota to see Madison.”

“Oh.” I’m not expecting that, and I trip over a small stick in my path before righting myself.

I can offer him nothing, not even real understanding because my divorce was my idea and it was mutual. Not painful like the ripples of his hurt rolling off him.

“I’m sorry.”

He huffs and rolls his shoulders as if the mere mention of Madison bunches his muscles to the point of pain. “It sucks. A lot, but I guess, I think more than anything, I needed our goodbye to happen in person. I needed to hear it from her.”

My fingertips burn to squeeze his arm. Wrap my small arms around his waist and place my cheek to his chest to hold him, to promise it will be okay, but I do nothing.

I say nothing. My role in his life is uncertain and I don’t know what moves of comfort would be welcome.

“Did it help? Seeing her?”

His jaw falls forward and tightens before he shrugs. “In some ways. She… I don’t know how to explain it. I think the pain over the years, of not getting what she wanted, of all the help we had, I think it made her depressed. Or made it worse. I’m not really sure how that works, and there were medicines she took. The hormones she took were hard for her. We’ve had years of it being hard, I’m not sure I remember now what it was like when we had fun.”

I kick another pebble. At my side, I can almost sense his defeat. He’s given up. But on what? His wife? His marriage?

“She was beautiful and crazy and wild. Always the one planning our social calendar and God, she could make me laugh. All of that… I don’t know how to describe what happened and I can promise you it wasn’t all her fault, it wasn’t all the medicine. I think I started getting upset when we stopped having sex for fun. You know what it’s like to be told no because it’s ‘not the right time?’ Or because I had to wait forty-eight hours? It sucked, and I can’t say I was always nice about it, even if I understood.”

His sex life with his wife is the last possible thing I want to hear about, but I’m trapped, and yet fascinated. Especially while he seems to be focusing on nothing and talking more to himself than me. Perhaps this is what he needs—to work this out verbally instead of