Hard Checked (Ice Kings #4) - Stacey Lynn Page 0,48

I wrong.

Turns out, not setting fire to my growing and simmering crush on Sebastian is riskier.

I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s been a week since the day he showed up at my apartment, sweet little grin twisting his lips, beard cleanly shaven, hair hidden beneath a ball cap and tucked behind his ears while holding two coffees before so sweetly asking me to hang out with him.

What’s a girl supposed to do? How could I have possibly stopped my attraction to him when he looks at me the way he does?

And that moment when he leaned in and licked his lips? The promise of what a kiss from him would be like radiated down deep between my thighs. For a moment, I was tempted.

Then reality slammed into my brain.

This is a guy who’s married. Or is he? Sort of though, right? Because even if his wife says she wants a divorce, things can change.

So when he pulled back up to my bar and building, handed me his phone and asked for my number, the smartest decision would have been to say no thanks.

I’m learning when it comes to dealing with my feelings for Sebastian, I’m not all that smart.

“You want my number?”

“Yeah…”

My hand shakes as I slide his phone into mine. Sebastian Hendrix wants my phone number. “What for?”

I glance at him as I start tapping in my phone number. “Because I like talking to you.”

“Right.”

Such a simple statement shouldn’t make me warm all over. I can’t even blame the heat or the sun, it’s February for crap’s sake and we’ve been in his air-conditioned car for a half hour.

My thumbs tremble, causing it to take me three tries to get my number right. Thanks a lot, fat thumbs. Before I can stop myself, I send myself a text that he’ll see. Hotshot’s digits.

Handing his phone back to him, he takes it, sliding his hand beneath mine holding his phone and squeezing.

“Gigi.”

My other hand is already wrapped around the door handle. Is it hot in here? It has to be. Perhaps his AC is on the fritz and the temp just rose thirty degrees.

I’m still remembering the way he licked his lips, gazing at me with such warmth in those green eyes my body still feels it.

“Yeah?” I have to force myself to look at him.

His hand squeezes mine so sweetly. He’s warm and strong. Calloused palms scrape the back of my knuckles. Man. That scrape would feel delicious in other places.

“Look at me.”

It takes effort but I finally manage and when I do, his expression is inscrutable. My lips part in response. This is not a friendly look. It’s most definitely not a happy one, although I’ve rarely seen them on Sebastian so I’m not altogether certain what that looks like on him. It’s definitely not anger.

It is, however, intense. Extremely so.

“If I were in a better place, a different place, I think I’d end this walk and our time together today very differently.”

“What?”

He drops my hand slowly, sliding his phone out of my palm and smirking. “You heard me.” He waves his phone back and forth. “We’ll talk soon, okay?”

I don’t think talking anymore to Sebastian is good for my health. My heart is currently palpitating at unusual speeds.

“Okay,” I croak out and climb out of his car. It takes a second to gather my balance, although the cement beneath my feet is firm and flat. It’s my knees that are wobbling like a newborn foal. “Bye, hotshot.”

My first text from Sebastian came later that evening.

Someday you’re going to tell me why you insist on calling me that.

He was referencing his nickname. I smiled, so surprised at the buzz of my phone in my pocket while I worked behind the bar that night on a slower than normal evening that when another buzz came while I tried to think of a reply, his next text made me roll my eyes.

I’d prefer the lone wolf.

No way, I’d typed back. You need a team behind you. A pack. Like the Ice Kings.

I hadn’t even thought of my response, and it wasn’t very playful, but I wasn’t going to ignore him despite the alarm bells blaring in my brain while I remembered one of the last things he’d said to me earlier that day.

How would it have ended differently?

What different place does he need to be in?

Would that different place slash different ending come with those full, dark pink lips pressed to mine? Perhaps parting my own before he tasted