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“Why don’t you go back?”
Sebastian is already shaking his head. “Back isn’t a direction I like going in. Maybe if I could turn it into something new…”
The sentiment hangs, and I place my hand on his. Whatever he wants for his future, I hope he gets it.
“It must have gotten you laid a lot.”
Sebastian’s breathing is a steady rhythm filling the silence while I inwardly kick myself for asking.
“Are you jealous?” He raises his brow.
I shrug. “Dating’s never come easy for me.”
I remember the first night we met. Instant crush. Older, cocky, cool. And so fucking sexy. The eyes, the smile. But I was barely nineteen, and he kept his distance, so I slotted him into my “unattainable hotties” collection and got on with my life.
Now look at where I am.
“They’re all jackasses. I can’t imagine anyone not wanting to be with you,” he says softly.
I pull back. To avoid answering, but also to give Sebastian a chance to check my work. I’m mesmerized by theflex of his shoulders and biceps as he turns his head and brushes a hand over his beard. All the times I’ve seen him do it before, I’ve wished I could reach out.
Sebastian lowers his hands to the counter, thumbs brushing the bare skin of my thighs. There’s not an inch of my body that isn’t tingling right now, silently pleading with him to touch me.
It makes me want to lick the tendon that runs up the side of his neck, the one flexing under my heated gaze.
“Maybe other guys can’t see you,” he adds. I swear his voice has gotten deeper. “But I can, and there’s no part of you that isn’t beautiful.”
I told myself I was over him when I moved away. It was easier to forget my feelings had ever existed. The only times we ever saw each other were during the holidays. A friendly hello here, an awkward goodbye there. And yeah, he’s aged incredibly well. Almost painfully so. It’s difficult to look directly at him at times. Especially with his habit of looking at a person as though there’s nothing else he wants to look at.
Like right now.
“The way you look at me, I…” Finding the right words has never been harder. “I don’t need to be a certain version of myself. I can be any version I want to be, because you’ll accept me the way I am. I’m not used to having a person look at me without wanting something.”
“I never said I didn’t want, Bee.”
Oh.
A shiver runs through me.
Before he can add anything else—if he says one morething, I may spontaneously combust—I shut him up by trimming the other side of his beard.
His sweats are soft as they brush against my leg. The whole rumpled look suits him, and I’m regretting every single gray sweatpants meme I’ve ever seen.Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.
Keeping my hand steady is an exercise in restraint. Any more of this, and I’ll have to declare a state of emergency on myself.
“Hard to believe you’ve never done this before,” he says after I’ve cleaned up his neck. Already, it’s looking crisp and sexy. I never realized shaving could be so erotic, but is it any wonder Sebastian makes it that way?
“Most of the guys I’ve dated barely wanted to sleep over, let alone move in. The last guy I saw shaving was my brother.”
“I think we’ve established those jerks you’ve dated didn’t deserve you.”
The warmth in my chest spreads.
“I suppose you’ve asked all your girlfriends to help you do this,” I blurt out, because anything is better than talking about my exes. Except now I’ve just implied that I am a part of Sebastian’s girlfriends, and I want to sew my damn mouth shut before I say anything else.
“No, just you.”
I… can’t really find the brain power to analyze that, especially not with a minor weapon in my hands, so I just continue. If I’m cutting, then I won’t be tempted to look up and decipher the way he’s looking at me.
