Page 11 of Worth Every Moment
“What are you doing?” I murmur, surprised at how strong he is. He’s not built like a gym monkey. He’s limber like a tennis player.
“Taking you somewhere that arsehole of a designer isn’t going to find you and drag you back out again. The bastard will have you hobbling out there with a gun to your head otherwise. Where’s quiet?”
I nod at a doorway that leads to a quiet preparation room in the back. No one will be there now.
Seb strides that way. An inconvenient fizz ofsomethingbubbles through my core, and I find myself bracing, as though tensing every muscle might ward the sensation off.Friends. We’re friends. That’s it.
“You okay?” he says with concern. “Relax.”
I nod, obeying his command and softening in his hold. I could stay right here all night. He pushes through the door and lets it swing closed behind us, shutting out the noise. Carrying me to a seat, he settles me in it, then kneels at my feet, unstrapping the shoe and wrapping my ankle with the ice. His touch is gentle, reverent. A shiver runs up my spine, making itself known through the discomfort.It’s the ice. Just the ice.
I stare down at the top of Seb’s bowed head. His hair is so thick that the glimpse of exposed scalp in the parting feels like a secret I shouldn’t be witnessing. It’s so intimate. I want to trace my finger down it, run my hands through his hair, and tip his face up to look at me.
I shake the thought away. Of all the men in the world, Seb Hawkston is not the one to be having these thoughts about. “You climbed on the runway. You ruined Dominic’s show,” I whisper.
“Ruined it?” Seb says, sounding amazed. “This will be all anyone can talk about. Dominic’s collection is made.”
I let out a husky laugh. “You might be right.”
He glances up at me, and the sight of him steals my next breath. Those blue eyes, so full of life, his smile, his lips, his jaw… he’s like a movie star, and coming from me, who spends my working life with some of the best-looking people in the world, the compliment is a serious one. But unlike those of us whose career depends on their looks, Seb is casual about his face. It justis. It’s as though his good looks hold no weight for him at all, and that’s incredibly appealing. To me, that sounds like freedom…
“How does it feel?” he asks, laying a gentle hand over the top of my foot, holding the ice to the ankle with his other hand.
I try to rotate my foot, but a fierce hit of pain strikes and I suck in a gasp. “Not good. But I think it’s just a sprain.”
Seb makes a lowhmmingsound as his hand rests on my foot. His touch is feather-light. A caress that’s of absolutely no therapeutic use. I should tell him to stop.I should.This is definitely crossing some line.Do friends do this?This feels more than friendly.
His fingers continue up the front of my foot. It’s not providing relief, but itissoothing. I shouldn’t be letting him do it. Should put a stop to it. It feels like a strange type of foreplay, and given the tingles that are spreading up my legs leaving fields of goosebumps in their wake, my body is convinced we’re doing something here too.
Can he see those goosebumps on my legs? I hope not. I need to put a stop to this. Say something to shift the silence away frommy skin and his hands… and the way my body is responding to his touch.
“I saw you out there,” I say. “With those women.”
He stops, lifting his hand away.Phew. “Women?”
“On your row.”
He doesn’t look up, his eyebrows drawing together. “I didn’t know you were watching.”
My heart clenches.Damn. Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted to that. He looks up at me and I give a little shrug, at which the tension in his brow eases. “There are always so many women,” I murmur.
Seb is quiet before he offers me a smile that looks forced at first, but then eases into his usual charming grin. “You wanna go out with me instead? Just say the word and I’m all yours. I’ll quit them all.”
Unsurprisingly for Seb, his tone is jocular, but I take a sharp intake of breath anyway, feigning shock. It’s our usual dance around the topic. “You’re incorrigible.”
“I’m serious,” he says, and this time it gives me pause because it sounds like he means it. I scan his face, but I don’t see the joke there either, and the lack of it makes every feature on his sculpted face look different… harsher, but even more handsome. But there’s no way Seb would ask me out. Not seriously. Not after all these years. If he did, what would I say?
I refuse to think too hard about it, but if he’s going to sound serious, I will too. “I’m not going to finally agree to go out with you just because you hauled me and my broken shoe off the runway.”
He pulls back, the furrow between his brows reappearing. “Why not?”
“Come on, Seb. You know we’d never work.”
A slight huff escapes between his parted lips, and the sound seems to suggest that he expected exactly that response fromme. He drags another chair towards us and rests my leg on it. When he’s sure I’m comfortable, he crouches at my feet again. “Do I?”
I swipe a hand in his direction, a playful thwack that he avoids by ducking and making a show of pretending he thought I really meant to hit him.That’s more like it.“Yes. Have you ever had a female friend you haven’t tried to sleep with?”
“Apart from you?”
