Page 40 of One Week Wingman

But we both go down in the ditch.

SPLAT.

I sit up, groaning—and covered in filth. “Look what you did!” I half-laugh, half-wail. I’m sitting in about two inches of muddy water, absolutely soaked.

“WhatIdid?” Sebastian is sprawled beside me, laughing. “You’re the one who pushed me!”

He struggles to get up, then offers me a hand. We make it about two steps to the edge of the ditch, before sliding back down again. “Oof!”

“Here, take my hand.” Seb manages to get one foot on dry land, and then reaches down to help me.

I pause, noticing the wicked gleam in his eye. “You’re not planning to shove me back down again as payback, are you?” I check.

He laughs. “Now what kind of friend would I be?”

“The kind who tripped us in the first place?”

“Trust, darling. It’s the bedrock of a good relationship.” Sebastian keeps his hand out, and I figure if I don’t take it, I’m never getting out of this ditch.

I grab on, and he hauls me out, and onto solid land. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” he asks, smirking.

I glare back. “You were totally planning to push me again.”

“Who me?” Seb gives an innocent look. “I guess we’ll never know.”

I laugh, and then he suddenly pulls me closer, until I’m pressed up against his bare, sweaty, mud-splattered chest.

I lose my breath. “Seb?” I whisper, my heart suddenly beating faster. He’s gazing down at me, the laughter in his eyes replaced with something hotter.

More tempting.

“Roxy…” he murmurs back, hand reaching to tilt my chin up towards him… I sway closer, hypnotized, as his lips murmur softly in my ear.

“We have an audience.”

I blink. Sure enough, everybody is watching us. Mom has a dreamy look in her eyes like she’s picturing future English grandbabies, and meanwhile Daisy is snapping away merrily on her phone. I remember we’re covered in mud, standing in the middle of a field.

Guess who’s going to be all over social media tomorrow?

“Sorry,” I blurt, about to disentangle myself from him, but Seb holds me tight.

“What do you say, we give them something to look at?” he asks. Then he bends his head, and captures my lips in a slow, sizzling kiss.

Oh my God.

I melt immediately, like the touch of his lips alone is enough to spark a chemical reaction in my bloodstream. But it’s not just his lips, it’s his hand on the back of my head, and the crush of his bare chest against me, and—

The hard nudge of him pressing between my thighs.

Hello.

I’m arching up against him, still breathless, holding onto his shoulders for dear life, when he finally releases me.

“There,” he says with a casual wink, like that wasn’t just an epic, knee-weakening make-out. “That should give Stefano a good reputation.”

And I come back down to earth with a bump.

Stefano.

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