Thank you. That’s the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me. Sebastian, I have feelings for you. I want to treat this wedding like a date. And then I want to go on a real date.

Any of that would have been acceptable in Via’s eyes. They were all words that were tripping to fall out of her mouth. Maybe it was his nearness, his size, the warm pine man-scent that was emanating from him, but Via found herself with a terrible case of brain scramble and she ended up simply blurting, “You look really hot.”

She would have face-palmed herself right into a coma if it weren’t for the sun-shaming, earthquaking, heart-stuttering grin that exploded over his face.

“Thanks,” he said, his earlier intensity melting into a much warmer expression. His eyes skated lazily over her face, and he reached up to touch one of the gold studs in her ear. Her breath caught at the intimate feel of his rough fingertips at her earlobe. He wasn’t being seductive, he was just toggling the earring around, almost the same way that Matty had been absently playing with her necklace the other day. “You wanna get drunk and dance and celebrate our friend?”

“Yes,” she answered immediately. It was the perfect invitation.

SEBASTIAN SIPPED CHAMPAGNE and laughed his ass off with Grace and Shelly and Cat and felt like part of him was walking around outside his body. Via was chatting with some people he didn’t know on the other side of the room. She was accepting an appetizer on a toothpick from a caterer who nearly swallowed his tongue when she smiled at him. And then she was swiping a glass of champagne from the bar and settling herself in the free seat at their table, grinning over at Rachel, a dozy, loose, electric expression on her face.

The whole time, Sebastian felt as if he were split in two. Half of him was sitting here, in this chair, chuckling as Grace and Cat narrated voices for each of Rae’s gawky cousins in the corner. And the other half? Well, the other half was over there with that little, warm, golden, wavy-haired sex perfection charming everyone she came in contact with.

He’d felt a variation on this feeling before, with Matty. Fatherhood had a way of making a man feel like his heart had grown two stubby legs and chubby little forearms and a tiny, blunt face alternately scowling and laughing. Even though he’d had a lot of room for improvement as a father in the first three years of Matty’s life, it didn’t mean he hadn’t loved his son to distraction.

He’d always felt better when he and Matty didn’t have much distance between them. He didn’t like the world getting in the way of his heart. In a way, that’s how he felt right now. Like he and Via were a unit, two parts to one whole and he just wanted to be next to her.

Actually, he wanted to be a hell of a lot closer than next to her. Inside of her was pretty much what he had in mind. He wanted to slip his hand up that green dress and watch his paw disrupt the fabric. He bet he could span her entire stomach if he spread his fingers wide enough. He also bet she had a light little touch. He wanted her to torture him with it while he took that dress in two handfuls and just smelled it. Honestly, he kind of wanted to do disgusting things to that dress. Destroy it. Just to take the edge off before he turned around and did all those same things to her.