He took a step closer so that they were nearly touching. “Yeah.”

“Why?” The question was out before she thought about the fact that she may not want to hear the answer.

Really, who wanted to hear because I pity you or we’re part of the same team or because we’re dinner buddies? Not her—not when it came to someone she was having inappropriate thoughts about on a way-too-regular basis.

He gave her a look. It was the kind where his eyes went dark and intense and every fluttery part of her body—which she would have sworn hadn’t existed—rose up in response. Maintaining eye contact was unimaginable. Glancing away was an impossibility.

“Because,” he said, dipping his head lower, “I like you.”

She laughed, that stupid high-pitched squeak of a giggle that always seemed to come out at the wrong time—like when the last guy she should be kissing looked at her like that. Luckily—or unluckily, she wasn’t sure—he didn’t pull back.

Instead, he cupped her face with his hands and kissed her, sending a sizzle of desire through her entire body. It wasn’t hard. He teased her with his tongue, drawing her out until she couldn’t help but kiss him back, closing the distance between their bodies and demanding more. All the reasons why this was a bad idea melted away under the heat of his touch. And just when she was ready to climb him like a tree because not being as close to him as possible wasn’t an option, he broke the kiss and stepped back.

For as dazed and sexually frustrated as she felt at that moment, it was nothing compared to the want in his eyes. Fucking A. Whatever happened next was going to go down in the history book of oh-my-God-yes, right next to standardizing bread being sold in sliced loaves and whoever thought of double espresso lattes.

But then, Ian just brushed his lips across her forehead and left without even one of his signature grunts. Meanwhile, she stood there, dumbstruck with her fingers pressed to her kiss-swollen lips, trying to untangled what in the world had just happened and what would happen next.

…

Attempting a breakaway while pulling a Zamboni would have been less difficult than leaving Shelby’s hotel room. But he’d done it. Kissing her hadn’t been part of his plan when he’d gone to her room.

Yeah, like you even had a plan, buddy.

All he’d known was that he didn’t want her to have all those shitty comments in her head. The need to spare her that had gotten him out of his room before he’d even considered what he was doing. And then he’d kissed her, because not doing so was pretty much impossible and he didn’t have a single fucking regret about it.