I didn’t realize it was Ziggy I was mentally undressing until I heard someone inside yell her name and watched her answer to it. Now I stand, clutching her arm, drinking her in as she glows in the harsh brightness of the venue’s lights. My stomach sours. The liquor I’ve been drinking since before the ceremony began crawls up my throat.
She only looks a little like Ren—the same long, straight nose and sharp, high cheekbones, and (now that we’re in proper lighting) the same rich red hair—but mostly she looks nothing like him. Unlike his ice-blue irises, hers are wide, deep-set emeralds. And while I’ve noticed a few on Ren, her skin is scattered with freckles, a shower of cinnamon sparks splashed across her nose and cheeks, across her arm that I’m still holding. That I can’t seem to stop holding.
I think I just might be in shock.
I watched quiet, shy Ziggy Bergman viciously strip off her panties.
And I thoroughly enjoyed it.
More than enjoyed it. Got very, very aroused, watching her hike up her dress, looking like some ocean goddess—long, wild hair whipping in the breeze, seafoam-green fabric dancing over pale, freckled thighs that kept going and going, leading to wide hips and two full curves of her ass—
Shit. Shit.
I’m mentally debauching her again.
“Sebastian.” There’s my full name again, scolding and authoritarian. Ziggy sounds like a chiding schoolteacher faced with a naughty little boy, a fantasy I’d enjoy much more if a) it didn’t involve my best friend’s little sister, and b) she hadn’t used my full name. I hate when people use my full name.
“It’s Seb,” I tell her icily.
She blinks slowly, curiously, as if impervious to the frigid warning in my voice. As if she’s not one bit intimidated by me, even when I stand to my full height, maximizing the two inches I have on her. She lifts her chin and stares right back.
The hairs on the nape of my neck stand up. The way they always do when my sixth sense kicks in. A warning.
I should be running the other way, putting distance between us like I have the past two years.
Since I joined the Kings and found myself inextricably tethered to her brother, I have kept my eyes, thoughts, hands, attention thoroughly away from Ziggy Bergman. Because Ren—the kind, good, always smiling captain of my team, a man who is truly my antithesis—is the one person I haven’t been able to scare off, who’s not only refused to be put off by my horrible reputation and merciless streak of misbehavior, but who’s insinuated himself in my life to the point that we’ve become profoundly close, and like hell will I risk that friendship.
That means steering clear of the people he loves. Which there happen to be quite a lot of. Six siblings. Six.
It hasn’t been a great challenge, given most of them are partnered, not that—let’s be clear about the quality of my character—this has stopped me from seducing someone before. The remaining two who are unpartnered, I swore to myself I’d avoid entirely, no matter how attractive they were.
One was easier than the other.
Viggo, his younger brother, wasn’t hard to write off. While damn good looking, he’s always waving around a romance novel, yelling about toxic masculinity and happy endings. I don’t touch romantics, a lesson I learned the hard way after a few clingers refused to believe I’m really as disinterested in commitment as I told them.
Ziggy, on the other hand, has been trickier. Striking height and looks, but so demure and quiet, a delicious blend of contradictions that I’ve had to remind myself repeatedly I will not be exploring. She, I’ve had to decide to ignore. And I’ve done very well following through on that decision the past few years.
Until now.
“Be right there!” she yells inside, before rounding on me. I catch the whisper of a perfume that’s soft and clean, so light, it could be only the scent of her skin, the soap she uses to bathe.
Christ. Now I’m thinking about her bathing. Bubbles frothing along those long, freckled legs, dissolving at the curve of her breasts—
“What was that about?” she demands, snapping me out of more debaucherous thoughts.
“I didn’t know it was you.”
Her eyes narrow. “You…didn’t know it was me.”
I turn away and stare out at the ocean, avoiding looking at her. God, I’m drunk. The world’s tipping like I’m on a ship weathering sky-high swells.
“Yes,” I say on a nauseated exhale.
She folds her arms. “We’ve seen each other easily a handful of times. I look just like your best friend—”
“That is patently untrue,” I mutter, massaging my aching temples. My brain feels like sludge. And, like it does so often, my stomach thuds with sharp, familiar pain.
She snorts. “You really expect me to believe you didn’t recognize me.”
“Yes,” I snap, rounding on her, making her take a fast step back as her eyes widen in surprise. “It’s getting dark. You were backlit, and I’m drunk. Your hair was down, and it’s never down. I didn’t recognize you.”
Now her eyebrows lift, twin cinnamon curves arched over those wide green eyes the color of wet glossy leaves like the ones surrounding us. “How do you know my hair’s never down?”
“I don’t pretend to know or care what it looks like,” I tell her sharply, hoping it’ll scare her off. “I mean, when I’ve seen you, it’s never down.”
She tips her head, arms across her chest. “I wasn’t aware you even saw me when we did cross paths. You seemed to overlook the fact that I even existed.”
“Yes, well, it’s easy to overlook someone who obviously wants to be overlooked. If you’ve been hoping for a different response, I’d suggest revising that attitude.”
Suddenly, her expression blanks. When she blinks, a sheen of wetness turns her eyes glassy.
That’s when I realize I’ve done something even more unforgiveable than mentally debauching my best friend’s little sister:
I’ve made her cry.
The past three weeks since I watched Ziggy run off on the verge of tears began as a typical self-loathing bender, but have culminated in a new, bleak low. With my reinjured foot propped up, I lounge on Ren’s sofa, the recipient of a formidable scowl.
Frankie’s.
My highly displeased agent sits in an armchair across from me in her usual head-to-toe black, long, dark hair curtaining intense hazel eyes. That paired with her severe expression, her hand flexing menacingly around her gray acrylic cane, she looks like a pissed-off witch, ready to curse me. I think, one more wrong move on my part, and she just might.
“You,” she says flatly, “are an ass of unfathomable proportions.”
“This is not news.” Shutting my eyes, I drop my head back on the arm of their sofa.
Frankie jabs my thigh with the tip of her cane. Hard.
“Ow!” I whine. “Ren, Frankie hit me.”
“Don’t talk to him,” she snaps. “He has no part in this conversation.”
“So we’re having this meeting at your house while Ren makes us lunch, why again?”
“So I won’t murder you,” she tells me darkly.
I swallow. Frankie’s wrath is just about the only thing I’m scared of. That and losing my hockey career.