His touch is soft, almost imperceptible, but it’s there, and my pulse begins to thrum under it. There’s no way he doesn’t feel it. There’s no way he doesn’t know that my heart is thundering in my chest like it never has before.
There is no damn way that Ezra Rawlings doesn’t know what he’s doing to me right now.
He pulls away slowly, his eyes meeting mine, andfuck. They’re dark in a way that I haven’t seen before. The kind of dark that saysI’m going to kiss you now.
And I’m okay with that. Hell, Iwanthim to kiss me. I want to kiss him too.
His gaze flicks to my lips, then back to my eyes. Over and over as he inches closer.
Holy shit, this is happening!
I hold my breath and close my eyes, anticipating the moment his lips meet mine.
Except, they never do.
No, when I open my eyes, Ezra is now standing several feet away, and I wonder when that happened. I was so caught up in the moment that I missed him moving.
Though his eyes are still dark, it’s different now. He’s not looking at me like he wants to kiss me. He’s looking at me like he wants to be anywhere else in the world.
And it’s fucking embarrassing. Did I misread the entire situation? Was he not just looking at me like he was a starving man?
“I should go,” he says, ramming his hands into his pockets.
Okay then.
“Sure.” I don’t know what else to say.
“Good night, Sunny.”
Then he disappears through the kitchen door like nothing ever happened, leaving me sitting there trying to figure out what the fuck just occurred.
Chapter Seven
Ezra
I almost kissed Summer.
And I don’t mean a spur-of-the-moment kind of kiss. I mean, Iconsciouslydecided to kiss her. I wasthis fucking close, could smell her vanilla cupcake perfume, could see the look in her eyes like she wanted it too.
But I didn’t. I came to my senses before I could fuck this thing up even more and got the hell out of there.
That was two days ago, and I haven’t spoken to her since. I was shocked when I stopped by the cidery yesterday to find my watch sitting on my desk. She must have put it there before she left. I had completely forgotten about it, which is surprising, because it’s one of the only things I have left of my father.
Fuck, I can’t believe I told her about my parents. Almost nobody knows what happened to them. It’s not something I like to advertise, mostly because I hate the pity that fills their eyes. But she told me about her mother and now what’s going on with her dad and ... shit, I don’t know. I wanted to share my scars too.
I had no idea that Daniel Turner was having heart problems. I get why he didn’t announce it to the town—this place is full of busybodies—but I wish I’d known. Maybe I’d have been a bit less of a jerk to him or would have accepted this arrangement with Summer a little easier.
Or maybe not.
Either way, I shouldn’t be kissing his daughter, that’s for damn sure. Not just because Sheriff Turner is doing me a favor either. She’s myemployeefor fuck’s sake. I don’t care if this deal was done under the table or not. I’m still the one signing her paychecks.
It’s wrong, no matter how wrong it didn’t feel.
I push that thought aside and try to refocus.
A kid—Joel—skates by, his blades swishing across the ice with that sound that’s so damn familiar to me at this point that I swear it’s embedded in my brain.
“Doing good,” I say to him as he holds the puck on his stick.
