Page 20 of Lemon Crush

He looked interested.Veryinterested.

Not possible.

Our story was the same long-suffering and painfully unrequited kind I’d once applied to the side characters in my first series. No matter how my readers howled at the injustice, those characters would never be together, because that was my—or rathertheir—story.

I would always be unwillingly attracted to Wade and he would never see me as anything other than Morgan’s sister. Rinse and repeat until the sad, inevitable conclusion where the sidekick sacrifices her life to save the heroine, only confessing her love to her guilt-laden but oblivious bodyguard in a tear-jerking monologue as she dies at the end of the second book.

The point of that spoiler was that Wade shouldn’t be giving me sizzling looks and I shouldn’t be enjoying it. But he was and I was, and I had no idea what to do with any of that information.

“The apartment,” he said suddenly, only looking away after studying my nipples long enough to bring them to full and hopeful attention. “Have you accepted any applications yet?”

Sorry nipples, I’m too busy going into shock to care about your feelings.

“How in the hell do you know about that?”

5

WADE

Well that wentto shit faster than I’d thought it would.

She seemed more unsettled by my asking about the apartment than she was by nearly choking to death in front of me. It didn’t help that I’d shown up in her backyard without notice, then kept my arms around her for longer than strictly necessary after she could breathe again. Ogling her ass when she bent over, and being unable to take my eyes off her breasts long enough to offer much in the way of coherent conversation, hadn’t done me any favors either.

What social skills I had felt rustier than my first Charger, which was currently up on blocks behind the garage shed, waiting for the free time I never had to restore it.

I had a better chance of salvaging that wreck than I did this one.

August stood there, her chin sticking out stubbornly and her bare feet planted firmly apart. Her posture had gone from self-conscious to self-righteous, which did great things for the lush breasts delectably framed by her crossed arms.

Eyes up, asshole.

“I’m signed up to the same site,” I said staring directly into her eyes instead of looking down again. They were pretty eyes, tipped up at the corners and a shade of blue so dark they were almost indigo. The deep kind of blue you could fall right into if you weren’t careful. “I get notifications when a place goes up for sale or rent in the area. You pinged me yesterday.”

“Ididn’tpingyou,” she declared, as if I’d accused her of grabbing my ass. Something I would have been fine with, by the way.

“The apartment did. It’s in the right location.”

Her brow furrowed. “For what? Why are you getting pings anyway? I thought you already rented out your place.”

“Who told you that?” Had she been asking about me?

“Gene mentioned it yesterday, remember? He asked if the guy renting your apartment could help out with a car.”

“Right, right.” I hadn’t realized she was listening that closely. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Well, that’s a long, boring story. And I believe we were talking about you.”

“No, we were talking about why my apartment pinged you.”

I’d taken off from the garage like my ass was on fire when I should have thought this through a bit longer. Texted her. Maybe asked Kingston for some advice, since he’d always been the smooth talker of our duo. He could have told me that a corner-store balloon and an unscheduled car drop-off wouldn’t be the icebreakers for this conversation I thought they’d be. He would have told me to “Use my words.” The smartass was always saying shit like that.

I took a deep breath to center myself. “Okay, so here’s the deal. I?—”

My phone dinged in my back pocket. Once. Twice. Three times.

“More apartments hitting on you?” she asked dryly.

“It can wait.”

“It might be important.”

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