Page 28 of The Sebastian Guarantee
He’d eaten a lot of hot dogs in his day. Anyone in Phoebe’s orbit had. It was like a pre-req to gaining her friendship. But this hot dog was like tasting the treat for the first time. The flavors melded together, marrying scent, taste, and touch into one hot-doggity-delicious symphony of sensations. He’d eaten the world’s finest cuisine, but nothing compared to this.
“Sebastian?”
“Mm-hmm,” he hummed and bolted upright. It was near impossible to talk with six inches of hot dog bliss crammed into his mouth. And was that a brioche bun? It had to be. It tasted damned delicious!
Focus! Phoebe is calling.
He went to work, chewing like a voracious Great White Shark, then swallowed the meal in one giant gulp. He stared at the foil wrapper that left no trace of the delectable hot dog it had once housed. He stuffed the wrapper into his pocket with the watch and stone.
“I need your opinion, Seb. Can you come back here?”
He looked up as the phone near the register rang, and the clerk departed the changing area, leaving Phoebe alone.
“Okay,” he answered, running his tongue across his teeth, feeling for speed-dash-dinner remnants.
Phoebe pulled back the curtain, only revealing her head and bare shoulders. She’d removed her beret and shook out her braid. Her loose chestnut locks kissed her collarbone. “You can’t laugh,” she slur-threatened.
“Pheebs, you know I won’t.”
She chewed her lip, then whipped the entire curtain out of the way . . . and good God! She was . . . she looked . . . He couldn’t form a cohesive thought to save his life.
“Is this what you like—I mean, what guys like?” Phoebe asked. Her bottom lip trembled just as it had at the bistro.
“What guys like?” he stammered, parroting back her words.
Moment of truth. He’d slept with glamorous models and socialites. He hadn’t lied when he’d garbled that admission at his interview with the Marieuse sisters. But he’d never been rendered speechless by a woman’s beauty . . .
. . . until now.
Clad in pink, Phoebe Gale was an absolute goddess.
A goddess who was his friend.
His childhood best friend.
He could not think about sleeping with her.
Shit!He’d thought about it.
It had to be his addled mind and killer hangover making him forget that she wasn’t meant for him—not like that.
“Seb?” she breathed. “Do you think it suits me?”
He stared at a smudge on the wall just past her shoulder. “Generally speaking, or are you talking color or choice of fabric?” Baggy jeans were not going to hide the evidence of how he felt about this sexy ensemble. He went the objective route. “It looks like how lingerie is supposed to look.”
Phoebe wobbled out of the dressing room, teetering on the sparkly shoes, and caught a glimpse of herself in an ornate mirror leaning against the wall. She raised her hands in the air. “I’ve got the Sebastian Cress seal of approval. I’ll take the baby doll and the shoes, too.”
He turned to find the clerk with a tablet in her hands standing behind him. “That’ll be four hundred sixty-nine dollars even. How would you like to pay?”
Phoebe blinked.
“Do you need your phone, Pheebs?”
Phoebe grimaced. “Four-six-nine is greater than six-nine. I have sixty-nine—like wine me, dine me, sixty-nine me.”
Putting the whole sixty-nine nuttiness aside, he could barely believe that Phoebe must be lower on cash than he was. But he wasn’t about to let her leave empty-handed.
“Pheebs, I saw some earrings over there by the entrance that might work with your outfit. Why don’t you take a look, and I’ll sort out your sixty-nine situation.”
