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He couldn’t even get an inappropriate boner. Instead, he just stroked her hair and her face and murmured to her as she shivered against him. The night was warm and balmy, and it felt more like a sauna than the bathroom had. Chelsea’s trembling wasn’t caused by the weather or the rain, but something going on in her mind.
She hated the dark. Hated it so much that she kept her lights on in her apartment at all times. He’d thought she just liked a lot of light.
But then why the screaming and utter terror about how she couldn’t breathe while in the dark?
Her nose pressed against his throat and she relaxed against him, her shivers turning into tremors, and the tremors slowly dying away as he soothed her. The rain soaked the two of them, pouring endless buckets down on the city of New Orleans.
This was their wedding night.
The thought struck Sebastian as utterly ludicrous. He’d really had no idea of what he was getting into when he’d married. He’d thought he’d marry Chelsea, they’d have a good time, buddy up for public appearances, and then pretty much ignore each other. Two strangers living in his big town house who occasionally had conversations and pretended to be married.
The kiss should have warned him. It should have told him that this wasn’t going to be the easy, platonic relationship they’d agreed to on paper.
Because he’d been aroused and attracted to her, and she’d treated it as nothing.
Chelsea wasn’t a happy-go-lucky girl. She was broken somewhere inside, and hiding it with a smile. Tonight showed him that.
He supposed there was still time to back out of the relationship. File a few annulment papers, say it was a mistake, go on their way. It was a fake relationship and there’d be no hurt feelings if they called it quits after twenty-four hours.
Except . . . that was out of the question.
From the time she’d given him that kiss in Hunter Buchanan’s library last night, she’d become his.
Her problems changed nothing. It only made him hold her tighter and gave him determination to find out what was wrong so he could help her.
At some point, despite the driving rain, she fell into an exhausted slumber against him. And he kept holding her, stroking her wet hair and touching her dripping arm, because she seemed to need it.
The power came on again a few hours later, the lights in the room behind them flicking on and flooding the balcony with light. Chelsea didn’t stir. Sebastian got to his feet and picked her up again. The dazed, exhausted whimpers started once more. “I’m here,” he murmured against her. “I’m here and the lights are on so we’re going to go into the room now, all right?”
“We have to keep the lights on,” she mumbled sleepily, still clinging to him.
“We will,” he vowed.
Chelsea was never going to be in the dark again if she didn’t want it. Even if he had to hold a freaking flashlight on her himself.
He eased her into bed and then retrieved his phone, setting it by the bedside. The blankets were sodden so he got extras out of the closet and then wrapped her in one of the fluffy bathrobes provided with the suite. He didn’t look at her long limbs or bare skin. It wasn’t important right now. She was like a doll, dazed and half-asleep, only moving her limbs when he encouraged her to lift her arms or legs so he could ease the robe around her.
Then, when she was dry, he stripped out of his own wet clothing and got into bed. She immediately curled up against him and went back to sleep. He pulled her against him and ran a hand through her drying hair, thoughtful. She was beautiful while she slept, but utterly vulnerable.
Chelsea Hall was now his to protect. He wouldn’t fail her. It was clear that someone had failed her in the past.
Never again.
Chapter Nine
Chelsea woke up with her cheek pressed against a warm male chest and her hair a snarl around her face. Her head throbbed and her throat hurt, and for a moment, she didn’t recall where she was. She sat up, blinking at her surroundings. A posh hotel room with a canopy bed and a fancy couch, and the world’s biggest balcony just outside the doors. There were towels and blankets strewn all over the floor. Even as she sat up, thunder rumbled, and she remembered.
Oh, god. She’d lost her shit last night. All she remembered was the shower, then the loss of light. Then utter fear.
When she had one of her panic attacks, she forgot everything else, her body moving in a state of mindless terror. Normally she attacked people until somehow it clicked that she wasn’t in the Dumpster. That she was safe.
She licked her lips, feeling awkward.
Sebastian’s hand went to the small of her back and he rubbed it through the robe. “Hey. You okay?”
