“To make sure I don’t lose my shit again?”
He weaves our fingers together. I’m so dizzy, I’m gonna throw up.
“To make sure you know you’re not alone.”
My eyes burn. I turn my head away. Doesn’t he know this only goes one way? Spiraling. Down. I’m not salvageable.I’m corrupted. He has to know.
Two fingers touch my chin and guide my face to his searching eyes. But I can’t do it. Looking into them will reveal me.
“I mean it,” he murmurs.
And I cave— I cave like a fool. Because I’m desperate. Because I’m scared. Because he’s telling the truth. It’s written in every line of his stupidly perfect face.
“Ok,” I whisper.
A ghost of a smile appears on his lips. “Good boy.”
As if I didn’t already have morning wood… now I’m rock solid.
“Don’t do that.”
His head tilts. “Do what?”
I roll away. “Tease me.”
The mattress creaks. Heat burns into my back as a heavy hand lands in the dip of my waist. Humid breath ghosts my ear. My body hums to life— every sense cranked into overdrive.
“Payback, darlin.”
I shiver. “For what?”
The tip of his nose drags up my neck and into my hair. He inhales deeply. His fingers flex as he murmurs something I can’t make out. Then his palm smoothes to my stomach. Fingertips toy with the sliver of exposed skin where my hoodie has ridden up.
Hishoodie.
Shit, my heart is racing. Is this what it feels like to be a girl in a Lifetime movie?
“Fucking hell, you’re gonna be the end of me,” he sighs. Featherlight touches skim under the waistband of my shorts. “I’m not meant to have you.”
You already do.
A loud buzz. My phone rotates on the nightstand with another incoming message.
His exploration stops.
Motherfuckingfuckfuck. I groan. “Ignore it.”
His mouth presses into my shoulder— not kissing exactly, but I melt anyway. We stay like that for a bit, quietly soaking in what he insists is impossible.
It won’t last.
I catalogue every detail of this rare sliver of peace with him as my eyelids flutter shut.
When they open again, Sebastian is gone.
And she’s back.
Thirty-Four
