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‘So why won’t you start?’ she asked, trying to keep the desperation out of her tone.
‘Because you’re innocent, Sia. You don’t know what it is you’re asking.’
‘Don’t patronise me,’ she replied and this time she was frustrated.
‘I’m not,’ he said sincerely. ‘No one does. You don’t know what emotions this will bring, how you will feel in the morning. Better for it to be with someone who is in your life for the right reasons and for the long haul. Not...’
‘Someone who has lost me my job and, in less than twelve days now, will leave and not look back? I know the deal, Sebastian,’ she said, just as sincerely.
But she began to feel a little like her mother. As if she were desperate, dependent on him even. On the verge of begging, she hauled herself back from the brink. She wouldn’t do that to herself, no matter how much she wanted Sebastian.
And that was when she realised that she wasn’t like her mother at all and the release of the chains she hadn’t realised were holding her back was so great that she felt as if she were soaring free. The light welling up within her, the power of it... She took a deep breath, allowing it to fill her completely, and she shook her head in wonder. Had her fear been holding her back all this time? Was this what she could have felt like—this powerful, this free all this time? Rather than feeling the loss, she marvelled at it and knew that she had Sebastian to thank. But in spite of that she also knew what she had to say, what she wanted to say.
‘Despite what you think, I do know what I want. But I won’t be like her. I won’t beg and I won’t be desperate.’
She turned to leave when his hand caught her wrist and spun her back round to face him.
‘You’re nothing like her,’ he insisted in a deep growl.
‘I know, because I can walk away.’
She easily pulled free from his grasp, turned and made it four steps back towards the cabin before he closed the distance between them. Bracing his arm against the wall, Sebastian crowded her from behind, feeling every inch of the Neanderthal he’d professed not to be. She stood loosely encased in his arms with her back to him, and he watched the rise and fall of her shoulders as she drew in breaths as deep as his own.
The heat rising from their bodies filled the space between them so much it was as if they were touching and he fought it. He fought himself. She turned her head halfway towards him, her eyes cast down as if just as reluctant as he, and he knew in his heart that if they shared a look it would all be over.
In the moonbeams he picked out the delicate eyelashes fanning her cheek, the hollow beneath her cheekbone and the slender curve to her neck, the slope of her shoulder and sweep of its blade. He studied every single inch of her in deep fascination, desperate to prolong the moment, to put off the final second of the internal war he was waging.
‘You have to know that this has nothing to do with the painting,’ he said, his defences weakening.
‘I do,’ she insisted quickly.
‘I haven’t finished,’ he warned gently. ‘Nothing to do with the painting, but time. This—whatever it is—can only be for the rest of our agreement. Do you understand?’
There was a pause before she responded and he was thankful for it. Because it meant she was thinking it through, truly appreciating that he meant there could be nothing beyond these twelve days.
‘I do,’ she whispered on an exhale.
‘Then tell me you want this.’ His voice was a harsh whisper as if he’d released the battle cry that had been sounding in his head.
‘I want this.’
He placed his hand over hers, his fingers tangling with the silk and skin at her thigh. Her eyes drifted closed, her head slowly falling back in surrender.
‘Promise me you’ll tell me to stop if you want to stop,’ he commanded in a whisper to her ear.
‘I promise.’
And in that moment he knew he’d lost.
He’d lost the moment she’d had set her eyes on him, before he’d even looked across the bar in Victoriana.
He reached for her, turning her in his hands, her hips in his palms, sweeping her into his chest, and plundered a kiss from lips so soft and so open he thought he’d drown in them. The way she opened beneath him humbled him and he revered her with his hands and lips. The silk of her negligée skated over her skin beneath his palm as his thumb caught on her hip, pulling her into his body. His tongue delved into the welcome wet heat of her mouth and he wanted more. With a restraint and a patience almost unknown to him, he guided her through the doorway and walked her backwards to the bed without breaking the kiss.
Her hands roamed across his chest, leaving trails of branded skin, her short nails kneading into his arms and back, making him want to roar. Instead he pressed his lips against the curve of her neck, allowing his teeth to gently scrape against the sensitive skin there, relishing the shudder that shivered down her body and into his hands. She threw her head back in pleasure and he couldn’t resist pressing open-mouthed kisses from her
neck to her shoulder, gently moving the strap of her negligée aside, exposing just that bit more of her to him and drawing his attention to the way her taut nipples pulled at the silk across her chest.
Unable to stop himself, he took her covered breast in his hand, running his thumb over the stiff peak as he pressed kisses against the seam where skin met silk. She writhed like fire beneath his fingers and tongue and he wanted to consume every twist and turn of her, his pulse now like a drumbeat in his ear and mind.
