“Good morning to you too,” I smirked against the hard plane of his chest. I started to roll myself away to give him back his arm. It seemed like the nice thing to do.
“Wrong way,” he mumbled, wrapping his arm around my waist and hauling me on top of him. “That’s better. Good morning.” He pushed his hands into my hair, holding my head tightly, and tugged me to him. Our foreheads pressed together, our noses just brushing against each other.
“We’re a little close, considering I haven’t brushed my teeth yet. Morning breath.” I cringed.
“Little wild, there isn’t a time or place I wouldn’t kiss this mouth of yours.”
And kiss me he did. A light-as-a-feather kiss quickly morphed into an urgent, powerful battle of tongues and teeth.
“Eww, gross,” Seb said. I heard the sarcasm—I did—but that didn’t stop the flinch I felt at his words. “Hey, I was kidding. It was just a joke.” His eyes bounced between mine in concern.
“I know.” I rolled my eyes playfully, trying to lighten the mood.
He rubbed my back anyway, clearly not believing that I was okay. It had been months since I got away from the toxic behavior and abuse. It wasn’t like I thought I could just forget it ever happened, as much as I wished that were the case, but I knew that I was safe now. Safe in Calla Bay. Safe with my father and my brothers around. Safe with Sebastian. My body held on to an initial reaction sometimes, a flight, fight, or freeze response mechanism that I was working to break.
Seb kissed me again, intentional and slow. He captured my sigh in his mouth and deepened the kiss.
“Talk to me, Lydia.” Seb voice was full of concern. He pushed his fingers into my hair, massaging my scalp. “Is this okay?”
“Yes. I like it when you do this. It feels nice.” I closed my eyes and let the feel of his strong fingers against my skull wash over me.
“But no pulling your hair.”
I stilled. I didn’t know why I was hoping that he wouldn’t bring that up. Well, I knew why I was hoping, but it wasn’t like I actually thought he would just let that go.
“No. Not right now anyway.” I looked down at his chest, not daring to meet his gaze. “I used to like it,” I told him honestly.
“Something happened, and now you don’t,” he said, no question in his voice. “Talk to me. What happened, Lydia? Who hurt you?” he asked on a growl.
“It’s kind of a heavy story for 8:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning.” I pulled my lips into a fake smile and patted his chest, moving to get off him.
I hadn’t told anyone the whole story of Blake and me. There were no friends to meet up with for coffee, no coworkers to lean on. No one was there to hear my silent pleas on those bad days. Out of everyone, Luke knew the most, and all I’d told him was that things weren’t good.
Seb held me in place with one hand, the other tipping my chin up to meet his gaze. “I’ll carry that load with you. Let me shoulder some of that weight.”
I choked back a rough swallow. Darting a look between his sincere eyes, I blew out a weighted breath. If I wanted things with Seb to go anywhere, I was going to need to tell him my story. It would be easier to dump it all on the ground at once, let him determine if the broken, jagged pieces of me were worth anything.
I pulled myself off him, and for a split second, I thought he wasn’t going to let me go. A flash of disappointment crossed his face, his jaw tight with frustration. I pulled myself to a sitting position with my back to the headboard and my legs crossed beneath me.
“I dated Blake for a year. Thirteen months, to be exact. It was the worst thirteen months of my life.”
Seb hurried to sit up as well, watching me with uneasy eyes.He didn’t say a word, giving me the space to say what I needed to say.
“I shouldn’t say that. It wasn’t all bad. It started out really good, to be honest. He would compliment me all the time, buy me flowers and gifts constantly. He wanted to spend all of our time together, and I thought that meant that he cared.” Thinking back to the beginning, I could see things differently now, but at the time, all I saw was love and adoration.
“The love bombing was real and intense. It wasn’t even a month later that he was living at my place. The first sign that something wasn’t right was when I was going to come home for Christmas. We only started seeing each other in November. Our families were half a country away from each other. I figured we would each spend time with our family and see each other in a few days. I didn’t realize we were at the ‘meet the parents’ stage yet, but he wanted me to go to Ohio with him instead of coming home to Calla Bay. He hadn’t gone home for Thanksgiving, but I had, so it made sense that we would go to his parents instead of here. Or at least, I let him convince me that it made sense, so off to Ohio I went.
“There were some fights over the first few months, but mostly normal stuff. Nothing serious. Not until one night in February when I was supposed to go out with my friend Nelly. Blake didn’t like my outfit. He told me I looked like a whore. He left bruises on my arms, but he was so apologetic afterwards, breaking down in tears for hurting me. I canceled my plans and stayed in with him that night.”
I went on to tell Seb about losing my friendships as time went on. About missing the grand opening of the gallery I had spent months preparing because I couldn’t show up witha black eye and bruises on my face. I told him about Blake pulling my hair out while I cowered on my knees on the rough carpet.
All the while, Seb never spoke. His broad shoulders were tensed so tight I thought he was going to pop the vein in his neck. Warring emotions were evident in his eyes—anger, pain, concern, protectiveness. I grabbed his hand and intertwined our fingers, needing something solid to hold on to. Needing him.
“It wasn’t all bad, every day. Most days were great. It was hard to predict when things were going to go off the rails. Sometimes I could tell straightaway that it was going to be a bad night. I would work extra hard to make sure everything was perfect. Be there if he wanted me, be invisible if he didn’t,” I told him. “At first, he was always apologetic afterwards. So many nights, I laid with him in bed, consoling him and assuring him I was okay. Listening to promises that it would never happen again.
“But most of the time… some of the time… things were really good. I can’t explain why I stayed as long as I did, except to say that I thought I was in love. I had never really believed it when a guy showed interest in me. I always thought they were just looking for one thing, you know? But I believed him. I thought I was in love with him, and I thought he loved me too.” I shrugged, thinking back to our fights, to the many times I told him to leave, and he just wouldn’t. “And it was my apartment, goddamn it. I wanted him to leave.” I squeezed Seb’s fingers, the cold tickling in my nose making my eyes water.
Seb brought his shaking hands to my face, cupping my jaw lightly and tenderly. “Lydia Wilder, you are strength andcourage and sass personified.” He placed a kiss to my forehead. “I don’t want to say the wrong thing here. I am so sorry you went through that, but I’m glad you told me.” He dotted light kisses to each of my cheeks. “I know you can take care of yourself. You already have. But if I ever meet this fucker, I’m burying him,” he growled before his lips touched mine in a chaste, lingering kiss.
