“No.” I lick my lips. “It’s just that Althea said I was never to enter your suite.”
A smile curls up his lips. “When did she tell you that?”
“My first night.”
Now he’s laughing, and it’s a good look on him. Not something he does with any frequency. “That’s likely because your predecessor was found wearing very little in my suite, and I told her to get the fuck out. She wasn’t the first, either, so I believe Althea was protecting your virtue and your job.”
“My virtue? But you said?—”
“The others didn’t hold a candle to you, Bellamy. From the first second I saw you, I wanted you. If you had come in my room dressed as those women had been, there would have been no resisting you.”
I blush at the compliment and the meaning behind his command. “I wouldn’t have, though. Flirting aside, I would never have crossed the line with you.”
“I know.” He lets it end there, even though it feels as though there is more he’s not saying.
“Tonight, then?” I can’t contain my excitement at that.
“Tonight, Bellamy. After today, after where my children are, I’m not to be held back or restrained.”
Jesus. I’m practically panting. And a bit nervous if we’re being totally honest. Virgin over here, but I’ll get over it.
With that promise holding steady between us, he rights his body, releases me, and I exit the car.
“There you are,” Emily says to me as I make my way toward the picnic that’s mostly already set up.
“Sorry,” I tell her, a bit embarrassed. “His Majesty isn’t so happy with me right now and he wasn’t shy about letting me know it.”
She purses her lips, her gaze casting over my shoulder toward where I assume Sebastian is now approaching. “He’ll get over it. This is good for him. For them.” Her eyes meet mine. “No one has managed this, Bellamy. No nanny has cared enough to try in three years. He wouldn’t listen to me or Altheawhen we tried. This is what they need. You are what they need.”
My heart floods with warmth, and all I can do is offer her a grateful smile in return. Because they’re what I need, too. I already know my feelings for him run much deeper than his do for me. I don’t pretend this is anything more than physical for him. But with every encounter, every brush of his lips or touch or even look, I’m more his than I’ve ever been mine.
Now that I’ve had this physical connection with the promise of more to come, I don’t know how I’ll ever return to how I was before. I promised him that. That when this side of things ends between us, I would be fine. That I wouldn’t allow it to impact my work and I…shit, I’m doing my best to hold true to that, and it hasn’t ended or even begun yet.
I’m a physical and emotional virgin in love with a strong, domineering, older man.
I don’t stand a chance of walking away from this whole. The wounds he’ll inevitably inflict will scar, and those scars will run deep.
He’ll ruin me for eternity.
Every man who dares to come after him will pale in comparison.
But it’s too late. I can’t stop now. Not when I know how he wants me.
I can’t go back in time. All I can do is keep moving forward and hope and pray that the thundering affection I have for him swelling in my belly doesn’t consume me. I need to keep a level head, and after that kiss and his promise, that feels nothing short of impossible.
It’s his sweetness that wrecks me. His vulnerability that flays me alive. All that soft perfection hidden beneath his gruff, broken, filthy-mouthed exterior is my ultimate kryptonite.
“Bellamy!” Sabrina cries out. “Come bounce with us!”
For the next hour and a half, that’s what I do. I bounce and I slide and I play, and I push everything else aside. We have lunch and relax in the sun, enjoying the cool autumn air, and then the kids go at it again until they’ve completely worn themselves out. Zayer is half asleep in Sebastian’s arms as he carries him to the car, tucking him into his car seat and buckling him in.
“It’s the first time he’s used this,” Sebastian whispers to me as I settle Sabrina in her booster. He leans in and plants his lips in Zayer’s hair, then does the same with each of his girls. “Was today fun?” he asks them.
With yawns and happy sighs they murmur yeses, their eyes closing as the cars start to pull away from the grounds.
Sebastian raises the privacy partition and takes my hand, threading our fingers and keeping me close to his side. His eyes are on his children, and when he’s positive they’re asleep, their breathing even and eyes fluttering with dreams, he unbuckles me and drags me onto his lap, sitting me sideways across him, twisting me until my back is tucked into him.
His face is buried in my neck, breathing me in, his arms wrapped tightly around me. For minutes that’s how we travel in the emerging darkness. I want to hold on to this feeling and never let it go. The feeling of being held in his arms, wrapped in his embrace, the feeling of his chest, his steady beating heart against my back.
