I ignore my thoughts as I head for my bathroom and return with a warm, wet cloth. I press it between her thighs and wrap her up against me, holding her close, breathing her in.
“You’re mine, Bellamy. I’ll never be able to let you go now.”
My heart twists inside my chest, and I blink open my eyes to find her safe in my arms. Safe…
Jesus, fuck, will she ever be that again now that she’s mine?
20
SEBASTIAN
“Well, I’m going to assume you had a good night.”
My brother is smirking at me. Even as he grabs a mug from the buffet and fills it with piping hot coffee. It’s not a simple smirk. It’s a smirk that comes with consequences and knowing and laughter at my expense.
I sit down with my coffee in hand. The hour is early. I hadn’t assumed he’d even be awake, much less anyone else. Bellamy snuck out of my room about ten motherfucking minutes after we were done, and I’ve been a moody, insufferable, sleep-deprived bastard since.
It’s easy to get lost in what I’m doing when I’m with her. Simple to push thoughts and consequences from my mind. But then the moment is over, and she’s not smiling at me or kissing me or talking back to me, and the guilt of what I’m doing, all that I’m risking with her, insidiously leaks into my consciousness like poison.
I grunt.
“See, now I would have thought you’d be in better spirits.”
My head falls to the table, lost in my folded arms. Rowan, for being younger and not one to believe in much besideshimself, is all I have. The only one who might possibly understand me.
“What am I doing?”
“Falling in love.”
He says it so simply. As if it’s fact and not fiction. “You know what I mean. Quit fucking around with nonsense. I fucked the nanny last night. I’m that horrible boss cliché.”
He laughs. “You’re a fucking fool, Sebastian.”
“Am I?” I challenge. “Do you know what comes with me getting involved with a woman like her? With any woman for that matter?”
“Yes. I already told you. Love.”
I don’t even bother raising my head to roll my eyes at him. “Stop being an asshole for two fucking minutes and counsel me on how this doesn’t end badly for her. Or for me. Or for my children.”
He sighs. “There is nothing that says it will. Are you speaking of the curse or of being with her?”
“All of it.”
“Even if you believe in this curse, there is nothing that demands any of you are in any more danger than anyone else.”
I lift my head. “Do you honestly believe that?”
“I do, actually.” His light eyes glimmer at me as he takes a sip of his coffee. “I’m not one to believe in this curse, but if that is our fate, what is the benefit of sitting around and waiting for it to come?”
“That’s not what I’m doing.”
“No. You’re hiding. Yes, you have the children to protect, but if we are a cursed family, then let them live every second of every day. That is the revenge, brother. Living. If their lives were taken tomorrow, how would you feel knowing the last three years of their lives were spent doing little more than hibernating in this palace instead of being children out in the world?”
“You sound like Bellamy.”
He nods as if I’m starting to get it. “That’s because she’s right and I’m right. She came into your life for a reason. Bellamy is your curse breaker.”
I snort in derision.
