“Do you not know? Do you truly have no clue what this is to me?”
Her eyes search mine in fast, nervous flicks, her vulnerability a palpable force. “What?” she finally asks, the sound barely above a whisper.
“I told you, you’re mine.”
She practically rolls her eyes, and I give her ass a quick smack.
“This isn’t something temporary. This isn’t fun and games for me. I know you believed that, and at first, I didn’t dissuade you, because I wasn’t sure either. But fuck if I’m not crazy about you. More than that.” I suck in a shaky breath, ready to utterwords I’ve never said to a woman before. “I love you.” I stare at her as if she’s the only thing in my world. “I love you,” I repeat.
And it’s not nearly as awful or sickening to say as I imagined it would be all these years. There is a lightness that comes with it. A freeing. An unfurling of something incredible deep in my core, relaxing my muscles and coaxing a strange sort of smile on my lips. Especially with her incredulous stare.
“You’re serious?”
“Oui. Je t’aime. C’est pour toujours. Tu m’as libéré.”Whether the curse is broken or not—nearly impossible to believe that—she has set me free. She has forced me to face a world and a life I would have intentionally ignored forever.
A tear streaks from the corner of her eye, tracking down her cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb.
“Do you not feel the same?” The thought that I may be ahead of myself here—we did only just start this—zings through me, louder and more resonant than the water crashing all around us.
Her arms cocoon me, dragging my chest in against hers, her face falling to the dip between my shoulder and neck as she clings.
“It’s okay if you don’t,” I tell her, kissing the top of her head. “But for me, this is real, and it’s lasting. You’re not some floozy, or however you say it, who seduced a king. You are the woman who found a caged man and set him free. And I will defend that to my dying breath.”
“Jesus, Sebastian.” She pants, her body trembling. “Such a beautiful heart lives in your chest. One I doubt you’re even aware was there, let alone beating.” Her head rises, and her eyes pin mine. “I love you, too. To the point where there is little else I think about. It’s you, all you, only you.”
My heart bursts in my chest.
“But, how can we?—”
I silence her with my mouth. “We can because nothing elsematters. If you want to keep it quiet for now until we’ve been together longer, we can.”
“Yes. Maybe just for now. It’s new and it’s a lot. And I am still the nanny.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. It’s not for anyone else to know about yet anyway. But know, you’re what and who I want, and that will never change.”
I rub myself against her, and with one motion, I’m inside of her. Where I belong. I take her slowly, sweetly, staring into her eyes and holding her close. So unlike the savage I was with her last night. I love her with my body, and it’s as effortless and exquisite as it is soul-rattling. Because despite my assurances, this thing between us is not simple. I already know if I’m going to be able to keep this new love alive, I’m going to have to fight like hell for it. And what happens if I don’t win?
21
BELLAMY
“This is quite possibly the most magical place I’ve ever been,” I exclaim, marveling from the edge of the balcony at the massive landscape of endless snowcapped mountains, my breath fogging in front of me. Snow falls in tiny beads of ice like pixie dust floating from the heavens, making this moment even more magical.
Sebastian wraps his arms around my chest from behind me, his body heat nothing short of extraordinary in contrast to the frigid air. “Everything you ever dreamed of?” he murmurs in my ear.
“And then some.” I can’t stop smiling. I’m pretty sure that’s all I’ve done since we got here three days ago.
This last month has not been what I expected. At all. He loves me. King Sebastian of Messalina loves me. Is this really happening? I knew I was in love. That was an easy conclusion to come to.
But him?
The man I never imagined capable of such a thing with anyone, let alone me. Such sweet and poetic words from such a rough and grizzly man. But always so passionate. Everything hedoes is. I want to bottle this up and never let it go. It’s been like something out of a dream. A fairy tale that I know any moment I’ll wake up from. Sebastian, for all his broody, commanding ways, has been loving and kind and tender. It’s as if theI love youbomb changed everything in him.
Well, not everything.
He’s still him. He’s just…softened a little.
Especially here.
