She licked her lips as she’d done in the garden before. Bashfully blinking at him, she leaned forward. Sebastian lingered as close to her as he could without touching her. She smelled seductively like the dew on a waterlily, pure and fruity, enticing his senses with luminous allure. He pinched his eyes shut to steady himself, trying to slow his pounding heart but he had no time. Maddie pressed her mouth against his, puckering her lips. Sebastian froze. And then he could only gasp, slightly parting his lips. Maddie did the unthinkable and pressed further. He hadn’t planned on moving so quickly but she didn’t give him a choice. Ever so tenderly, he darted his tongue toward her mouth… she reciprocated.
Sebastian let go of her hand and wrapped his around her back, trailing slowly up and down. She leaned into him and moaned delicately.
And then she broke away and ran.
*
Maddie gasped fromlack of breath as she came to a stop. What on earth happened? Why had she run?
Why? Why? Why?
She had wanted this. Wanted to kiss him. Wanted so much more.And then, she’d dashed off.
A perfect moment.
And she’d fled from it.
Maddie stood frozen, caught between the lies she told herself and the truth standing so very near. None of this was proper. And yet, propriety had always recently become to her a fickle sort of guide, draped in rules that offered answers without clarity. How, after all, was a lady to decide if she didn’t understand? The usual criteria, parroted endlessly by her mother and aunt, had never soothed the restless questions beneath her surface.
They were the cause of her headaches, the very reason she sought ointments and tonics for relief. But there was no salve for not knowing. Ignorance, it seemed, required something far more daunting to cure—knowledge.
And if there was anything to be learned from science, then knowledge came from experiments. She needed to experiment.
Kissing.
With a willing subject. A handsome one. With dark brown hair that she longed to run her fingers through. There was surely something in the handbook about not doing this. Back to the experiment… So, to gain knowledge, one must study, mustn’t one? That was a virtue. Surely no one would fault her for thorough research.
Maddie winced. It was false logic but it was, oddly enough, what she wanted.
Perhaps desired?
Sebastian, she thought with a whispered thrill of defiance, was research. His confidence, his maddening ability to unsettle her, were the questions she needed answering.
She seized the thought, clutching it like a lifeline, and with it, the moment’s stolen power. Slowly, cautiously, she leaned in.
Sebastian closed the space between them like he had all the time in the world, his gaze steady, unrelenting, butsoftened by something she couldn’t name. Her breath faltered as his hand rose—not roughly, not quickly, but with a deliberate tenderness that left her rooted to the spot. His touch on her cheek was impossibly warm, his thumb brushing along her skin as if memorizing her.
“You’re always running from me,” he whispered, the depth of his voice sending an unruly shiver down her spine. “But not this time, Maddie.”
She wanted to laugh, to scoff, to break the delicate tension curling around them like smoke. She knew how to deflect, to pull away when things got too real. But there was no deflecting from him, not now.
Why had she run again?
Why wasn’t she fleeing right now?
Would she dash off the moment their lips touched again?
Sebastian dipped his head, and for just the briefest of moments, his lips hovered above hers, his breath a soft warmth against her skin. Maddie held perfectly still, the world narrowing to just this moment, just this man, just the light press of his hand against her back as he closed the final, impossibly small distance between them.
Then he kissed her, and everything she thought she knew evaporated.
She was beginning to understand… It wasn’t merely an exchange, not merely the meeting of lips. The softness of his mouth covered hers with such aching care that her chest tightened, crushed beneath an entirely foreign wave of feeling. It started there, where their mouths touched, and shivered through her, weaving into places she didn’t even know could respond as they did.
Sebastian didn’t rush, didn’t demand.
The kiss deepened, his lips coaxing hers gently, matching the rhythm of her hesitant responses and silently asking for more. When his other hand slipped to the nape of her neck, his fingers threading into her hair, something inside her gave way. She melted, all her arguments dissolving in the warmth of his touch, the surety of hismouth on hers. Her hands betrayed her uncertainty. They hovered for a breathless moment, trembling at her sides, before giving in, coming to rest lightly against his chest. His heart beat steadily beneath her palms, anchoring her even as her knees softened, threatening to leave her unmoored if he stopped.
This wasn’t the kiss of a man trying to steal her senses or win a fleeting conquest. No, this was something so heartbreakingly deliberate, so full of restrained yearning, that her heart ached beneath its weight. It wasn’t just their mouths finding each other—it was Sebastian’s unspoken charm showing her what a real connection could feel like.
