Because it wasn’t just a kiss.
It was Maddie.
Miss Madeleine Hunt, his best friend’s fiancée’s closest friend, the woman who was meant to vex him with her endless complaints and penchant for tired remedies. The lady he should regard with the faint affection reserved for long-standing acquaintances and nothing more.
And yet…
She had undone him. Fully, entirely. Maddie’s sweetness, her tenacity, the fragile vulnerability she tried so valiantly to guard had cracked his chest wide open. He’d been foolish to think he could remain indifferent, that she would remain nothing more than the vague requirement of society to “find a suitable match.” Nothing about her was vague.
His brows pulled together as he stared at the darkened corridor. He should go to bed and leave the night and its confounding emotions safely in the hours past. Yet he couldn’t move, couldn’t stop turning over the scene in his mind. The truth of it settled heavily in his chest, a weight and a wonder all at once.
He was fallingin love with her.
Too late.
He already had.
I love her.
Sebastian didn’t bother denying it. He’d always been quick on his feet, sharp when it came to matters of logic and reason, and this was no different. He was a man who knew his own mind, and everything in it was pointed squarely at her. Maddie. Of all the women he might have imagined entwined in his life and future, she was an unexpected twist of fate. A lady who didn’t fit the image his mother so persistently conjured but who now stood, unapologetically, at the heart of his desire.
I love Maddie.
The moment he was inside his chambers, he stripped off his jacket and cravat, the crisp fabric creasing as he tossed them aside. His boots followed, dumped carelessly near the foot of the bed, something completely out of character for his practiced routine. For a man who prided himself on control, he was utterly stripped of it.
Sebastian sat heavily on the edge of the bed, staring into the flickering firelight as though it could provide the answers he lacked. His shirt came next, the cool night air brushing over his skin, though it did nothing to temper the heat coursing through him. He lay back across the covers, one arm flung over his eyes, willing his body to relax.
But it refused, burning with an ache he hadn’t expected.
He could still feel the tremble in her fingers as they slid along his jaw, still taste the uncertainty and hope mingled on her lips. That kiss hadn’t been practiced. It hadn’t been polished. It had been honest. Terrifyingly honest.
And now, with nothing but silence and firelight to distract him, a darker truth gnawed at the edge of his mind: What if he’d ruined it?
What if his hunger had overwhelmed the moment? What if she now sat in her room, unraveling it all, wondering if she’d misread him? If she’d been too bold?
God, the thought hollowed him.
Because he hadn’t just wanted her—he’d wanted her to want himtoo. Not just his mouth, not just the way he made her laugh when he wasn’t trying to—but him. The man who didn’t know how to court. The man who never expected to feel this much. The man who wanted her enough to rewrite his future around her.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his chest, as if he might keep his heart from leaping straight out of his ribs.
He hadn’t meant for it to go this far. But now that it had, there was no going back. No forgetting her taste. No pretending he could want anyone else.
He didn’t need the fire crackling in the hearth, nor the blanket folded neatly at the foot of the bed. He felt as though he’d swallowed a sun, the warmth of her touch lighting him up from the inside out.
His breath came out in a low, frustrated huff. It was madness, and yet it felt like the only truth he’d known in years.
He was hot.
He was hard.
He was in love.
The last admission struck him harder than the rest, a vulnerable whisper coursing through him, stealing the breath from his lungs. And the source of it all was not some idealized duchess or carefully selected debutante.
No, it was Maddie. Maddie, who wore her heart on her sleeve even as her guard shot up against the world. Maddie, whose clever tongue had more than met his in words and in action. Maddie, who made him ache in more ways than he cared to name.
He wanted her.
