The more he speaks, the more the words blur together, the sound becoming nothing more than a soothing vibration that lulls me to sleep. When I wake up, we’re still in his office, still in the chair.
“Hey,” I say, blinking awake as I push out of his hold.
When he doesn’t speak, I look up to find his haunted gaze staring back at me, his lips downturned, his expression broken.
“What’s the matter?” I ask on a yawn.
“Are you leaving me?” he asks bluntly, his voice monotone, except for a barely audible tremor.
“What? No, of course not. I thought you believed me,” I say, surprised.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. Fuck, Starling, I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he rasps, his eyes begging me to believe him.
“Hurt me?” I question. “You haven’t hurt me.”
“What?” he asks, his tone coming back to life as his volume increases.
“What have you done? Why would you think you’d hurt me? What did you do?” I ask, starting to panic.
His hand lifts, motioning to me, then the desk, then me again, his lips opening and closing without speaking. “I didn’t hurt you?” he finally asks.
My eyes go wide when I realize why he’s so freaked out. “You thought you hurt me during sex?” I question.
“You were crying. You were fucking sobbing, Starling. Then you passed out. I was about to call a fucking ambulance.”
“I…” I start.
“You what?” he demands angrily.
“I don’t know. It was a lot. I just…all this emotion…it just sort of came out of me,” I admit, struggling to explain what happened.
“I didn’t hurt you?” he asks, slowly, like he needs to hear me say it.
“You didn’t hurt me,” I tell him, looking him straight in the eye, so he’ll see the honesty in my words.
His shoulders sag, and he lets his head fall back onto the back of his chair. “Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck.”
“I’m fine. I just came really hard and…” My words trail off when his eyes go feral.
Before I have a chance to speak or retreat, I find myself over his shoulder, his fingers gripping my ass cheeks tightly.
“Oh my god, Sebastian, put me down,” I shriek, struggling to stop the bubble of laughter that spills from my throat.
I watch the floor move beneath us as he carries me through the house and into the garden. I’m airborne for a second before I hit the water as my husband throws me into the pool. Swimming to the surface, I’m coughing and spluttering, while he strips off the rest of his clothes and dives in after me.
“Sebastian,” I shriek, pushing my hands through the water to splash him the moment he resurfaces. His skin is still pallid as he splashes me back, his smile there but brittle. Turning, I try to swim away, splashing him as much as I can, but he grabs myankle and tows me back to him, stopping my escape as he pushes his hand on my head and dunks me beneath the surface.
We splash and laugh and play, finally clambering out of the pool when we’re both thirsty and exhausted. Grabbing drinks for us from the wet bar, Sebastian lies down on a lounger, positioning me on top of him, my cheek pressed against his chest, his palm resting on my naked ass cheek.
“Can my gaggle of security guys see us naked right now?” I ask, half serious, half joking.
“No. I’d have to kill anyone who saw you naked, and I’m too pretty for jail.”
“You’d pay off a judge before you ever got convicted,” I say sarcastically.
“True,” he admits. “You scared the shit out of me today, Little Bird,” he says softly.
“I’m sorry.”
