“Baby, I told you. There’s been no one. Only you.”
My smile is tremulous. I trust Sebastian. I know he wouldn’t lie. “I’m okay if you want to… without protection. That is, if you trust me as well.”
“I trust you, baby, always. And, hell yes, I want to. Being in you with no barriers. It’s my fantasy.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
With that teasing taunt, he pushes into me in one surging motion. I gasp as I stretch around his large length and wrap my legs around his ass more securely.
I’ve never been fucked like this. Up against a wall. Or with such intensity that’s somehow both achingly rough and heart-stoppingly gentle.
We’re both so keyed up, so lost in each other, that it doesn’t take long before I’m whimpering for him, drowning in the heat and sensation, scent and sound of our desperate joining.
“Come for me, baby. Now.” It’s both a command and a given. It’s fait accompli. The law of assumption for orgasms.
“I need you,” he adds on a ragged breath. I know his voice as well as I know my name, but I’ve never heard it sound so raw and full of dark desire.
In the end, that’s what does it. It’s the knowledge that this is Sebastian as he kisses me like I’m all he’s ever craved. The silk of his hair grasped in my hands. His name on my lips as I finally shatter in a million sparkling pieces. I trigger his release, and there’s nothing like the feeling of him coming inside me. It all feels more raw, more messy.
More real.
Which is as beautiful as it is scary.
Later,much later, I’m lying in bed in my now-familiar, favorite position with my head resting in the crook between his arm and chest.
“Sebastian?”
“Hmmmm.” He kisses the top of my head. I close my eyes at the gesture.
“Why did you come here this weekend? You knew this could blow up on you. You have all this painful history. But… but you still came with me.”
“I already told you. Because I thought you needed me, Em. You were hell-bent on making the trip when you were still suffering the effects of the concussion. I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Thank you for caring,” I say quietly.
“I’ll never not care.” His voice is sandpaper-rough.
I take a swift, indrawn breath at his words, but he continues before I can respond.
“And I sure as hell am grateful I came. I’m so damn glad. Or we wouldn’t be here now in this bed. But also, even though it was hard, it was important that I faced it. It needed to happen. I want to move on with my life. This has stalled me for too long.”
“Are you ready to talk about it? Or do you need more time to process everything?”
“It’s okay. I guess I’ve had a decade.” He sighs. “It’s a relief for it to be finally out in the open.”
“Do you think your mother is telling the truth now? That Dario is really your father?”
He nods. “I keep playing things around in my mind. And Dario Mancini being my real father would explain so much. My mother may claim she doesn’t know for sure, but I think she does. She told me in her drunken rant ten years ago that Peter wasn’tmanenough to get her pregnant. That they tried foryears. So if she gave birth nine-ish months after she had an affair with her director…” A muscle in his cheek flexes.
“But your dad… um… Peter must have believed you were his, or wanted to believe, at some point. Otherwise, he could have asked for a paternity test.”
“I don’t think he wanted the scandal. Or to accept that he might not have been able to have kids, if what my mother said was true. After all these years, countless affairs, and several marriages later, I’m still his only child. I could never figure out why he resented me. Why he’d give me digs about not being a true Blake. He did that even before I rebelled. He hated my job onThe Family. And he hated Dario. I could never understand why.” He shakes his head. “Maybe it helps a little to see that his resentment was about more than me not being good enough for him.”
“You were always good enough, Sebastian. You were an innocent child caught up in other people’s poor choices. I mean, your mother had to have known that you getting a role in Mancini’s show would only antagonize him further. If she didn’t want the secret to come out, she was playing with fire.”
He snorts. “Who knows why my mother does anything? But it was just after my parents’ divorce, after he cheated on her with the nanny. She probably had me audition for the part as afuck youto him. But she stopped short of telling him the truth, since that would impact her alimony. Thefuck youworked. Mydadtreated me differently after that. The harder I worked on the show, the more he hated it. And so I’d work even harder, trying to impress him, trying to win his approval.” He snorts. “I remember proudly telling him how Mr. Mancini said I did a great job.”
“Oh,” I say. “I could see how that would be… not ideal.”
