A few minutes passed with nothing but the soft sounds of the apartment at night and my fingers lazily moving through his hair. His breathing eventually evened out, slowed…
Then turned into faint little snores.
I smiled to myself and pressed a kiss to his temple.
Really fucking cute.
We ended up falling asleep on the couch. I woke up with a tickle on my neck and darkness surrounding us. There was a blanket over us too, which I assumed was Henry’s doing, because Sebastian was out cold. I managed to coax him upright and into my bed. He pulled his shirt off before sliding under the covers, and just seeing him like that—the warmth of his skin right there—immediately sparked my interest. I pressed close, kissing along his neck, his hands already roaming lazily over me.
But when my lips finally met his, he kissed me back… not the way I expected him to. It was soft. Lingering. He rolled us onto my side, curling up behind me, and wrapping his arms tight around my waist before pressing a gentle kiss to the back of my neck.
“Let me just hold you tonight,” he whispered against my skin.
I blinked, a little thrown, as a familiar doubt stirred before I pushed it down.
He was tired, after all.
Maybe in the morning.
Morning wasn’t it either.
When I woke up again, ready to jump him, Sebastian had already gotten up, taken a shower, and was back in his fancy office clothes.
And when I shoved the covers off, gave him bedroom eyes, and very clearly displayed the problem I was dealing with, he only leaned in, kissed me, brushed his thumb over my cheek, and promised we’d get to it later.
There was heat in his eyes—real heat. They roamed over me with the same intensity they usually did. But then he did, in fact, leave.
So I was left to handle mysituationon my own.
Three days.
It wasn’t a lot.
But it kind of was.
Three days of him being here… but not reallybeing here.
He was doing the cute gift-giving thing again. I’d get to my desk, and there’d be something waiting for me with a little note I knew was in his handwriting, not Vanessa’s. We’d see each other around the office, and he’d smile. When we had the chance, we’d talk and flirt. We didn’t touch—because touching was still out of the question in public—but anyone with half a brain could see something was going on.
On paper, everything looked perfect. Work was running smoothly. I was back in meetings that mattered. Nothing was technically wrong.
But something was off.
If there was one thing that had always defined us, it was the hunger. That relentless pull toward each other. Even back then, when I wasn’t sure of anything and didn’t know how to ask for more, the second those walls came down, all we did was have sex.
And that night in New York just confirmed it.
So why, pray tell, was he suddenly keeping that from me?
He didn’t come back to the apartment. Didn’t spend the night.
I tried telling myself it was the end of the month. That he was buried under numbers and decisions and putting out fires I only half understood. That I was drowning in final projects and group presentations and didn’t have the bandwidth to spiral either.
Didn’t help.
By the fourth day, I’d had enough.
I tried cornering him in his office, but Vanessa informed me he’d already left for a meeting. So, call it was.
