“Cordie?” he asks in concern.
“I’m here, just processing.” Processing? My soul just took a trip to Nirvana. My body is electrified.
“So, what do you think?”
What do I think? Yes, yes, yes, yes!
“On one condition.”
“What?” he says instantly.
“Fox and Katsu can’t know that I’m Lynn Marino.”
He’s silent now for too long. “Why?”
I explain about Fox’s plan to stick a lawsuit on me and the fact I can’t quite afford to stop writing yet. It’s humiliating, but I get the words in short, choppy sentences.
“I’m sure if you tell them, they will understand.”
“I mean, they might, but what if they don’t?”
The Sebastian I know would have just laughed at me, but this is my nighttime friend, the Bas who flirts and talks to me about raunchy sex scenes and tells me how important his art is to him.
“We don’t really know anything about them yet. What if they care more than we think?”
I get up and pace, but on the way back, I see him sitting in the window, watching me. My face heats, and I clutch his jumper to me, pressing the material to my mouth.
“Are you still wearing my jumper?” His amusement and this hot, deep version of his voice hits me hard, making me rub my thighs together. He has altogether far too much power over me.
I close my eyes at the dark sound in his voice. This is an alpha full of want and need.
“Yes,” I say in a breathy confession. I stare out the window at him, wishing he was here.
“And what else?”
I can’t answer that. There is nothing else. I needed his scent all over my skin, touching me, making me safe.
“Cordelia Lake,” Sebastian says in a hoarse whisper. “Are you naked under my jumper?”
I open my mouth, but no excuse comes out. I huff and sit in the window, staring at his shape.
“I’m coming over.”
“No!” I say quickly. “No, you can’t because then things, and too fast, and I don’t know-” I stop, panting and gasping. The room is too small and not right.
“Okay, no coming over. Slow. Lay down, Omega.”
“What?”
“Go lie down, Cordelia,” he says in exasperation.
I lay down on my side, staring at the phone, wishing I were braver.
“Have I told you the story about how I ended up with the Sol crown?”
“No.”
“Close your eyes,” he murmurs.
