“I know,” he said softly. “But you have no idea how much I need you to know it too. How I wanted you to hear it.” He smiled at himself, as if coming to an understanding. “I can’t help but wonder why that is.”
“Sometimes, it is just good to speak about these things. To get them off our chest so that we might realize the weight they bring is not so heavy as we have allowed ourselves to believe.”
He nodded in agreement. “Sometimes, we spend so much time worried about doing the wrong thing that we convince ourselves that what we perceive to be wrong is worse than it really is.”
“I…” She did not know what to say. “I guess so.”
“But more often than not, it’s not nearly so bad. Usually….” Slowly, he lifted his eyes so that he was looking right at her. They were still red and glassy. Still swollen. But there was a smile behind them, and he made sure that she could see it. “Usually, it is only once we admit these things out loud that we understand their truth. And once we do, we can’t help but wonder what we were so worried about in the first place.”
Helena could sense where this was going. The look he fixed her with. The not-so-hidden meaning in his words.
Had this happened a few days ago, she would have wrenched her hand free and escaped the implication of his words before he had a chance to speak them, so there could be no doubt how she felt. Perhaps even stopped him before he was given the opportunity, putting her foot down and declaring once and for all what she wanted. Or what she did not want.
But as she held his honest gaze, as she saw through it and understood where he was leading her, she was finally ready to admit what she had known for some time.
Or rather, she was no longer afraid.
“What are you trying to say?” she asked.
For the first time all morning, and all last night, Sebastian smiled. His eyes flashed, a smirk touched his lips, and he kept his grip on her hand as he stepped closer to her, pulling her into him.
“Do you have any idea what you do to me, Helena?”
“I…” She swallowed her heart as it tried to leap through her throat. “I think I do.”
“You are the antithesis of everything I know,” he growled. “Passionate. Ruthless and demanding—stubborn.
“Are you sure you’re not describing yourself?” She allowed a smirk of her own as he took her other hand.
They stood facing one another, with inches now separating them. Her body was trembling, but so was his.
He chuckled deeply, not once breaking eye contact. “I should not be drawn to it as I am. The way I was raised… my father always told me, it’s best that I find myself a subservient wife. Easier to tame. That they make for a more peaceful home.”
“You don’t do peaceful.” Her voice cracked. “Nor do I.”
“I am not my father,” he continued. “I am not what people think. And you, Helena…” He squeezed her hands, and his eyes flicked to her lips. “You are unlike anyone I have ever met.”
“Sebastian…” Her chest tightened as his eyes flicked to her lips again. Her mouth moistened. She knew what was happening, just as she knew how dangerous it was. “Perhaps we should?—”
“I tried to stay away,” he spoke over her. “I tried to adhere to your rules, as well as my own. But I can’t, despite how hard I have battled against myself. But it is as I said…” His eyes flashed once more, his smirk grew, and she saw it coming. “It’s not until we say these things out loud that we realize how wrong we are.”
“And what…” She licked her lips. “What were you wrong about?”
“Everything.”
And that was when he kissed her.
Helena had seen it coming. She had wanted it. She had yearned for it, even if she would not admit so. But as Sebastian closed his eyes and puckered his lips and lowered his face, she stopped with the lies, she did away with the doubt, and she accepted his kiss as if it were life itself.
Their lips met in a fiery clash. It was as if flames ripped from mouths, breathed through their lungs, and set their bodies on fire. Helena felt it sweep through her, engulf every inch of herbeing, and light up her body and soul in passion that burned so hot she very nearly wept.
Sebastian released her hands and cupped her face in his hands. He held her there as his lips parted and his tongue dove into her mouth. She accepted it, opened herself to it, encouraged it with her own tongue so that they danced and played between one another’s mouths.
Bodies pressed together. Eyes shut tight. Heartbeats matching so that two became one. Helena could not say how long their kiss lasted. Seconds or minutes or hours, it made no difference. She lost herself in that moment, and so right did it feel that she would have been happy if she never found herself again.
What had she been so afraid of?
Why had she denied herself this for so long?
