“And if you love me, you wouldn’t expect me to fly all the way to the Maldives to be your hydration slave. Your condition is self-inflicted. Suck it up, princess,” Julian replies flatly.
Spencer drops his head and chuckles.
Sebastian glances over at me and gives me a soft smile. I reach over to take his hand and pull it into my lap.
This all feels so natural and not at all what I expected. I really like his friends. They’re my kind of people. The girls are around my age, and we have a natural rapport. Spencer and Julian are dry and witty.
Spencer is soft and swoony, and Julian is a hard ass, although I kind of get the feeling he’s a big softy underneath, too.
And then there’s my man, Sebastian Garcia.
Tall, dark, handsome, guarded and damaged.
Perhaps the most beautiful man I’ve ever been with. In terms of looks, definitely, but it’s his heart that has me convinced. He’s like an onion. With every layer that I slowly peel back, I get a little more from our relationship.
He’s deep and caring, bossy and dominant, with a huge heart.
I know he said that he loves me, and in his own way I know that he does, but his walls haven’t come completely down yet. I guess it’s just going to take time to build that trust between us. For me, too.
But I have faith it will come. What’s between us is too good for it not to. By admitting what we’re both feeling, it’s a big step in the right direction.
And now with his friends…
He lifts my hand and kisses my fingertips. I smile over at him.
The way he looks at me is just everything.
“Get a room, you two,” Spencer whispers. “I’m about to vomit in my own mouth here.”
“That makes two of us,” Bree moans as she holds her temples.
“Don’t even think about it.” Julian warns her.
“Oh, please do,” Charlotte whispers. “That will be the highlight of my life if you vomit here at the wedding.”
"Do it on the groom." Spencer whispers. "Let me film it."
I drop my head and giggle. Brielle’s hangover is hilarious.
“Hurry the fuck up.” Sebastian looks around. “It’s two thousand degrees. What are we waiting for?”
“The bride.” Charlotte widens her eyes to accentuate her point.
He exhales heavily, unimpressed. “Ah. Her.”
The music starts, and we all stand and turn to see a beautiful bride walking down the beach, wearing a classic white dress and a veil. With long, dark hair, she looks every bit of the wedding fantasy.
“Oh, no.” Brielle drops her head and fans her face. “I think I’m going to throw up.”
“How lovely,” Julian murmurs, faking a smile at the oncoming bride.
I bite my bottom lip to stop myself from bursting out laughing. Even sick as a dog in ten thousand-degree heat, I’m having so much fun.
We walk along the beach on our way home from the wedding. It’s nearly 1:00 a.m. We’ve had the most amazing afternoon and night at the romantic beachside wedding.
There’s been laughter and dancing. Sebastian has been utterly gorgeous, and I’ve been swooning at his every word.
The moonlight is dancing over the water now, and the breeze is blowing through my hair. We stop walking and look out to sea.
Sebastian takes me in his arms, and I stare up at him. Our lips slowly meet and, unable to help it, my eyes close. I’m giddy over this man.
Like a wave in the ocean, attachment is beginning to flood through us. It’s exhilarating and terrifying.
Real.
Sebastian stares down at me, and it’s as if he can read my mind. A frown creases his brow. “What?” he asks.
I swallow the lump in my throat. I don’t want to admit that I’m petrified of loving him—that this is all going to go south, and that the next time my heart breaks it might be beyond repair.
When I’m alone, I’m safe. Nobody can hurt me.
But…
“I don’t want to be that person anymore,” I whisper.
Our eyes are locked. “Me, neither. He says softly.
He kisses me, and I know that he feels the same. Unbridled fear is running between us like wildfire.
“Sebastian,” I whisper. “Promise me that we won’t fuck this up.”
“You know that I can’t.”
My eyes search his. He reaches up and tucks a piece of hair behind my ear.
“I can promise you two things,” he says.
The wind whips through my hair. “Such as?”
“That you have me.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart. I feel the warmth of his chest. “And that I’m trying my hardest.” He leans down and kisses me softly. “You make me want to be a better version of myself. The old version… before…” He cuts himself off.
“What’s that old saying?” I stare up at him. “Love like you’ve never been hurt.”
"I wish I could." His eyes search mine, “How do you do that?”
I shrug as emotion overwhelms me. For some reason, I tear up because, fuck,
I wish I knew.
He sits down on the sand, and I sit down beside him. We both stare out at the sea in silence.
I feel like I’m on the precipice of heartache.
Relationships are hard when both people are whole. Relationships are barely doable when one person is broken. But both parties…. how could that possibly work?
“Why did you stop seeing Duke?” he asks.
I frown, surprised by his question. “Because I didn’t love him.”
“How did you know that you didn’t love him?”
“Because it didn’t bother me if he slept with anyone else, which he did. We had an open relationship. Not that I ever slept with anyone else. I would never put a title on our relationship. I hated the thought of being tied down and trapped.”
“How does that differ to how you feel about me?”
“Because…” I pause. “From the first moment I saw you in the street with that homeless man, I could see you.”
“For what?”
“For who you really are.”
He stares at me.
“I’d been dating all these supposedly great guys who said they loved me. Then there was you, telling me you didn’t want me, acting like you hated me, treating me terribly, wanting me to be your whore… but deep down, I always knew.”
He drops his head as if overwhelmed with emotion. “Knew what?”
“That you and I would end up together on a beach on the Maldives one day.”
He breaks into a slow, sexy smile. “Hungover?”
“Only one of us is hungover.”
His eyes twinkle with a certain something. “The other one is smitten.”
I smile at the beautiful man in front of me. His eyes oozing with honesty. His hair windswept and wild. “I do love you, Seb. So much.”
“Show me.” He rolls us over so that I’m on top of him.
I sit up, my legs on either side of him, our most sensitive parts touching. I stare down at the beautiful man shining in the moonlight. “You’d better undo that fly on your pants, Mr. Sandman.”
He chuckles, and I go up onto my knees to give him room to move. He struggles and unzips his suit pants. “Now what?” He smiles up at me.