My knees burned. Heat bloomed across my face, my chest. Sweat slicked my back. My hair was everywhere, a thick cloud scented with saltwater and sunscreen. Everything between us was wet and slippery. It was desperate too, like we were out to prove something.
Maybe that was just me. Maybe I was the only one who needed to prove this was perfect in a way I'd never believed perfect could exist. This was it, wasn't it? This was the perfect I'd chased, the rightness, the worthiness. All the validation I could ever want was between my legs, hard and swearing into my skin and bruising me with the promise that this was right and this was real.
"Sara," he groaned, his lips on my sternum. "Come on, honey. Come for me. Put me out of this misery."
The pressure building inside me resembled that groan. It was a roar, a snarl waiting to break free. It was the kind of scream that rippled with primal possession. The kind of scream I'd never dared to voice because I wasn't loud, I wasn't demanding, I wasn't the center of attention—I wasn't anything.
But now I screamed. I screamed into Sebastian's skin, into his mouth. Screamed as the orgasm unfurled from behind my clit and wrapped my center in a brutal throb. As he speared up into me again, again. As he shook with me. As he held me.
Chapter 28
Sara
"We've been here a couple of days," Sebastian said with a gesture toward the ocean, "and you haven't tried to drown me once. If you're going to do it, you better get a move on. This is your last chance."
I spared him a glance before returning my gaze to the water. Waves lapped at our ankles as the sun climbed out of the horizon. I had less than three hours before I had to leave for the airport. I didn't remember why I'd been so adamant about flying home immediately after the conference. I regretted it now. This felt like the last seconds of a video game where the music sped up and the lights started flashing and everything was about to end whether I was ready or not.
"We've been here a couple of days and you haven't tried to be a condescending asshole. It's your last chance."
Sebastian shifted a bit, dipped his hands into the pockets of his shorts. I really enjoyed these shorts, but it was the breezy linen shirts rolled halfway up his forearms that did it for me. That I hadn't ripped every single one clear off his chest was worth recognition. I wanted the medal for that. Restraint, beachy linen with bared forearms category.
"You are such a brat," he said, softly enough that it seemed largely for his benefit rather than mine.
There was no suitable response for this comment. I wiggled my toes in the sand and pretended these weren't the final minutes of our perfect little island bubble. Life was a lot better without the real world. Even if the real world did insist on meeting me for dinner and being as self-absorbed as always.
"It's not because you're spoiled," he added out of nowhere. "Although you are. You're a brat because you push the limits."
Savage bitch heart, your order is ready.
"For, well, forever, basically," he continued, "I assumed that was because you liked getting your way. You do, there's no doubt about that, but now I think you push because you haven't gotten your way enough."
I stared down at the water, at my toes half hidden in the sand. I didn't say anything. Somewhere in the past few hours, I lost the glowy haze of this cease-fire. I felt none of that glow and tons of scrappy, agitated tension that seemed to tighten in my chest. I wanted to run away, push him away, do anything at all to get away from the pressure growing inside me.
After a moment, he went on. "I like when you push. I like pushing you back."
"Yeah, and that's a lot of fun, but sometimes you push the wrong way and much more than necessary."
He ran a hand down my back. "Is that what you think, you snarky little goblin?"
"It's what I know," I shot back. "You should give it a try when we get home. Just cut the pompous commentary in half."
"That's what you want? That's the only change you'd like to see?"
I rubbed a toe over a smooth pebble. "That would be enough."
A growl sounded in his throat though I decided to commit myself fully to the examination of this pebble. It wouldn't do to get carried away with his growls when I still had to pack.
Then, "Does that mean you have no desire to take this"—he wrapped an arm around my waist and shoved his fingers through my hair, forcing me to acknowledge him—"home with us?"
"What of 'this' are you referring to?"
He bent a single eyebrow and that was just about enough for me to lead him back into the bungalow and forget this conversation. To forget my desire to run. But then he said, "I'd rather not have to play pointless team-building games before feeling you up, and waking up next to you is worth all your brattiness."
"You're not going to have to play pointless team-building games with me much longer."
He laughed into my hair. "You're good at this."
"At what?"
"Evading. Dodging. Hiding. I don't know why you think you need to hide from me at this point, but you are very good at it."
"I am not—"
"We don't have time for you to be impossible about this. You have to leave and I have to know. Tell me how you want it to be when we're back home."
I stared at his shirt, fixating on the fine weave of the linen. "I don't know yet. I need some time to think about that."
Those words seemed to hit him like a solid blow. We were silent for a moment, but Sebastian shook his head slowly, as if he was carrying on a debate to which I hadn't been invited. "What is there to think about?"
"Oh, I don't know, how about the fact that barely more than a week ago we agreed this was toxic and we needed a break from each other?"
"I didn't agree to that."
I pressed my hands to his chest. "That doesn't make it any less true."
"I know you think your version is the correct one and I know you think you're doing the right thing by hiding, but you have to consider for a single fucking second that you might be wrong this time."
"And what if you're wrong?"
"Is it that bad?" he asked. "Am I that bad?"
I dropped my forehead to his sternum. I needed to shake off the oppressive weight of this moment. It was swelling inside me, choking me. "I am enough of a mess on my own. I can't add another ounce to it."
"Don't do that," he rumbled. "Tell me I'm a condescending asshole, tell me I'm nothing more than the guy you hate-fuck on Thursdays. Hell, just tell me I'm an ugly son of a bitch. But don't you dare tell me I'm going to screw up your life, Sara."
I lifted my shoulders as I glanced around. "I have one question for you."
He sifted his hands through my hair. "You know you can ask me anything. No need to dick around about it."
"When everything happened in the ER, and the two of us were hustled out of there and upstairs to the Chief's office while we were covered in glass and blood, he called you in first. What did you say? How did you explain what'd happened?"