Page 55 of The Second Chance in the Mediterranean
I twisted over and spread my legs wide. I could always feel Seb’s eyes on us, watching himself pump in and out, and I enjoyed the way it riled him up.
He thrusted into me, making sure we were both slick before he sat up on his heels. Both palms gripped my cheeks firmly and his thumbs slid down the crease between my butt and thighs. Seb rocked slowly, almost carefully, in and out, shallow strokes designed to tease while he watched. I gave as good as I got, rotating my hips and adding a twist to our movements. I could barely see him out of the corner of my eye, but his panting breath and his firm grip made me clench around him quickly.
Seb couldn’t keep it slow for very long, and his control fell apart. He bent over me, pushing my hips down and blowing hot breath on the back of my neck. Everything was needy and urgent, peaking in erratic movements until he came with a shout.
He rolled, his weight shifting off my back and dipping the bed beside me. We caught our breath together.
I turned to my side as Seb relaxed beside me. His arm was thrown over his forehead, his other hand resting on his chest. I traced a finger up to his throat, smoothing some of the hairs I found there with my fingertip. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing underneath me. I waited patiently, trying to give him time to recover without letting the moment pass.
“Seb.” I waited for him to look at me. “Should we go get tested together? Would that make you more comfortable?”
Perhaps I didn’t wait long enough; Seb sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and stalked off to the head to take care of the condom and cleanup. When he returned, he put his face in his hands and sighed before turning toward me. He placed his palms on the bed, pressing the mattress down, then gently pulled me toward him.
“It’s not that.” He stopped, and I patiently waited while he gathered his thoughts.
“When I was seventeen, my girlfriend of two years got pregnant.”
Oh shit. I sat up next to Seb, placing my hand on his arm. I stayed quiet, letting him go at his own pace.
“I’d already been working around the marina and I’d just been offered a job, a weeklong charter trip to the Bahamas. I was so sure I was going to get out. Of my parents’ restaurant, of our hood, of Miami. But everything crashed down. My parents were thrilled, for a lot of reasons;they wanted me to stay, they wanted a daughter, they wanted something to bind them even tighter to America. And of course, I didn’t want to be a deadbeat dad, so I passed on the job and proposed.”
He paused, the pain of his own story eating him up. “Then I found out that my girlfriend had cheated, and the baby was probably the other guy’s. I wanted nothing to do with her, but my parents begged me to go through with it, to marry a cheater and to raise a kid who wasn’t mine.”
This time Seb was quiet for longer, until I gently prompted him. “What happened?”
“She did the test, it wasn’t mine, and my parents were heartbroken. I just wanted to get the hell out of Miami, so I took the first job I could find to take me offshore. That was six years ago.” He turned to look me in the eye and said quietly, “I didn’t want to give up my dream then, and I won’t give my dream up now. You have to be really sure you understand that.”
“I know. I know that birth control isn’t one hundred percent effective, but I understand your concerns. I don’t want a child either.”
“So where does that leave us?”
I wrapped my arms around his waist from behind, kissing his shoulder. “We keep using condoms.”
Seb’s arm slid over mine and he glanced back at me. “You don’t mind?”
“No. It’s way more important that you are comfortable than anything else.”
He tipped his forehead against mine, closing his eyes briefly. “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry about your family,” I told him quietly.
“Me too. I was, and still am, so angry at my parents. But it’s been a few years, and sometimes I’m justhomesick,you know? It’s not just my parents, either; it’s Miami, the community, the food, Little Havana.” He paused, deep in his memories. “Sometimes I want to go home, even just to visit, but I feel that if I go home before really making my career happen, then I’ll come home a failure, and my parents will tell me I should have just worked harder.”
I squeezed his hand and tugged him back down onto the bed. “You are definitely not a failure.”
Seb curled into my side, resting his head on my shoulder. “Thanks, Marce.”
I played with his curls, letting my fingers tug and release the strands while I stared up at the ceiling. Seb’s yearning for his family and his culture wasn’t something I really understood, but on a deep level, I was jealous. He deserved a family who loved him, but how dare they try to keep him pinned down somewhere he didn’t belong, where he would never become a captain and never would have met me.
Seb was nine years younger than me. It surprised me, but I suspected that his experience affected him beyond being careful with condoms. Having that weight of responsibility—not just of a child, but of holding on to who he was and what he wanted—that aged him too.
He’d given me a stronger glimpse of who he was: behind the easy smiles and the flirting, Seb was still trying to find his place, just like me. My heart beat hard in my chest as he shifted against my shoulder.
For the first time, I wished I could give him that place.
Twenty-Seven
Themiswas anchoredstern-to to the wharf in the Grand Harbour of Malta. The stern gangway was down, and our view to the aft was directly out at the stone walls of Fort St. Angelo. To either side, including the view outside my galley window, were more superyachts. Since we’d arrived, one of the first ones on the scene, the harbor had filled with other boats, and walking down the dock was a flurry of activity as crews cleaned and polished their boats, getting prepared for their owners’ arrival.
