Page 108 of Late Nights & Love Lines
I nod, my chest expanding to welcome her in even more as her tentative smile grows.
“I do. But here’s the thing. If we go, we’re in this together.” I wave my hand back and forth for emphasis. “Those two think this stupid gala is a chance to give me a stupid Cinderella fairy-tale moment, but that’s not me. I have no desire to look like a helpless bumbling princess, so no matter what, you’ll have to tell me the truth. Got it? Even if you think it’ll hurt my stupidfeelings, promise me you’ll tell me if you hate something stupid they make me try on.”
She flushes with happiness, and her smile shows off a dimple I’ve never seen before. Warmth spreads through my chest because something I did made her smile so real and genuine that it transformed her entire face.
“You said stupid a lot of times.” She laughs. Perhaps I’m more nervous than I’m allowing myself to believe too. “But deal. No princesses. Got it.” She darts across the room, jumps onto my bed, and wraps her arms around my neck.
I’m not prepared for it, so my arms hang listlessly at my sides until the sight of Sebastian leaning against my door reminds me to move.
Awkwardly, I pat her back, but the reality is, it’s not as uncomfortable as it once was.
“What’s going on in here?” he asks. His body is relaxed, and the softness of his features tells me everything—he loves the bond I’m forming with his daughter.
Seren pulls back and hops off my bed. “Row asked me to go shopping and wants my opinion so the girls don’t turn her into a pumpkin.” She runs past her dad, leaving him even more confused.
I shrug and scrunch up my nose. “I asked if she wanted to go shopping with us. It seemed as though she wanted to come, and she’s the only one I trust not to turn me into Gala Barbie.”
Without breaking eye contact, he quietly shuts my door, locks it, then stalks me with sexual intent in his bright green orbs.
He doesn’t stop until he’s on his knees, hovering over me. Then he clasps my face with both of his hands.
“I’m going to say something to you right now, and no matter what kind of reaction it stirs in you, I won’t let you run. You needto absorb these words, feel them, think about them, then react. Got it?”
Oh, lord. What’s happening? My sweaty hands lock over his as air whooshes from my lips. I’m glad he’s holding me up because I’m suddenly hyperventilating, and he hasn’t even said anything yet.
Lowering his mouth, his lips ghost over mine, feeding me air. “Breathe, Row.”
Sebastian makes a show of inhaling deeply then releasing it slowly. Before my brain catches up, my body follows his lead, and he smiles.
“Do you have any idea how special you are?”
Like a mewling cat, I lean into his touch.
His kiss is a dusting across my lips. Why does that feel more intimate than anything else we’ve done?
“Are you ready?” he asks, a mysterious glint shining in his eyes.
“There’s more?” I squeak.
He nods as unspoken emotion passes between us. “Remember. Absorb, feel, think, then react, okay?”
“Jesus, Seb. You’re scaring me.”
He laughs. “Then I’m really about to fucking terrify you.”
My mind goes blank, but before I can conjure up all kinds of horrors, he winks.
“Rowan Melody Ellis, I love the fuck out of you. All of you. The pieces you consider broken, the parts you attempt to keep hidden, the bits you can’t see that make everyone around you better. I love all of you, and I think a part of my soul has been yours since the very first time I saw you. I was just too young and dumb to understand what the flutter in my chest meant. But now that I’ve had you in my life, my heart won’t beat without you next to it. You’re it for me.”
He hit me with something far worse than anything I could have dreamed up, and I wait for all the fear to come crashing down, but…it doesn’t.
Instead, a peaceful silence washes through me. He’s the only person in the world who has ever been able to give this to me—a break from the torment that haunts my mind.
The voices telling me I’ll never amount to anything.
The ex’s face that was burned into my soul when I caught him.
My stepsister’s cruel laugh.
