When his bergamot and amber scent filled me with a burst of both thrill and fear.
When having him close meant my life would be turned upside down.
Seven years later, it’s still the same.
No matter how much I’ve meditated and trained my mind to rise above my bodily needs, one encounter is enough for my effort to crumble.
All my hopes of holding everything in vanish.
Like an addict, I relapse to the phase of my life when it had no meaning because he was no longer in it.
When I fought myself from booking the next flight back to America just so I could see him one more time.
Even from the shadows.
But I was only fooling myself.
In what world would seeing him one last time be enough? It’s been only two days since I bumped into him again and I’ve been in a constant state of hyperawareness that I can’t explain.
My nights are spent tossing and turning and touching myself more than I’m used to and still getting no satisfaction.
This feeling has been mounting for so long and it’s now exploding in my face.
“What…” I trail off at the sound of my breathy voice and clear my throat. “What are you doing?”
“I gave you a choice and you didn’t leave.” He’s speaking close. So close that his hot breaths, mixed with coffee and mint, toy with my skin. His proximity is messing with my head more than I’d ever admit.
“Let me go, Sebastian.”
“I told you there would be consequences to bear and you didn’t move to leave.”
“I did.”
“Not fast enough.” His free hand wraps around my throat.
A shock load of sensations shoot through me and my heart nearly stops beating.
Holy Jesus.
My whole body goes limp as his thumb grazes the pulse point, then presses on it hard enough to make me completely aware of his presence.
It’s been such a long time since someone touched me with unapologetic control. And even though I don’t want to be affected, I can’t help the burst of tingles that cover my skin.
“Talk then. You were saying something about how I should stay away from your husband,” he whispers in a tone that gets past the confinements of my ears and flows in my blood.
“You have to.” My tone is so low, I barely recognize it as my own.
“Why?”
“I told you. Because he’s dangerous.”
“What if I’m dangerous, too, but in a completely different way? What if I want to see which one of us is more immoral?”
“Don’t…”
He thrusts his knee between my legs and I gasp when his thigh brushes against my core. Our clothes separate us, but it’s like we’re flesh to flesh.
Pulse to pulse.
Body to body.
“Sebastian…stop…”
“You know that word doesn’t stop me.”
“We’re not kids anymore. This isn’t a game.”
“Maybe it is. Maybe we should pick up where we left off.”
His lips brush against the shell of my ear and I shudder both at their heat and at how he rubs his thigh against my puss*.
Stop is on the tip of my tongue, but it doesn’t come out.
And knowing Sebastian, it probably wouldn’t work, as he said. It doesn’t matter that the ring of another man is on my finger or that he saw me with said man not too long ago. He’ll see whatever he wants to see and ignore the rest.
That part has never changed about him.
He glides the tip of his tongue from the shell of my ear to my cheek. I shudder, my hand flying to his side, to stop him, to push him away, but I don’t.
My fingers remain there, frozen, unable to move as his hot wet mouth trails a path to where his hand is grabbing my throat.
“f*ck. You still taste the same.”
And you still feel the same.
But I don’t say that aloud as I let myself drown in the moment. I’ve been on guard for so many years that I’ve forgotten what it means to let go.
To feel.
To just be alive.
And right now, I’m that and more. I’m bubbling with life and I can feel it pouring in and out of me.
“This is wrong,” I murmur.
“So?” He speaks against my chin, his skin setting mine on fire.
“We shouldn’t do this…”
“And yet we are.”
“I…I’m married.”
“That means f*ck all to me.”
“We’re over.”
“I never agreed to that.”
I place both palms on his chest and push back as hard as I can, breathing harshly. His lips leave my face, but his steel hold remains around my neck.
“We’ve been over for seven years, Sebastian.”
“To you, obviously, since you got married.”
“You said it yourself. Married. You don’t have the right to touch a married woman this way.”
“Says who?”
“Common decency.”
“I don’t have that.”
I see it then. The apathy in his mesmerizing eyes. At first, I thought it was his way of expressing the coldness he felt toward me, but maybe that’s what he’s become now.
An apathetic person with not a sliver of warmth inside him.
Maybe common decency isn’t the only thing he doesn’t have anymore. Maybe he’s lost other parts of him, too.
