Chapter Six

Liz

The truth.

That is what I expect Sebastian to tell his parents when they sit us in their living room and bombard us with questions about our relationship, how and when we started dating, why we kept it a secret. This is his family, and they would never do anything to sabotage his career, so I wait for him to tell them about our sham of a relationship.

“We’ve been dating for a year.”

My jaw drops on the floor. I haven’t seen this man in well over a year, but the lies don’t end there.

“You both know how busy I have been and that couldn’t make it home, so our relationship has been a long-distance one.”

I turn to his parents, expecting them to call him out on his lies, but they are nodding.

Do they actually believe the bull he is feeding them? How can they believe his lies when I don’t even have Sebastian’s phone number! He and I were never close, and every interaction we’d had in the past consisted almost entirely of me silently watching him play his music and him ignoring me.

“What about you, Elizabeth?”

My eyes shoot up at the mention of my name, and I blink rapidly when I find all eyes on me. I let out a nervous chuckle and straighten in my seat. “Sorry, did you say something, Mrs. Foster?”

“Yes, I asked why you kept the relationship a secret from us. Do your parents know?”

Oh right, now I have to lie to my parents too about this relationship. “I…um…we… Sebastian asked me to keep it a secret. I didn’t want to, but he made me promise not to tell anyone. Not even you guys.”

The second the words are out, I scramble to grab my glass of juice and gulp down half of it before slowly lowering the glass back to the table. It’s probably unfair to throw the man under the bus, but he got me into this mess by lying in the first place, and it’s only fair that he bears the brunt of blame. Mrs. Foster glares at her son before turning back to me.

“Elizabeth, do you love my son?”

Silence. Deafening silence fills the room after her question, and I open my mouth to tell yet another lie, but this time, it’s the truth that slips out.

“I do. I love Sebastian.”

The fool that I am has been in love with this man for as long as I can remember. When I wasn’t trailing after him and my older cousins, I would be seated under my window, listening to him strum his guitar, daydreaming that I was in his room, seated on the bed next to him. Sebastian would be mortified if he knew how many times I imagined his lips on mine.

And now I know how they feel pressed against mine. I have felt them on my skin, on my most intimate parts.

Do I love Sebastian?

It’s not even a question I need to ponder. My heart races when he’s near and I miss him when he leaves. The distance and time apart did little to nothing to kill my infatuation for this man. And now that we’ve spent time together as adults, it’s so much more intense.

“Good,” Mrs. Foster says, bringing me back to the present. “You are a sweet girl, Elizabeth. I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect girl for my son.”

But I am not his, not really. “Thank you, Mrs. Foster.”

I offer the older woman a smile, pushing back the sad feeling that threatens to surface. In the future, Sebastian will fall for a girl he actually likes, and he’ll bring her home. He will hold her hand like he’s holding mine, and all the things he did to me, he’ll do them to her too.

“You are welcome, love. Now how about you join me in the kitchen, and you can tell me all about your relationship with my son as I finish up on making dinner.”

Finally, the interrogation is over! I think as I shoot up to my feet, except in my hurry to get up, I knock over her glass of juice and spill it all over my sweater. I move back, the chair scraping behind me when I do so, but there is no evading it. The mess has already been made.

“I’m so sorry,” I cry as I look around for something to clean the mess with, but Sebastian beats me to it. He grabs napkins from a coffee table close by and uses them to wipe the table. Mrs. Foster rushes out of the room and comes back with a clean cloth, using it to finish cleaning up the mess. I stand uselessly as everyone works to clean up the mess I just made. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, sweetheart,” Mrs. Foster says, patting my shoulder assuringly. “I’ll finish up on dinner. Why don’t you let Sebastian take you home so you can get changed into fresh clothes? Dinner will be ready in about an hour.”

My eyes widen in alarm at her words. Sebastian? In my home? “N-no, it’s fine. It’s just next door. He doesn’t need to accompany me. Besides, you probably need to catch up with him since he’s been gone for so long.”

“Nonsense. He will go with you,” Mrs. Foster says, urging her son to stand, and I expect him to fight her on it as well but he simply climbs to his feet and nods to her.

Wait! No! Do I not have a choice in this? My parents are away on a trip so the house will be empty. I can’t walk into an empty house with the man I am in love with. Every time we are alone, something happens and it’s messing with my brain.

I can’t afford to get any closer to this man than I already am.

Even so, I am left with few options. I let him place an arm over my shoulder and guide me out of the house. The walk to my house takes all of three minutes. My hands are trembling as I take out the keys to unlock the door and let us in.

“Stay here,” I tell Sebastian once we’re inside. “I’ll go up and get change then meet you down here.” He smirks at my instructions and I stupidly think he’s going to follow them, except he follows behind when I start for the staircase. “Sebastian!”

“Hey, I just want to see your room. I bet you have a poster of some boy band on your wall.” My eyes widen in alarm at the memory of a teenage me putting up a poster of his band when they did their first tour. Christ, I was fifteen at the time, and I have never bothered to take it down. Oh my God, what if he sees it? I flush in mortification at the thought. He absolutely cannot come into my room. At my obvious distress, he asks, “Wait, do you really have a boyband poster in there?”

“No!” I say too fast, and his eyes narrow in suspicion.

“You do.” There is that sexy smirk again. “Who is it? Is it a band that I know?”

“I don’t have a poster on my wall. That is childish and stupid. Now stay down here so I can go and change.”

“Fine, fine!” he says, raising his hands in surrender. He turns his back to me, and I relax. Trusting that he’ll keep his promise, I take the remaining steps up and walk to my room. I push open the door when I suddenly feel a presence behind me. I turn around to scold the man for breaking his promise, but he slips past me and into my room.

And there it is.

The massive DC poster next to my bed. The faces of the other members are unmarked, but there is a huge red heart drawn around the dark-haired man at the center of the poster. The same man currently standing in my room.

“I was fifteen,” I hurry to say, shuffling nervously on my feet. “I…I was just trying to be supportive to my neighbor!” I don’t even believe my own lie.

“I see that,” he says, his voice quiet, and I wait for him to tease me for drawing a heart around his picture, but he doesn’t, which is more unnerving than it would be if he actually made fun of me.

Sebastian walks to the window facing his and tugs open the blinds, getting the perfect view of his bedroom. From my room, we can see his bed and his drum set. The rest of his instruments went with him when he moved out. As kids, he spent the majority of his time on his bed playing music, and I… Well, spent most of mine watching him. Unless he was sleeping, he was constantly playing something. The sudden silence was deafening when he went away.

In his silence now, I can only imagine what he’s thinking about. From the poster to the window facing his room, I bet he might have an inkling that I have feelings for him. Feelings that run deeper than what happened today.

Sebastian turns around to face me, and I suddenly feel naked under his dark gaze. I smooth my shaky palms over my jeans, anticipating his next words. There is no telling what’s happening behind that stoic face. What the man is thinking has always been as much a mystery to me as it has to the rest of his fans. He’s that good at keeping his emotions hidden.

“Tell me something, kitten,” he drawls, causing my heart to jump in my chest. “What was running through your mind every time you spied on me through your window.”

“Nothing,” I say in a rush of air. “I…never looked.”

“I prefer the truth.”

“I promise, I never… What are you doing?” I gasp when he pushes away from the window and takes a step toward me. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Just stop right there!” He stops, and I breathe out a sigh when he does so. “I just…sometimes, I liked watching you play.”

“Is that all?”

“No.” Christ, I meant to say yes but with those dark eyes watching me, I find myself caving to the truth. “Sometimes I just wanted to see you. Lying on the bed on your phone texting, or playing your guitar, or…”

“Or what?”

I blush at the memory of the time I caught him jerking under his sheets. That was probably eleven years ago, and I knew the man needed his privacy, but I found myself peeking through the curtains and watching the motion of his hand under the covers. My gaze was, especially on his face. His eyes were closed and lips parted, puffing out sharp breaths as he brought himself to an orgasm. I ducked under my window when his eyes snapped open and it was sheer luck that he didn’t catch me but it’s not my fault that his curtains were drawn.

“The point is, I saw a lot of things.” I decide to leave it at that. He probably doesn’t need to know how many times I saw him strut around his room in just boxers. I don’t mention the time I had to wipe the drool off my mouth from watching him work out on his bedroom floor. Maybe it was wrong of me to spy on the man so shamelessly, but Sebastian is…perfect. From his midnight black hair and dark eyes to a body that looks like it’s curved from stone, it’s a sin to not look. He was created for the stage. To be admired, and that’s all I did.

So maybe I did more than admire him, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“Why don’t you return the favor?”

“Huh?” The man starts walking toward me once more, and I take a step back. The back of my knees hit the bed frames and I nearly fall back. “Sebastian!”

“I like the way you call out my name, kitten,” he rasps, walking toward me but I have nowhere to run. “Now, I think it’s only fair that I ask you to return the favor. All those years of watching me prance around my room naked.”

“I never saw you naked!” except for that one time, but it was brief, and I ducked away because I was too shy. Christ, now that I think back on it, I might have been a bit obsessed with the man.

Sebastian stops in front of me. “How do I know you are telling the truth?”

“I…” My words trail off, his strong masculine scent leaving me immobile. I search my head for what it is I was going to say but come back empty. “Sebastian…I…”

“How about I strip for you instead, let you see the real thing up close.”

I suck in a sharp breath, my heart hammering at his words. God, I’ve always dreamed about seeing and touching him up close; it almost drove me to madness. And now he is offering to let me do that without having to watch him like a little stalker.

Is he teasing me? Christ, I will kill him if this is his idea of a joke, but his heated eyes tell me otherwise.

“The dinner…”

Sebastian wraps his hand around my nape and leans in. I know what he’s going to do and my eyes flutter to a close as our mouths meet in a slow, toe-curling kiss. I fist his shirt, opening up for him when he seeks to deepen the kiss. It quickly transforms into something dirty as our tongues slide hotly over each other, dampening my sex. “You don’t need to hide anymore, kitten,” he rasps into the kiss. “Today I’ll let you do more than just watch.”

Our eyes lock in a room charged with lust and I realize that I want this. Fake girlfriend or not, I want this part of him. And I want him to take a part of me I have kept for myself.

I want to give everything.

I want to be his. To belong to this man, even if it’s just for the night.

I can have him tonight, and then later, I will share him with the rest of the world. Years to come when he falls in love with someone else and doesn’t need to lie about them, I will still have this moment.

A precious moment that belongs to only the two of us.