CHAPTER SEVEN

HESMILEDAND it contained a multitude of promises and invitations. As if she'd asked him to reveal the secrets of the universe only to her and he'd been hoping she would ask. In that smile, Laila thought she could see her entire future, and the absurd thought nearly paralyzed her.

Grabbing her wrist, Sebastian said, "Come."

She let herself be dragged as if she was made of not bone and flesh, but want and longing. She giggled like she'd have as a normal teenager stealing away with a boy she liked, if that boy hadn't paid attention to her only because she was gateway to meeting her beautiful older sister, Nadia.

Taking her hand, Sebastian drew her inside a very upscale, very luxurious room painted in shades of soft pink and white. An intricate, vast chandelier hung from the high, round ceiling. Expensive and frothy-looking confections in bright silk—she supposed they were dresses—hung from a couple of rolling stands.

A rich purple velvet lounger stood in the middle of it, with trays of sweets and a bucket of champagne strewn about the room as if they had been expecting a...special guest.

"You planned this."

Sebastian didn't answer.

She busily mapped his broad back and his tapered waist and the outline of his buttocks in his black trousers with shameless greed, while he went around the large room turning on every light until Laila's reflection glowed in the three-fold full-length gold-edged mirror.

Since she'd left her hair to air-dry, her curls framed her face in what Mama called untamed, unsophisticated wildness. The deep rust-colored dress brought out the gold in her skin, clinging to her body just enough to hint at her small curves. Tiny golden hoops and a thin gold chain added just enough style. Her transformation from her usual food-stained loose T-shirts and shorts to this was by no means a Cinderella makeover.

But now, standing still under such soft, forgiving lights, forced to consider her reflection, Laila saw the changes in herself. Her pregnancy had left no big mark on her frame except her breasts were a little bigger. Her body had bounced back pretty easily, given she'd birthed twins, and she'd always been grateful for that.

Thanks to good genetics—which her mother bemoaned she hadn't inherited more of—she had glowing, golden-brown skin and the little lip gloss she'd borrowed from Annika made her wide mouth shimmer.

Whatever stress she'd carried along for months, weighing the biggest decision of her life, swinging back and forth, giving her a pinched look, was gone. Add the last month in with no worries about her finances or her career or the boys' well-being, the carefree nature of her present days showed in her face, as if she'd shed layers of skin. Though nowhere in the realms of Annika or her mother and sister, Laila thought she looked pretty just then, with her amber eyes glinting with excitement, her face made of strong, distinct angles, and confidence that came with living life the way she knew best, with making decisions that were right for her and her two sons.

Sebastian came to stand behind her, his head cocked to the side, his hands hovering over her shoulders but not landing.

Completing the picture, she thought, in a sudden bout of uncharacteristic whimsy.

"I told them to pamper you. There's a spa next door I was going to drag you to next."

"So that I can be brought up to scratch for you? For the Skalas family?" she asked, needing to know how much he cared about such things.

He met her eyes in the mirror, his gleaming with simple truth as he believed it. "Because beneath this brave, stubborn, calculating exterior lies a very beautiful woman who deserves the best."

"No need for false flattery," she whispered, even as she loved the thrum of anticipation through her body. "You've already caught me."

"Have I?"

"I... I've tried to relive that night, too. I've never been hornier, and I don't have enough sexual experience to know how to keep that separate from what we're trying to build with the boys. I know it's possible but I'm just not...sophisticated enough." She rushed on, her pulse dancing all over her body like an unearthed spark of electricity. "I left the villa today because seeing you lip-locked with that woman took me out at the knees. I needed to get you out of my head."

"What if we can keep them separate? What if I promise you that whatever happens between us, the boys are outside of this? What if you let us explore this between us? Admit it, Dr. Jaafri. A part of you loves risks just as much as I do. Or you wouldn't have played such an elaborate ruse on me."

She met his eyes, and the fight went out of her, leaving her boneless and free like never before. "You don't want any other woman?"

He shook his head.

"You want me?" she asked next, needing confirmation.

"Yes."

"Show me," she demanded, feeling a boldness she'd never felt before.

He pressed closer.

Laila closed her eyes, better to absorb all the delicious sensations assaulting her. Sweat and spice, he smelled like the decadent brew she used to relish when she'd been at college. Chest to thighs, he was hard and hot against her, his breath making the hair rise on the nape of her neck. Slowly, his arms came around her waist, as if he meant to gather her whole.

Laila stiffened.

"Shh... I can hear the gears in your head churning," he said, crooning at her ear, pulling her closer, his broad hand dancing across her not-so-flat belly. "You're gorgeous, Laila." One blunt-nailed finger traced the distinctive shape of her cheekbones, her too-large nose and her wide mouth as if he were memorizing the lines and details. "But more than that, you're fascinating and complex and brave." He rubbed his cheek against hers and the bristle scraped her skin deliciously. "You don't know what a draw that is for me. So, stop trying to put this into some equation and just...feel."

Exhaling on a shuddering breath, Laila relaxed. How an embrace could feel so arousing, she might never find out, but it was like an electrical charge running through her. Slowly, her back melted into his chest and a soft hiss escaped her mouth. His erection was a hot brand, notching up against her behind. One corded arm sidled up to lie under her breasts and then she was fully engulfed by him. His breath, his hands, his lips wound her up.

Feeling dizzy and drunk, Laila looked at his reflection in the mirror.

Those sharp cheeks dusted with dark pink, his nostrils flaring, his shapely lips slightly open, Sebastian looked as drunk on desire as she felt. The gray of his gaze deepened, into a maelstrom of hunger and need. He thrust his hips just a little and the little thrust sent damp warmth straight to her core.

"I walk around with my cock at half-mast when you strut around in those shorts, when your T-shirt gets wet during bath time, when you compulsively lick the honey from your lips every single night. When you sound sleepy and husky in the middle of the night when you check on the boys, and your hair is a halo around your face. When you're so exhausted that you can't help but lean against me and I can feel your warm, soft, silky skin." His fingers drew tantalizing trails all over her flesh—up and down, from left to right—as if waking up every nerve ending. As if it was all he'd wanted to do for a long while. "You disappeared on me and I couldn't get you out of my head. I haven't felt the faintest interest in another woman in three years. You have become an obsession." He nudged his hips against hers the same time as his hands pulled down the side zipper of her dress.

Laila groaned as his rough, broad hand completely engulfed her breasts. Her nipples poked at his palm, boldly demanding attention. "Is that enough proof for you, Dr. Jaafri?"

"Yes." Laila wanted to burrow into him. "I want more, too, Sebastian."

His long fingers kneaded and cupped her breast without touching her as she needed. "I will not be your stud because you're horny after three years of celibacy."

"I don't know how to prove to you that I'm horny for you," she said, half sobbing, half delirious with pinpricks of pleasure.

He laughed and it was suddenly imperative that she taste that smile.

Turning her head, sinking her fingers into his hair, she caught his lips with hers. She didn't have words like him, but she had this...deep, insistent longing to steal something of him for herself, to captivate him as he had done to her three years ago, to leave a small, indelible mark on him as he'd done to her. She traced the seam of his lips with soft, susurrating kisses and when he groaned roughly, she snuck her tongue into his mouth.

He tasted of whiskey and mint and of decadence and pleasure she had rarely allowed herself. Pleasure she had only tasted because of him, wanted because of him.

She sucked the tip of his tongue, bit his lower lip, then licked the hurt. She devoured his mouth as if he was a feast she'd been waiting for, for so long. She pulled and tugged at his hair, raked her nails over the nape of his neck until his mouth was hers to do with as she wished.

He cursed when she let go for breath and then he was devouring her, hard and fast and deep, his erection pressing insistently against her behind.

She'd relived that moment from three years ago in her head for so long and now, she wanted him deep inside her and this time, she would own her pleasure instead of feeling guilt and shame around it. She would demand everything he was and wield everything she was at him without lies and half-truths.

"Is that enough proof for you?" she said, in a breathy voice that told its own tales and gave its own proof.

Clasping her cheek in one broad hand, Sebastian grinned against her mouth. Their rough exhales joined and created a symphony of their own. "Yes."

"Now, can we please proceed to this pampering thing you planned for me?"

"Yes," he said, loosening his hold on her.

Laila grabbed his corded arms. "I want it at your hands."

"At my hands? I might ruin you for anyone else, Dr. Jaafri."

"I dare you to try," she said, grinning, and saw his gaze flare with challenge.

Sebastian hadn't meant to seduce her today, here. Not that his mind was ever not planning how to get Laila under him, or over him, or against the wall.

Over the last three weeks, it had become as natural as wanting to see Nikos's wide grin, feeling Zayn's soft gaze land on him like an ever-present buzz. Like breathing and eating and walking and waking and sleeping and thinking of his art.

Wanting Laila had already been an obsession, now it was torment, too.

The more he wanted her, though, the more Sebastian restrained himself, as if warned by some strange instinct whispering in the back of his head. Usually, such control was...not in his nature.

He'd lived most of his life becoming a profligate wastrel, giving in to all kinds of excesses, doing his best to shame the Skalas name, and when the noise in his head got so loud that he couldn't bury it anymore in his wasted living, he painted.

He'd never set out to be a painter, as much as Konstantin had liked to taunt him that he'd done it for express purpose of pissing on him and the prestigious family name.

In truth, Sebastian had spent a lot of his adolescence fighting the art that seemed to want to get out of him, like some poison that needed to be purged, or skin that needed to be shed. In the last few years, he'd even let his brother and Thea and friends lead him into things he had no vested interest in, for lack of anything more important that engaged his interest.

But all that had changed with his sons' arrival. With Laila's spectacular reentry into his life. He had a desire now—as bright and hot like a flame—and he had a plan to fulfill that desire.

Detours and deep dives and self-destructive plays were not allowed. He wished he didn't have to run away and hide when his migraines hit. That he didn't need to calm the buildup of that relentless clamor in his head by painting. But those detours were necessary since he didn't want to expose the pain he had to bear to Laila's or his sons' eyes.

Whatever she might say now, he couldn't let her see him like that, at his worst. Couldn't let her see the gaping void his mother's abandonment had left in him, couldn't let her see that Konstantin had managed to beat out his capacity to care, to be vulnerable, to bare himself to another in all his true tormented glory. Couldn't let her see that between them, his parents had destroyed his ability to connect like a normal man.

He'd spent so long letting it decay and rot with shallow pursuits and mockery of relationships that he knew he would not make the kind of husband Laila wanted. He doubted he could give her even the conditional happiness she was expecting from their convenient arrangement.

But he'd not let the dark void of his past destroy his future, he would not lose his sons. And that meant making sure Laila could trust him, giving her everything she needed to show her that she mattered in the logical way she understood.

His desire for her was not a lie and he would use that as his negotiating tool. He'd lusted after her for three years, been celibate the entire time—deep in his obsession with finding her—when sex had been an easy escapade all his life. For all that he had called her one, Sebastian had whored himself away from the age of seventeen, in return for escape from his own head. And yet, he had abstained for three years. He hadn't even wanted to look at another woman, much less seek out entertainment or escape.

It was as if his brain had had enough meat and material to occupy itself in search of Laila. As if on some instinctual level he had known that they were not finished.

The whole idea of scheming in the vague way he was doing and plotting each step carefully and then trying to stick to that plan... It was all very boring and self-depriving when he wanted to act on his gut. When he wanted to take advantage of the long glances and trembling gasps Laila didn't even know she was putting out.

The woman was as naive about her sexual appeal as she was no-nonsense about their arrangement. A part of him just wanted to take what she would so readily offer.

Ironic that Laila was trying to play by her instincts more while he was trying his damnedest to stick to a plan. And with the same gut instinct, he also knew that he would never need an escape from her. They would settle into the kind of matrimonial bliss that was a shallow mirror of what his twin had but that was one thing they both agreed on, didn't they?

He just had to have patience and deny himself a little more and appeal to her newly awakened instincts. To prove to her she needed him, wanted him, as much as he needed her and his sons in his life.

His momentary escape into his own thoughts cost him for Laila stiffened in his arms. When he met her gaze in the mirror, he was relieved to find it was not affront. But...concern that felt like a thorny prickle against his skin. He did not need or deserve her concern. He had spent his entire life without it.

She tightened her clasp on his wrist. "You went away somewhere. Is that a lingering echo of the migraine?"

He shook his head. "I was trying to figure out where to begin your ruin."

She laughed, having clearly decided to believe his lie. There was such a gentle generosity to her spirit that it shone out of every pore, like her skin was giving off an iridescent glow. Her large amber eyes glowed with naked desire and were so artlessly honest that it hurt to meet them in the mirror.

He stared at her, feeling a strange, overwhelming desire to steal that laugh for himself. It wasn't simple lust, for he knew how he'd twisted that beyond shape.

Sex for him had always been a momentary escape, a game to see how far he could go in his debauchery, a perversion to run away from the noise in his head, a constant chase to see if it would be enough to fight the need to emote on a canvas—which was what his painting had always been about. More an experiment than any kind of need to connect with another.

This was more. Different. A near-compulsive need to dig beneath that silky skin and learn all her secrets, to expose every nook and cranny of how she was made to his greedy eyes. The exact opposite of escape, for it filled him with renewed fervor and something that would sustain him for a long time. And when this need faded, they would have companionship, they would have their family.

"The end is a given, no? However it begins?" she said, with an eagerness that he wanted to devour. Her nipples peaked against his palms, making his mouth water.

He tucked her closer against him and had the pleasure of seeing her eyes glaze. "Yes, though I have decided to try on self-control for size."

"What does that mean?"

"That means we will pursue your pleasure, not mine." He rubbed one plump nipple between his fingers, and she arched into his touch. "And this counts as one wish I'm granting you, ne?"

"You're diabolical to ask me that now," she said, her words so husky that they pinged over his skin.

He tugged at the bodice until her breast in his hand was exposed to their sight and tweaked the dark pink nipple. Twisting himself around her torso, he rubbed his bristly cheek against the plump knot. "Say yes, Laila."

"Fine, but—"

Sebastian didn't let her finish.

This time, he kissed her. As he'd been wanting to do for three long years. He tasted her surprise and her soft gasp and then she softened under his mouth. In his arms. As if here, she was giving up all her rationale and all her fight, and simply caving to pleasure. Tart and sweet, her mouth invited him in with a passion he'd never known with anyone else.

With all the women he'd taken to bed, perversely, it was the Skalas name and the status, or the genetics that made him look the way he did that attracted them. He'd never allowed any woman closer than that. But Laila had jumped his defenses with her lies and her truths and had gotten far too close before he'd realized it.

With her, being wanted was a trip unlike anything he'd ever known, because she knew him and still wanted him. Cristos, it was a dangerous high he could chase for the rest of his life.

Sinking one hand into her thick curls, he tugged until she turned to face her reflection in the mirror. He ran his mouth over her jaw to the pulse at her neck that had been boldly taunting him for so long now. He licked at that pulse before pinching the sensitive skin between his teeth and she moaned loud enough for the woman waiting outside the door to hear.

She was unaware of how loud and wanton she sounded, lost against him, and Sebastian lapped this up, too. Feeling a potent mix of possessiveness and protectiveness, he clamped his palm against her mouth and said, "You want to see what I'd have done with you, right?"

She met his gaze, bold and brave. Always, so brave.

"This is between you and me, matia mou. And nothing to do with our arrangement or the future. Just the present, ne?"

She nodded, her curls bouncing this way and that, her front two crooked teeth digging into her lower lip.

"Tell me, Laila. Tell me what you would have me do with you. Choose your ruin, yineka mou," he whispered, feeling an abyss-like need for her surrender.

A fiery streak of red coated her cheekbones, like the tail of a comet painting the sky.

Would she leave devastation in her wake somehow?

The intrusive thought shook him up, before she caught his attention again. No, she wasn't going anywhere.

Her amber eyes glinted with flecks of gold, the irises blown up. "You're supposed to show me what you'd have done if you had caught me."

He grinned and licked the shell of her ear.

She writhed against him, her nails digging into his thighs, a perfect canvas for him to play on. "I'd have demanded your surrender," he whispered, caught up in the game. If the means itself could be so delicious and tormenting and full of pleasure, he would not even care about the end soon. "I'd have made you beg, pethi mou."

"Oh," she said, licking her lower lip with the tip of her tongue. "You seem to think I have ego invested in this, Sebastian. Wanting you and giving in—despite all the warnings and reasons I brought up to myself—was the easiest thing I'd ever done. The most pleasurable. When I learned that that night hadn't hurt anyone, that it wasn't cheating, I went home and cried."

"Why?"

"Because, for so many months, I shamed myself for thinking of you, over and over. I tried so hard to forget your touch. To stop thinking about you. But I couldn't. Nothing in my life has felt so good or so real as that night with you." She rubbed at her chest as if it burned now again and Cristos, he knew all about shame and she hadn't even done anything to feel it.

Sebastian covered her hand with his, loving how easily she gave up her feelings and her needs. He could get addicted to it.

She laced their fingers immediately, showing him trust he didn't deserve. "That first time after I saw how happy Annika was when she talked about Alexandros and then she said you were like a brother to her, it was as if all that shame and guilt had fallen off, leaving me free to...breathe and feel and want again. I went to bed and dreamed of you. I woke up during the night feeling achy and desperate for your touch. I...tried with my own fingers but it wasn't the same. So, I switched my phone on and googled you and there you were, splashed over the internet with woman after woman...and I..."

"It was all a show. You made escape impossible."

She shivered again, and he clasped her closer. "Make me feel like that again, Sebastian."

With a groan of his own, Sebastian thrust his hips into hers, rubbing himself against her curvy bottom. Holding her gaze, he filled one palm with her breast and sent the other down to explore.

She watched, as avidly as he did, when he rolled the hem of her dress up, revealing smooth, silky, thick thighs. Cristos, suddenly all he could think of was how she'd straddled his hips with those thighs. How he'd buried his teeth into the inner thigh. How she'd bucked and bowed when he'd laid his mouth on her core.

Panties made of some wispy silk covered her mound. Sebastian shoved the flimsy fabric aside and found her folds and her dampness. She was so ready for him, and it made him eager like he hadn't been even as a randy teenager.

"All this for me?" he said, gently probing at her entrance and dripping her wetness all over her folds.

Her thickly lashed eyes widened, and she must have smiled because they danced with a wicked pleasure and Sebastian suddenly loathed the fact that they were in public, when all he wanted to do was to strip her completely and drink in every nuance in her expression, every flicker in her eyes, every sweet word that fell from her lips.

"Keep your eyes on me," he said, and she instantly complied, like a kitten that knew it would get its reward.

Those big eyes held his, a promise and a demand and something more in them. He ran his mouth along her neck and her jaw, leaving a trail of wet kisses. And then he played with her damp folds. With his fingers inside her. With cajoling demands and whispered promises. With his mouth at her neck.

One arm wrapped around his neck, Laila undulated like a beautiful wave against him, rubbing that glorious ass against his shaft in a torment he wanted more of. Sebastian pinched her clit between his fingers, and she broke apart around him, digging those distinctly crooked front teeth into his forearm, her little gasps of pleasure so erotic that it left him shaking for relief and release.

Uncovering her mouth, he took it in a wild kiss. He lapped up the beads of sweat that had gathered on her upper lip, and he made her watch as he licked her taste from his fingers, and he made that blush appear again when he told her next time he was going to taste her directly. When her knees shook under her, he caught her, and when she hid her face in his chest and threw her arms around his waist with an artless, almost naive modesty, he felt a strange contraction in his chest that he buried along with a thread of unease that maybe, just maybe, for all her rules and caveats and logic, Laila did not know what she truly wanted, that something so convenient and conditional should not feel so good.

But he shrugged it away because what she truly wanted was in his power to give. For now, at least.