CHAPTER THIRTEEN

SEBASTIANLOOKEDUP at the tiny third-floor flat in the small coastal village, where he'd been sitting in the car for the last two hours. With the windows rolled down and a storm front coming in, he was freezing.

And he had frozen ever since he'd arrived here, with a note clutched in his hand, disappearing like a coward the moment he knew she was back.

For almost two months now, Laila and he had been engaged in a silent battle of wills when they were in each other's company. Which had been less than usual since she'd traveled out of country three separate times. With him deep in finishing a few pieces for his next exhibit and Laila traveling back and forth for work and to clear out her father's house while doing her best to preserve his research, they had crossed each other at the villa no more than for a handful of days.

And he was beginning to hate everything about their life, enmeshed together but not intersecting in any but the shallowest of ways. She didn't smile at him or argue with him or probe him or touch him. She just looked at him with that steady, relentless emotion in her eyes, whether they were playing with their sons or discussing her career or sleep-mussed from his bed, which she had taken over and he didn't mind.

Sebastian found himself shrinking, to escape seeing himself through her eyes.

His brother and Ani were baffled by the silent but pregnant stalemate between them. Even his sons, he knew, were beginning to feel the rift between him and Laila and he found himself bereft, on the verge of losing everything he'd gotten a taste of in the past weeks.

His fear of letting her in was nothing compared with the torment of seeing her in his bed and not reaching for her. Of wanting to hear those sweet words from her lips again and depriving himself because he wasn't sure he could pay the price.

Then he'd seen it, a handwritten note with two lines of address on it, left on his desk. And he'd known instantly that it was from Laila, known that she'd scoured through her father's research and Guido's belongings for this. She'd been gone to find this.

For him.

Because she wanted Sebastian to have what he'd looked for most of his life.

But now that he was here, now that Sebastian knew that his mother was in that third-floor flat, all he felt was a strange relief. A freedom. Like he was ready to set down the weight of whatever had been clinging to him.

Laila had gotten him what he'd wanted and that, too, like her love, felt like an unbinding. A releasing. A new beginning for him. For them. For their sons and their lives together.

When he heard a noise from the tiny balcony, Sebastian froze. He could hear the litany of Greek, was almost sure that it was her. But he didn't need to go up and confront her. He didn't need to check if she was okay. He didn't need to ask her how she could have abandoned him and Alexandros.

He didn't need any answers from her, not anymore. Not when he had an entire life waiting for him. Not when everything he had ever sought was within him. Not when a woman like Laila could see what he was truly and still love him. The reason, the struggle, the culmination of all the battles he'd taken on in his life was in his house, waiting for him. Giving him what he had needed without him asking for it. Seeing him as he was.

So, he started the engine and he bid the woman on that balcony goodbye in his head and he drove off, even as he was still shaking from head to toe.

Laila felt strong arms gently pull Nikos from where he'd been clinging to her like an octopus but felt reluctant to open her eyes. She threw an arm behind her gently, only to find Zayn was gone, too.

Instantly, she turned and blinked, remembering she had carried both boys to her bed and fallen asleep, with their arms and legs wrapped all around her. On the rare occasions that she let them both come to bed, she was usually so stiff so as not to disturb their sleep. But tonight, she hadn't cared. She'd needed them, after two months of avoiding Sebastian's gaze, only to find that he wouldn't look at her at all. Then she'd been gone again with another goal in mind. And this time, she had known he would disappear. But still, it was hard because she wanted to be with him. Because she wanted to hold his hand when his world broke apart, all over again. Because she wanted to love him.

Not even Alexandros knew where his twin had gone off to and Laila kept it to herself. She had no intention of ruining the happiness that Alexandros had found with Annika by bringing up pieces of the past he'd finally made peace with. If Sebastian wanted to tell him, that was his choice.

In Sebastian's absence, his twin had taken to reassuring Laila that Sebastian was a good man, just...maybe a little broken. Even Thea seemed to think that Laila was just being both stubborn and foolish, playing this waiting game. Sebastian, she kept telling her, would never love her.

If his continued absence hadn't sowed doubts about the future—how long did it take to drive up to the coast and find that address?—Laila would have found the mighty Alexandros Skalas's nervous declarations a little funny. Neither did she agree with him or Thea at all.

She didn't think Sebastian was broken at all. Only a little bent like her, but somehow, they had both managed to retain the best of themselves and found people to love and they had their sons to nurture and...

The door to her vast bedroom that adjoined the boys' room was closed and footsteps returned to the bed.

She gasped when those very arms lifted her not-so-slender frame and shifted her to the middle of the bed. Instant tears pooled in her eyes when she realized it was him. He was cold and shaking behind her and she shivered at both. She felt his lips against the nape of her neck, cold and chapped. Alarm swept through her at what he'd been up to, what he had discovered at the address she'd found. "Sebastian? You're shivering. What happened? Is everything—"

"I want to hold you, Laila. I need to..."

She grabbed his corded forearm that gripped her tight under her breasts, smushing her front against his back so hard that her breath came in rough pants, compulsively running her fingers over the soft hair there, wanting to soothe him. His other hand, she brought to her face and kissed the center of his palm. "I missed you," she said, giving up all pretense of the fight she meant to put up when he returned. "I—"

"Shh...not right now, agapi. Right now, I need you. I need to feel your warmth and your passion and your need for me. Only you would provoke me to this, Laila. Only you could reduce me to this—"

"I'm yours, Sebastian. Take me. Have me. Do what you will with me. I have been yours from the first moment I saw you and you showed me a simple kindness I didn't know I needed. I had been yours three years ago. I have been yours all these months and I'll be yours fifty years from now, when you're not the stud you are now."

She felt his mouth stretch against her skin in a smile, felt it reach her deep within her being, that empty place waiting for him. She felt a shuddering relief that she hadn't lost him to the past, that she could make him smile, that she...

"I want to make you promises, give you what you deserve. But I—"

"It's okay, Sebastian. Right now, all I need is to be what you need. My entire life, I have given so much of myself to people who didn't care. You... I would give you anything."

"I want you so much," he said, the tips of his fingers still cold as they dug into her willing flesh. "I'm afraid I might be rough..."

"I want you rough. And gentle. And all the speeds in between," she said, throwing her arm behind her in the dark and wrapping it around his neck.

When she turned her head, his mouth was there, ferociously demanding and desperately hungry. Just the way she needed him. His kiss was hot and hard and rough, his tongue stroking against her, his fingers on her chin holding her for his assault.

Laila moaned when his fingers snuck under her tank top and pinched her nipple. She pushed herself into him shamelessly, begging against his mouth for more. Protests fell from her tingling lips when he deserted her mouth, but his hands were all over her and she arched into his touch. For days, weeks, she'd been trying to nurture her hope, to fan it with tiny sparks that she felt living around his family, around his things, and yet it had only left her desolate. Cold.

Now, she was burning, and she wanted to go up in flames if it meant she could have him.

Soon, he'd pulled her top out of the way, baring her to him.

"I need to see you," came his ragged whisper, and then soft light from the lamp hit her closed eyes.

She kept them closed, too eager and loath to see his expression, afraid that her own hopes might dash her to the ground all over again.

His breath was a feather-light whisper against her breasts, her nipples instantly tightening. Then she felt his tongue lash her nipple in slow, tentative strokes and then, when she buried her fingers in his hair and moaned, firm, fast circles that had her panting, and then his mouth sucked her in and he suckled deep and her eyes flew open.

Pupils blown so wide that she barely saw the gray, his mouth wet around her breast, he looked like her every fantasy come true. Dark circles clung to his eyes and his mouth had that pinched look, but all she saw was his hunger. For her. His need for her.

"More, Sebastian, please," she said, arching her spine into his warmth. "Don't make me wait anymore."

He rubbed his nose down her belly, whispering words into her skin, and then he stilled.

She looked down and saw him swallow at the sight of her wispy lace panties. "They're impractical and they ride up my ass half the time and I'm not used to them," she said, breathing hard. "But I wore them for you. In case you showed up. Every night, I take a shower, rub myself all over in some freaking expensive oil that comes with being your woman and dress in the flimsiest of clothes with the hope you'll come to me here and that you'll see me and that you'll admit that you love me a little."

His teeth pulled at the fragile lace before he kissed the line of her pelvis, rubbed his nose at the fold of her thigh and hip, digging his teeth into the sensitive skin of her inner thigh until she was marked in his ink. A sliver of pain to punctuate the pleasure. Laila curled her fingers in his hair and tugged roughly, just as he tore them off her, and then his mouth was there.

"You taste divine," he said, his words a rumble that caused vibrations against her folds. "I remember your taste. I remember how you sounded that night. I remembered how you looked at me."

"Please, Sebastian," she said, finding no shame in begging. "You made me wait too long already."

His fingers and his lips and his filthy whispers, he drove her hard and fast and rough and so high that Laila flew up and up and away and then she fell from that height, hard. Her climax was a vortex of sensation, thrashing her around and around. And he didn't stop tormenting her.

His tongue licked at her clit, his fingers kept pumping inside her until Laila went from one orgasm to the next with no break or breath in between and her entire body was nothing but a mass of sensation.

"I forgot how you can do that," he said, coming up and smiling, his sensuous lips damp with her arousal.

"Inside me, now," she said, the words barely formed. "I started the pill."

He swallowed and then that hard, lean, beautiful body was rising over her. His mouth found hers in a soft, tender kiss as if he knew she would break apart at the tiniest of pressures and his damp, hair-roughened chest dragged over her sensitive, throbbing nipples in a graze that sent need flickering into a spark again and then he was stretching her thighs indecently wide, pushing her right knee into her chest, and Laila watched him—his intense expression, his tied brows and his swollen lips and his unwavering focus—and then his gaze met hers.

He thrust into her in one smooth, deep move, lodging himself so deeply as he'd done that first time that she'd never been able to get him out. And now, she didn't want to.

She thrust her hips up and circled them, desperate for friction, and he cursed and swallowed.

And then he was moving in and out in a slow, deep rhythm, their fingers laced, and their gazes tethered together, and Laila's selfish mind and deprived body began the dance all over again.

"I'm going to take you fast and hard," he said, against her lips, and Laila whispered another please.

And then he upped their rhythm.

Each stroke hit that magical point, each thrust drove her further along the line of bliss, but Laila kept her eyes on him, this beautiful, rugged artist of hers, who felt so much and who tried so hard to not love her and she wanted to say the words now.

Clasping his cheek, she said, "I love you, Sebastian."

And as if he meant to reward her declaration, he took her deeper, dragging the ridge of his abdomen over her clit, and Laila fell over.

He pumped his hips, rough and fast, into her and then he was grunting and shaking and burying his face in her neck, and his weight on top of her, for the bare second he allowed it, was the most delicious pressure and Laila pressed her forehead to his shoulder and scrunched her eyes but her body betrayed her yet again and soon, there were tears running down her cheeks and dampening his taut skin in the process.

Sebastian stared helplessly at the softly snoring woman and didn't know what to make of the fact that Laila had not only sobbed as if her heart was breaking all over again, but then fallen into such deep sleep that he was terrified of waking her.

Gently untangling her limbs from his, he pressed a kiss to her temple, pulled on his sweatpants and quietly padded into their sons' bedroom.

Nikos was fast asleep, his toy horse clutched in his tiny fist.

"Papa?" he heard behind him.

Heart in his throat, he went to his second son, who'd pulled himself to his feet in the crib and had a hand outstretched toward him. While he hadn't run away from him or hid behind Paloma exactly when Laila had been gone, Zayn hadn't exactly sought Sebastian, either.

He was about to crouch down in front of him, wary of spooking him, when Zayn said, "Pick up, Papa. Want cuddle."

Tears knocking hard against his eyes, Sebastian sniffed and then picked up the little boy.

Tucking his little head into Sebastian's shoulder, arms thrown around his neck, Zayn didn't say much, and, in the silence, Sebastian's heart hammered out a thunderous beat.

He had no idea how long he walked around the vast bedroom, holding one piece of his jagged heart outside his body.

Two yawns and a softening of his body later, his son demanded "sleep now." Kissing his forehead, Sebastian was about to put him down on the bed when Zayn kissed his cheek. "Papa not go? Papa stay now?"

Tears crowding his throat, Sebastian said, "Yes, Zayn. Papa stay now. Papa's not going anywhere."

Zayn stared at him through sleep-heavy eyes and then two seconds later, fell into a deep sleep.

Sebastian walked between the two cribs a few times, and went off to shower, considering and discarding all the words he needed to say to the woman who'd given him more than he'd ever dreamed of.

When he returned to their bedroom in fresh pajamas hours later, with dawn cracking through the deepest dark of the night, his hair still wet, Laila was sitting up in the bed, the tank top back on, her legs folded under her, her head thrown back against the headboard of the bed. Her wide mouth was trembling, and she kept running a hand over her neck where he'd left a mark on her with his teeth, submerged in his climax.

He could sense her tension across the room as if it were his own and loathed that he had caused it. That he had made her doubt him. That he had made her wait.

She looked up just as he reached the bed. He stood there, watching her, arms hanging by his side uselessly, his heart beating so fast that it threatened to rip out of him.

"Zayn spoke to me, just now." His throat felt like it was full of needles and thorns. "He demanded a cuddle and demanded that I don't leave again."

"He missed you. He kept asking Nikos why you left and when you were returning. For the first time, I saw them fighting because he wouldn't stop asking and Nikos got frustrated. It was both...exciting because they're growing such distinct personalities and terrifying because I never want them to lose each other."

"They won't," he said, feeling, for once, more confidence in their sons than she did. "Zayn... Did he get really upset?"

"A bit, yes. Like his papa, when he loves, he loves true and deep."

"Such faith, agapi?"

"It's both easy and hard, this whole loving-you thing. I... I feel like I'm perpetually on a roller coaster and you know I'm not fond of risks."

He sat at the edge of the bed and took her hand in his. "I...thank you for locating that address for me. I don't know what to think."

"Guido was exactly like Baba. He never threw away a single scrap of paper. Once I remembered that, it was easy. It took only four days and sleepless nights to find it neatly written in one of his address books. I think he meant to give it to me. He knew the boys were yours."

Sebastian nodded, brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her. All his life, words had come easily to him. Of comfort and teasing and charm and seduction and...yet now... He felt like his sons, his emotions too big and too fast for his throat to work.

"Did you see her? Is she well?" Laila asked softly, taking pity on him.

"I parked outside the flat and sat there for a few hours. I didn't feel the need to go in. Even after I heard her."

And then Laila was crawling into his lap, and he heaved them both onto the bed because there was no way he could let her fall. "I'm free, agapi mou. Finally. Thanks to you. Free of shadows and secrets. Free to love you. And I already do. I love you so much that I find words inadequate. I love you so much and I thank the entire universe every day, every moment that you decided to lie to me, and cheat me and seduce me and have our sons. I love your honesty and your calculations and your brainy brain and how you love our sons and how you fill my life with such happiness."

Laila clung to him, her tears wetting her chest all over again, and Sebastian pushed her into the bed and stared into her amber eyes. "Tell me again."

"I love you, Sebastian. Probably since I saw your art and how perceptive and stunning it was."

"And will you marry me?"

"Yes. Tomorrow if you want."

And then there was nothing to do but kiss her again and lose himself in her taste, and her groans and her sweet demands and her reverent promises.