4. Sebastian

“What did you two talk about?” I ask her before Aria’s even through the doorway. Anxiety spreads along my skin. I thought the two of them would hit it off. But the atmosphere in the foyer reminds me of a funeral home.

“About what’s going on.”

My pulse picks up. “And what is going on?” I ask her, swallowing thickly and refusing to believe Aria told her anything specific. Chloe’s pregnant, for fuck’s sake. She doesn’t need the stress or the fear. The last thing she needs to do is worry. I’ve got her.

“I don’t want to not address these things anymore. We need to talk about it.” Her words echo off the walls of the foyer as the door closes and the biting chill of the bitter weather joins us.

“What things do we need to talk about?” I ask her, as if I don’t know. There’s so much shit she doesn’t know. And if she learns the truth, how could I ever keep her?

The thought sends a prick down my neck that doesn’t stop until it reaches the base of my spine.

The uneasy feeling stays where it is when she turns around, staring into my eyes and swallowing thickly. “I want to know everything.”

The hell with that. “No.”

Her baby blues widen, the shock apparent. Even I’m surprised by the way the single word sounded so harsh. “You don’t need to know this shit.” I give her the simple explanation, and a light sparks in her eyes.

“It’s not about need, Bastian. It’s about want,” she grits out. “I love you and I’ll never stop loving you, but I hate how you think I’m so delicate and easily broken.” Her tone is severe and unrefined. “I deserve to know the truth.”

“The truth about what?” I ask again, knowing the one truth I will never tell her. Never.

“Everything,” she demands.

I was her savior. That’s how she looked at me. Like I was one of the good guys, and it did something to me. It made me a better man. I will never let her take that back, because I don’t know what will happen to me if she does.

My lips part, ready to give her a partial truth, enough to keep her at a distance. Something to satisfy her curiosity, but her bottom lip quivers and her arms cross, showing me her swollen stomach. She’s only just started to show.

“Tell me why you needed to come back right now,” she asks when I hesitate.

I question if Aria told her something I’ll have a hard time explaining, or if she told her anything. Fuck, what was I thinking leaving the two of them alone? “Carter was in trouble,” I start and she cuts me off.

“What kind of trouble?”

“The kind that wound up with a lot of people going to funerals this week,” I answer her sharply and wait for her reaction. I get none. Nothing. The blunt answer doesn’t faze her in the least.

“Why now?” she asks and when I feel a deep crease settling in my forehead, she elaborates. “Why didn’t you come back before? It’s obvious…” she hesitates, but doesn’t hold back when she continues, “It’s obvious he’s been putting people in the ground for a while now… yes?”

I nod, and my heart hammers. The skin across my knuckles draws tight as I flex my hands into fists and then relax them, thinking about all the shit that’s happened since we’ve been gone.

“He didn’t need me, but this time, it was important to him that he did everything he could…” I almost tell her how it was the first time he was fighting for something that mattered, but I don’t have to.

“Because of Aria?” she questions and again I nod.

It’s silent for a moment and I watch as the tension in her shoulders lessens. The hope that she’s been given just enough to drop it toys with me until she asks, “Did he need you to do what you used to do?”

I can barely nod in confirmation. Every muscle in my body is tight, waiting for her to run, to cower, to be afraid or angry or disgusted. I never liked the man I was without her, but it doesn’t change the fact that’s who I am. I can run away for years, but I’ll always be a murderer. I don’t want her to look at me that way. I don’t even know if she knows the extent of what I’ve done, both years ago and just last week. And what I’m willing to continue to do.

“Did you want to hurt them?” she asks quietly.

I answer her with questions of my own. “Why would I want to do this? Why would I want to hurt people?”

Another question is all I get. “Why wouldn’t you? That’s what you did before, and living out there, away from all this… nothing made you happy. You moved from job to job and you hated them all.”

“I was happy with you and bored with work… that’s life.”

“No,” she responds sharply, “you lost your passion.”

“I lost my family,” I correct her, raising my voice and stressing the statement. I feel the harsh words linger between us. The room feels colder than it ever has before. Anger simmers, although not for her; anger at my past, anger at this shit life I was dealt.

“You are my family, we are family. But Carter was too.”

She starts to speak, but her words turn to ghosts of thoughts as she stares back at me and starts to cry. “I wish we’d never left him behind,” she croaks and I swallow my confession that I wish we’d never left at all.

“Come here,” I say and hold her close, forcing her body to mold with mine. “I love you and I don’t want to see you like this.”

A shudder runs along her shoulders as she tries to calm herself down. Can’t she see this is the exact reason I don’t want to tell her these things? I don’t want her to live with the pain. I can bear it for the both of us.

As if reading my mind and finding fault in my conviction, she whispers against my chest, “I don’t want you to lie to me.” Her hot breath sends goosebumps down my skin in a wave.

“I don’t lie to you. I’ve never lied. I just keep some of this shit from you, so you don’t have to deal with it.” It’s a half truth. It’s always only a half truth.

“You don’t think I know? Or that I wouldn’t find out?” she questions as she lifts her gaze to me. Staring back at me are worry, sadness, and desperation even. And it stuns me.

“I know more than you think,” she says in my silence.

“I would never bring you into danger,” is all I can say, because it’s the only truth that matters to me anymore.

“Is that why you came up here before me? Because it was too dangerous?”

I almost lie, I almost hide it from her so she doesn’t have to know, but I can’t. “Yes.”

“Why not tell me?” she asks as if it’s that simple. As if I could risk her knowing who I am at my core and leaving me.

“I don’t want you to know. I want you to be happy and to trust that I’ll take care of it. All of it.”

“That’s not fair. I don’t want it to all lie on your shoulders. I want to help you. I want to be there for you.”

“You do help me, and you are there for me.”

“How can I, when I don’t know what you’re going through?”

“I just want you to love me.”

“You already know I do.”

“Show me. Kiss me. Kiss me like you love me.” I miss her kisses the most. When she’s angry and she’s holding back, I know she keeps them from me. And all I can think is that she must not need them like I do. She must not feel the same thing as I do when she lets me kiss her.

I can keep secrets so easily. But I can’t keep her touch as easily. I need to feel it every day. She makes me feel like it’s all worth fighting for.

“Kissing doesn’t make it better,” she says softly, but her gaze lingers on my lips and the fight in her cadence is weak at best.

“Fighting won’t either,” I answer her and that’s when her eyes lift to mine.

“Are you sure about that?” The seductive tone doesn’t go unnoticed, and neither does the challenge.

One large step is all it takes to dwarf her small frame under mine. She doesn’t back away, she doesn’t reach out to me, but her breathing quickens and her baby blues spark with a heat I’ve longed for.

“Kiss me, Chlo. Even if it doesn’t make it better, it’ll feel better, and that counts for something, doesn’t it? Life is what we feel. That’s what keeps us alive.”

Leaning forward, she places one hand on my chest, barely touching me, hesitant and careful. She stands on her tiptoes next, taking her time to plant the smallest of kisses against my lips. Her soft, feminine touch may feel like nothing to her as she brushes her lips against mine, but to me it’s everything, even if it’s only miniscule to her.

I can feel the faint wetness she leaves behind as she pulls away, her eyes still open. I can even hear her heart running wild so close to mine, no matter if she’s so restrained in front of me.

“There,” she whispers and tries to move back, but I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her in closer to me, forcing her breasts against my chest, her hips pressed to my thigh, and a small yelp of surprise slips from her.

“Again,” I command her, barely breathing. Moving my other hand to the small of her back, I keep her pinned to me. “Kiss me again.” Although my voice is strong and the words are a demand, both of us can hear my desperation, so why hide it? “I’m fucking begging you, Chlo,” I whisper the strangled truth.

It’s only a single beat, a single moment before she crashes her lips against mine, hungrily, greedily, searching for the same thing I need.

The feeling of being loved. Of knowing it and wanting nothing more than it. I could tell her a million times and she could do the same for me, but it’s only when we kiss like this, raw and with everything we have, that we can feel it burning in our blood.

Her nails dig into the back of my neck as she parts her lips and my tongue dives into her mouth, massaging hers with swift, powerful strokes.

Lifting her ass up with one hand, she wraps her legs around my waist and I don’t waste a single moment bringing her back to the sofa, knocking off the suitcase and placing my wife down in its place. She heaves in a breath when I finally pull away from her.

“Bastian,” she breathes my name, rather than the oxygen she needs. I barely get a glimpse of her as I rip my shirt off and I hate it. I hate that anything gets in the way of what we both need.

I’m savage as I rip her clothes from her, tearing down the front of her shirt and pulling her pants and panties down as if they’re scorching her skin and she’d be scarred if I didn’t remove them this instant.

Her panting, her soft moans, the way she lifts her hips to help me and then tears at the button on my jeans, it all fuels me to move faster, to eliminate everything that keeps us apart.

She stares up at me, watching as I kick off my jeans and then grip the top of the sofa as I move between her legs. “I love the way you kiss me.” That’s all she says.

Cupping her bare pussy, I find her wet and hot and wanting. Her lips form a perfect O, and her eyes go half lidded as I finger fuck her, bringing her closer to the edge but not letting her get off.

Her little whimper of protest makes me smile. Her pout, the way she wraps her leg around mine and then digs her heel into my ass… Fuck, everything about her makes me hard.

I wait for her eyes to find mine and hold her stare before telling her, “Don’t stop kissing me.”

She isn’t given the chance to answer, because I thrust myself inside her to the hilt, making her scream out in pleasure before slamming my lips against hers.

Our lips crash and our moans mingle in each other’s mouths as I thrust into her over and over again. Moving out slowly, ever so slowly to tease her and then pushing myself into her in one swift stroke. Each time her head begs to fall back, but she keeps her lips on mine, struggling to breathe, to move away from the intensity, to get closer and have more.

A cold sweat breaks out along every inch of my skin as I pick up my pace, ruthlessly fucking her and claiming her again and again until her tight cunt spasms around my length and I groan as I lose myself deep inside of her.

Even then, she doesn’t stop kissing me. Her body trembles under me and her nails scratch down my back, but her lips stay on mine. The two of us never parting, my Chloe Rose never leaving me. And we unravel together.

She’s still panting, still feeling the waves of aftershock when I pull out of her slowly and move quickly to get beneath her, laying her limp body on my chest to nestle beside her.

“I love you.” She doesn’t moan the words or whisper them, but they get lost in the air just the same.

I kiss her hair, her cheek, her shoulder until she brings her lips to mine and kisses me gently, but with undenied passion. And it’s only when she breaks the kiss that I tell her, I love her too.

I always have and I always will.

I don’t know that she’ll ever know just how much. She is my everything. My only. My hand moves to her belly, to the life we made together. I would do anything for my family. I will do anything and everything to make sure they will never have to be afraid. Our child won’t experience the same life we had.

I won’t allow it.

“What do you want to know?” I ask her, feeling her bare skin pressed against mine. Her hair slips through my fingers and I wait for her to ask any question and I’ll answer it. “I don’t want to lose you or lose this ever again, Chlo. If you need to know something, ask me. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you anything.” I breathe in deep before confessing, “But you may not love me anymore when you hear the truth.”

“Sebastian, you’re crazier than I am if you think I could ever not love you. Right now I want to know where and when you’re working. I don’t like waking up alone.”

While kissing her hair and running my fingers down her back, I answer her, “I can show you one place I may be a lot.” She readjusts on the sofa, moving her small body so more of her is on top of me. I fucking love it. I love how she wants me and how she shows me that she does.

When she lifts her head, her brunette hair tumbles down her shoulder, exposing more of her and I lean forward to kiss that crook in her neck. “You love it when I kiss you here,” I whisper against her skin and she gives me a small, feminine moan of feigned protest.

With her hand splayed on my chest, she straightens and I’m forced to pull back. “I want two things,” she says, staring in my eyes.

“What two things?”

“Show me this one place. And tell me something you’ve done that you think will change things between us. Tell me the worst thing, Sebastian.”

I can’t; I won’t. I won’t willingly lose her like that.

Her baby blues are bathed in desperation when she tells me, “I want to show you what I think of that side of you. The side you like to pretend I can’t see.”