33
Sebastian
As soon as I wake up, I wish I didn’t.
The sunlight is stabbing right into my eyes and even the simple act of squinting them hurts like a bitch. My head feels fuzzy and a little slow, and it’s fucking cold.
Groaning, I roll into the warmth beside me, seeking its heat, finding my arms full of a small, naked, soft body. My groan turns into an appreciative hum, because even though I’m one big throbbing mess of aches, Sugar’s naked body sort of makes me forget them.
I take the chance to crack an eye, vision filling with the delicate curve of her bare shoulder. Unthinkingly, I press my lips to the skin there. I’m slotted up nicely behind her and my dick is into it, pressing insistently against her ass. A careful raise of my head reveals the sight her plump tits, all pressed together as she lays on her side.
Goddamn.
My head falls heavily back to my pillow.
I must have racked up some serious fucking karma in a past life. That’s the only way to explain how Sugar could be in my bed right now. Last night, when I went to her room, I was barely even expecting her to speak to me. It wouldn’t have been any less than what I deserved. I meant it when I said that I just needed her to know the truth.
I think, as she was leading me back to my room, I was remembering how hard I’d worked to get her to trust me. A marathon. I was remembering how persistent I’d been, always begging her for more, like a rabid dog nipping at her ankles. I was wondering if I had what it took to start back at square one, and indulging in some pretty pathetic self-pity.
But she trusted me enough to let me touch her. To let me kiss her. To let me inside of her. To say that she loved me back.
Not that I didn’t miss the shift in dynamic last night.
That was Sugar, being in control.
Taking what she wanted.
Somewhere beside me, my phone chimes with a text, and I stiffen. For a week now, Heston’s been hounding me, a constant barrage of menacing, loaded messages. That chime is something I’ve already been conditioned to dread.
But because of the girl sleeping soundly in my arms, I can’t afford to not know if he’s on the loose again. I mournfully roll away from her, hand fumbling around beside the bed until it finds the phone. Squinting at the screen hurts even more than squinting at the window had, but at least it’s not him.
It’s my dad.
“Christ,” I mutter, combing my fingers through my hair. Good little robot boys who wake up at a ‘reasonable hour’ are apparently part and parcel of being the next big shot Wilcox.
Fucking kill me now.
I rise from the bed in fits and starts, muscles screaming in protest, determined not to look back at her laying there, all soft and warm and comfortable. I know if I do, I’m just going to roll back into her. My mouth tastes like something died in it. That, plus the fact that I’m dehydrated, nicotine-deprived, and hurting in places I only ever suspected existed are the only things that drive me to get vertical. I let out an involuntary hiss when I bend to pull on a pair of boxers. I’m not even sure who’s to credit for that. The guy in the pool? Heston? Reyn, when he jabbed me with his elbow as we stood outside my house, telling me to grow a pair?
One thing’s for sure. I’m done being a punching bag for a while.
I find a pair of sweats in a heap on my floor, and then an LAX hoodie draped over the foot of my bed. Pulling that on hurts even worse than the bottoms had, and by the time my head pokes out the top, I’m already feeling a little surly about it all.
I’m halfway out the door when I hear Sugar’s voice.
“Where are you going?” She’s sitting up when I turn around, sheets gathered over her chest. Her eyes are still puffy with sleep, but there’s no mistaking the spark of dread in them.
Of course, seeing her there makes every ounce of my getting-out-of-bed resolve completely disappear. “To take a piss,” I say, wandering back to the bed, scratching my chest under the sweater. “Smoke a cigarette. Brush my teeth. Down a whole bottle of Advil.”
Her eyes are still wide, too alert for someone who just woke up. “You were leaving.”
I watch her, not understanding the way she’s gone so still. “Just to the bathroom.”
“You were leaving,” she repeats, eyes holding mine. “Again.”
I tilt my head at the way she’s looking at me, something angry in the hunch of her eyebrows. “Hey,” I say, crawling up the bed to her, settling easily into the vee of her legs. “I told you I wasn’t—I’m not going to do that again. I said I’m fighting for you, and I meant it.”
When I nose below her ear, pressing a kiss to that spot of skin where her neck meets her shoulder, some of that tension leaves. “I know that,” she says. “I just meant…”