A Million Different Ways to Lose You (Horn Duet 2)

I turned back towards Sebastian and found the object of my affection staring back at me with what could only be described as concerned wariness. If I didn’t know better I would say he looked almost scared of me, guarding himself, one step removed from actually being there. I couldn’t stand to see it…and I couldn’t hold his gaze.

“How do you feel?” His voice was gentle, the restraint in it unnatural.

“I’m fine,” I answered, trying to allay his concern even though somewhere inside of me I wanted to burst out sobbing. I wanted to rail and break things. I wanted to beg him to forgive me. But I didn’t do any of those things, I couldn’t, because my feelings were locked behind an iron door.

“Then why won’t you look at me?”

Reluctantly, my eyes climbed from the blanket I was busy picking lint off of, to his face. I took in every detail. The dark half moons hanging under his eyes, the hollow cheeks, cheekbones sharper than ever…the exhaustion dimming the bright sparkle I loved to see on his beautiful face. This had taken as much a physical toll on him as it had on me.

All I could say was, “I’m fine.”

Staring back into those world-weary eyes, my concern for him overrode everything else. I caressed his jaw, covered by a week old beard. It pulsed with tension under my fingertips. I thought he would pull away, put distance between us, but instead he leaned into my touch. His eyes fluttered, his long lashes throwing shadows as my fingers skated over his angular features and traced the lines of worry across his face.

“I need you to come closer,” I murmured. After a beat, he moved, pinning the chair he sat on to the side of the bed. “Closer than that,” I whispered. His russet colored eyes opened and searched mine. He was that wounded creature I had met so long ago. No sudden movements…talk softly. When he hesitated, I patted the spot next to me.

“I’m too big. I’ll hurt you.”

“No,” I countered, my head shaking at the irony, “You won’t. You wouldn’t.”

I shifted to the far side of the bed to make more room for him, and patted the mattress again. In his gaze, glassy from exhaustion and stress, I could see the silent war being fought. I knew I’d won when he exhaled deeply. Right then I found that I could still feel something because the defeat I saw in the sloping lines of his broad shoulders dug its fingers into my heart and squeezed viciously.

He kicked off his shoes and lay down next to me. Face to face, we were on our sides, inches apart. He studied me for a long time without making a sound, his fingers brushing petal-soft up and down my arm. I wanted to kiss the caution and apprehension on his face away, soothe every hurt I had inflicted. Knowing that I had put it there heaped more guilt on a pile as high as Everest.

“Closer. I don’t bite,” I ordered softly, repeating the words he had once said to me. The side of his sensual mouth tipped up for the briefest moment. Then his head dipped down, close enough that we were almost nose to nose. “Closer,” I mouthed. His sweet lips descended onto mine so carefully I barely felt them brush back and forth in a dry, chaste kiss.

I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck and felt him shudder under my touch. Ragged, broken pieces of air rushed out of him as I deepened the kiss. Sweet, tender kisses meant to soothe, meant to tease. My tongue traced the seam of his closed lips, begging him to join me.

His resolve failed. His nostrils flared and his hand lifted to my face, hovering, trembling with pent up emotion. It must have taken the strength of Atlas himself to hold him in check, to stop him from crushing me with the violence of his passion.

“I love you,” I whispered again and again, in between more kisses and caresses. A little at a time I could feel the words soak into him and unlock some of the rigidity from his muscles. When all of the fight had left him, he pulled back.

“Right now your health is my only concern,” he murmured. “But I need to know what happened.” Cupping my face gently, he forced me to meet the anticipation in his eyes.

Fragments of images, a jumbled mess of nonsequential events flashed in my mind’s eye. The effort it took to organize those thoughts into coherent order made my head throb, a painful reminder that thinking was not a good idea following brain trauma. Especially since what I really wanted to do was forget everything that had happened. Unfortunately, there were no blind spots. I remembered it all too well.