“Right. Carry on.” He starts to walk away, his leg dragging which reminds me of when Quinn had her cast on and sounded like a pirate with a pegged leg. Heaven backtracks, of course, because he always has something left to say. “Just don’t get too carried away, you know. No sex. We’ve been waiting for you guys to make an appearance and come up for air, so … no touchy. Okay?”
I’ll touch her if I want to touch her.
“Heaven,” my voice deepens in the ‘if you don’t get away from me at this very moment, I’m going to kick your ass’ tone.
“Right. Okay. Tootles.” He pounds on the door, and I groan in both relief and frustration, banging my head against the wall.
“He’s persistent.”
“You’re just now noticing?”
She drags me into the bathroom and turns on the shower. We fall into a comfortable silence, but there is an unspoken tension there. The guilt comes off her in waves, and I realize I might not know everything about her like I used to. She has changed, and I hav
e too, but that doesn’t stop me from loving her. Everyone changes. No one is the same person they were five, ten, fifteen years ago. I passionately believe we grow to be different people the more we age, and to find someone to stick with you through all those different personalities, that is something special. To grow together and learn all the people you’ve grown to be, that isn’t the kind of thing that comes around multiple times in life.
She is that person for me, the one who is meant to be around and grow with me, while I love her more every day.
“Gabriella.” I speak in a way that gives the underlying impression that I want to talk. I don’t want to push or be too harsh, but we need to talk about this.
“Hmm?” she says, keeping her back against the wall as she shucks off her shirt.
My eyes rake down her body, and my blood rushes to my cock. As it’s filled, the sore, aching skin stretches, but I don’t care. Her body is something I’ll never get tired of.
I’ll love her just as she grows and changes, even if she doesn’t know how to love herself. I’ll love her enough for the both of us. I’ll show her in time that she is worth all the love the world has to give, and if I have to give her the world to prove it, then that is exactly what I will do.
“You’re distracting.” I take a step forward, and when she reached for my shaft, I turn away and lace her fingers in mine. I’m not about to admit that my fucking balls are worn out and my cock literally hurts to the touch right now. If she genuinely wants me instead of ignoring a problem, then that is a different story. I’ll let her have me, regardless if it hurts. Pain is something I can take when it comes to Gabriella because I it is a good pain, not the kind that leaves brutal scars, but the knowledge that love has been here. “We need to talk.” That isn’t a good choice of words. Those are the number one break-up words.
“Sebastian.” She sighs and turns toward the shower, pulling the curtain back to get in. “I don’t want to talk about it.” And somehow, she keeps her back from me.
“I do. I want to talk about it. Come here.” I drag her toward the mirror and stand in front of it, letting my hands slip down her arms as we stare at our reflections. “You’re beautiful,” I say, then I turn around and give my back to the mirror, looking over my shoulder to see the damage. It’s a good thing I’m good at schooling my face because holy shit, it looks like a battlefield back there, but she doesn’t need to know that. Dozens of red lines um the length of my back; even the skin of my cheeks is marked. There are five indentations on either cheek where she gripped me and urged me forward as I fucked her hard enough to break the bed.
“It isn’t even that bad,” I say, clearly lying.
She covers her mouth with her hand, and I think she is going to cry, but she takes me by surprise, a damn wild card, and laughs. “Oh God, why didn’t you tell me I was hurting you? I never want to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me” I pull her to my chest and wrap my arms around her petite body. “You turn me on. I liked it.”
“Really?” She bats her dark lashes up at me, suddenly a bit shy.
“Really.” I sway us to the music of the water hitting against the tile floor from the shower. “It’s nothing like what he did to you, baby. You are nothing like him, if that’s what you are thinking.” I frame her face with my hands and gently tuck her head back to look at me. “You did this in passion. You didn’t do this to inflict pain on me.”
Her eyes widen with horror. “I would never hurt you. I—”
“I know. I know. I just want you to know there is a difference. And if you don’t do this every time we have sex, I’ll think I’m doing something wrong.”
“So now I have to do it?” She doesn’t believe me, at least, that is what her eyes say, loud and clear.
“It’s a must. You’re just going to have to deal,” I say on a long sigh, as if it’s an inevitable thing she has to accept. I hold a hand over my heart, faking my concern. “I’ll live to see another day.”
“Stop it.” Her laughter echoes off the walls of the bathroom. I give her a long, too long, of a hug and kiss her forehead.
“I’ll never stop if it means making you smile like that, baby. Come on; let’s shower before the guys throw a fit and Heaven comes back.”
“What do you think they want to talk about?”
I have a feeling. And I know I’m not going to like it.
Chapter Eighteen