Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82255 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 411(@200wpm)___ 329(@250wpm)___ 274(@300wpm)
“What made you like this?” My voice cracks. “What made you so bitter? So cruel?”
His fingers fall away from my face, and I almost regret the words, but I need to know. I can’t keep doing this with him. Hot, cold, hot, cold. Either he gives me all of himself or leaves with nothing.
“It’s complicated,” he answers.
“More complicated than this?” I challenge. “Go ahead. Mindfuck me.”
Despite the gravity of the situation, his lips tilt up at the corners, and for a second, I could almost swear he’s proud of me.
“I was raised in an emotionally harsh environment.” He sighs. “My father was practically militant in his expectations, and anything outside of those was not acceptable. He was domineering and obstinate and unyielding in his demands.”
“Sounds like someone else I know,” I say lightly.
Sebastian shrugs, and his self-contempt is evident in that moment. “I suppose I developed some of those same traits over time. I had no desire to be like him, but time and circumstances made me cruel.”
“Cruelty is just pain’s gatekeeper.” My fingers reach out for his, and for once, he accepts without protest. “Tell me what happened.”
“Believe it or not, this isn’t what I had planned for my life.”
“That isn’t hard to believe.” I smile. “No offense, but you’re like the worst teacher ever, considering you hate almost everyone.”
He smirks, and it lightens the mood between us, at least for a moment.
“So what did you want to do?” I question. “Play soccer?”
He turns away, his spine rigid, but despite his obvious discomfort, he answers me anyway. “Yes. I wanted to play soccer, but I had a career-ending injury before I ever really got the chance. My knee was shattered in a mugging outside of a bar, and after that night, everything just… went away.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I had no idea.”
“So now you know the gist of it.” He studies our intertwined fingers. “I’m a fucking asshole, Stella. I’m not going to lie. I’m a miserable bastard, and I don’t deserve you. But I want you, and I haven’t wanted anything in a very long time.”
The rawness of his confession is difficult to ignore. I wanted Sebastian to open up to me, and he has. I wanted him to admit his feelings for me, and this is the closest he’s ever come. As much as I’d like to pretend I have a choice, there isn’t one. My heart rules when it comes to him, and right now, I’m as good as his.
“I don’t even know why I like you,” I tell him. “I knew you were poison the first time I saw you, but I wanted to drink you anyway.”
He leans down and brushes his lips against mine. After everything, I know with unwavering certainty that Sebastian’s kisses are worth dying for. His lips are warm and sweet and addictive. And what starts as soft and quiet soon becomes a thief in the night. A soul-shattering cataclysm that leaves us tearing at each other’s clothes, desperate to obliterate every obstacle between us.
Five minutes later, Sebastian Carter is naked in my room. Fucking me in my bed. Breathing into my neck, he’s inhaling me like I’m his favorite drug.
“Take me to paradise, Stella.”
I curl my fingers into his back and wrap my legs around him, and we take each other to paradise, coming violently at nearly the same time. And again, he finishes inside me, raw. Something else that neither of us has bothered to address. This risky little game we are playing is intoxicating, but soon, it could become a harsh reality.
Sebastian kisses me, and I kiss him back, and then he drags me against his body like he’ll never let me go. I want to believe him. God, do I ever want to believe him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
SEBASTIAN
STELLA BOLTS UPRIGHT and glances around the room in a panic, but the moment her eyes find mine, the tension in her body bleeds away. I feel it too, in the beating pulse of my throat. This quixotic connection between us. How can something so simple affect me so profoundly? I’m suffocating when I’m not near her, and now I know she feels it too. It’s a fucking nightmare.
Nobody has ever managed to punch a gaping hole in my chest the way she can with a single glance. Not any of my short-term flings or even my long-term girlfriend, Megan. Stella unravels me. She makes me forget who I’m supposed to be and reminds me of the man I could have been. In short, she terrifies me. If life has taught me anything, it’s that the things we want can only be ours for a little while.
Stella expects me to leave like everyone else in her life, and it would be the smart and sane thing to do. But I’ve never been smart or sane when it comes to her.