Chapter 11 #3
“Myah got to your letter before I did and we had a huge fight about it,” he said, eyebrows furrowed. “Now I get to find out what happens when you return an engagement ring, so at least the whole thing was a learning experience.”
“Woah, wait a minute,” I held up my hands, needing another minute to catch up with what he was saying. “You two broke up?”
“Spectacularly,” he replied, rolling his now icy blue eyes at me. “It seems I’m stuck in my always-a-bridesmaid-never-a-bride rut for now.”
I was struggling to breathe a bit too much to laugh at him. Judging by the look on his face, that was probably for the best. I felt like a balloon that had just had its string cut, drifting giddily on an updraft.
“I’m sorry,” I said, because it seemed like the right thing to say, not because I meant it. I wanted to feel bad for him, if he was feeling bad, but judging by my conversation with Jet and Mira, this was a positive development for all involved – even if it felt shitty for a while.
“Me too,” he admitted, unfolding his arms to let his tattooed hands hang at his sides. My gaze was caught in the easy grace of his fingers, the shimmering silver of the rings he was wearing.
“I didn’t mean to cause any trouble between you, I just…I didn’t want you to think you’d done anything wrong. I’m not leaving because of you, Sebastian.”
“I believe you,” he murmured, running one of those gorgeous hands through his hair. There was something about him in that moment, about the quiver in his hands and the downwards turn of his usually generous, glossed mouth that betrayed him.
He was nervous.
Sebastian Jacobs, frontman of the most streamed rock band in the world, was standing in my hotel room looking like a million bucks even in his civvies and he was nervous. The whole time I knew him, and I’d known him in a way not many people did, I’d never seen him nervous.
It made me nervous.
“So if you’re not leaving because of me…will you stay, because of me?” He looked up at me, eyes soft. “If I asked nicely?”
“Sebastian…”
I whispered his name like a prayer, hoping the god I didn’t believe in would hear it and show me some fucking mercy, for once. What was I supposed to do, when he was standing a few feet from me, devastating and vulnerable and asking the one thing of me that I couldn’t give him?
I couldn’t say no to him, had never been able to say no to him, which had started us down this path all those years ago. He knew it, too, the corner of his lush mouth ticking up into the soft, shy smile I’d always loved most.
“Do you want to know the real reason I asked you to come do this tour?” He asked, taking half a step towards me.
I knew I should take a step back – being too close to him was dangerous – but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
I could only nod, struck dumb by the sight of him in the soft, buttery light from my bedside lamp.
“I wanted to see you again, before I got married. I needed to see you again, to be sure that I was really over you, before I made that kind of commitment to someone else. I thought that if I could get through this tour, if we could be friends, I could prove to myself that I had moved on from…us. From everything that had happened between us.”
The words tumbled out of him in a rush, tripping off his tongue like he wasn’t fully in control of what he was saying. He crossed his arms again, but it wasn’t to shut himself off – he was hugging himself; I could tell by the tremble in his fingers.
“I get it,” I forced myself to speak, to break the silence between us. “Did it work?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed with a heavy sigh. “We’re not done yet.”
“Sebastian…”
“Max,” he fixed me with a look so warm that I could feel a blush starting – trickling down from the tips of my ears, across my cheeks, down my neck. I glanced at the windows, wondering if I could open one of them. All the air had gone out of the room.
“We’re not done yet,” he repeated, voice soft like he was talking to a spooked animal.
I met his gaze, let myself have a long moment of getting lost in the shimmering tides of the oceans of his eyes. One second longer and I was going to get swept away, again, was going to drown in him and be grateful for it.
I made the first move, bridging the gap between us so quickly that it seemed like a blur.
My calloused thumb swept across the sweet flush blooming across his razor-sharp cheekbone as my palm slid across the hammering pulse at the base of his inked neck.
I reeled him in with a shaking breath, letting my eyes slip closed as his dark eyelashes brushed against my cheek .
I parted his lips with my own, losing myself in the slide of his glossed mouth under mine. He tasted like the weird peppermint tea and honey he drank before every show, just like I remembered.
I let my hands trail down his tattooed arms, the resulting shiver from him echoing across my skin.
He was gripping my hips so tightly I was sure he was going to leave bruises but I couldn’t bring myself to care; I wanted to remember every second, every moment of him in my arms, his lips moving against my gasping mouth.
He broke the kiss first, pressing his forehead against mine so I could feel the shaky exhale of his breath against my lips. His hands were still trembling as he raised his arms, wrapping them around my neck so he could pull me back in for a deeper, searing kiss.
I wound my arms around his waist, pulling him so close that I could feel his heart hammering against mine. The careful brush of his tongue, the heat pouring off him, it was so intoxicating that I was having trouble remembering why we hadn’t been doing this all tour.
My head was spinning and I was losing time – one moment we were kissing each other breathless, the next we were on the bed, Sebastian arching underneath me so I could pull his shirt over his head.
He was surging up to meet me, kiss for kiss – my hands were in his hair, his mouth was on my neck, expanses of perfectly tattooed skin revealing themselves to me between trembling breaths.
God, he was gorgeous. My gaze got caught on his perfectly sculpted jaw as he tilted his head back, on the swirling, watercolour designs of the tattoos across his chest, the way his carved abs trembled under my worshipping hands.
“Max,” he gasped, his wet lips brushing against my ear lobe. “I can’t let you go.”
“I know,” I murmured back, burying my face in his neck as I moved inside him. My eyes were stinging – with sweat, with unshed tears – so I screwed them shut, convinced that if I could just lose myself in him for a little bit, everything would make sense the way that we made sense.
We clung to each other for what felt like forever, even as we both drifted to sleep.
Waking up beside him was a bittersweet agony.
He looked 22 again with his dark hair fanned out across the pillow like a decadent black halo, the concern that had pinched the corners of his eyes and generous mouth smoothed out in sleep.
“Sebastian,” I mumbled, trying to ignore the leaden ache in my muscles as I sat up. I couldn’t ignore the pull of my skin around the scratches he left down my back the night before. “I have to go.”
I brushed my thumb across his jaw, indulging in a reverent pass over his cheekbone, the thick smudge of his dark lashes. He opened his eyes, blinking blearily up at me.
“I have to go,” I repeated, hoping I sounded stronger than I felt. “I’m sorry.”
He nodded, closing his eyes again as he did. I could see tears starting to form, studding his lashes like diamonds. I leaned over to kiss him, one last kiss, not sure if the salt I could taste was coming from his tears or mine.