67. Lily
LILY
Her heart shuddered in her chest, her whole body trembling in anticipation of something that hadn’t yet happened, that she knew was going to happen. She was sure he knew too. The week of watching her phone for a sign of him had banished any second thoughts she’d harbored. She was sick of waiting.
All day their quest had consumed them; they’d barely touched, aside from clutching each other in fear.
Now nothing stood in their way. She traced the sharp contour of his jaw with her lips, moving down his neck, pausing on his Adam’s apple as his breath caught.
She pushed his collar out of the way, exposing the hollow of his throat.
Sebastian stood very still, hardly breathing, as her hands roamed down his sides, then under his untucked shirt.
He gasped as her fingers brushed the unprotected skin of his stomach, and for a moment they stood silently, gazing at each other as the night folded around them like a blanket.
The music hummed quietly in the background, but Lily could barely hear it above the blood roaring in her ears.
Then Sebastian was messily pulling off his sweater, dropping it on the rug.
Lily’s fingers stumbled over the buttons on his shirt, and he tried to help and made everything worse.
Their heads bumped together as they exhaled nervous, throaty laughter.
As she pushed his shirt over his shoulders, revealing his undershirt, he picked her up and moved to the couch, falling onto it unceremoniously.
With shaking hands, Lily poured more champagne, gulping deeply, while he finally succeeded in removing his collared shirt.
As handsome as Sebastian generally looked in all of his lovely, expensive clothes, he’d never looked more beautiful than he did in that moment—in a white V-neck, cutting just so over the swell of his bicep, his dark waves mussed and free, his warm skin washed to dusty gold in the light.
Lily had never wanted anything the way she wanted him, the way she wanted to live.
She dragged him into her, and he swung a knee over her lap.
He paused, holding his weight away from her, and she sat up, straightening, before pulling him into her.
He settled, knees straddling her hips, his mouth pressing her backward into the couch.
His hands pushed under her clothes, and they paused, only long enough for him to remove her top.
“Jesus,” he breathed as he gazed at her beneath him in her bra. “You’re beautiful.”
She swallowed hard. “Thank you.”
“Are you…” His chest rose and fell just as violently.
“Yes.”
“Do you want…Fuck. I’m…” He pushed his hands through his hair. “Do you—”
She pulled him close, touching her lips to his ear, whispering.
“Do you want that too?” she asked, meeting his gaze.
“I…yes. God, yes.”
He scooped a hand under her back, sprawling them lengthwise on the couch, and hovered over her, kissing his way down the ladder of her ribs.
His lips glided over her stomach, sliding into the dip between her hips and her pants, luxuriating there, as he undid the button of her jeans and slid them down her hips.
She tensed involuntarily, laid almost bare beneath him, and he stopped.
“You’re sure?” he said, concern darting into his eyes. “We can stop. Anytime, we—”
“I’m sure.” Her voice sounded more confident than she was. What if she was terrible? What if she— “I’m just.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to stop the flush that crept up her neck. “Nervous. A little.”
Sebastian breathed out a shaky laugh. “Me too.” He sounded relieved.
She propped herself up on her elbows. “But you’ve done this before.”
“Not with you.”
Lily had nothing to say to that.
“It’s…it’s different with everyone.”
“Ah. Right.” She hadn’t known, not really. She hated how na?ve she was.
Somehow, he sensed her discomfort and pulled her up to sitting so they were nearly eye to eye. “And it matters. With you.” His voice went a little hoarse.
She leaned in to kiss him, her hands riding up under his T-shirt, and he pulled it off in a motion more graceful than it had any right to be.
Then he had her on her back, and his mouth moved from the slope of her hip to the tender inside of her thigh.
She stiffened again, and he moved his free hand—the one that wasn’t slipping beneath the elastic of her underwear—up her leg until it found her hand and squeezed.
Biting her lip, she closed her eyes, trying to relax, to relinquish control, and soon there were stars blooming behind her eyelids, unbidden breaths gasping out of her, as she braided her fingers into his hair, as her body woke up inside of her.
When his weight settled between her bare hips and he looked at her, dark and soft, they felt inevitable.
This was a dance, one they hadn’t known they’d been rehearsing, with eyes and pulse and lips and breath, for months now.
When they moved, alternately sliding and crushing together, pleasure rolled beneath her like a wave, and she let it set her adrift.
It was only when she woke up, hours later, the moon a white beacon through the diamond-paned windows, that she remembered. Head on Sebastian’s chest, she blinked awake, bare legs twisted beneath a pile of blankets and remembered that she was going to die.
Beneath her cheek, his chest rose and fell, as slow and calm as she’d ever felt it.
She gazed into the light of the moon, her flickering, cold judgment clear, even from space.
What have you done?