7. Sebastian
Chapter 7
Sebastian
S he’s still asleep when I wake.
The room is quiet. Dim morning light filters through the gauzy curtains, casting soft, golden stripes across her bare back. She’s on her stomach, legs tangled in the sheet, hair loose and damp from last night. Her face is turned toward me, relaxed in a way I’ve never seen when she’s awake.
This is dangerous. She is dangerous. Genevieve St. Claire has unraveled me in a way no woman ever has—in a way no person ever has.
Waking next to her another day feels like stepping into uncharted territory. It will set a precedent I have no intention of backing. I should get up. Start the day. Check in with Dom, finalize departure logistics, go over wrap reports from each team. There’s a to-do list waiting. A life waiting. And she isn’t part of it.
But I don’t move.
Instead, I let my hand drift along the curve of her back, fingertips tracing a slow, careful line down to the dip of her waist. She stirs, just barely, murmuring something unintelligible before settling again.
I keep touching her anyway.
It’s selfish. I know that. But I want this moment. I want the weight of her beside me and the way she instinctively reaches toward the heat of my body in her sleep. I want the memory of this to be clean, before I ruin it.
Because I will.
That’s the truth no one talks about when it comes to men like me. We don’t break because we’re weak—we break because we’ve trained ourselves not to need. And the second we do, we destroy it. Not because we want to. Because we don’t know how to hold something without eventually letting it go.
Genevieve is young. Smart. Too hopeful for a man who builds walls instead of memories. She deserves someone who doesn’t calculate his every breath. Someone who doesn’t analyze the risk of getting attached in percentage points and exit strategies.
Not this. Not me.
I told myself this was a mistake from the beginning. A brief indulgence. A release. But nothing about this feels temporary anymore.
Still, it has to end. We both knew that going in, even if we didn’t say it out loud.
I slip a hand beneath her thigh and guide her onto her side, pulling her back against me. She stirs again, eyes fluttering open just as I slide inside her.
Her breath catches. But she doesn't say anything to stop me.
I thrust slow and deep, savoring the way she stretches around me. She’s already soaking, still dripping with my release from last night. My hand slides up her stomach, over her breast, anchoring her to me while I move.
She sighs my name, and I lose the last thread of control I’ve been holding.
My fingers close around her wrist and guide it up above her head. She lets me. That’s the part that undoes me—her body yielding even before her mind is fully awake. She doesn’t question it. Doesn’t fight it. She trusts me enough to give me control without hesitation.
“Keep it there,” I murmur against her skin. “Don’t move unless I tell you to.”
She nods, cheek brushing the pillow. Her breath hitches as I roll my hips, deeper this time, grinding into her until her thighs tremble against mine. I don’t speed up. I don’t need to. This isn’t about chasing the high. This is about marking the moment. Burning it in.
“You remember what I told you?” I ask, voice low, steady.
“Yes,” she breathes.
“What happens when you come for me?”
Her fingers tighten in the pillowcase. “I belong to you.”
“Good girl.”
I thrust again, a little harder now, dragging her leg higher over mine and opening her up to take every inch. Her body clenches around me, so perfect, so responsive I can feel every shiver from the inside out. Her breath stutters. She tries to move her arm, just barely, but I catch her wrist and pin it back down.
“What did I say?” I growl.
Her voice is barely audible. “Don’t move.”
“That’s right. You come when I let you. Not before.”
My free hand slides between her thighs and circles her clit.
She jolts in my arms, gasping, body caught in that place between surrender and overload. I hold her there. Make her take every stroke. Every word.
“You feel how deep I am?” I whisper, mouth against the back of her neck. “You think anyone else is ever going to fuck you like this?”
“No—” she gasps. “No one else?—”
“Say it.”
“You. Only you.”
I keep her right at the edge, her body so tight around mine it’s a miracle I don’t come from that alone. Her moans are quiet and breathless, her thighs trembling against mine. She’s unraveling into pieces and trying to hold them all in place.
I won’t let her.
It’s not rough. Not rushed. This is different. This is me telling myself I’ll remember it exactly as it is. Her gasping beneath me. Her fingers searching for mine. Her body trembling from the kind of pleasure you don’t fake.
“You’re going to fall apart for me,” I tell her. “Now.”
She does.
It rolls through her like a wave. Her back arches, lips parted on a cry she doesn’t bother to silence. Her pussy clenches around me, pulsing with each contraction, and I fuck her through every second of it, never letting her come down.
When I feel her go soft, too sensitive to take another stroke, I bury myself one final time and come deep inside her, jaw clenched, forehead pressed to the back of her shoulder. It’s not violent. It’s not loud. It’s something else—something reverent and private and so much worse.
Because I feel everything.
I don’t move. I stay there, breathing hard, one hand still wrapped around her wrist, the other gripping her hip too tightly. My release drips out of her, slick heat sliding down her thigh, and all I can think is mine.
I press my mouth to her shoulder and close my eyes.
And then I let go.
I don’t see her again until the reception winds down and the last of the guests disappear into their golf carts and private shuttles.
I’ve kept my distance. Not because I wanted to. Because I had to.
I told myself it would be easier this way. Cleaner. That the line between indulgence and attachment could still be salvaged if I just stepped back. I didn’t look at her during the final walkthrough, didn’t speak to her during the closing toast. But she looked at me. Once. Across the catering table, while going over final vendor sign-offs. One look. That’s all it took to unravel the thread I’d been holding onto all day.
The heat in her gaze, the question beneath it.
I didn’t answer it. I didn’t let myself get close. I couldn’t. Because if I touch her again, I won’t walk away.
So instead, I do the one thing I’ve never done in my life: I take the coward’s way out.
I’m leaving earlier than expected. The excuse is flimsy—calls to return, properties to review, back-to-back meetings that could wait if I wanted them to. But I leave anyway.
I leave a note with Dom and tell myself it’s enough.
Dom watches me closely as I pack up. “You’re really not going to say goodbye?”
“I already did.”
“Did you? Because she doesn’t look like she knows it.”
I don’t answer. I just tuck the last of my files into my case and check the time.
He crosses his arms. “You want me to give her the note?”
“Yes.”
Dom exhales, dragging a hand down his face. “You’re going to regret this.”
Probably. But I don’t allow myself to think about it. I nod once, hand off the envelope, and leave.
The shuttle ride is silent. My flight is prepped, my assistant already coordinating arrivals for the week ahead. It’s over. That’s what I tell myself. I did what I came here to do. The event was flawless. She exceeded expectations. I’ll recommend her to Max and Silas. I already did.
It’s for the best.
She deserves better.
* * *
I step into the corner suite of Thorne Holdings and find Silas sprawled out on Max’s leather couch, sipping something too expensive for this early in the day and flipping through Gen’s Luxuria proposal like it’s a magazine spread.
“She’s good,” Silas says, lifting his brows. “You weren’t exaggerating.”
“She’s better than good,” I answer, setting down my case and heading for the wet bar. “She’s fucking excellent. Detail-oriented, flexible under pressure, and handled a multi-million-dollar launch event with less than three weeks’ prep. That kind of poise isn’t teachable.”
Silas hums, clearly impressed, even if he doesn’t want to say it outright. “Her name sounds familiar. Did she do something in Aspen last year? That bridal weekend for the Rothschild girl?”
I nod. “That was her.”
Of course Silas remembers the bride’s name. Not the groom’s. Never the groom’s.
Max steps out of his office, rolling his sleeves with the slow, deliberate precision that somehow makes the simple movement look like a strategy. He’s in tailored slacks, barefoot. He’s always barefoot in his own office. I'd say it's a weird quirk, but Max is far from what one would call normal. He gives me a look that lands somewhere between neutral and speculative.
“We’re not in the habit of poaching your hires, Wolfe.”
“She’s not mine,” I say flatly.
That earns me a longer look. From both of them.
Max leans against the doorway, arms crossed. “You sing the girl’s praises but don’t want to hire her onto your staff?”
“She was freelance. Now she’s available.”
Silas studies me. “And you’re just letting her go.”
“You don’t usually pitch this hard unless there’s something in it for you.”
She deserves more than I’m willing to give. To them, I say, “She’s building her business. Wants to stay independent. That’s why I’m recommending her to both of you. Silas, for the Women In Sports Gala your foundation is throwing. Max, for the Westchester Development Preview. That’s shaping up to be a press magnet. You want someone who can handle that level of detail without falling apart under scrutiny.”
Silas nods slowly, resting the proposal on his chest. “She’s got a hell of a visual eye. The thematic integration for the island launch was clean. Cohesive. Sexy without being obvious.”
“Good storytelling,” Max adds, scanning the top page. “Aesthetic with purpose. Not just fluff.”
“Exactly,” I say, topping off my glass but not drinking. “She doesn’t miss details. She anticipates them.”
Silas tilts his head toward me, curious. “So why not keep her in-house? Put her on retainer. Hell, you’ve taken on less polished people for more long-term partnerships.”
“She wants to stand on her own two feet,” I say, not missing a beat. “And I respect that.”
Max studies me for a second too long, his gaze cool, steady, and far too observant. He doesn’t push it, though, just nods and closes the proposal.
“We’ll reach out,” he says. “If she’s half as sharp as you say, she won’t stay on the market long.”
“She won’t,” I agree, finishing the drink I don’t want and setting the glass down with more force than necessary.
Silas grins. “She single?”
I shoot him a look that shuts him up. He raises both hands in surrender, but I can see the smirk still tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Max arches a brow. Doesn’t say anything. Just watches me like he knows there’s more I’m not saying.
He’d be right.
But they don’t need to know how deep I got. Or how fast. Or that the reason I’m here recommending her is because being anywhere else—being near her again—might push me past the edge I’ve spent my whole life avoiding.
“She deserves the work,” I say quietly. “Don’t waste her time.”
Silas lifts his glass. “Noted.”
Max taps his fingers against the folder. “We’ll be in touch.”
I leave the suite fifteen minutes later feeling only slightly satisfied that I’ve done what I can.