Chapter 20
CHAPTER TWENTY
SASHA
Once the church hall empties, I bundle up and walk home. The streets are quiet now, nothing but the crunch of my footsteps in the snow, and I lose myself in the melody, rehearsing what to say to Sebastian. I debate whether it’s best to call or text first, but dismiss both quickly. After what he’s done for me, anything less than showing up in person is insulting.
I’m so lost in the thought of him, I almost miss the gigantic man perched on the snow-tipped wall framing my front garden.
“Sebastian!”
I’ve never seen a man so handsome, shoulders dusted with snowflakes, nose and cheeks pink with cold. Hands shoved in his pockets, his hair curls up and over his coat collar, wavy from all the damp in the air. I want to run my hands through it, scratch at his scalp the way he likes.
“You’re here,” is all I can think to say, even though there’s a wealth of other words ballooning inside me.
His head tilts, the smile kissing his eyes. “Are you gonna invite me in? I very much regret waiting for you on this wall. My ass is soaked.”
“You’ve been waiting for me?”
“For a long time it seems.”
My heart soars.
I’ve been waiting for him a long time too.
“Well, this is unfair,” I manage. “You’ve deprived me of my grand gesture. I was coming to you.”
“Yeah?” He lights up at this. “What if we meet in the middle?”
I creep into the spread of Sebastian’s thighs. We’re the perfect height like this—him sitting, me standing—and I stroke the stubble shading his jaw, the line of his eyebrows, the fine lines I love so much.
There’s reverence in my gaze as I map out his handsome face and cover his mouth with mine. His hands settle on my ass, greedy and possessive, and he opens for me instantly, letting our tongues graze. We kiss and kiss right there in the street, fluffy fakes settling all around us.
When we manage to pull away, Sebastian says, “I was serious about the soaked ass.”
I laugh against his mouth. “Come on. Let’s get you warmed up inside.”
The Christmas lights are set to a timer, so the cottage is dimly lit when I let us inside. I toss the keys on the coffee table, but Sebastian doesn’t give me a chance to do anything else before he spins me around, lifts me up and seals his mouth to mine again.
We kiss like that for a long time, lost in each other in the dark, nothing but a multicoloured glow to light the way.
“I missed you,” I murmur eventually, stealing another kiss.
Sebastian cups my cheek, his gaze so soft it makes me ache. “I missed you too.”
“I looked for you tonight, at the Christmas committee.”
“I thought you might. I wanted to come, but I know we would’ve been a spectacle with everyone looking at us. That meeting was about you and your gran. Tonight is about us.”
“Thank you.” My voice is barely a whisper as I stroke his cheek and brush my thumb across his bottom lip, unable to stop touching him. “What you did… It was the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. When did you even have the time?”
“I had Edith Elliot-King to help me of course.”
Of course he did. I should have known.
“Did you know there’s a whole Walmsley WhatsApp group?” he asks.
I nod, grinning. “My mum belongs to it too. They’ve been talking about us this whole time.”
“That’s how Gran got the news out, after I confided in her. She was on a mission. Things happened very quickly after that and everyone rallied. I hope that’s okay.”
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”
“Because you’ve been so adamant about doing everything yourself, and you wouldn’t accept my money. I understood why. But I had to make it happen another way because it’s hard for me to see people I care about struggling and not do something.”
“What did I do to deserve you?” I whisper, utterly awed.
“It’s not about being deserving, Sasha. I just want you to be happy. You don’t have to do everything alone anymore. It’s not what Rose would’ve wanted for you.”
“I know. I know that, but it was hard to see for a while. I think I got used to the grief. It’s like when you live with pain long enough it becomes something you adjust to. You make room for its existence, but it doesn’t go away. You know that better than anyone. That’s how I’ve been living since Nan died. Since I took over the shop. I buried my head in the sand, and it’s the generosity of others who saved me from suffocating. I’m—I don’t feel deserving. I don’t. But I’m going to try. I want to measure up to their kindness.”
My shoulders shake as a sob rattles through me, and he holds me closer, tighter still.
“And you,” I croak out. “What you did for the village and paying for Christmas. You didn’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I did, because that’s what Christmas is all about, as cheesy as that sounds.”
“I like cheese though.”
“Me too,” he says through a laugh. “Besides, what good is all this money if I can’t help people with it?”
“You’re a good man, Sebastian. The very best.”
“I want to be a good man for you,” he tells me, leaning into my touch. “The only man.”
“As if there will ever be anyone else.”
I’m consumed by the frenzied way this man makes me feel, and the thrill that surges up my spine as he crowds over me, enfolding me in his big, strong arms. I wrench him down for another kiss, blistering hot need racing through me.
“I need to be inside you, sweetheart,” Sebastian says gruffly, taking the words right out of my mouth.
My pussy spasms around nothing, eager for it.
“I need that too.” I cup the hard length of him, working him through his jeans. “I’m desperate for you.”
“Yeah?” He closes his eyes for a beat, and rocks into my touch. “You need my cock?”
“You have no idea.”
It’s like the strike of a match when our gazes catch, and we go up in flames together, tearing at each other’s clothes, stripping down bit by bit, right there in the middle of the living room.
Sebastian cups my pussy and my head rolls as he swipes through my wet flesh, and circles my clit. I clutch at his wrist, holding him exactly where I want as he slides a finger inside me, then two, curling them both so right, working his thumb just so.
“Is that the spot?” he asks smugly at the filthy way I use his hand.
His cock is hard between us, weeping at the tip, and I drag my grip down the length of him a couple of times, teasing him as much as he’s teasing me, even though I can barely stand on my feet.
“Lie down. Lie down right now.”
Sebastian’s surprised by my demand at first, then smiles and stretches out lengthways on the sofa, even though he has to bend his legs to fit.
“We still need to look after that knee, don’t we?” I run my hand up from his knee and along his thigh, following the length of his body with teasing touches and gropes where he’s rock solid and fleshy too.
A gnawing heat blooms between my legs as I reach his head, and Sebastian looks up at me with a yearning that is almost too much to bear.
“You look like a great place to sit.”
His entire body jerks. “Fuck. Don’t tease me.”
“Who said I was teasing?”
Then, I grasp the back of the sofa, throw one leg over his body and squat right over his face.
“Fucking hell,” he bites out. “Yes.”
It’s awkward, crouched here like this. I peer down at Sebastian beneath me, and a tiny flutter of vulnerability spears through me at the way my entire body is exposed. My stomach rolls out, obscuring the view of his mouth and nose, but there’s something about the fevered, fiery glint in his eyes that floods my veins with power.
He wants me and he loves what he sees.
“Do it,” he says, fingers pitting into the globes of my ass. “Fucking suffocate me for all I care.”
I giggle at this, but take it as consent to sink my weight fully against him.
Sebastian groans, grabbing my ass harder. His tongue spears inside me, battering my clit for a bit, giving it a few long, hard sucks until I jerk and shudder. He builds me up like this for a while, edging me into a slow rocking rhythm all over his face. Everything sounds so wet as I rock and slide over his mouth and chin, over and over, blinded by the shivery sensation until all rhythm is lost.
“You’re making me come,” I tell him, as if he doesn’t feel me clamping around his tongue, screaming out his name as my orgasm rips through me.
When I come back to my surroundings, I’m somehow engulfed in Sebastian’s arms, tucked between him and the back of the sofa, one leg thrown over his hip and pressing against his still-hard cock.
“What…”
“Just let me hold you for a bit,” he says.
Our bodies plastered together, I listen to the thud of his heart, lust-dazed and blissed out.
“I still need your cock inside me,” I tell him.
“And you shall have whatever you want.”
I grin, squeezing him tight. “And after I need to go pack a few things for Christmas Eve. We’re going to the manor to be with Edith and your daughter. We have It’s a Wonderful Life to watch.”
“You want to do that with us?” Sebastian asks.
“I can’t think of anything better.”
His face dawns with fresh delight. “Then let’s go home.”