Chapter 17 Marfil #5
Sebastian stared blankly at me. “No, you came out here at night, right before a storm, because it’s the only way you have of getting my attention. You want to go on a fucking horseback ride at one o’clock in the morning? Go ahead.”
I adjusted Philippe’s saddle as he turned around without another word.
“What are you doing?” I asked, glaring at him as he brought out my father’s horse and started to saddle him.
“I’m going with you. It’s that or I drag you back to the house by your hair.”
I threw him a poisoned glance, hopped onto my horse, and galloped out of the stable before he could stop me.
The cool wind in my face felt glorious. I had never intended to let Sebastian come with me. I just needed to do exactly what I was doing in that moment: ride, alone, at night, and if I was lucky, through the rain.
Sebastian soon caught up, the asshole, so I had to kick Philippe to make him run even harder. Sebastian had chosen my father’s purebred, Marengo—the fastest and most decorated of all the horses my father raised—and he didn’t take long to catch up.
I heard him galloping beside me in the darkness, and even though I didn’t want to look at him, my eyes darted over, curious to see how he handled my father’s horse.
Fuck, it was like he’d been riding his entire life…
Just then, the storm that had been brewing finally unleashed its fury. We were instantly soaked. Lightning split the sky overhead, and it soon became impossible to continue at such speed, so I pulled back on Philippe’s reins to slow him down.
I had gone riding in the rain many times, but never in a storm like that one.
The ground under my feet was flooded. I hated that Sebastian had been right yet again.
The problem was that I didn’t like being given orders.
I had always bristled at authority, whether that be at home or away at boarding school.
The nuns had hated me so much that one of the sisters once referred to me as the spawn of Satan.
I had always been one to break the rules, that was just part of who I was, even standing up to my father, as far as his strict limits would allow.
I’d lived on my own for two years now, free from any rules, far away from the people who had been trying to tame me ever since I was a little girl—just like the horse I now had beneath me—but no matter what they did, my mother’s indomitable spirit always shone through.
I did not submit to orders; that’s just the way I was.
“Are you happy?” Sebastian shouted, soaked to the bone and extremely mad.
I only glanced at him, water streaming down my face, then I looked up at the sky. I could almost make out the individual raindrops falling fast onto my cheeks. Up there, my mother was smiling down on me, I was sure of it.
I kicked at Philippe’s sides.
“Fuck, Marfil, we have to go back.”
I ignored his protests and followed a path that I knew well enough not to get lost, even in those conditions.
It would be better to wait until the storm had calmed before attempting to go home, so I headed toward the abandoned barn where Gabriella and I had played countless times, pretending we were on important, secret missions full of adventure, with dragons, elves, fairies, and all kinds of mythical, magical creatures.
I saw the barn in the distance and continued galloping until I was finally under its dry roof, sheltered from the storm. Sebastian arrived a minute later. Philippe seemed content to have been taken out in the rain. Marengo, on the other hand, whinnied and shook the water from his hide.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” shouted Sebastian.
I shot him a murderous glance before jumping lightly out of the saddle. There was dry hay in the stable, and the horses moved over to eat, oblivious to the epic battle of wills that was about to play out in front of them.
“I think it’s still in place,” I said sarcastically.
Sebastian seemed to want to kill me. “Goddammit, you’re so oblivious!”
“I guess you’ve only ever worked with submissive clients before!”
The rain was falling so hard that I had to raise my voice for him to hear me. I was shivering, the storm having blown in an icy wind, which, adding in the fact that I was soaked, was not a pleasant combination.
“This ends here…” he said, more to himself than to me. “It ends here. I can’t keep doing this.”
I looked up in surprise. “What is it that you can’t keep doing?”
Sebastian stared me in the eye, and I didn’t like what I saw there.
“I’m not going to keep being your bodyguard. I’m not going to keep doing this job under these conditions.”
At those words, my heart stopped.
“What conditions are you talking about? A few minutes ago, you said that your job was the most important thing…”
“It is. That’s why I have to quit.”
I clenched my jaw. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
Sebastian looked at me as if I were an idiotic little girl who had to be indulged.
“You’re too used to getting your way. You don’t respect me.
I can’t do my job if you’re going to do something stupid every chance you get.
I try to make you understand the danger you’re in, but you continue to think it’s all a big joke. ”
That pissed me off.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Sebastian. I’m aware of what’s happening, although you don’t seem to want to tell me much more, like I’m some moron. I’m the one who got kidnapped, remember?”
Sebastian ran a hand over his face, wiping away the excess water, and looked down at me, cold and distant. “Then why do you make it so hard for me, dammit?”
I held his gaze. He was overreacting. That was just how I was, and he knew it.
“You don’t want to quit because I went out alone at night without letting you know. You’re just scared now because you’re under the same roof as my father, your boss, and you don’t want him to find out what’s going on between us.”
There. I’d said it, I couldn’t keep it inside any longer.
Sebastian didn’t blink. “There’s nothing going on between us,” he said coldly.
“You can keep telling yourself that if that makes you feel better.” I turned my back to him. I didn’t want him to see how much his words had hurt me. I didn’t want to give him any more power than he already had.
He spun me around to face him. “I already apologized for what happened. We agreed it wouldn’t happen again.”
I laughed sarcastically. “We agreed?” I repeated. “I don’t remember that part…”
Sebastian cursed under his breath without taking his eyes off me. “You can’t have everything. I’m just a toy to you, but you have no idea how—”
“A toy?” I said, raising my tone and cutting him off. “You think you know me, but you have no idea. You see what I have, but you don’t know who I am, what I want, what I desire…”
“I know that if I stay with you much longer…” But he didn’t finish the sentence, and a part of me knew what he was going to say.
I took a step forward. “If you stay with me much longer… what, Sebastian?”
He shook his head, refusing to look at me.
“Why did you run your hands through my hair on the flight? Why did you do it? I didn’t ask you to.”
He didn’t answer, so I stepped closer and shoved him. He barely moved.
“You know how I feel about you. You know it, and you don’t care, but then you go and do things that make no sense, like when you took care of me after the tattoo or when you worry that I haven’t had dinner and you make me something healthy to eat.
You like touching me, Sebastian. You may not even realize how often you do it, but I’m aware of it every single time you brush past me.
Do you think I don’t notice that you take every opportunity that presents itself to put your hands on me, even if it’s fleeting and totally innocent? ”
He clenched his jaw so tight in response that the veins in his neck seemed like they were about to explode from the pressure.
“Dammit, Sebastian! I felt more from that one kiss with you than everything else I’ve ever done with any other guy!”
He fixed his furious eyes on mine. “Stop talking, Marfil.”
“Why can’t you admit that you feel something for me? Why are you so scared to take what you want?”
“Because you could never give me what I need, not in a million years.”
That hurt. A lot. And it made me angry.
I took a step back. “Don’t challenge me, Sebastian, because you know I’m up for it.” With my eyes fixed on his, I took another step back and, when I knew my body was in full view, removed my shirt.
His gaze shifted from fury to desire when he saw me standing before him in my bra and blue jeans.
“Stop…” he said as I undid the first button of my pants. Removing the space between us in two strides, he grabbed my hand as I tried to undo the second button. “Stop,” he said again between gritted teeth.
My breaths were coming fast, and his were as well. Our bodies, soaked by the rain, were so close together now that it gave me goose bumps.
“I don’t want to stop. I want you to make me feel like you did that first time. I want to take it all the way…” My voice broke off.
I desired him with every fiber of my being. I craved his touch so badly that it hurt, and I would take whatever he was willing to give me. I could content myself with very little…
“I can’t, Marfil,” he said. “It’s not good for you to feel that way about me…”
My eyes were blazing when I lifted my head to meet his gaze. “You feel the same way,” I said in a low whisper. “I know you want me.”
I was standing in my bra just a few feet from this tall, muscular, soaking-wet man. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted him to do the thing we both wanted, needed. So why wouldn’t he if my father was nowhere to be found?
“Any guy would want you,” he said, his eyes glued to my lips. I knew he was trying to control himself, and I loved seeing how hard it was for him. “But I don’t plan to touch you ever again,” he concluded before walking away.