Chapter 20
BERNADETTE
Standing in Sebastian’s bungalow, surrounded by his work scattered across every surface, I knew this was dangerous.
Being alone with him. In his space. Where a bed was visible through the doorway to the bedroom. Private. No one was going to barge in and stop anything.
Shit.
Bad, bad, bad.
I should have suggested we talk somewhere public. The resort bar. The beach. Literally anywhere that wasn’t a private bungalow with a door that locked.
But I didn’t want an audience. I knew Elizabeth knew what happened just by the way she had been looking at me. I couldn’t really be mad at Annika for telling her. For all I knew, someone in the crew had seen and told her. Told everyone.
It was important to get the situation handled like two adults. So now I was in Sebastian’s bungalow. We were going to have a conversation that would either end this thing before it started or change everything.
“We can’t do this,” I said, forcing the words out. “There are too many reasons why this is a terrible idea.”
“Okay.” He leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “List them. I know you have a list in your head. Maybe even a spreadsheet on your computer.”
I couldn’t even be insulted because I had been making a list all damn day.
“My job. Your campaign. The fact that I’m supposed to be monitoring you for the insurance company, not… not whatever this would be.”
“Valid points.”
“The fact that you have a reputation. There’s also the little issue of me.”
“You?”
“I’ve never done casual and you’ve never done anything but casual.” I pursed my lips. “The fact that in two weeks, we go back to our separate lives.”
Sebastian nodded. “Also valid.”
“The fact that my father would lose his mind. This could end my career. Mixing personal and professional is always a disaster.”
“All true,” he agreed. “My turn?”
I nodded, even though I didn’t want to hear his reasons. I was a little bummed that he had reasons. I thought I was going to be the one rejecting the fling. That gave me the power and preserved my ego. I didn’t want confirmation that this was as impossible as I knew it was.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he said. “I’ve never wanted to impress someone the way I want to impress you. Oh and you make me want to be better than I am.”
My breath caught.
His list of reasons why we couldn’t were not what I was thinking. His cons sounded very much like pros.
“Did I mention the fact you’re funny and smart and passionate about things I never knew anyone could be passionate about. When you really smile, it makes my body come alive.”
I audibly swallowed. I felt dizzy. And hot.
“Sebastian, that’s not really a list of reasons not to do this.”
“It’s exactly a list of reasons not to. Because my list interferes with my life.”
We looked at each other across the small space.
“So,” I said, my voice coming out shakier than I wanted. “We agree. This is a terrible idea. For all the reasons we just listed. We should not do this.”
“Agreed.”
“So it’s settled.” I lifted my chin, trying to project confidence I didn’t feel. “Just don’t kiss me again.”
“You kissed me right back,” he said.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
We were moving toward each other like we were being pulled together by an invisible force. My insides were trembling.
“The point is, this is a bad idea.” My words sounded like I was whispering.
“The worst,” he agreed.
“It’s going to end badly.”
“Probably.”
“We both know better,” I said.
“We do.”
We were inches apart now. I could feel the heat radiating off him. Could smell his cologne.
“Why would I ever want to kiss someone like you?” I whispered.
“I have no idea.” His hand came up, fingers ghosting along my jaw. “But you do want to.”
“This is such a mistake.”
“The biggest.”
“We’re going to regret this.”
“Definitely.”
Then his lips were on mine and I stopped thinking entirely.
The kiss last night had been intense. This was an inferno.
His hands were in my hair, pulling out the pins that held my bun in place. My hair fell around my shoulders. He groaned into my mouth, threading his fingers through it. I grabbed his shirt, pulling him closer. He backed me up until I hit the wall.
“Bernadette,” he breathed against my lips.
“Shut up,” I said, and kissed him harder.
His hands roamed down my sides, finding the hem of my blouse and sliding underneath. I arched into his touch and heard him make a low sound that went straight between my legs.
I pulled at his shirt, fumbling with the buttons. He helped me, shrugging it off and tossing it somewhere. Then his hands were back on me, more urgent now. I forgot why we ever thought this was a bad idea.
My blouse joined his shirt on the floor. Then my bra. He took a second to look at my bare chest before his mouth was on my breast. I gasped, my head dropping back against the wall and my hands fisting in his hair and holding him against my chest.
“Bedroom,” I managed.
We stumbled toward it, shedding clothes along the way. My pants. His shorts. Everything. Until we were naked and falling onto his bed in a tangle of limbs and desperate touches.
I ran my hands over his chest and abs. I had my hands on Sebastian Blackwell. After watching him shirtless today, I had absolutely fantasized about this moment. I couldn’t believe how hard he was.
Every muscle was defined, rippling under my palms.
His mouth moved from my breast to my collarbone, trailing hot kisses across my skin. I dug my nails into his shoulders, pulling him closer, needing more contact. His weight settled over me. I felt every inch of his hard body pressing against mine.
If I was in some wild dream, I never wanted to wake up.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he murmured against my neck.
I wanted to argue. I wasn’t beautiful, not like the women he usually dated. But then his hand slid between my thighs and I forgot how to form words.
His fingers found me wet and ready. I gasped as he stroked me, learning what made me moan and where to touch to make my hips arch off the bed. He was attentive in a way I hadn’t expected, watching my face, paying attention to every reaction.
“Tell me what you like,” he said.
“That,” I managed. “Don’t stop.”
He didn’t. His fingers worked me with maddening precision, building pressure that coiled tighter and tighter in my core. I reached down to wrap my hand around him. He groaned, his hips jerking forward into my grip.
He was thick and hard and perfect. I stroked him, matching the rhythm of his fingers inside me. We moved together, giving and taking in equal measure.
“I need to be inside you,” he said, his forehead pressed against mine. “Please tell me you want that too.”
“Yes.” The word came out breathless, desperate. “Yes, I want that.”
He reached over to the nightstand, fumbling in the drawer for a condom. I watched him roll it on, my heart hammering so hard I thought it might burst through my ribs.
Then he was positioning himself between my thighs, the head of his cock pressing against my entrance. He looked down at me, his blue eyes dark with desire.
“Last chance to change your mind,” he said.
“Shut up and fuck me, Sebastian.”
A grin flashed across his face, and then he was pushing inside. I gasped at the stretch. The overwhelming sensation of him filling me completely.
He groaned, dropping his head to my shoulder. “Fuck, Bernadette. You feel incredible.”
He started to move slowly at first, letting me adjust. But I didn’t want slow. I wrapped my legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, harder.
“Not going to break,” I said.
That was all the permission he needed. His pace increased with powerful thrusts that drove me up the bed.
I clung to him, meeting him thrust for thrust, losing myself in the rhythm.
I gripped his shoulders, feeling the muscles flex under my palms as he drove into me again and again.
Every thrust sent sparks of pleasure racing through my body.
I’d had sex before, but it had never been like this.
Never this intense and all-consuming. It was utterly perfect.
Sebastian’s mouth found mine again, kissing me with a hunger that matched my own. His tongue swept against mine as his hips kept that relentless rhythm. I moaned into his mouth, my nails raking down his back.
“You feel so fucking good,” he groaned against my lips. “So perfect.”
I wanted to tell him he felt perfect too, but words were beyond me. All I could do was hold on and feel. The pressure building inside me was almost unbearable. I was climbing toward something I’d never quite reached before, something that felt bigger and more powerful than anything I’d experienced.
He went up one elbow, shifting the angle and hit that spot that had me seeing stars. I cried out, my back arching off the bed.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Let go for me.”
My entire body shook with the force of the orgasm. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through me, leaving me breathless and trembling.
Sebastian groaned, his rhythm faltering. “Fuck, Bernadette, too much. Too good.”
He thrust deep one last time and stilled, his body going rigid as he came. I felt him pulse inside me, heard him groan my name against my neck. Then he collapsed on top of me.
It took several minutes for me to catch my breath. He was still buried inside me. Still hard. Every time he twitched, it sent bursts of pleasure through me.
Eventually, he rolled to the side and got up to dispose of the condom. He flopped back down on the bed, his head propped up on his hand as he looked down at me with a goofy grin. I let myself have that moment.
But reality couldn’t be held back forever.
I sat up, looking around for my clothes. “I should go.”
“Already?”
“Annika will notice if I’m gone too long. She’ll have questions.”
“She already has questions,” he pointed out. “She caught us last night, remember?”
“Which is exactly why I need to go back before she starts thinking this is more than it is.”
He sat up too, watching me gather my clothes. “What is this?”
I pulled on my underwear, then my pants. “I don’t know. I don’t think now is the time to deal with all that.”
I found my bra, struggled with the clasp. He reached over and helped me fasten it. The intimacy of the gesture felt weird and good.
“We got it out of our systems,” I said. “We can work together like professionals. No more funny business.”
“Funny business?” He was smiling now, pulling on his own clothes. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” He stood and ran his hand through his hair. “Because it doesn’t feel out of my system. It feels like I want to do it again. And again. And maybe not stop.”
My hands paused on my buttons. “Don’t do that.”
I finished getting dressed, trying to smooth my hair back into something resembling professional. It was hopeless. I could feel the tangles.
“You look like you just had sex,” Sebastian observed.
“Thanks. Very helpful.”
“I’m just saying, Annika’s going to know.”
He was right, but I could pretend.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.
“Yep. All professional.”
“Even though I know what you look like naked now.”
“Stop,” I groaned. “You can’t say things like that.”
He leaned in, giving me one more quick, soft kiss. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Bernadette.”
“Tomorrow.”
I slipped out of his bungalow, checking to make sure no one was around to see me leaving. The path back to my bungalow was clear, lit only by solar lights and the moon.
I walked quickly, my body still humming, my mind racing.
Instead of feeling regret or guilt, I felt good. Happy, even.
I was going to give myself the night to be happy.
Because this wasn’t going to end well. I knew that and I didn’t care.