Chapter Thirty-Four #2
I tense as he slides the sheath over my foot and slowly moves it up my calf, then places my bare foot on his thigh.
His hands are calloused and scarred. Dozens of tiny cuts decorate his skin, pale lines that stand out against his tanned complexion.
They’re the hands of someone who has worked hard to get where they are.
The hands of a warrior. I might give him shit, but there is no doubting that Sebastian Zain has earned every scar on his body through discipline and training.
He moves on to threading the straps through the buckles and tightening them, and I can’t help but start to breathe a little heavier the longer I feel his rough skin brush against mine.
My thoughts drift from how capable he is with a blade in his hands, to how capable he must be with a lover.
All those callouses, running up soft thighs.
The veins on his hands and forearms tensing beneath his skin as he …
‘Nocthare,’ he breathes my name out harshly, like he’s in pain. ‘You’re squeezing my hand.’
I’m what? My eyes snap down to his. Embarrassment floods me as I realise that I’ve been squeezing my thighs together, effectively locking his right hand in between my knees. Restricting his movement.
My mouth opens and closes – I’m unable to form words because what I see in his eyes floor s me.
They’re molten green, burning with intensity and heat.
He looks at me like he wants to devour me, and if I’m stupid enough, I might let him.
His full lips are parted just slightly, and when his hands tighten around my thigh and knee, a soft whimper accidentally slips from my mouth.
He swallows, thickly, before clearing his throat and dropping his gaze to return to the sheath, which he starts tugging on to check if it’s secure. The dark leather is a stark contrast to my pale skin. I can’t help but admire it.
‘You suit it,’ he says, voice like gravel.
‘It … feels good.’ My voice is breathy. His fingers curl around the straps tightly. I wait for him to let go, to release me from his hold and rise to his feet. But he doesn’t.
‘Sebas—’
‘Give me a minute,’ he grits out, eyes trained on the patch of skin between the top of the sheath and the hem of my sleep shorts.
I nod, or at least I think I nod. I’m not entirely sure of what my body is doing right now.
I feel his fingers start to move agonisingly slowly against my skin.
The tips of his fingers draw tiny circles behind my knee and up the back of my thigh, until I feel him reach my shorts.
He plays with the hem for a moment, his hot breath skittering against my skin, making it pebble.
Stars, I could die like this, I think to myself. Whatever line we’ve been toeing up until tonight seems to thin, so much so that I can barely see it.
I don’t move, neither does he. We stay this way, with both our eyes locked on his hands as they explore my skin, the sheath, the crescent-shaped scar I have on the inside of my knee.
I feel my arousal grow, until I can’t help but shift my legs in response to the building heat that pulses in between my thighs.
A low groan vibrates from his chest and, Stars, does he know I’m turned on? Can he sense it? Can he—
‘Arianell,’ his voice is barely a whisper. But it cuts deep enough that I close my eyes and hang my head. That’s the second time he’s said my name and it’s like a blow to the head and heart both at once.
This is wrong. This is not what I should be doing. Letting him touch me like this. Thinking the thoughts I’ve been thinking. Ones where he leaps to his feet and hooks his arms behind my legs to pick me up and throw me against my bed, only to lay down in between my thighs.
This is Sebastian Zain. The man who hates me. Who wants me to leave. Who has repeatedly scorned me in front of other students and who was my brother’s best friend, turned traitor.
With monumental effort, I step back, creating some much-needed distance between us. His hands fall to his thighs; he fists them tightly as if they need something else to grab onto now that I’m not within reach.
‘I think—’
‘Yeah,’ he cuts me off, abruptly standing to his full height, towering over me. ‘I’ve got to go see Jed,’ he blurts out, expression turning cold and detached. As if nothing happened. Then he turns on his heel and bolts out of the room, leaving my chest shuddering on an exhale.
Something has changed.
Ever since I was attacked in the tunnel, Sebastian has been acting differently.
He touched me —
He touched me and it wasn’t out of duty or to get me through Malachite’s gate or tapping my elbow to remind me to lift my arms in training.
No. He touched me because he wanted to. I could see it in his eyes as he knelt before me.
I felt it in the way his fingers trailed small circles at the backs of my legs that made my stomach flutter and my skin pebble.
Stars. I never knew something so small could feel so intimate.
That was not the touch of someone who hates me or if it was, he must be trying to torture me.
I try not to let it cloud my perception of him and the things he did when I first arrived.
The way he’s behaved and spoken to me is not something I can so easily forgive and forget.
Is it? The second I stepped away from his warmth, I wanted to run right back and beg him not to stop.
But the other moment that lingers, the one that hurts the most is when he challenged me with the chalk.
I felt a spark of familiarity ignite inside of my chest in that moment.
My heart started screaming, this is the Sebastian you remember.
This is who you thought you’d find within the walls of Valmora Academy. He’s been in there all along.
It made me want to cry. Seeing him smile. At me. For me. To me. I wanted to sob with relief because Lukas’s Sebastian is alive, he’s just hiding behind the guarded version I’ve now come to know.
But then my head swooped to remind my stupid, fickle heart that that Sebastian cannot exist in a world where the one who betrayed Lukas does as well.
And so, I let him leave. While I stand with his touch lingering on my skin, like a bruise I never want to fade.