Chapter 16 – Sienna #2
He moves closer, slow, careful, like I’m something wild and wounded that might lash out if he makes the wrong move. The distance between us shrinks until I can smell cologne and clean skin and something unmistakably him.
“Sienna,” he says, voice low, rough around the edges. “I was a coward. That night we met…I wasn’t ready for something real. And you terrified me.”
My jaw tightens. Anger rises fast, sharp, familiar.
“You used me.”
“I did.” He doesn’t look away. Doesn’t flinch. “And I’m sorry.”
The word lands harder than any excuse could have.
Sorry.
I laugh softly, bitter. “That’s it? Five years of silence, humiliation, rebuilding myself from ash, and you’re sorry?”
“I know it’s not enough,” he says immediately. “I know it doesn’t fix what I broke. But I need you to know it wasn’t nothing. You were never nothing to me.”
I shake my head, stepping back, putting space between us before my resolve cracks. “You don’t get to rewrite history because you regret it now.”
“I’m not trying to rewrite it,” he says. “I’m trying to face it.”
Silence stretches between us, thick and charged. The painting looms at my back like a witness. Proof I never asked for.
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly cold.
“I don’t need your apology.”
“You need something,” he says quietly. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be shaking.”
I still. Then I look down.
My fingers tremble. I hate him for noticing.
“Why do you do that?” I ask, breath unsteady despite my effort. “Why do you make everything harder?”
“Because you’re the only thing that ever mattered.” He pauses, like the words cost him. “And because I don’t know how to lose you again.”
My chest tightens so sharply it almost hurts.
My mother flashes into my mind without invitation—her hands always stained with paint, the way she tilted her head when studying a canvas, the way she taught me to look. Really look. She never told me what to love. She taught me how to understand why something worked…or why it failed.
Art deserves honesty, she used to say. If you love it, you respect it enough to tell the truth.
That was how I became who I am.
Not cruel. Not vicious.
Exacting.
When my mother died, critique became the only place I felt close to her again. Brushstrokes. Balance. Intention. Truth stripped bare. No mercy for lies—because lies cheapened beauty.
I lift my chin and meet Sebastian’s gaze.
“You didn’t just hurt me,” I say softly. “You humiliated me. You took something I loved—something I believed in—and turned it into a weapon.”
His jaw tightens. He doesn’t interrupt. That almost makes it worse.
“I survived because I had to,” I continue. “I sharpened myself because the world doesn’t forgive women who bleed in public. And now you stand here in regret and think it changes anything?”
He doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t defend himself. That alone throws me.
“I didn’t know about your mother,” he says finally, voice low. “Not then.”
Something flickers across his face—pain, real and unpolished.
“I found out years later,” he continues. “And when I did…it hurt. More than I expected.” He exhales slowly. “I thought reaching out would only reopen a wound I helped create. I didn’t want to make it worse.”
I study him, searching for the lie. I don’t find it.
“How?” I ask. “How did you even know about her?”
For the first time since I turned around, his expression softens completely. All the sharp edges fall away, leaving something almost unbearably gentle.
“I read your early reviews,” he says quietly. “The ones before you became…untouchable.” A faint smile tugs at his mouth. “I recognized the influence immediately.”
I blink.
Of all the things I expected him to say, that isn’t one of them.
“You cared enough to read my work?” The words slip out before I can stop them.
His gaze holds mine. Steady. Unflinching.
“I cared enough to memorize it.”
The room suddenly feels too small. Too intimate. The air presses in around us, thick with things neither of us is ready to name.
He lifts his hand slowly, giving me time to pull away. I don’t. His fingers brush a loose strand of hair behind my ear—not possessive, not demanding. Just careful. Just human.
“I saw her in your words,” he says softly. “The way you dissect art. The way you refuse sentimentality. That wasn’t cruelty, Sienna. That was love taught with discipline.”
My throat tightens. I hate that he understands this part of me. Hate it almost as much as I crave being seen.
“I hate myself,” he says, voice rough, stripped bare. “For how stupid I was. For how immature. I’ll do anything for you to forgive me.”
The words hit something fragile in me. Something already cracked.
Before I can stop myself, before I can think, my resolve fractures.
I kiss him.
Not out of anger. Not out of revenge.
But because I want to.
Because my body remembers his.
Because for one dangerous second, I want to be seen without armor.
His breath hitches against my mouth. Then his hands are on me—sure, urgent, reverent all at once—as if he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go. He lifts me easily, like I weigh nothing, my legs instinctively wrapping around his waist.
“Don’t,” I whisper, even as I cling to him.
“I can’t,” he murmurs back, kissing me again.
He carries me out of the studio, through the quiet halls, into the elevator, back toward the suite. We don’t speak. We don’t need to. His mouth finds mine between steps, my fingers knotting into his hair, my pulse roaring in my ears.
The door closes behind us with a soft, final sound, locking the rest of reality away.
He lays me gently on the bed, but the gentleness is deceptive.
His hands roam my body, moving with a practiced efficiency as he disarms and undresses me, stripping away my layers until I am nothing but skin and nerves.
His mouth follows the path of his hands, leaving a trail of fire that makes me shiver despite the heat.
He hovers over me for a heartbeat, his eyes dark with a hunger that feels predatory. Then, he leans down.
His mouth finds the peak of my breast, and he draws the bud deep into his mouth.
I gasp, my back arching off the mattress as the sudden, intense pull sends a jolt straight to my core.
He isn’t timid; he uses his tongue to swirl around the sensitive tip before suctioning harder, pulling a soft moan from my throat.
He teases me with the edge of his teeth, a sharp nip that borders on pain before his tongue licks the spot to soothe it.
The contrast is maddening. I can feel the damp heat of his breath against my skin, and the pressure of his mouth makes my head spin.
My hands fly to his shoulders, my nails digging into his skin as I try to pull him closer, desperate for the weight of him to crush the breath out of me.
He continues to feast on me, his hand sliding up to cup the other breast, kneading the flesh as he stays focused on the task of breaking my resolve. Every pull of his lips feels like he’s claiming a piece of me, marking me as his in the dark, quiet room.
He doesn’t stay at my chest for long, though the ache he leaves behind is a constant throb. His mouth begins a slow, torturous descent, his lips grazing my ribs as he moves lower. He pauses at the dip of my waist, his teeth nipping at the soft skin there, making my breath hitch in a jagged sob.
His hands slide down to my hips, his fingers digging in with a possessive grip that anchors me to the bed. He’s taking his time, savoring the way I tremble under his touch.
When he reaches the flat of my stomach, he lingers, his tongue tracing a hot, wet line toward the waistband of my lace underwear. He hooks his thumbs into the silk and pulls it down, baring me completely to the cool air and his burning gaze.
He nudges my knees apart, and I don’t fight him. I can’t.
He leans down, his breath ghosting over the sensitive skin of my inner thighs. I feel his tongue strike first—a long, slow lick that makes my entire body jerk. He moves higher, finding the heart of my heat, and lets out a low, dark sound of approval.
Then his mouth closes over me.
The sensation is a physical blow. He uses his tongue with a terrifying kind of precision, flickering over that tiny bundle of nerves until the world outside the room ceases to exist. I am a mess of shaking limbs and broken gasps, my fingers tangling in the sheets as I try to hold on to reality.
He sucks and teases, his mouth a hot, wet vacuum that feels like it’s drawing the very soul out of me.
I’m drowning in the pleasure he’s giving me, my hips bucking upward to meet him, begging for the release that feels like a looming storm.
He doesn’t slow down. If anything, he becomes more aggressive, his tongue lashing against me with a relentless rhythm that makes my head thrash against the pillow. He knows exactly where I’m most sensitive, and he refuses to let up.
His hands move from my hips to my thighs, pinning my legs wide so I can’t hide from the sensation. The pressure of his mouth increases, suctioning deep until I feel the first spark of an explosion deep in my core.
“Sebastian,” I moan, my voice cracking.
He ignores me, his teeth grazing the sensitive bud of my nerves just enough to make me cry out. The pleasure is sharp, bordering on a beautiful kind of pain. I can feel the tension coiling tighter and tighter, my muscles vibrating as the waves begin to crash over me.
I can’t hold it back anymore. My body stiffens, my toes curling into the sheets as I finally break. I shatter completely, a long, broken scream leaving my lips as the orgasm rips through me. It’s a violent, shaking release that leaves me breathless and dizzy.
He doesn’t stop immediately. He continues to drink me in, his tongue catching every drop of my surrender until the last of the tremors fade. Only then does he pull back, looking up at me with triumphant eyes, his lips wet and glistening.
Sebastian doesn’t give me a moment to recover. Before the tremors even fade from my thighs, he’s moving, his body a dark shadow looming over mine. He strips out of his own clothes with a frantic, silver-tongued speed that speaks of a hunger he can no longer contain.
In another moment, he tears the foil off the condom and rolls it on. I’m as inpatient as he is, and when my legs lock around him, he plunges into me without preamble.
Then he goes still, buried deep inside me, his forehead resting against mine. The air in the room shifts from frantic to heavy and thick with something that feels like devotion.
He begins to move, but it isn’t the punishing rhythm I’m familiar with. It’s slow. Sensual. He slides out and back in with a soft, sliding friction that makes my eyes well with unexpected tears. Every stroke is a long, lingering caress that seems to reach past my skin and pull at my soul.
“Sienna,” he breathes, his voice no longer a growl, but a broken whisper.
He cups my face with both hands, his thumbs brushing over my cheekbones as he watches the pleasure wash over me.
I feel every inch of him, every muscle in his arms trembling as he holds his weight up to look at me.
His body is a map of heat and tension, but his movements are like silk.
I arch my back in an open invitation, my hands sliding up his chest to feel the frantic thud of his heart.
The pleasure is different this time. It isn’t a sharp explosion; it’s a slow, rising tide that warms me from the inside out. He watches my expression change, his gaze soft and searching in the dim light, capturing every hitch in my breath.
When he finally reaches his limit, he doesn’t pull away.
He pushes deeper, his body coiling as he lets out a shaky exhale against my neck.
I feel him shatter, a soft shuddering release that ripples through both of us.
I follow him over the edge, my eyes closing as a sweet, heavy ache spreads through my limbs, anchoring me to the bed and to the man I should have stayed away from.
He collapses softly against me, burying his face in the crook of my neck, his breath warm and steady. For the first time in years, the silence between us doesn’t feel like a war. It feels like a truce.
After, as I lie against his chest, his fingers tracing slow circles on my hip, a thought claws at me:
Maybe I don’t need to destroy him. Maybe I just needed him to hurt like I did. And maybe he has been hurt enough.
Later today, I must call Viktor and put an end to this.
I start to slip from the bed, but his arm tightens around my waist. “Please…don’t go anywhere,” he murmurs.
“I have to pee,” I whisper.
He lets me go, watching me with those impossibly sharp eyes, and I leave him, stepping into the cool floor of the suite.
My phone beeps from the counter. I grab it, curiosity twisting my stomach into knots.
A new message. Unknown number.
“Phase one complete. His gallery investors will receive the falsified documents tonight. Prepare for collapse.”
My chest tightens, a lead weight dragging me down. This isn’t the careful, measured revenge I’d planned. This is darker. Sharper. Personal. Mikhailov-level.
I stare at the screen, heart hammering. My pulse races in my ears.
What have I done?