Chapter 47
Ruby
BY THE END OF THE NIGHT, my cheeks hurt from smiling, and my heart and body still hadn’t slowed from that kiss upstairs. I stood at the door again, thanking guests as they left, hugging staff and vendors who’d carried me through these last weeks.
Aunt Amy pulled me into an embrace, her perfume clinging like a second skin. More than affection, it felt like she was tackling me in slow motion—because my mother had just started with, “It was a great evening, Ruby. And Sebastian is here, so don’t go and spoil it with your—”
Amy launched at me then, muffling the rest and pinning my arms to my sides like a human straightjacket. Effective.
The inn grew quieter with each goodbye, the hum of voices thinning.
“It was a success, just like this place and you,” Rio said, swooping in with Evangeline and Daphne by her side, forming a wall of knowing grins.
“Thank you,” I said. “Where’s Owen?”
Rio smirked. “Off chatting to Sebastian. Said he knows what it feels like to be the outsider walking into a pack of women. Figured he’d give the guy a lifeline.”
“Or a warning,” Daphne quipped.
“You’re glowing,” Evangeline added, not bothering to hide her smirk.
“Please.” I waved a hand. “It’s sweat. Do you know how many trays I carried tonight?”
“Mm-hm.” Daphne narrowed her eyes. “I didn’t see you carrying anything heavier than a certain structural engineer’s gift.”
Heat climbed up my neck. “You’re all very funny,” I muttered dryly.
Evangeline’s smile softened, her voice gentler. “We mean it, Ruby. Good luck. He looks at you like it’s real—and we know it is.”
My heart thudded in my throat. “Yeah, well,” I said, forcing a grin, “if my heart gets broken, I’m moving in with you.”
They laughed, and I shoved them toward the door, grateful for the dim light so they couldn’t notice how inside, I was burning. With desire, with fear, with love.
When the last car pulled away, silence wrapped around the inn, and only the echo of my pulse filled the hall. I dimmed the reception lights, my heels clicking against the polished floor.
I stepped onto the deck, the sea air cold against my skin. String lights glowed over the garden, casting the place in soft gold. And there he was, broad shoulders outlined against the night, watching the ocean.
I stopped next to him, rubbing my hands along my arms for warmth.
Sebastian slipped off his suit jacket and draped it around my shoulders as we turned to face each other. His hands lingered on the lapels as he held the edges in place.
I looked up and our eyes met. In that instant, my last guard slipped away.
His gaze was unflinching, solid, seeing every layer of me—past and present, chaotic and whole.
It all threaded together. Us now, time etched in the lines of our faces, and us across the years when these lines had been added.
That first meeting in astronomy class. The friendship.
The safety I’d always felt with him. The teddy-bear hug.
The Dork Side. That kiss and our awkward first time.
The breathtaking years that followed. The way he’d always been there—sometimes quiet in the background, a harbor to return to, a jetty to absorb the waves, a pillar to hold me upright.
Even when I didn’t ask or know what to ask for.
He was still holding the lapels of his jacket, his fingers brushing against me before he finally let go.
“Better now?” His voice was laced with the weight of what had passed between us in that look.
“Yeah.” My throat was dry. “Finally.”
His question and my answer carried more weight than the words themselves. And we both knew it.
I tipped my head toward the path because my voice was stuck somewhere in my throat. But there was no need for words; he understood and fell into step beside me.
We crossed the garden, the path winding between the cabins, the trees and lights swaying overhead in the early November night. The silence wasn’t awkward, although it thrummed, as every step drew us closer.
The cottage came into view, light casting a warm circle across the entrance. I fumbled with the key, my hands slightly shaking, but before I could slide it into the lock, his hand closed over mine. Steadying. Certain.
“Ruby.”
Just my name. But I felt it all the way down my body. It’s me, he said with that one word. Don’t stress when it’s me.
The door clicked shut behind us, the quiet swallowing everything else.
Somewhere deep inside, I was still scared that any second now, I’d say something too sharp, want too much, be too loud or messy or real—and that would be it.
Sebastian closed the small space between us, one hand braced at my hip as the other slid up, fingers tracing my jaw before cupping the side of my face. God, why did he always look at me like that? Like I wasn’t on borrowed time. Like I couldn’t ruin everything just by being me.
“I didn’t know it could feel like this,” I whispered.
“Me neither,” he rasped. “Does it still feel like a problem? Like it ruins things? Because you’ve been looking at me like I’m the problem and the answer at the same time.” He leaned in, his forehead nearly touching mine.
“That’s because you are.” Another breath hung between us. “And I love you.”
His mouth curved into a small smile, but his eyes searched mine. “Say it again. Just to make sure I heard right.”
“I love you.” The words came easier this time, sweeter on my tongue, like they’d been waiting years to be spoken. “I love you, Sebastian.”
Always Sebastian. Never just Seb. Even when I’d toyed with the nickname, I’d missed his full name. Because that was what he’d always been to me—all of him, in full. My Sebastian, in all his Sebastianness.
I wanted to tell him that, but my voice didn’t cooperate.
“Good,” he rasped. “Because I love you, Ruby Locke. So much, and for so long.”
And then there was no space left between us.
His mouth crashed onto mine, hot and firm, backing me into the door. I clutched his shoulders, pulling him closer, desperate to feel all of him, not just the parts the world got to see.
The jacket he’d given me slid off my shoulders and pooled on the floor, forgotten. He pushed further against me, every hard line of him pressed to my body, making me gasp.
He kissed me like he was making up for every second we’d lost. I yanked at his tie, ripping it loose and off him, popping buttons as I shoved his shirt open. My palms flattened over hot skin, muscles carved under my touch.
“I need you,” I whispered against his mouth—and this time, not only because I’d been starving for him, but because letting go was impossible, and I stopped pretending otherwise.
“You have me, always,” he growled, scooping me up like I weighed nothing.
By the time we reached the bedroom, my hair was tumbling loose from its pins. Sebastian sat on the edge of the bed with me straddling him, my dress shoved up high on my thighs, my chest heaving.
“Ruby,” he groaned, his grip on my hips bruising, grinding me down against the hardness straining his pants. The friction made me moan into another kiss, my nails biting into his shoulders.
I reached for his belt and pants, opening them without even looking. I wrapped my palm around the thick and heavy hardness. I stroked, and he made a guttural sound against my neck.
His hands slid up until they found the knot at my nape. His fingers fumbled, tugging at the tie of my halter.
I needed to be bare, to be his, to feel him on every inch of me. I was throbbing for his touch. It hadn’t been that long since the last time he touched me, but it felt like a lifetime.
I shifted, turning on his lap so my back pressed into his chest, my head falling forward. “Do it like this.”
His breath burned against my skin, his fingers tugged the knot loose. The straps fell, the bodice slackening, and the cool air hit my skin.
“Fuck,” he whispered, as his hands came up, cupping my naked breasts.
He kissed my nape, and as I leaned forward, he dragged his mouth lower, lingering on every ridge down my spine, sparking heat and goosebumps across my skin.
Desperate for his mouth on mine, I arched into him, my head lolling back on his shoulder, a whimper breaking free as his thumbs rolled over my nipples.
I reached back blindly, tangling my fingers in his hair as he kissed his way across the column of my neck. Every scrape of his teeth, every stroke of his thumbs, sent fire racing through me.
He chafed one hand down, over the dress that now centered at my hips, and slipped it into my panties, finding the wet heat between my legs. He groaned when his fingers soaked through me, stroking, circling, until I was bucking my pelvis against his hand.
“How long have you been this wet, Ruby?” he rasped in my ear.
“Please,” I gasped, clawing at his thigh, trying to grind harder against his palm. My other hand still clutched his hair. Desperately needing his mouth on me, I turned my head to the side, and my lips found his.
He pushed two fingers inside me. I cried out into the kiss, my walls clenching around him as his other hand teased my breast, his breath hot at my ear.
“Sebastian,” I moaned, riding his hand shamelessly. “God, I—”
He kneaded and stroked ruthlessly—his fingers driving inside me, his thumb circling my clit, his cock grazing my lower back, kissing me between gasps, until I let go, gave in, burning with him, for him, into him.
“Look at you,” he rasped against my throat as he let me ride the overwhelming wave of release. “Wild and perfect. And mine.”
I couldn’t speak. I was his. So his. Entirely his. Probably always, even in the years there were others in between.
Letting myself belong to anyone had always felt impossible—but giving in without restraint, to be his, was the sweetest surrender.
He wrenched his fingers from me, and before I could whimper at the loss, his hands clamped hard on my hips, lifting me off his lap. Sebastian stood, dragging me up with him, my dress slipping to the floor in a pool of navy silk. He shoved his pants down, freeing himself of every piece of clothing.
“On the bed. Spread those beautiful legs wide for me,” he ordered, voice ragged.
I obeyed, crawling naked across the covers, hair falling wild around my face.
Before I could even catch my breath, he settled his face between my spread thighs.
His mouth was on me in the next heartbeat—hot, wet, devouring.
He licked me as I cried out, my hips bucking helplessly against his tongue.
And then he was on top of me, pressing me into the sheets, his mouth slick with me as he kissed me hard, making me taste myself on his lips.
He thrust into me in one slow stroke. Just like always, except for that clumsy first time, he knew my body by heart. When, what, how. My limits.
“Sebastian!” I cried, the stretch sharp and perfect.
“Ruby—fuck, yes—” He buried himself inside me fully, holding there, trembling against me. Then he pulled back and slammed in again, the sound of skin on skin echoing through the room.
Every thrust drove me higher, my nails raking down his back, my cries muffled against his shoulder. His rhythm was relentless, wild. He wove his fingers through mine and pulled his head back so he could look into my face, his eyes consumed with raw desire and emotion.
“I love you so much,” I gasped, needing to say it, needing him to hear it while he was inside me. I wanted him to know it was as true as my body breaking apart with his.
He groaned it back, rough and guttural, thrusting harder, like the words had ripped out the last thread of his restraint. “I love you, Ruby.”
Yet again, he knew me. Flowery declarations would have slipped right off me, but his simple “I love you” rooted deep. He’d shown me love didn’t have to be complicated—it could be straightforward and fiercer for its simplicity.
I clung to him, his name on my lips as a surge of release and love tore through me.
He followed, spilling into me—the only man I’d ever let inside me bare—holding me tight as if he’d never let me go.
We collapsed together, breathless, sweat-slick, tangled. His lips found my temple, a soft kiss against the wreckage of heat. I cradled the back of his head, fingers splayed at his nape, holding him to me as if I could shield us both.
Sebastian loved me, and I loved him. For the first time, love didn’t feel like ruin. It felt like forever.