The Breakaway(96)

“I don’t know,” she muttered. And then, deciding that she owed him some kind of explanation, she said slowly, “It’s complicated. Mark loved me when I was a teenager. He loved me when I felt like my own mother didn’t even like me very much.”

“How could anyone not like you?” Sebastian asked. As they stepped into the elevator, he let his hand drift up, stroking along her back to rest at the nape of her neck. Abby felt her body prickling with goose bumps, her inhalations getting shallow. She knew she should make him stop. She didn’t. Couldn’t.

“All mothers love their kids, right? But she always acted like I was broken. Like there was something wrong with me. Like I was broken, and it was her job to fix me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he said, his voice low. “And I don’t think you’re broken.”

The elevator doors slid open, and they stepped into the hall. Sebastian’s hand had come to rest on the small of her back.

“I like you,” he whispered. He pressed his lips against her forehead, then her cheek, then reached out to take one of Abby’s curls between his fingertips, pulling it straight, then letting it boing back into place. “I think this one’s my favorite.”

Abby let her eyes flutter shut.

His lips were warm and confident when he kissed her. His hand cradled the back of her neck as his tongue urged her mouth open.

I should not be doing this, Abby thought. And gripped his shoulder with one hand, grabbing his upper arm with the other.

“Can I come to your room?” he asked, his voice a low murmur that she could feel right between her legs. She nodded, and took his hand, letting him lead her down the hall, into the room, onto the bed.

“Wait here,” he said. “Close your eyes.” She obeyed without thinking. “Give me your key,” he said. Abby handed it over. She heard him leave, then heard him return. “Open your eyes,” he said. When Abby did, she found the room lit by the glow of half a dozen candles in glass jars, flickering on the desk, on the dresser, on the windowsill; clothing the walls and the bed in shadows, softening the hard edges, turning the bare-bones hotel room into something romantic and dreamy. Abby felt tears pricking at her eyes. She was remembering Chris, back in college, who’d hustle her into his dorm room in the dark, only after checking to make sure that there was no one around to see them together. Chris would have never lit candles for her. Chris hadn’t even bothered to make his bed.

Sebastian pulled her against him, fitting her against the warm, solid length of his body. He touched her cheek, the way he had that afternoon, only this time his hands were warm and dry as he stroked his thumb tenderly against her lower lip.

She didn’t even think of trying to stop him when Sebastian eased her down onto her back. She let him kiss her neck, her throat, her cheeks, then her lips again. With his body pressed against hers, she could feel that he was just as into this as she was, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world.

Abby thought about Mark, back in Philadelphia. She thought of her mother, who was probably back in her room, a few doors down; her mother, with her gimlet gaze, who didn’t miss a thing. “Is it okay if we don’t do everything tonight?” she whispered.

Sebastian nodded, then looked down at her. “But can we do some things?”

“We can do lots of things.” She sat up and pulled off Sebastian’s tie, then unbuttoned his shirt. He reached for the hem of her dress, looking at her, waiting for her nod before he pulled it off over her head. Abby had a flicker of regret that she hadn’t packed a single cute undergarment—not the black lace bra and matching panties she’d purchased to wear on Valentine’s Day.

“Okay?” he asked as he reached behind her and unfastened her bra with impressive dexterity.

“Yes.” Abby nodded. They kissed, undressing each other until Sebastian was in his boxer-briefs and Abby wore nothing but her underwear and a pillow she kept trying to clutch against her midsection, the pillow that Sebastian kept moving away.

“Abby,” he whispered as she tipped up her face to kiss him, thinking that it had never felt like this, not ever.





Sebastian


When he woke up, it was the middle of the night. Abby’s scent was all around him, the skin he couldn’t stop touching, the curves of cheek and chin and shoulder. He remembered her careful fingers, wiping the blood off his scrapes, smoothing on ointment and bandages. Abby calling him out on his bullshit, until he’d told her what was really going on. Abby giving him her dry shirt, insisting that he wear it. Abby, with her curls and her freckled nose and her hazel eyes. Abby, who made him laugh.

The candles were still flickering. He got up, blew them out, then got back under the covers. He touched her gently, then more firmly, cupping her shoulder with his hand until she blinked, then looked at him, wide-eyed in the dark.

“I looked for you after you left,” he said.

She squinted at his face, still looking, and sounding, half asleep. “What?”

“That morning, at my apartment. I looked for you.”

“You did?”

“Except I didn’t know your last name. Or anything about you, except that you were a bridesmaid. I went back to the bar…”

Abby’s eyes widened.

“You were…” He breathed in, touched her shoulder. Tried again. “That was the best night of my life.”