by Lyla Payne
The wedding space is beautiful and classy, as expected after their engagement party and also, yeah, the stereotypes of gay men in my head. It’s on the edge of a lake—not a real one, but one that was designed to make one of Florida’s famous golf courses even prettier—with a flower-covered arch at the water’s edge and white chairs draped in alternating gray and turquoise ribbons. Sebastian coordinated, changing his purple shirt for a white one and choosing a tie in a seafoam-green color. It’s about two shades lighter than my dress but we look as though we planned it even though we didn’t.
We look like some kind of bizarro couple who meant to go to prom and ended up at a wedding instead.
The ceremony made me tear up twice, which is not like me. The fact that Sebastian noticed and handed me a matching handkerchief both times made me both weepy and horny, an odd combination but one that feels good, in a way. It’s nice to know that I can feel something other than lust and worry around him.
“Did you order me the duck or the prime rib?” I ask now that we’ve finally got drinks in our hands.
“I ordered one of each since I wasn’t sure what you’d prefer and either is fine with me.”
“You’re a very good date, Sebastian.”
The compliment makes him wince for some reason, leaving me wondering what I said that was wrong. He doesn’t elaborate. It makes me want to understand him better—this guy who obviously knows all the right moves but more often than not chooses not to put them into action.
I step closer to him, wrapping my arms around his trim waist and pulling him toward me under the guise of a hug. When my lips brush his ear he sucks in a breath, leaving me feeling deliciously in control. “I was thinking about that whole ‘sex with other people around’ thing. Maybe it could be fun, as long as no one knows… .”
He stiffens in my arms, then his fingers start a lazy circle on the bare skin of my back. His head lowers, mouth resting against my neck as he replies. “Hmm. And based on what I know about Matt, they’re going to be taking pictures for the better part of the reception.”
We pull apart and he tugs me off the patio, ice tinkling in our glasses as our steps quicken. There are a couple of gazebos that are occupied, and the inside of the clubhouse is being decorated, caterers and god knows who else running around in various states of panic.
Sebastian seems to know where he’s headed, though, so I do my best to keep up in my totally cute four-inch heels as we trek through the grass. A copse of trees blocks the weak, remaining streams of winter sunlight, and worry grows, trying to dampen my excitement.
“I know you don’t think I’m going to have sex with you pressed up against a tree or something.”
The look he shoots back over his shoulder is as offended as it is horrified, making me laugh. I should have known better than to ask Sebastian Blair if he planned to toss me on a bed of pine needles. We would be filthy.
His car is parked at the back of the parking lot, the driver leaning against the hood with his cap resting on the car’s roof and a newspaper in his hand. He straightens up and jams the hat back on his head at the sight of his employer, but Sebastian gives him a dismissive wave. “Take fifteen.”
The driver nods and gathers his paper, wandering off to the benches and tables in a small green space about a hundred yards away. It crosses my mind to be mortified that he probably knows what’s about to go down, but then Sebastian pulls me onto his lap inside the car, his fingers in my hair, mouth hungry on mine, and thoughts flee that don’t have anything to do with him touching me.
I straddle him so my thighs are spread on either side of his hips, hiking my dress up in the process. It’s strapless, which gives him no trouble as his hands find the zipper at the back and shove the silky fabric around my waist, then coax my breasts loose from my bra.
“Did I tell you I love this dress?” He growls, lowering his head to my nipple and tugging it not-too-gently into his mouth.
“I, oh …” There’s no way I can talk—or think—while he’s lavishing attention on me this way, and when his other hand joins the party I tip my head back and give in, grinding against his hardness between my legs.
There’s too much fabric between us. Too many barriers to having him inside me, which, as nice as all the foreplay had been the other night, is all I want at this moment. When he lifts his head for air I push up and to one side, struggling out of my matching panties while Seb unbuttons his pants at the waist and unzips, pushing them and his boxer briefs down to his knees.
He’s free and so hard under my hand that it breaks out shivers of need all over my skin.
“Condom in my pocket,” he grunts.
I fumble I it free of cloth and packaging and get it in place before I straddle him again, pushing my tongue past his lips and sucking on him as I pull him all the way inside me. I’m so wet from thinking about this moment ever since I whispered in his ear at the party, from the way he played with me for a straight minute, that there’s no problem.
I move on top of him as our tongues play and suck, lick and taste, and it’s hard to believe this is only our fourth time together. I was ready to go from the second he touched me so I’m lost inside of a minute, falling over a cliff with nothing but Sebastian to hold on to. He squeezes me hard around the waist, seeming to understand that nothing feels better during an orgasm than to continue thrusting, and by the time my head floats back onto my body he’s finishing, his face buried in my neck as he gently bites down on the muscle.
“That was maybe the best idea you’ve had all day,” he pants a moment later, sliding me off his lap and using a golf towel under the seat to wipe down before passing a second one to me.
“I’m not sure it was all my idea.” I straighten my bra and pull my dress back up. “It might have been my suggestion. I’ll give you that much.”
“You’ve given me plenty. Like a way to get through the rest of this wedding.”
“Oh, come on. Weddings are fun!”
The look he gives me makes me laugh, which spreads a satisfied expression across his face, as though my enjoyment was the goal all along. Strange, to think he would formulate words with the main goal of affecting me.
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I think I hear music. We should go.” Sebastian straightens his shirt and lifts up his hips to snap his pants, then fumbles with his tie.
“Here, let me.” I lean over and retie the knot, pulling it tight and making sure it’s straight. I shrug at the curious look on his face. “Four brothers, remember?”
“Thank you.”
It’s strange, the way he seems to mean it and not only that, but that the gesture means something to him. I’d done it because touching him makes me happy, because I’m capable, but it feels like something even more than that to him. An offering of some sort.
Before we can talk about it or dispel the change in the air he pushes open the door and climbs out, then reaches back to help me into the parking lot. I straighten my dress and retrieve my bag.
“Everything in place?”
“You look even prettier than you did before.”
I snort. “Why, because now you’re picturing what I look like half out of my dress?”
“You are a very perceptive girl. Shall we?”
I take his arm and we stride back into the reception. No one notices that we were gone or shoots any sly, knowing looks our direction, which kind of disappoints me. It’s not as much fun to do something naughty if no one knows about it. Then Sebastian’s hand finds my leg under the dinner table and wanders up my thigh, reminding me that he knows about it, and that makes me hot all over again.
We make it through the dinner and requisite cake cutting, first dances, and toasts, meaning we’re free to leave at our earliest convenience. I’m having fun because Sebastian has been keeping up a patter—mostly we’ve been poking fun at our fellow guests—but we haven’t been able to talk about anything real in such a crowded room. When Sebastian climbs to his feet and cracks his neck I expect
him to usher me outside.
Instead, he puts out a hand, wearing an expectant expression. “Would you like to dance?”
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Maybe I want to.” He pulls me to the polished wood floor and into his arms, one arm around my waist and the other holding my hand loosely in his. Comfortable.
The music is low and slow, a song I’ve never heard before and probably won’t remember, but when his eyes find mine something happens to my body. It doesn’t feel attached to me anymore. My mind has thoughts that make no sense, like that I want to help Sebastian with whatever happened to make him this way.
That I want to be the girl to wake up next to him no matter what that means.
That maybe he feels the same way, and this thing is only fake because we keep saying it and not because it’s the way we’re feeling.
Then the song ends and the spell shatters. There are remnants of it, like soft sparkles that twinkle on my shoulders and fall out of my hair, lay on Sebastian’s tie and the front of his coat. They smell like hope and something magical, and like magic, there’s no way to know whether or not to really believe in it.
“You ready?”
I nod, unwilling to speak. The fear that will push the moment further away swamps me, tugs at the end of my hair like my brothers used to when I was young.
He holds my hand on the way to the beach house and tingles spread from the point of contact. I keep catching him studying me from the corner of my eye, his own expression full of disbelief and a tinge of wonder. It’s the stupid wedding and all the lovey-dovey shit, that’s all. I don’t have real, actual feelings beyond an incredible thirst for his body and the random shot of sympathy for Sebastian Blair.
Maybe friendship, but even that’s been spotty.
Then tonight, it was more. A spark that caught fire, and not just when we were half naked in the back of his car. I catch him looking at me again and in the moment before he looks away, I would bet my family’s fortune that he feels it, too.
Chapter Sixteen
Audra
“You are being so weird.”
My roommate stares at me, fixing her ponytail. Her dark eyes miss nothing, as usual, but this time she’s out of luck because other than the idiotic stars in my eyes, there’s nothing to see. “What’s weird?”
“You’re looking forward to seeing Sebastian. Trust me, I know what a girl looks like when she’s dying to spend all of her time with one guy—I’m living it. But you’re not in a relationship. He’s blackmailing you.” She pulls her feet toward her chest and rests her chin on her knees. “So, you’re being weird.”
“I’m not dying to spend more time with him. I am curious about how his interview went, that’s all.”
“Right. The interview for a permanent place on the staff of a political campaign no one knows he’s been volunteering for.”
“Not no one. I know and Toby Wright knows, which means Kennedy knows. And I think Quinn knows, too, and you, of course.”
She shakes her head. “Weird. Please be careful, Audra. I know better than anyone how easy it is to get mired in a con. To start to believe the world and the person you’ve built are real life—but they’re not. It’s all a house of cards and it only takes one breath to knock it all down.”
Her words strike a chord, not banging off my eardrums but sinking in. They’re cold by the time they make their way down to my belly. Maybe I am getting caught up in all this. Imagining shit that’s not there. Not real.
“So, you think he’ll get this job or what?” Credit to Blair for always knowing when her point has been made and for moving on without fanfare.
“I don’t see why not. Can you imagine anyone better suited to playing puppetmaster to some jackass politician than Sebastian?”
“No, but that Schneider guy is a real dickwad.”
I make a face. “I know. Misogynist, racist, old-school white guy. But we just described over half of your Congress, so maybe the options are few and far between.”
I check my phone for the twentieth time since five, when I figured Sebastian would be finished and text me. Nothing. There are ants in my pants and I want to move. Partly because giving Blair more time to analyze me will only cause trouble and partly because she’s totally right—I’m dying to see him and hear how it all went.
“I’m just going to head over to the beach house. My homework is done, and if I sit around here all I’m going to do is worry about the election in a couple of weeks.”
“Sure.” The smile on her face can’t contradict the worry lining her eyes but we both know there’s nothing she can say or do. None of my friends liked Logan—Blair had made her discomfort with him obvious—but no one had voiced any real issue with him.
It’s the same way I handle most of my friends at Whitman. Unless I worried that one of their boyfriends was actually abusive in some way, there’s little to no point in voicing a negative opinion. We all make our own mistakes. Blair must be thinking that she thought Logan had been mine and now here we are again.
The drive to the beach house takes the usual fifteen or so minutes, but when I see both the town car and Sebastian’s Mercedes parked in the garage, nerves clench my belly.
He’s home from the interview but didn’t call or text like we’d agreed, which probably means bad news.
Going inside could be hazardous to my health—not physically, because there’s no part of me that believes Sebastian is capable of hurting me, but mentally? Emotionally?
He’s somehow gained unauthorized access. He’s backstage now, with access to the gears and moving pieces, and he could set them on fire if I don’t stay on my toes.
The house feels empty when I push open the front door. It’s unlocked, the alarm system blinking Disarmed in the green display box. I’ve been to the beach house as many times as other Whitman U students, usually for parties, and the main-floor layout is pretty familiar. There’s an informal living area and wet bar at the back of the house with French doors that lead out to the patio and then the beach. Sebastian isn’t anywhere to be seen. He’s not outside, either, unless he went for a run or something and no matter how good of shape he’s in—and he is, my mind realizes, wandering back over the picture of his naked body—he doesn’t seem like a “run on the beach” kind of guy.
I start exploring other areas of the first floor and locate a formal dining room, two kitchens, and a sitting room that looks as though it hasn’t been used in the better part of a decade. The scent of cigar smoke pulls me into what turns out to be a library or office of some sort, and it’s there that I find Sebastian.
He’s seated behind a huge mahogany desk, the expensive leather office chair swiveled toward the windows. Bookcases cover the walls floor to ceiling, interrupted by windows and a bare spot long enough to fit a long chocolate leather couch.
“Go away, Quinn.”
“It’s not Quinn,” I reply, taking off my purse and tossing it onto the couch. He spins around and sets an empty glass of something amber—probably scotch—on the desk. “You didn’t call.”
“Most people would draw the logical conclusion that I didn’t want to see them, based on that fact.”
Arrow number one hits, expected and a little dull. The pinprick of blood is barely visible. “Maybe, but most people didn’t agree to convince a campus that you’re her boyfriend. I take my future very seriously, and right now it’s in your hands, Sebastian.”
“Yeah, well, the whole world doesn’t revolve around your future, Red.”
We’re back to that. Back to the beginning when we didn’t know anything real about each other at all. I grit my teeth. “What happened?”
“What happened?” His voice is too even. Too controlled. It’s like a robot is speaking, except he’s not a robot all the way through. Inside is a boiling lake of lava just waiting to spew, to light this whole room on fire. Including me. “I didn’t get the job. End of story.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t se
e how that’s relevant.” He stands up and wanders over to bottle of scotch on the end table, pouring what I’m guessing isn’t just his second drink.
My mind flips through responses to his snide remark like they’re index cards in a Rolodex but in the end I let it go. He’s right. The why doesn’t matter. He didn’t get the job and he’s choosing to deal with it by drinking himself into a rage, and that’s the problem at hand.
“Fine, it’s not relevant. Why does it matter so much to you, anyway? I mean, my parents aren’t Teddy Rowland, but if I decided I didn’t want to do a damn thing for the rest of my life there isn’t much they could say about it. Why the sudden interest in a career?”
“Also none of your business. You’re not my friend, you’re not my girlfriend. You’re just some stupid little girl who got into trouble and couldn’t take the heat, so she made a deal with the devil so he could help her cover it up.”
That one makes me flinch. The reference to Logan and the website is what does it, and the fact that he’s throwing it in my face. The “not my friend not my girlfriend” bit is child’s play. Makes me think he’s pulling punches or at least trying to hold back with me. The idea makes me hurt for him more.
“Does it have something to do with your mother being sick?”
The look he turns on me could wither a hydrangea in the middle of summer, but I refuse to shrink away the way he must be used to. The way most people would. He might be right about me not being his girlfriend, and he might think he’s right about me not being his friend, but he’s at least wrong about the latter. I care about him.
I don’t know why or how or when it started but I’ve never been the kind of girl who can turn off something like that. “Did she ask you for help? I’m not a genius but I could tell from the machines and the way we rushed to the hospital the other morning that whatever’s wrong with her is serious. And you weren’t surprised.”