Man Seeks Woman 2, Man Seeks Wife (12 page)

Sebastian was
trying to tell me the same thing, wasn’t he? Wasn’t he asking for a
chance? Wasn’t he begging me to take that big step, that leap of
faith and let him inside me, inside my heart because he deserved to
be there? Because he loved me?

He loved
me.

Sebastian
Blackwell loved me, me, Victoria Jennings.

Someone loved
me.

I pushed up
from the bed, ignoring the pounding of my head and raced through to
the living room where I stopped in front of the stereo and searched
frantically for my iPod lead that I knew was around somewhere.

I growled when
my hand hit a pile of old CD’s and they crashed to the floor. I
found the white lead behind them and snatched it up. I plugged it
into the bottom of his iPhone and switched on my stereo only for
the display to announce that it was detecting an unsupported
device.

“You’ve got to
be shitting me.” I slapped my forehead and groaned out loud. That
never happened before.

I wracked my
brains trying to think whether I had any Adele songs on CD. Not
really sure because Jen was always buying me CD’s as gifts, I
dropped down on my knees forgetting that I was butt naked and
searched frantically through my CD collection. CD’s went flying,
cases crashed and smashed, cracking against each other.

My heart was
beating frantically in my chest, pounding against my rib cage. I
tried to get my eyes to focus as I continued to blink at the piles
of them. Finally, I found Adele’s face on the front of an album. I
picked up the CD and quickly turned it around, scanning the back of
the case and saw the song near the bottom. I could have cried.

Hallelujah.

My hands shook
uncontrollably as I got the CD from the case only for it to drop to
the floor. I scratched at the roundness of the CD trying to pick it
up from the floor but my nails couldn’t grasp it.

“Damn it, not
now.” My nails were
so
getting cut down after this. I
gritted my teeth and nearly bent the thing in half as I scraped it
up from the floor and jabbed the button on the stereo watching the
three disc changer drawer open. I threw the CD into the only slot
left and pushed the drawer closed instead of using the button. I
pressed the skip button until I reached number nine and stood up
with my hands pressed to my chest in the prayer position waiting
for the song to come on.

The display
read 5:48 then started at 0:00 as the song began. I could have
collapsed with relief.

****

Sebastian

Sebastian
stood in the shower with his hand pressed against the wall and his
head hanging from his shoulders, his shoulders that were weighed
down so fucking much, he could barely move.

He waited with
utter tenseness in his body as he listened to the subtle sound of
Adele playing from his phone. He watched the water run down into
the drain from his body then suddenly the music was gone.

A breath
stuttered from his chest wondering whether this was going to be the
last time he did this in here with Victoria just a room away.
Wondering whether the last time he’d just made love with Victoria
was in fact the last time.

He frowned
when a crash sounded. His head came up as his other hand rubbed
down his face, flicking the scorching water off him. His hair
dropped over his forehead, blocking his sight until he moved it out
of his eyes.

He listened
intently to Victoria moving around wondering whether she was going
to burst through the door with his clothing, throwing them at him
telling him to get the fuck out because he’d pushed it too far too
quickly.

With Victoria,
he just didn’t know.

“Fuck.” He
ground out and fisted his hand against the wall.

Minutes seemed
to be hours as he stood under the reasonable pressurised spray. He
hadn’t turned the light on when he’d first come in, not wanting to
see his own face in the mirror above the sink or the small one he’d
avoided in the shower. His eyes focused on everything else instead.
The only light shining through came from the passage.

Just as he
took a breath and turned his head up towards the spray, he stopped
dead in his tracks and tilted his head to the side. Then he felt
it, the bass sounding and pounding through the bottom of the bath
he stood in. The strained sounds of Adele came through as clear as
day, filling the small room with her toned voice.

He could even
feel her voice strumming through his body.

Sebastian’s
breath came out in pants as he leaned against the wall, his eyes
blinking back wetness and not just the water from the shower
either. He quickly turned the water off and stepped out of the
bath, dripping water all over the floor as he moved to the door. He
stopped in the doorway and peeked around the doorframe to see
Victoria standing naked in the middle of her living room with her
hands pressed to her chest, her head down as tears dropped from her
eyes.

He must have
made a sound because she turned and their eyes met. Her hazel ones
filled with such tenderness and vulnerability, so much that he
nearly stumbled back.

****

With
everything that was me, everything that I could possibly be. My
body shook and my hands trembled. Tears streamed down my face as I
turned and looked at the man that had my heart in his fist, had me
effectively mind, body and soul.

Everything I
could muster, I forced into my eyes as I stared at him across from
me. Everything that I felt for him, the pain, the hurt and the
love, the lust, the want, the need, the everything, I pushed it at
him, forcing him to take it, cradling it from me.

His bottom lip
trembled along with his chin as understanding flitted in his eyes,
the blue coming alight with knowledge that I did too love him back,
just as much or probably more than he loved me.

Whether I
liked it or not, the choice was taken out of my hands when my heart
thundered in my chest, thundered with each breath for him. I had no
choice, no choice at all.

The chorus of
the song was coming up; I could feel it in my bones, the muster and
the need in Adele’s voice pushed me over the edge. My mouth opened
as she reached that pinnacle point. I held my breath and
waited.

“I dare you to
let me be...your one and only.” I shouted it along with her as more
tears streamed down my face, my voice shuddering and my chest and
heart begging my body to give in. My legs began to wobble. I
dropped down onto my knees as my arms came out to be taken by him
to be rescued, silently asking, begging him to never let me fall,
to never be alone again because if he did, I would never
survive.

Not again.

Sebastian
rushed to me before I fell forward. He held me in his arms so
tightly; I thought he might crack a rib. The breath that I had
seemed to have held for the past twenty fours years left me. It
left me with the knowledge that someone finally loved me, someone
finally took that weight from my shoulders, someone was finally
there to see me thrive, to help me through, to carry me if
necessary, to be
my
one and only.

This, I
realised wasn’t just about love, this was about me, about my past
with and without Sebastian. All of it crammed together and without
Sebastian, it all meant absolutely nothing.

I agree to not
waste anymore food.

“What are you
going to be doing today?” Sebastian asked as he checked his emails
on his phone.

I shrugged as
I held the bowl of crunchy nut cornflakes under my chin to save me
from spilling milk down the front of me, again. “I don’t know.”

The bread
wrapper rustled as Sebastian dug into it. It was quite funny to
watch his left hand trying to get one piece of bread out the packet
without the packet actually falling over or more bread coming out
at the same time. “What about work?”

Again, I
shrugged and slurped a spoonful of cereal in my mouth, sucking the
milk off the spoon. I chewed thoughtfully before replying. “I have
to find another one.”

And that was
just a bitch. I really liked working for the Brewster’s because
they were good employers and I had a rapport with the security
guards who really didn’t like Conrad much. He was too much of a
caveman for them and obviously, when he was in one of his moods,
they got it in the neck, just like I did.

Sebastian
looked up at me from his phone with a frown. “Were you really
serious about quitting your job?”

“Uh...yes.”

“It’s a bit
much, is it not?”

I rolled my
eyes and stuffed another spoonful in my mouth and shifted to the
side so Sebastian could pop a piece of toast in the toaster behind
me. He kissed my cheek softly before moving back to his space.

This was just
freaking weird. This was the first relationship I’d had where the
man had spent the night and still been here in the morning. When I
was with Sean, of course he’d spend the night but then the twerp
would leave early in the morning whilst I was still in bed or after
he’d gotten his shag.

He truly was a
piece of shit and a knob and a wanker and a tosser and a whole load
of other things.

“What are you
thinking about?” Sebastian asked, quietly watching me intently with
those watchful and intense eyes of his. He reminded me of a tiger
or lion stalking its prey.

“Nothing,” I
answered. Yeah, like hell I was going to tell him that I was
thinking about what a prick my ex was whilst he was standing here.
I was crazy not stupid.

My phone rang
from the living room where I’d put in on charge last night. I
shuffled past the handsome shit in my kitchen, shoving the bowl of
cereal at him before running to grab my phone. I frowned down at
the screen seeing “withheld” flashing.

With a sigh, I
pressed answer. “Hello.”

“Why aren’t
you in work?” Conrad’s voice blasted down the line.

I winced and
pulled the phone from my ear and shook my head, feeling my ears
tingling and slightly ringing. When I was satisfied that he hadn’t
permanently damaged my hearing, I put the phone back to my ear.
“Because, I quit,”

“Uh-huh.” He
muttered distractedly. I could hear the phones ringing in the
background and a curse from Ben. It seemed like they were managing
so well without me...not. “So, when are you coming in?”

Was this man
stupid?

“Did you not
understand me on Friday or what I just said? I quit.” And I wasn’t
going back there without an apology for the hurtful things Ben said
and an update to my packages. I wanted more because I worked damn
bloody hard whilst I was there and they both knew it.

“Yeah and I’m
bright green with purple spots.” He growled.

A snort left
me. “I don’t care what colour you are.”

He could
colour his skin the colour of a bright sunflower, fix the petals on
for good measure
and
even call himself Sunshine for all I
cared.

“Tell her.”
Ben shouted in the background. “That she’s got an hour to get her
pretty little arse in here before I turn up at her place and bug
her fucking rotten.”

“He wouldn’t.”
And he so would. Ben could be like a giant gnat buzzing around,
wanting to get to the vital red stuff pumping around your system. I
gasped and turned around to see Sebastian standing in the doorway
with his brow raised and a piece of toast in his hand. “Can you
believe him?”

“What?” he
shrugged. He bit into the lightly buttered toast and frowned when
his phone dinged in his other hand.

Lot of help he
was.

Shaking my
head, I walked back to the kitchen and looked around for my
breakfast only to find my cereal in the bin and my bowl in the
sink. “Sebastian.” I screeched. “What the hell?”

“What?”

“Why did you
dump my cereal, I was eating it.” Talk about a bloody waste of
food.

“I thought you
were finished.” He said with a bored tone as his fingers danced
over his phone. The last piece of his toast disappeared into his
mouth.

“Listen here.”
I marched up to him and jabbed my pointer finger against his
shoulder, fascinated at that strong jaw of his moving back and
fourth, smoothly. I shook my head, no concentrate damn it. “In this
house, food is not wasted. Hell.” I threw up my hands, holding my
still connected phone in my hand. “Food is not wasted at all. Do
you get me?”

“You know.” He
grinned and snaked his arms around my waist, his face going
straight to my neck where he rubbed his stubbly cheek along my skin
then pressed wet kisses over it afterwards. “That you’re cute when
you get all uppity.”

“Cute?” I
repeated, slightly offended. I didn’t fucking think so.
“Sebastian.” I sighed. “Dogs are cute, kittens are cute but me.” I
patted my chest with my hands. “Am not cute and stop changing the
subject. Agree to not waste anymore food.”

He rolled his
eyes as a smile danced over his lips. Actually, he looked like he
wanted to laugh. “I agree to not waste anymore food.”

“Anymore of
Victoria’s food,” I corrected.

Now he full
out laughed. His hand held his side as he bent over, his whole body
shaking. He reached up and wiped a tear from his eye. Even though
he was taking the piss, it was really nice to see him look so young
and free when he laughed like that. By the sound of it, he didn’t
do it enough.

“Okay.” he
said, trying to get himself under control. “I won’t waste anymore
of Victoria’s food, happy now?”

My eyes
narrowed on him. He obviously wasn’t taking this seriously. Food to
me was gold dust. I was a woman for God’s sake, a woman with hips,
boobs and legs and lots of flesh that needed a good intake of
protein and fats and regular amounts of sugar that my dentist would
freak over but I needed it damn it. “Promise,”

Those pouty
lips of his twitched, his eyes filled with merriment.
“Seriously,”