Some Sort of Happy (Skylar and Sebastian): A Happy Crazy Love Novel (26 page)

“Turn around.”

She presented me with her back, and I moved her hair aside and slowly unzipped her dress. Black lace appeared as the two sides separated, and my breath stopped.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a corset.”

“With straps?”

“Yes. It keeps everything smooth and in place under a fitted dress like this…plus I like nice underwear.” She shimmied the dress down her arms and legs and stepped out of it, laying it on the bed.

My legs felt like they might give out—below the corset, which laced up the back, she wore a matching black thong. I let my eyes wander from her long blonde hair to the cinching of the corset to the perfect ivory curves of her ass down her slender legs to those fuck-me-I’m-adorable heels.
Jesus. I don’t care what anyone says, NO MAN is good enough to deserve this.

But since I was here.

I moved up behind her and kissed her back, rubbing my lips softly against her skin. Her perfume was slightly floral, slightly sweet, like orange blossoms, and I inhaled, taking her scent into my head and chest. “You smell good enough to eat,” I said, running my hands down her arms from shoulder to fingers. “But first…” Pausing to grab the coil of rope from the nightstand, I brought her hands behind her back and crossed her wrists. As I wound the rope around them, I spoke to her in a low, soft voice. “You’re so beautiful, angel. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. That kind of beauty has a strange power over men—it makes us feel strong and yet weak. Protective of it and yet defenseless against it.” Her breath was coming faster, her chest rising and falling. I completed the knot and turned her to face me. “Does that make sense?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know.”

I slipped my fingers into her hair and lowered my mouth to hers, tasting her lips with my tongue. It made me hungry. I dropped to my knees in front of her, as all men should. “Open your legs.”

She widened her stance and I kissed my way up each inner thigh, dragging my rough jaw along her smooth skin. “You have to remain standing. That’s my rule.” Then I put my lips on that black lace, fastening my mouth on her pussy, my hands running up the backs of her legs.

She whimpered, her legs trembling. “Oh God, oh God. Your mouth…”

I worked the little scrap of lace aside with my tongue, keeping my hands on her ass. She tasted like honey and oranges and I couldn’t get enough. Burying my face between her legs, I plunged my tongue inside her and then stroked it up her center, finally moving the lace aside with my hand so I could get at her clit.

The second I licked it, her knees buckled a little. I circled her thighs with my arms to hold her up as she moaned and cursed me.

“Enough, please,” she begged. “I can’t stand anymore.”

“Come for me, and I’ll let you lie down,” I whispered.

“I don’t know if I can, standing like this. My legs…” Her tone was pleading, desperate.

“You want to come. I know you do. Come on, angel.” I circled her clit with my tongue, sucked it into my mouth. I did all the things I’d done the other night that had made her gasp and sigh and moan, slipping two fingers inside her and twisting them the way she liked. The knowledge of her body, of her mind, intoxicated me.
I know what makes her come.

And I did make her come, her pussy clenching around my fingers, her voice crying out in waves that matched the rhythmic spasms. When her legs finally gave way, I flipped her onto her stomach so her upper body lay across the bed, bound wrists at the small of her back. Her slender arms were pale against the black satin corset.
God, her ass is all mine. And fuck, those legs. Those shoes.
“Don’t move,” I told her, yanking her wet underwear off. Then I stood and unbuckled my belt, undid my pants.

“Yes,” she panted. “I want it.”

“Yes, what? What exactly do you want, angel?” Oh Jesus, I would probably go to hell for tying up Skylar Nixon and making her beg me to fuck her.

But right now, my soul’s eternal damnation seemed a pretty fair price.

“I want you, Sebastian,” she said breathlessly. “I want you to fuck me. Hard.”

“Hard?” I took my dick in my hand, stroking it as I took in the image of her bent over my bed, hands tied, legs straight, feet apart. I teased her pussy with the tip, smearing wetness from front to back, sliding it in the crack of her ass.

“Yes.” Her eyes were closed, her mouth open.

“Apologize.”

“Huh?” Her eyes popped open.

“Apologize,” I growled, pushing inside her. “For being so beautiful. For making me want you so badly. For breaking me down. For making me so fucking hard for you all the time.” Words slipped from my mouth as I grabbed her hips and thrust slowly in and out. “From the moment I saw you again, I knew you could undo me. I knew I should stay away from you, but I couldn’t. I can’t. The only thing I can do is make you mine.”

“I’m not sorry,” she rasped, her bound hands clenching into fists just like her pussy was tightening around my cock. “I’ll never apologize. Never.”

“So you want this?” I pulled her back onto me, slowly but not gently. I watched myself disappear inside her body, mesmerized.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want this. I
want
to break you. I want to be yours. I want you inside me.” Her voice hushed to a whisper. “I want everything.”

“Fuck.
Fuck
.” It was too much—all of it. The rope around her hands and her pale skin and curvy body, her words and the memory of her, the possibility of us. I held her hips and fucked her fast and hard and deep, and nothing—nothing—in my entire life had ever felt as good. Strength and power and indestructible certainty that I could do
anything
flooded my veins, and as I reached the breaking point, my entire body seizing up and then exploding deep within her, all I could think was taking
her
inside
me
, caging her within my bones, enclosing her within my ragged, imperfect puzzle of a heart.

Mine.

• • •

Later, after I’d unwrapped her wrists and kissed the tender red marks on her alabaster skin, we undressed each other and slid between the cool white sheets in my bed, arms wrapped around each other tight. She fell asleep first, and I lay there stroking her hair, ignoring the ghosts that tried to fill my head with punishing dread, filling it instead with the scent of her skin, the softness of her breath, the weight of her head on my chest. Then I closed my eyes and held her as I drifted off to sleep.

In the morning, I woke first, facing away from her, one of her arms slung over my torso. I picked up her hand and kissed it before sliding out of bed and pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from my dresser. Soft, golden morning sun was just starting to come in through the skylight, and I smiled at the way it fell across her features. I could get used to seeing the first light of day on her face.

It reminded me of a poem I liked by Robert Frost about the ephemeral beauty of the beginnings of things.

Was this our beginning? Would we always remember the first night we spend together? The first morning here at the cabin?

Don’t be fucking melodramatic
, snapped the voice.
You have no idea what she’s feeling. You think the things she said to you when you had her tied up and defenseless were real? It was a fucking game.

Fuck. It had been kind of a game, but I hadn’t sensed any guile or pretense in her. It felt like she was speaking the truth. I
wanted
it to be the truth.

Could this work between us? I wasn’t ever positive about anything, but something tempted me to think maybe, just maybe Skylar Nixon could be the one woman who was strong enough, sweet enough, forgiving enough to be with me. The thought was both terrifying and beautiful.

Quietly I climbed down the ladder, used the bathroom, put the coffee on, and took my notebook out onto the porch. I felt rested, but throughout the night I’d woken up repeatedly with words scattered in my head, and I wanted to see if I could make some sense of them on paper. Sometimes letting the voice have his way in writing demystified it—lessened its foreignness inside my mind. These were
my
thoughts,
my
words,
my
feelings, and I owned them. I wasn’t their victim. Pulling the pencil from the spiral where I’d tucked it, I looked out into the woods for a few minutes, letting the raw words weave themselves together.

Skylar

You fall softly

like snow

mine

I am beneath you (I fall hard, like stone)

so I will catch you

on my tongue

You melt there like sadness

mine

I tied your hands (
mine
)

a vain, exquisite endeavor

to break you

mine

Shards of bone and soul

mine

littered the bedroom floor this morning

I stepped carefully around them

for fear of injury

mine

but you are brave, I think

You will gather them close

and try to smooth their jagged edges

mine

with the fearless, infinite grace

of your foolish heart

mine

Guess he wasn’t kidding about the sunrise.

I had the day off, so arising at dawn hadn’t exactly been my plan, but when I woke up and found myself alone in Sebastian’s bed, I missed him right away. Holy hell, last night had been amazing. From the blowjob in the car—I don’t even know what came over me, I’d
never
done that before—to the sex in his bedroom to the things he’d said…my mind was spinning. Jesus, had he really tied me up? Sebastian Pryce, who was so nervous about hurting people he kept his sharp knives hidden above the fridge, had actually tied my hands behind my back with rope?

Spying the rope on the floor, I brought the sheet up to my mouth and giggled silently. God. He was such a study in contradictions. But I loved that he felt comfortable enough with me to do it. I loved the things he said while he did it. I could still hear his low, intense voice in my mind.

Apologize… For breaking me down… The only thing I can do is make you mine.

Every second of it had been perfect. I’d meant what I said—I’d never apologize for wanting him—but I didn’t see it as breaking him. And as for being his… my stomach tightened at the thought. What did he mean by that? Like
his
his? The forever kind of his? Or was it just great sex? Maybe he was the kind of guy who said things in the dark he wouldn’t repeat in the light. I wanted to talk about it, but it would probably be like pulling teeth. Tugging the sheet from what were assuredly perfect hospital corners, I wrapped it around myself and managed to get down the ladder without slipping.