Page 46 of Trained In Sin

Saphy

It's been two weeks since Wales, and I'm still adjusting to this new version of my life.

The version where Sebastian Blackwood is no longer a dangerous obsession but simply.

.. mine. Where his possessiveness feels like protection rather than imprisonment.

Where his intensity should probably concern me, but doesn't.

I'm staying at his penthouse most nights, but I've kept my job at Hartwell and my friendship with Beth.

Sebastian hasn't pushed for more, hasn't demanded I abandon my independent life completely.

Instead, he's learned to weave himself into it, to become part of my world rather than requiring me to abandon it for his.

It's a delicate balance, but it's working.

Today has been particularly long at the office, a new acquisition project that required me to stay late reviewing contracts and zoning documents. By the time I finish, it's nearly eight PM, and the building is mostly empty.

I'm looking forward to going home to Sebastian, to falling into his arms and letting him chase away the stress of the day with his hands and mouth and the intensity that never seems to fade between us.

But when I reach my flat, the one I've kept despite spending most nights elsewhere, something feels different.

The door is unlocked.

Six months ago, this would have sent me into a panic. Three months ago, I would have called the police. Two weeks ago, I would have run.

Now, I feel a familiar flutter of excitement in my stomach.

I push the door open slowly, stepping inside with my heart racing for entirely different reasons than before.

"Sebastian?" I call softly .

"In here, princess."

His voice comes from my bedroom, low and rough with promise. I set my bag down by the door and follow the sound, anticipation building with each step.

I find him sitting on my bed, still wearing his expensive suit but with his tie loosened and his sleeves rolled up. He looks completely at ease in my space, like he belongs here, like he owns it.

Like he owns me.

"You broke into my flat again," I observe, leaning against the doorframe.

"I did." His eyes travel over me slowly, taking in every detail of my appearance. "Are you going to call the police?"

"Should I?"

"That depends. Are you upset about the intrusion, or excited by it?"

I consider the question seriously. Three months ago, finding him in my flat uninvited was terrifying. Now, it's... arousing. The knowledge that he wanted me enough to break in, that he couldn't wait for me to come to him, that he's claimed my space as thoroughly as he's claimed me.

"Excited," I admit, moving closer to the bed. "Definitely excited."

Sebastian's smile is predatory, satisfied. "Good. Because I've been thinking about you all day. About what I want to do to you when you get home."

"This isn't your home. "

"Isn't it?" He stands, closing the distance between us in two strides. "Everywhere you are is my home now, Saphy. Every space you occupy becomes mine by extension."

The possessiveness in his words should probably alarm me. Instead, it sends heat straight to my core.

"That's a very dangerous way of thinking."

"I'm a very dangerous man. But you already knew that." His hands find my waist, pulling me against him. "The question is whether you're brave enough to fully embrace what that means."

"I've embraced it. I've embraced you."

"Have you? Or are you still holding back, still trying to maintain some distance between the woman you used to be and the woman you are with me?"

Before I can answer, his mouth is on mine, demanding and possessive. I melt into him immediately, all thoughts of maintaining any kind of distance evaporating under his touch.

This is what I've learned about myself in the past two weeks, I don't want soft romance or gentle lovemaking. I want intensity, passion, the kind of desperate need that borders on obsession. I want to be claimed, possessed, owned by someone who sees me as worth fighting for.

I want Sebastian, exactly as he is.

His hands are already working at my clothes, stripping away my professional facade with practiced efficiency. The skirt that made me feel confident in the boardroom becomes an obstacle to be discarded. The blouse that projected competence becomes fabric to be torn away .

"I've been hard for you all day," he growls against my throat. "Sitting in meetings, thinking about this moment. About having you beneath me, around me, completely mine."

"Then take me," I breathe, my own hands working at his shirt buttons. "Take what's yours."

The sound he makes is purely animalistic, and then I'm being lifted, carried to my bed, deposited on the mattress with enough force to make me bounce. Sebastian stands over me for a moment, his eyes dark with hunger and something deeper.

"You're so fucking beautiful," he says, his voice rough. "And you're mine. All mine."

"Yours," I agree, spreading myself out for his inspection. "Completely yours."

He joins me on the bed, his weight settling over me as his mouth finds mine again. But this isn't the desperate reunion of Wales, this is something darker, more primal. This is Sebastian claiming his territory, marking what belongs to him.

And I want it. God help me, I want every possessive touch, every claiming kiss, every reminder that I've chosen to belong to someone who will never take me for granted.

When he enters me, it's with a force that makes me cry out, my back arching off the bed. There's no gentleness here, no careful consideration, just raw need and the kind of passion that burns everything else away.

"Mine," he growls with each thrust, his grip on my hips tight enough to leave marks. "Say it."

"Yours," I gasp, meeting him thrust for thrust. "Always yours. "

This is what our relationship has become, intense, consuming, slightly dangerous in its completeness. We're both obsessed, both possessive, both willing to lose ourselves completely in what we've found together.

It should probably concern me how much I crave this intensity, how much I need his possession to feel complete. But I can't bring myself to care about should when what we have feels so perfectly right.

When I come apart beneath him, it's with his name on my lips and the absolute certainty that this is exactly where I belong. With him, under him, claimed by him in every way possible.

Sebastian follows moments later, my name a prayer and a curse as he marks me from the inside out, as he has every night for the past two weeks.

Afterward, we lie tangled together on my narrow bed, his arms around me, his breath warm against my hair.

"I love you," he murmurs, the words soft but weighted with intensity.

"I love you too. Even when you break into my flat."

"Especially when I break into your flat. It means you can never really escape me."

"I don't want to escape you."

"Good. Because I'd just find you anyway."

I laugh, the sound muffled against his chest. "You're terrible."

"I'm yours. That's all that matters."

*

The next evening, Beth comes over to Sebastian's penthouse for dinner. She's been slowly warming up to him over the past two weeks, though she still watches him with the wariness of someone who's seen what he's capable of.

"You look different," she observes as we prepare dinner together while Sebastian takes business calls in his office.

"Different how?"

"Satisfied. Content. Like you've finally found what you were looking for."

I consider this as I chop vegetables. "I think I have. It's not what I expected to find, but it's what I needed."

"And you're really okay with... all of this? The intensity, the possessiveness, the fact that he's still fundamentally dangerous?"

"I'm more than okay with it. I love it." I meet her eyes. "I know how that sounds, but it's true. I love being the centre of someone's universe. I love being protected, cherished, claimed. I love knowing that Sebastian would burn down the world for me."

"That's a lot of pressure."

"It's a lot of love. The kind of love that most people are too afraid to give or receive. "

Beth is quiet for a moment, processing this. "And you're not afraid?"

"Of Sebastian? No. Of losing this? Terrified. But that's what makes it worth having."

When Sebastian joins us for dinner, the conversation flows more easily than it used to. Beth still challenges him occasionally, still tests the boundaries of his patience, but there's a grudging respect there now. An acknowledgment that whatever we have, it works for us.

"You make her happy," Beth tells him as we're cleaning up. "That's all I've ever wanted for her."

"She makes me better," Sebastian replies. "Or at least, she makes me want to be better."

"Just... try not to get her killed with your lifestyle choices?"

"I'd die before I'd let anything happen to her."

"I believe you. That's what worries me."

But I can see in Beth's eyes that she's beginning to understand what I've already accepted, that sometimes love isn't safe or conventional or approved of by society. Sometimes love is two broken people finding wholeness in each other's darkness.

Sometimes love looks like obsession, possession, the willingness to destroy anything that threatens what you've found together.

And sometimes, that's exactly what you need.

*

That night, as Sebastian and I lie in his bed, I think about how far we've come. From his initial pursuit to my flight to Wales to this strange, intense equilibrium we've found.

"Do you think we're toxic?" I ask him in the darkness.

"Probably." His arm tightens around me. "Does that bother you?"

"It should. But no, it doesn't. I think... I think some people are meant for safe love, and some people are meant for the kind that burns everything else away."

"And which kind are we?"

"The burning kind. Definitely the burning kind."

Sebastian chuckles, the sound rumbling through his chest. "I can live with that."

"Good. Because you're stuck with me now.”

you get scared."

"Deal."

We're quiet for a moment, both of us understanding that what we've built together is unconventional, intense, probably unhealthy by most standards. But it's ours, and it works for us, and that's all that matters .

I'm Sebastian's obsession, and he's mine. We're possessive, intense, completely consumed with each other in ways that would probably alarm relationship experts.

But we're also happy. Fulfilled. Complete in ways we never were apart.

And if that makes us toxic, then I'll happily embrace the poison.

Because some kinds of love are worth burning for.