Page 50 of Worth Every Moment (Hawkston Billionaires #4)

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T he first thing I do when we get to the room is take a pair of trunks to the bathroom and get changed. Our luggage arrived before we did, so it’s all unpacked. Erica and I are in a cabin a little walk from the main complex, where Kate is staying with her bridesmaids Elly and Marie.

There’s only one bed in the cabin.

I could have told Nico I wanted two. Two rooms. Two beds. Twin beds. Bunk beds, for fuck’s sake.

But I didn’t. I don’t want them to know that this …

whatever this is, now I’ve told her I love her and she hasn’t said it back…

started out fake, and now I have no clue if it’s real or pretend anymore.

I don’t want them to know any of that because I’m the joker in the fucking pack, and they’d probably laugh at how I could never get a woman to be with me for real.

As soon as we walked inside and Erica saw the bed, unease poured off her skin like she’d rolled in lotion of the stuff. I couldn’t stand beside her and stare at the bed, the echo of my confession in my ears.

She came all over my tongue. Unraveled in my arms . But the one bed? That’s too much. I mentally roll my eyes. I have no clue what’s happening here.

I’m bordering on feeling insulted, but it’s balanced by worrying about what the hell is actually wrong. She let me bring her to orgasm twice… three times if you count the phone sex. But she hasn’t tried to touch me. Undo my belt. Slide her hand inside my trousers.

She hasn’t even got close.

Why the fuck not?

I wash my face and dry it and my hands on a towel before stepping back into the main room. Erica’s sitting on the end of the bed in a white sundress and sandals. Her gaze is as sharp as nails scraping down my back.

“Bed’s all yours,” I say. “I can take the sofa in the other room.” The cabin is huge. I could probably sleep in the bathtub and be perfectly comfortable.

I don’t look at her as I grab a t-shirt and haul it over my head.

I’m halfway into it when she says, “Stop.” I halt, arms in the air, t-shirt almost over my head. “Don’t put it on.”

The corner of her lips tweaks up and I finally notice how she’s looking at me.

Hesitant, but as though she likes what she sees and isn’t afraid to let me know.

Relief shoots to my brain like a hit of cocaine; she might not love me, but she wants me.

Thank fuck, she wants me . Slowly, I remove the shirt again and toss it over the back of a nearby chair.

“You don’t want to share the bed?” she says, voice husky, her gaze fully fixed on my chest.

“I do if you do.”

She doesn’t give me an answer, but she stands and crosses the room towards me, her dark hair falling free over her shoulders. She raises a hand, reaching out to touch my chest, but she stops, her palm hovering an inch from my skin.

She raises hooded eyes to mine, the flutter of her lashes mimicking the beat of my heart. “It turned me on to touch you at the photo shoot.” Her fingers still hover above the skin. “I thought you should know that you weren’t alone in it.”

I say nothing because I sense she’s not really talking to me at all; it’s almost as though her quiet confession is a reminder to herself that it’s okay.

It’s allowed. Her palm sinks onto my pec and it’s all I can do not to let out a groan at the warmth of the deliberate touch.

She teases my nipple with her thumb, then trails her hand over my abs. Heat rushes to my groin.

“I didn’t know you had a body like this beneath your suit,” she murmurs.

“Are you objectifying me, Lefroy?”

She glances up at me, her cheeks wearing the lightest flush. “No,” she whispers. “Just admiring.”

She gives me a meaningful look, and I know the word choice is deliberate; a throwback to the first time we met when I said the same to her.

The fact that she also remembers that conversation brings up a swathe of emotion I can’t even begin to understand.

A rough chuckle works its way up my throat.

“I’ve waited a long time for you to notice. ”

I expect her to laugh, but she doesn’t. She slides a hand round to the back of my neck and pulls me into the softest kiss, her lips meeting mine in a moment that feels so tender it makes my heart hurt.

No one has ever kissed me like this. Like I mean more to them than a good night’s fuck.

Like they might want something from me that goes beyond sex, that lasts longer than one night, and that doesn’t end when we wake up in the morning.

And something about that scares the shit out of me.

I’ve never had sex with anyone I cared about, let alone a woman I’ve just laid my heart out for. My words on the jet surprised me. If she hadn’t begged for them, I’d never have said anything. I’m a fucking idiot. We’re about to end this fake relationship. What do I say when my time is up?

I love you, but I have to marry someone else.

Erica’s hand is still drifting over my abs, her nails scratching lightly at the skin, but I can’t get my head straight. I’ve waded right into the ultimate pit of shit with this fake dating scenario, and I don’t know if I’m going to get out in one piece.

I need to bring this whole thing back to solid ground, where I know what the fuck is happening and what to do.

Sex, I can do. You want a meaningless good time, then I’m your man.

Anything else… I don’t know how to do it. In all honestly, given the way panic is thrashing in my veins all of a sudden, I’m not sure I’m equipped to do anything other than have meaningless sex.

In a desperate attempt to slow my thoughts, the guilt, the panic, I grab her, pulling her closer. I kiss her, hard and rough, coaxing her back towards the bed. She goes willingly, flopping back onto the sheets when her knees hit it.

I grab her wrists, holding them both over her head, pinning her to the bed. She lets out a gasping whimper as her back arches, her hips rocking against mine, where my dick is hard as fuck. I grind into her, and she grinds back, panting in my ear.

Her needy moans are making me dizzy with lust. I don’t need to worry about shit when I can draw those sorts of sounds from her.

I slide a hand up her thigh, hooking my fingers into her underwear and slipping my hand inside. She’s wet. So fucking wet.

I know what I’m doing here.

I tease my fingers out, grabbing at the tie on my trunks. If I can get them off, release my dick, we can fuck. We can just get the whole thing out of the way. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.

I can fuck Erica Lefroy like it’s meaningless, same as anyone else.

“What are you doing?” Erica says, and the horror in her tone has me freezing.

I meet her worried gaze, realising I haven’t looked at her once. Haven’t made eye contact at all while I’ve had her pinned to the bed.

“What do you think I’m doing?” I say, nodding at the tented fabric over my erection. “Getting my dick out so we can fuck.”

Her scowl crashes over her face like a storm and she wriggles out from underneath me, sitting up. “Just like that?”

“Just like what?” Agitation marks every line of her body, her face, but when she doesn’t explain, I add, “You’re soaked. It’s not as though we’d need more lube.”

I know I’m being an arse. I know it. But somehow, I can’t be a better man right now.

Vaguely, in the back of my mind, I know some part of me is losing their shit, but here I am, containing it, telling Erica we should just have sex .

Like that’s the solution to everything .

Her scowl gets deeper, and she shuffles off the bed so she’s standing.

I stand opposite her, the two of us positioned like we’re ready to duel. Pistols at fucking dawn.

My dick is still hard. I have no clue what’s happening here.

She shifts, tilting her weight from side to side. Nervous. Awkward. Well, bollocks to this. I’m addressing the elephant in the room.

“You don’t want to have sex with me?”

“That’s not it.”

“Then what is it? What’s the problem?”

“You weren’t looking at me.” Her hands move desperately, fingers splayed, palms upwards, as though she’s begging me for something I don’t know how to give.

“It was like I wasn’t even there. It was like someone gave you a job to do and you were gonna put your head down and do it even though you didn’t want to. ”

Woah . “Of course I want to.” But then it hits me.

She’s right . I did want to get through it.

Because being with Erica that way feels fucking scary.

Like it might split me apart in a way I’m not ready for, and even though she’s clearly not on board, it still seems like a good idea to me and I can’t stop.

“Right now. We should just do it. Get it over with. It’s not as though we haven’t done things before.

So, let’s just… go for it. We’re making this into something that’s much bigger than it should be. "

“Really? That’s what you think we should do?” she says, her tone so sharp that it digs into my awareness, letting me know I’ve crossed another fucking line I shouldn’t have. I need to retreat from the offensive, but I can’t, because what’s behind the lines is so dark I don’t want to see it.

“It’s just sex,” I reply.

For a reason I can’t quite fathom, she looks like she might cry.

I am royally fucking this up on multiple levels.

I start pacing agitatedly, one hand in my pocket, the other deep in my hair.

I can’t look at her. The judgment in her gaze is pricking my skin like I’m walking through a field of needles.

“Just sex?” she asks.

I stop, only now looking at her full in the face. “Yeah.” But the confirmation strikes her like a blow, and she recoils.

“Jesus, Seb. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Wrong with me? What’s wrong with you?”

It’s the look of pity on her face, rather than the question itself that cracks through the barrier I’ve erected. “Sorry,” I begin. “No, obviously it’s not just sex, but I haven’t—”

“Had sex that wasn’t just sex?” She cuts in, the words so accurate it’s as though she’s shot a bullet at my heart and splintered my ribcage.

She tugs on her bottom lip, staring at the floor and not at me, so she doesn’t register the way my shoulders sink, and even though I don’t voice an answer, it’s clear she already knows it because she continues, “So you want to reduce whatever this is between us to ‘just sex’, even though you’ve already told me you love me? ”

“Fuck. Yeah. Sorry. I just… I don’t know how to do it if it means something. If you mean something. Which you do. I need to stop thinkin—”

“You want to make this feel meaningless so you can handle it?”

I let out a groan. “No. Yes. Fuck, I don’t know. I can’t build it up in my head anymore, so let’s just fuck and get it over with.”

I am exposing all my shit here, and a small part of me knows that I need to shut this whole thing down. I need to back away because it’s not working for Erica. Every word out of my mouth is pushing her away, and she’s just standing there watching me, her expression nearing one of horror.

“No one has ever told me they love me the way you did on the jet. But this… fuck, Seb. This is messed up. You can’t follow a confession like that with, ‘let’s just fuck to get it out of the way’.”

“Why not? It’ll be good. I swear. It’ll be just as memorable if we go at it—”

“Stop. You’re driving me crazy. I don’t want my first time to be—”

My brain snags on the way she says ‘ my first time ’, but I ignore it, figuring she must mean ‘ our first time ’. “There will be so many times.”

Leveling a serious gaze in my direction, she says, “But only one first time.” She enunciates the phrase ‘first time’, clipping the Ts.

I stop pacing. “Could you repeat that?”

Her breathing shallows, her voice quiet when she says, “Only one first time.”

Her eyes, the way they narrow to almost a wince, the tremble of her bottom lip, and the shadows of shame flickering over her cheekbones tell me everything I need to know. But still, I have to check. I need to hear her say it. “First time with me? Or…”

“Or. I’m a virgin.”

My stomach drops and silence engulfs us like we’ve been submerged underwater.

Memories swarm like monsters released from a cage.

Losing my virginity; that hooker, her heavy makeup and equally heavy perfume, the scent of which I thought I might choke on when I thrust my virgin dick inside her.

And my dad, waiting outside, watching the time, ready to greet me with a casual, ‘ You’ll have to do better than that if you want to call yourself a man ’.

His words ring in my head like a siren, and it’s no longer her shame that’s the darkest force in the room, but mine.

I can’t breathe. A clawing sense of panic rakes up my throat. I need air.

“I have to take a walk.” I grab my t-shirt from where I flung it over the chair and move towards the door, aware I’m being an arse, leaving her like this, but the emotional crap swirling through me propels me to escape. I cannot stay and talk about this with her. I can’t let her see this.

She follows, alarm clear on her features. “Wait, Seb. We need to talk—”

I hold up a hand to stop her. “Not now. I’ll be back. I’m not deserting you. I want to talk about this.” The words stick in my throat as I force them past my lips. I don’t want to fucking talk about this. “I just need…”

I fade off as the panic swells, and before she can say another word, I let myself out onto the sand and head for the water.