Page 58 of Worth Every Moment (Hawkston Billionaires #4)

ERICA

S eb stares, so handsome, so contemplative. Have I gone too far? Is he going to push me away? That moment when I thought he wouldn’t look at me during sex was harrowing. I want to understand it.

“Turn around.” He taps his chest and adds, “Come here.”

It’s not the order that has me obeying, but the vulnerability in his eyes.

The attempt at connection. I shift so my back is to him, and he pulls me against his chest, where I rest, skin-to-skin, feeling his lungs expand and deflate with every breath.

He trails one hand down my arm, over my breast, teasing my nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

The touch is almost absent-minded, but I’m so grateful for it.

I’ve been holding tension at the thought that he wouldn’t want me anymore.

I melt into him and his fingers glide over my wet skin. He’s not doing it to make a move, but more as though he owns my body and can touch it as he likes. I love him touching me like this. Heat trickles through me.

Behind me, his dick thickens, the length of him pressing into me. “Are you hard again? I’m trying to have a serious conversation—”

He makes a low rumbling sound in his throat that tells me he’s smiling.

“You’re the woman of my dreams, and your naked arse is nestled between my legs.

I’m listening to you, I swear, but my dick is having the time of his life, so you should probably just ignore him because, if you’re around, he’s gonna be hard for the foreseeable future. ”

Ignoring his attempt at humour, I change tack. “Will you tell me how you lost your virginity?”

Tension runs through him like electricity through a cable; it jolts against my skin.

“It’s not a good story,” he says.

I peel myself off his chest, twisting in the water to face him, eddies spiraling around me. I take his face in both hands, staring into his beautiful blue eyes. “Please, Seb.”

He closes them, sucking in air and letting it out in a groan. “You’re killing me with all the questions, Lefroy.”

I lie back against him, letting his fingers caress me again. We lie silently for what feels like an age before he says, “I lost my virginity to a prostitute when I was sixteen.”

I don’t move. Don’t breathe. It’s not a good story.

He keeps stroking my upper arm, but his dick softens until I can barely feel it. I ache for the loss of it.

“Dad paid for it. Took me to a seedy brothel and waited outside the door, which was paper-fucking-thin, while I tried to fuck a woman twice my age.” He breathes slowly, chest rising and falling against my back.

“She didn’t look me in the eye. Not once.

It was as though I wasn’t even there. The whole thing was over in seconds.

” He stops again, but I still don’t move, feeling the heavy thump of his heart against my back. “Is that enough?”

I shake my head without glancing back at him. There’s a lump rising in my throat at the thought of him, so young, being taken to a place like that. But before I jump to conclusions, I ask, “Did you… enjoy it?”

He coughs— chokes —a spluttering, dry laugh. It jerks me in the water, my skin slipping against his.

“I came. If that’s what you mean.” He resettles himself, inhaling slowly and grinding the out-breath on a melancholy groan. A darkness settles over us, or perhaps it emanates from him. He’s ashamed of what happened. Deeply, deeply ashamed.

My heartbeat slows, my pulse thumping in the tips of my fingers.

Should I change the subject? Talk about something else?

But wouldn’t that look too obvious? He’d know exactly what I was doing, and that would only reinforce the idea that this is unspeakable.

That some part of him is unacceptable and unloveable.

I want to hold his pain if he’s able to acknowledge it. “Did you know her name?”

“No. She didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. She didn’t want to know mine either. We didn’t really talk.”

“Could you have said no?”

A humourless crack of laughter sounds. “No one says no to my father.”

There’s something so familiar about what he’s saying.

Both our parents have been far too involved in our lives.

My mother. His father. They’ve transgressed boundaries they shouldn’t have, and had influential decision-making power over things that ought to have had nothing to do with them.

If that isn’t toxic, I don’t know what is.

“No one else should decide what you do with your body.”

I say the words so quietly that I suspect he doesn’t hear them, but then he says, “I didn’t think anything could kill my hard-on for you, but this conversation has done it.”

“Sorry,” I murmur, trying to hide the sadness I feel for him because nothing about his voice is inviting pity, and I know he doesn’t want it. But I can’t help feeling it.

He blows out a breath, but the sound rings with pain.

Regret. Shame. I hear it all in that one exhalation, and without him having to confirm it, there are several things I know to be true all at once.

This is why he’s never looked a woman in the eye when he comes.

This is why he gives himself away so easily.

He never meant anything to anyone, even his father.

How could he value a body that was treated like that?

Sex has to be meaningless, because then what his father did to him stays meaningless too. It’s manageable, but it’s miserable.

Seb Hawkston might have fucked a lot of women, but he’s never let himself be loved, and he’s never loved any of them.

Sobs leak from my mouth even as I try to stifle them with a hand. All his smiles, all his jokes and teasing… and this is what was underneath. And to think, I called him a manwhore … The memory causes a stabbing pain in my chest, regret flowing like a poison in my blood. I dissolve into tears.

“Hey, hey,” he says, turning me in the water, cupping my face, wiping away a tear with his thumb.

“Don’t cry. I didn’t mean to make it sound as though any of this is your fault.

I’m so grateful to have you in my life. I have no regrets.

I would retrace every step I’ve ever taken, willingly, because it’s the path that led me to you. ”

The way he’s looking at me, his eyes full of love, only makes me cry more.

Am I worthy of it? Is it real? It feels real, but I’m not the one who had a picture of him on my wall for years.

Potentially even before we met in person.

Does he feel the way he feels because I’ve kept him at arm’s length all this time?

Did it give space for an infatuation to grow where it otherwise wouldn’t have?

The need to know the answer consumes me.

I wipe my tears with the heel of my hand, voice breaking as I ask, “If we’d had sex that night five years ago when you slept on my sofa, would you have looked me in the eye back then?”

He kisses the side of my neck. “You? Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the other half of my soul, Lefroy.”

My throat thickens, and the back of my nose stings, tears throbbing behind my eyes. The need to keep him forever surges through me and I link my arms around his neck, pressing my naked body to his, the water sliding between us as he tugs me close.

“And you’re the other half of mine.” The words are a desperate, broken whisper against his neck. I love you.

He squeezes me, his arms around my ribs, and in his touch, I sense a need that matches mine. “I love you too,” he says, even though I didn’t say it out loud. “God, I love you, Erica Lefroy.”