Page 97 of Worth Every Moment

“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 onefirsttime.”

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.

33

ERICA

He leaves and I don’t stop him. I know this isn’t rejection. I know he cares… but it damn well feels like rejection.

For an hour, I sit in the hotel room on our shared bed. Or not shared, as the case may be. Maybe he won’t come back. Maybe he’ll find another room to sleep in.