“HO-LY MOTHER MARY,” Cat groaned from beside Via.
Grace was the next one to chime in. “Good GAWD, that man can wear the hell out of a suit.”
A midsize knot of PS 128 faculty huddled together outside the entrance to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Sadie’s wedding ceremony was going to take place in one of the gardens there, and then the reception would be in their beautiful, glassed-in event space.
Via had never gone to a wedding before, but as she stood in between Shelly and Cat, already laughing, she found she was very excited to go wherever the night took her. Very excited indeed. It was an unseasonably warm mid-November day; the air had a slight bite to it that was offset by bright sun. The yellow leaves that still clung to the trees had the same effect on the blue sky as makeup on an eye. Everyone lifted their faces to the perfumed fall breeze.
Via turned to see what Cat and Grace were commenting on, and every single thought in her head was wiped clean.
As long as Violetta DeRosa lived—be it another hundred years—she would never forget the way Sebastian Dorner looked crossing Flatbush Avenue in a charcoal gray tailored suit. He waved a car across in front of him and strolled over toward the group of educators. God, she’d always had a thing for mirrored aviators. And week-old haircuts. And was that...? Yes, he was wearing a vest underneath the coat. She’d always had a thing for vests. And midnight blue ties and crisp white shirts. And damn. She couldn’t breathe.
He looked so unbelievably hot walking up to the group, sliding his sunglasses into the pocket of his coat, smiling around at everyone, that Via almost missed the way his eyes doubled back, immediately, to her. Almost.
Via knew her dress was a stunner. Fin had bought it for her at a sample sale a year ago but she’d never had a real reason to wear it. The jade green silk fit her like a glove from breast to knee and was seamless, wrinkle-less perfection. The neckline scooped modestly over her breasts and was held up by two gaspingly thin straps that fell far down her back, showing her almost to the base of her spine. The color did things for her eyes, she could admit.
“Well, don’t you look dapper,” Shelly said to Sebastian, her eyes shining with unshed tears.
“You look beautiful, too, Shelly,” Seb said as he studied Shelly’s face. “Is everything all right?”
“Oh, don’t mind me. This is just the first wedding I’ve been to without Richard and—”
Shelly cut off in surprise as Seb gathered her in close for a hug that had that force field in Via’s chest swallowing Brooklyn whole. This man was making feelings grow inside of her so fast and so hard that she didn’t even know what to direct them toward. She watched him from across the group—and she wasn’t the only one. He was like some rare form of wild beast that had somehow been convinced into a three-piece suit. Via couldn’t help but feel, for one painful second, like his presence in her life had to be temporary. Nothing this beautiful and rare could possibly last.
“I’ll be your wedding date, Shelly,” he told her, a firm hand on each of his friend’s shoulders.
“Oh, Sebastian.” Shelly blushed all the way to the roots of her hair. “You don’t have—”
“I’m sad my husband’s dead, too,” Grace cut in blandly. “Be my date.”
Seb laughed at her irreverence. “I’d never turn down two dates.”
He held an arm out to both ladies just as the gates opened and the guests were allowed to find their seats at the outdoor wedding.
Via followed the group, a little at odds now that Sebastian was here but hadn’t even said hi. She watched from a row back as he got the two ladies settled in.
“Via, you really look stunning,” Cat said from beside her. “I couldn’t even staple myself into a dress that looked like that.”
Via laughed. “Oh, Cat, you look beautiful, too. I love that style.”
“But seriously, the color and everything, Via, it’s breathtaking.”
“She’s right,” Grace said, turning around and eyeing Via’s dress.
Via blushed and fussed with the program in her hands. She could feel the bright lights of Seb’s gray-greens on her, but still he didn’t say anything.
“Oh, here we go!” Cat squealed as music started and people rushed to find seats.
Via cried the whole dang wedding and was extremely proud of herself for remembering to bring spare makeup. Because, girl, she needed a fix up.
Sadie looked gorgeous and radiant with her short red hair braided back and her romantic, trumpet-style dress. But it was Rae who really brought the waterworks on for Via. The short, black-haired woman wore a handsome tailored suit and the biggest smile Via had ever seen. She didn’t think she’d ever seen someone look prouder than Rae did when Sadie walked down the aisle. Maybe she was getting caught up in the moment, but Via felt like she was watching Rae come to terms with the fact that Sadie was picking her, forever.
Their ceremony was fast and emotional and barely intelligible through all the tears. It wasn’t more than a few minutes before Sadie was bending Rae backward for the kiss of a lifetime. The two of them straightened up, threw their joined hands in the air and completely cheesed for the wildly cheering crowd.
It was getting chilly with the sun going down, so the caterers bustled the wedding guests inside the venue. Cocktail hour was scheduled to last for a while, so the first chance she got, Via excused herself to the bathroom and fixed her makeup.
She felt wrung out after the high emotional intensity of the wedding, like a sponge after a really great bout with a saucepan. A good cry always did that to her. But as Via eyed herself in the mirror, she realized that it was more than that. She felt like she was filling up with air and leaking it at the same time. Like her insides were somehow producing glitter and glue simultaneously. She was a glittery, sparkly, sticky mess inside her chest.
God, had she ever felt this way before? Like, ever? About anyone?
After all the attention she was used to getting from Sebastian, it was strange to feel the loss of it. Almost like a vacuum. She shrugged to herself in the mirror. Either she could address it head-on with him or she could let it go. But she refused to allow herself to brood. She was here to party down for Sadie and Rae. Glitter glue be damned.
Deeming herself presentable again, she stepped out of the bathroom and into the back hallway that led to the reception area. She stopped in her tracks.
Sebastian was leaning against the wall, apparently waiting for her, his hands in his pants pockets and his feet crossed at the ankle. The second he saw her, he pushed forward. Closer than normal, but he wasn’t touching. Her high heels brought her up to a solid five-foot-eight, but she still had to drop her head all the way back to be able to look him in the eye.
“You’re so gorgeous it hurts,” he told her, point-blank.
She jolted like he’d zapped her with a little kiss of electricity. She opened her mouth but couldn’t think of anything to say. His words were still absorbing into her, like beads of wine over cloth.
“I wanted to tell you immediately, but I worried it might embarrass you in front of everyone. And I didn’t want to say, ‘you look nice’ or ‘very beautiful’ or something lame like that. Because the truth is, I can barely look at you right now. That’s how unbelievably gorgeous you are.”
Thank you. That’s the nicest compliment anyone has ever given me. Sebastian, I have feelings for you. I want to treat this wedding like a date. And then I want to go on a real date.
Any of that would have been acceptable in Via’s eyes. They were all words that were tripping to fall out of her mouth. Maybe it was his nearness, his size, the warm pine man-scent that was emanating from him, but Via found herself with a terrible case of brain scramble and she ended up simply blurting, “You look really hot.”
She would have face-palmed herself right into a coma if it weren’t for the sun-shaming, earthquaking, heart-stuttering grin that exploded over his face.
“Thanks,” he said, his earlier intensity melting into a much warmer expression. His eyes skated lazily over her face, and he reached up to touch one of the gold studs in her ear. Her breath caught at the intimate feel of his rough fingertips at her earlobe. He wasn’t being seductive, he was just toggling the earring around, almost the same way that Matty had been absently playing with her necklace the other day. “You wanna get drunk and dance and celebrate our friend?”
“Yes,” she answered immediately. It was the perfect invitation.
SEBASTIAN SIPPED CHAMPAGNE and laughed his ass off with Grace and Shelly and Cat and felt like part of him was walking around outside his body. Via was chatting with some people he didn’t know on the other side of the room. She was accepting an appetizer on a toothpick from a caterer who nearly swallowed his tongue when she smiled at him. And then she was swiping a glass of champagne from the bar and settling herself in the free seat at their table, grinning over at Rachel, a dozy, loose, electric expression on her face.
The whole time, Sebastian felt as if he were split in two. Half of him was sitting here, in this chair, chuckling as Grace and Cat narrated voices for each of Rae’s gawky cousins in the corner. And the other half? Well, the other half was over there with that little, warm, golden, wavy-haired sex perfection charming everyone she came in contact with.
He’d felt a variation on this feeling before, with Matty. Fatherhood had a way of making a man feel like his heart had grown two stubby legs and chubby little forearms and a tiny, blunt face alternately scowling and laughing. Even though he’d had a lot of room for improvement as a father in the first three years of Matty’s life, it didn’t mean he hadn’t loved his son to distraction.
He’d always felt better when he and Matty didn’t have much distance between them. He didn’t like the world getting in the way of his heart. In a way, that’s how he felt right now. Like he and Via were a unit, two parts to one whole and he just wanted to be next to her.
Actually, he wanted to be a hell of a lot closer than next to her. Inside of her was pretty much what he had in mind. He wanted to slip his hand up that green dress and watch his paw disrupt the fabric. He bet he could span her entire stomach if he spread his fingers wide enough. He also bet she had a light little touch. He wanted her to torture him with it while he took that dress in two handfuls and just smelled it. Honestly, he kind of wanted to do disgusting things to that dress. Destroy it. Just to take the edge off before he turned around and did all those same things to her.
When they’d come out of the bathroom area together, a woman Seb didn’t know had called over to Via. Her face had lit with recognition. And as much as Seb wanted to completely dominate her entire night, keep her all to himself like a child with a Blow Pop, he nodded her off to greet her friend. She’d taken one step and turned back, looking over her shoulder in a way that had damn near brought him to his knees. If he’d had a pencil in his mouth, he would have chattered it down to a toothpick. That look she gave him, it was a little see you later promise.
She’d gone and mingled, and so had he. And now she was sitting much too far away.
Her eyes glanced over at his and ricocheted away immediately, her cheeks going a deeper pink than he’d ever seen before. He realized that his heart must be in his eyes. He must look like he was thinking very dirty thoughts.
Seb attempted to be a little more discreet. He tried to fix his face and look generically out at the crowd of people who were dancing to the cocktail hour DJ’s Motown mix. But his eyes went back to her. He dragged them away. They went back to her. Again and again.
This went on for about fifteen minutes before Cat leaned over and nudged him hard in the shoulder.
“You better put a condom on those eyes, Sebastian.”
“Excuse me?” He jolted at her words.
“Either you wear a rubber on those eyes of yours, or you’re about to get Miss DeRosa pregnant from twenty paces.”
Sebastian, extremely aware that he was talking to his son’s second-grade teacher right now, had the humility to look pretty chagrined. He dragged a hand over his face and tried to wipe the dirty sex thoughts off of it. “That obvious, huh?”
Cat raised an eyebrow and her glass of champagne to her lips. “About as subtle as a jackhammer.”
“She looks really, really beautiful. I’m, ah, having trouble keeping my eyes to myself.”
Cat clapped her mouth closed, like she was stopping herself from saying something.
Sebastian rolled his hand through the air like, spit it out.
Cat leaned forward. “Seb, she’s making that same face right back at you. Ah! There’s my husband. He couldn’t make it in time for the ceremony, but now that he’s here, I’m going to get horribly drunk and do illegal things to him.”
She slapped Seb hard on the shoulder and rose. He wondered vaguely if other parents had this kind of relationship with their children’s educators. Probably not.
Seb felt a light heat on the side of his face and looked up fast enough to catch Via unawares. Sure enough, she was watching him. And the look on her face was...very inappropriate. In fact, she was looking at him like she was trying to get him pregnant at twenty paces. He cleared his throat, took a deep breath and lifted his chin up once, as if to say, Come over here.
Her eyes on his, she rose from her seat with all the effortless grace of a bird. God, she was beautiful. A second later, she plunked down in the seat that Cat had just vacated and leaned across Seb to say something to Grace and Shelly that Seb didn’t even hear.
He was too busy suffocating in the nearness of her. Her bare shoulder firmly pushed into his as she leaned across him. A laugh tremored through her and shook something loose in Seb’s chest. He looked down and her fingers were in a pyramid on the seat of her chair as she held herself in a lean. He wished she’d put her hand on his leg instead.
Seb let out a long, low breath and laid his arm along the back of her chair. Good enough for now. When she leaned back, the ends of her hair danced over his arm.
She looked up at him, an expression on her face that he couldn’t quite interpret.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she replied way too quickly. She glanced at his armpit and looked away.
“Seriously.” He nudged her warm, soft side with his free hand. “What is it?”
She sighed, like she didn’t want to say what she was about to say. “You just smell really good is all.”
He grinned, smug and so damn happy. “Glad you like it.”
She grumbled something into her champagne that he didn’t quite catch, but this time, she staunchly refused to reveal it.
The reception went into full swing after that. The happy couple was announced by the DJ, and Seb grinned when Via jumped to her feet to cheer.
“Look at them!” Via teared up. “God, can you imagine being that happy?”
Uh. Yeah.
He was pretty much that happy right this very second.
Then everybody filed back to be seated for dinner. Seb’s eyebrows rose in surprise as he glanced around the table. Rachel had brought a date to the wedding, he hadn’t noticed before.
“Apparently, Geeky Greg has major game,” he whispered in Via’s ear, causing her to snort into her water.
“Good for him,” Via replied, and then her eyes went thoughtful. “And good for her, too. They’ve been looking at each other like they’re the luckiest two people on the planet.”
Via was just so sweet, always seeing the best in—
“But frankly, I wouldn’t care either way as long as it means Rachel stops jamming your biceps between her boobs.”
Now it was Seb’s turn to choke on his water. He coughed it out and turned to her with a little smile that he attempted to smother. “You noticed that, huh?”
“Sebastian, the astronauts in the Space Station noticed that. She’s not exactly subtle, is she?”
He thought about making a joke but instead erred on the side of complete and utter transparency. He didn’t want her worrying. He’d had a taste of that watching Christian the bartender fawn all over her and he wasn’t a fan. “Then you probably noticed me removing my biceps from said boobs over and over.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I noticed.”
“And since you’re such a careful observer, you may have noticed that I’m not a flirt.” One of his fingers, still on the back of her chair, lightly, breathlessly, played in the ends of her hair for just a moment.
Her eyes cut to that side and then back at him. “I have quite a bit of evidence to the contrary, Seb,” she said dryly.
He laughed. “Well, let me be clear then. I’m not a flirt with anyone I’m not completely swept away by.”
Her face went from dry and amused to pliant and soft. Soft like warm pillows and wet lips and down comforters and snow outside and come here, let’s do that again.
They let out twin breaths and then simultaneously turned away to gulp champagne. This was getting out of hand.
A light tinkling of metal on a glass rang out through the hall, and all the teachers at the PS 128 table straightened up.
“Does anyone else feel like a staff meeting is getting called to order?” Grace hissed across the table and made them all burst out laughing.
Sadie, sitting at the head table, grinned over at her teacher buddies like she knew exactly what they were all laughing about.
The speeches commenced, and the caterers set out food on the tables in large bowls. It was family style with about thirty dishes to choose from.
“Jesus, this is like Thanksgiving,” Seb muttered to Via.
A solemn look passed over her face, and he wondered what her Thanksgivings were like usually. His were rooted in Sullivan family tradition, because he and Matty always made the trek up to White Plains for the holiday. It wasn’t the most raucous day of the year, but the predictability of the traditions had come to be a sort of familial comfort over the years. And Matty loved it.
Soon, the speeches were over, the music was back on, and everyone was simultaneously grinning and groaning at the humongous slices of cake being passed around.
Sebastian couldn’t eat another bite. He also couldn’t possibly simmer in this seat for another second. He could have sworn that the air around him was shimmering with heat and lust. He wanted to collapse on the woman beside him, drag her under the table. The tablecloth could be their bedroom walls. Fuck it, he’d pay rent for that.
He made a last-second attempt at saving his sanity in front of people he respected.
“Wanna dance, Shell?”
His sweet older friend blushed, took a healthy slug of champagne and daintily wiped her mouth off. “Sure!”
Seb was a big guy, but he’d always been light on his feet. And so, apparently, was Shelly. The two of them danced their way from one side of the dance floor to the other. He two-stepped and boogied with her through an upbeat song and then twirled and guided her through a slow song. He had Shelly’s arm looped through his as they strolled back toward their table. He thought maybe he’d take Grace for a spin and then, hopefully, spend the rest of his night with Via in his arms.
“Hold it right there!” Grace shouted as they walked up to the table. She had a chunky, retro Polaroid camera in one hand that apparently the guests were allowed to use. Seb and Shelly dutifully posed, and then Shelly rushed forward for the photo, shaking it.
“Now, you two,” Grace demanded, hauling Via up from her chair and launching her toward Seb.
Apparently, Grace had quite the arm because Via stumbled forward on her spiky heels, and Seb just had time to catch her. One of his hands gripped her elbow, and the other splayed across her waist. He pinned her against him to steady her.
“Smile!” Grace called and Seb was dimly aware of a camera flash. He was sharply aware of the warm woman simultaneously slipping and settling against him. Via looked up at him, straightening, and Seb had the strangest feeling that his life had just become an abstract painting. The light and lines blurred and pixelated around him; everything was fuzzy and bright at the same time. The world was made of strokes of concentrated color. Everything was a gift tonight. The music, the scent of flowers, the sheer, contagious joy of the brides. All the energy of it funneled and tornadoed around Seb and Via.
And then Grace shoved the Polaroid into Seb’s hand.
“It’s a beaut,” she crowed.
“Oh,” Via whispered, looking down at the picture that was just developing.
Seb stared at it as well, horror trickling through him like a drop of poison in an IV. He felt like the clothes on his back were slowly freezing, starting at his shoes and working all the way up to the collar of his shirt. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at. He felt sick. And so fucking angry at himself.
Realizing that his hand was still on Via’s hip, he slid away from her, taking the picture with him. He shoved it into the pocket of his slacks. He didn’t want her to look at it anymore.
“Seb?” she asked.
Both she and Grace were looking at him like he’d just broken out in hives. Maybe he had. He felt hot and scratchy. Either his clothes were shrinking, or he’d just made a complete and utter fool out of himself. Via was looking at him, confused as hell, and she was so gorgeous there in her green dress that he was almost tugged back into their cloud of yum. But the picture pulsed in his pocket, and he was reminded of reality.
A familiar buzzing ring had Seb jolting. He pulled his phone from his pocket. “Sorry, that’s Matty calling from Tyler’s phone.”
He flashed the phone toward the women and strode out of the hall. He took one back hallway and then another, striding up a set of back stairs that led toward the Botanical Garden gift shop. Everything was dark and quiet. Huge windows lined the hall, and the gardens were stark and spooky outside. There were no lights on in the hall, so Sebastian could just barely see his reflection in the glass.
Seb fell into a crouch and grabbed the back of his head for a second. He sighed and answered the phone. “Hey, buddy.”
“Hey, it’s Ty.”
“Everything all right?”
“Yeah, Matty’s just finishing up in the bath, and I wanted to see how the wedding was going before he got on the phone to say good night.”
“Great. It’s great.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line that let Seb know he wasn’t fooling anyone. “Then why do you sound like you’re about to go play in traffic? Did something happen with Via? I thought tonight was gonna be the night.”
Seb considered not answering. The Polaroid pulsed in his pocket again, and he pulled it out. “Things were good at the beginning. Like pretty clear that something was gonna happen, you know? We were all flirty and shit.” Seb sighed.
“Yeah? And then what?”
“And then my colleague took a fucking Polaroid picture of us.”
“Pervy.”
“Shut up,” Seb said, laughing despite himself. “They leave Polaroid cameras around for the guests so you can add your picture to the guestbook, I guess.”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
Seb looked at the picture in his hand. The sight of it made his stomach curl. He could see now that he’d been totally swept away since that happy hour last week. He’d been surfing a wave of adrenaline and desire for her. The only things that had existed were the ideas of more and closer. Reality had fallen by the wayside. But now he had evidential proof of reality in the form of a Polaroid and it was bitter as hell.
“I look old enough to be her father in this picture.” The truth fell out of him like a dead fish onto a dock. “I’ve never really seen us together before, side by side like that. But she looks all young and fresh. She’s laughing and leaning on me. And I look like Hugh fucking Hefner.”
For months, he’d been slowly circling around the reason the age difference bothered him so much. And here was the answer, in convenient photograph form. He looked at this picture and he saw his own age. How much further down the walk of life he was than she. He knew exactly how it felt to bury a spouse. He’d lived through that excruciating hell. How could he ever allow himself to dump that possibility on someone else? He knew he was majorly getting ahead of himself, but if things worked out between them, he was pretty much guaranteeing that she’d be the one to put him in the ground someday. How could he ever do that to her? Especially knowing what she’d been through with her parents. It was reprehensible. Inexcusable.
“Seb, I’m sure that’s not true. Your age difference isn’t that extreme, and you’re not that old.”
“Well, I look decrepit in this photo. Old as shit. Half my fucking head is gray hairs? How come you didn’t think to mention that to me? Hey, Sebastian, just so you know, you look like it’s time to get your AARP card.”
“Seb, you’re being ridiculous. Maybe it’s just a bad photo. Because you don’t look that old in real life, and once again, forty-two is NOT OLD.”
“What was I thinking, Ty? I knew it from the beginning. I’m way too old for her. But then she broke up with her boyfriend, and I just started thinking what if? You know? And I got carried away. But the truth remains. There’s no way this is what she really wants. A boyfriend a decade and a half older than she is.”
“You don’t know what the hell she wants!” Ty yelled. “You’re at a wedding with a beautiful woman who obviously has the feels for you, and you’re spiraling out like a little bitch!”
“Ouch.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Seb, you’ve been putting up obstacles for women for the last few years because you were still healing. And that’s fine. But now you’re putting up an obstacle for this woman, and it’s gonna hurt you more. I can’t take more Hurt Seb, okay? I reached the lifetime allotment. It kills me to see you sad, man.”
“Tyler.”
“But this time, happiness is an option, Sebastian. It’s an option, and you’re shitting on it. Why? Because you’ve done what everyone in this fucking world does and aged? Fuck you, man. Buy some hair dye if you have to, but don’t fuck this up. Don’t you dare trip at the finish line, you puss.”
“Wow.”
“The truth hurts.”
“Apparently. Jesus, Ty.” Seb scraped a hand over his face. His old-ass face. “Seems like you’ve been keeping that little speech on tap.”
“You can thank me later after you wet your whistle.”
“You’re disgusting. I can’t believe I let you babysit my kid.”
“Speaking of, you wanna talk to your dad?” He said the last part away from the phone.
Seb heard scrabbling as the cell was passed over, and he let his racing mind rest for just a second. The picture burned him. It was horrifying and embarrassing. He looked like a creepy uncle lusting over a high schooler. But maybe Ty was right. Maybe he was focusing too much on all the things that could go wrong instead of the things that could go right.
“Daddy?”
Seb smiled. Matty was breathing too hard into the phone as usual. “Hey, buddy.”
“Guess what Uncle Tyler let me watch on TV tonight?”
“What?” Seb leaned on the wall behind him, taking some of the pressure off his knees from the crouch he was still in. And he let his kid’s voice siphon some worry right off of him.
VIA STOOD AT the end of the hallway. Sebastian was twenty feet away talking into his cell and crouching. From the soft look on his face, he was talking to Matty.
Something had been wrong when he’d strode out of the main hall, and Via had no idea what it was. He’d been spooked, like a bear scenting a forest fire on the air. She’d lingered for a few minutes before she’d followed him.
She figured she could hang back and say nothing and potentially watch this thing with him shrivel up and smoke away, or she could follow him and figure out what the hell was going on.
Via stood at the end of the hallway to give him a little privacy. She’d come up here intending to talk. But talking was the very last thing on her mind as she watched him smile into his phone, saying something soft and reassuring to his son.
An image of him dancing with Shelly traced through her mind. Shelly had been so pleased, so happy to be dancing. Seb had towered over her, confident and sure in his dance moves. And now he was talking to his son on the phone. Wishing him good night.
“I love you, too, little man. I’ll see you when you wake up, okay? Good night.”
Seb ended the call and needled the corner of his phone into his eyebrow for a second before he shoved it in the pocket of his suit pants. He rose up slowly and sighed, still leaning against the wall.
He had no idea that Via was down the hallway, burning for him. Her heart galloped in her chest as she realized what she was about to do.
Her heels clicked on the tile floor as she stepped forward.
Seb’s head flicked over and he looked surprised to see her. “Via,” he started.
But then he apparently took in the expression on her face, because he didn’t say another word as she rapidly closed the distance between them.
He looked torn. She couldn’t tell if she was about to make a humongous fool out of herself. But maybe that made it all that much better. Because who cared about being a fool? Fear of being foolish had kept her in a mediocre relationship with a man-child for two years. Fear of being foolish had kept her lonely for far longer than that. She didn’t care if he rejected her or rebuffed her. She didn’t care that when she was just five steps away his hands came up between them. She didn’t care that she couldn’t tell if he was going to grab her close or push her away.
There was just one pulsing word in Via’s head as she closed the distance between them, laced her fingers in his short hair and yanked his head down: this.
This was what she wanted.
The quick inhale that said he was holding his breath, too. The almost vulgar heat of his calloused hands as he—thank Christ—firmly slid them over her bare back. The demolition of space between them as she clamped herself to him. This. This. This.
She might have marched down the hallway to grab him, but he was the one who started the kiss. He dropped his head and pressed his mouth to hers. His lips were a firm, experienced slide, and there was no describing a flavor like that. Man and chocolate cake and dark hallway where the autumn gardens leaned in on every side. Everything was bathed in deep blue light, and Via knew they’d somehow found their way to the bottom of the ocean.
One of Seb’s hands lightninged up her back and tangled in her hair; he tipped her head back, and she realized again just how large he was. He surrounded her on almost every side. The new angle had her mouth slipping open, and Seb made a noise, tore his face to one side to breathe and came back to her. He dropped a gruff kiss to her bottom lip, pulled back and did it again. When he slouched, lifted her and landed his lips on hers, his tongue swept into her mouth.
Basically, Via attempted to climb the mountain of his body. She wanted the mountaintop. She wanted the crisp, terrifying summit. She thanked God that her dress had a slit up the side because it allowed her to hitch one of her flexible legs over his hip.
She was dizzy and could only think about tracing her tongue along his, which was why she was startled when her back was firmly pressed into a brick wall.
Her eyes fluttered open and she realized that he was caging her in, pressing her back and... This. Yes, one of his hands had reached back and touched at the strap of her high heel that was currently pressed into his ass. His hand traced up her calf and to her thigh then doubled back to the soft skin at the back of her knee.
Via gasped into his mouth as his fingers pressed into the hollow of her knee. He made a sound in response, and his hand slid higher up her thigh.
Then, suddenly, Seb was unhanding her and taking four quick steps away from her. Via sagged back against the wall.
“Fuck,” he muttered, pacing past her once, twice.
And then he was back. One hand in her hair and the other reaching down to toss her leg over his hip again. She was breathing his air, swallowing his low, frustrated noises.
She stroked her tongue against his and straight-up moaned when his hand pushed a few inches farther and stroked over the smooth, naked curve of her ass. His hand kept going until he hit her hip and apparently found what he was looking for. The delicate line of her G-string. He was saying something directly into her mouth, but either it wasn’t English or Via’s brain had better things to do. His fingers spread across her hip, tangling in her underwear.
Her fingers ached and she realized it was because she was white-knuckling the fabric of his coat.
This.
His mouth was hot and endless and everything she’d never known existed. It struck her like a slap in the face; she’d been surviving on Easy Mac when all along there’d been filet mignon. She sucked at his bottom lip, bruised it with her tongue. She could feel the rough scrape of his stubble just at the border of his lips, and it enflamed her. It was like he was scraping her clean with his roughness.
She clamped teeth down, and he made the noise a lion makes in the night when he spots prey. That hand of his was farther up her dress, and he pinned her to the wall with his hips.
Via felt the shocking hardness of him press into her stomach, and she wiggled against it.
“Gah, fuck, goddammit,” he growled against her lips. His hand slid out of her dress and clasped her over top of the heated silk. He pressed his forehead into hers. “We gotta slow down, baby.”
“I—” She stopped trying to speak and just forcibly dragged him back into the kiss. Even with the heels, she was still up on the tiptoes of the one foot she had on the ground, trembling and reaching for that motherfucking mountaintop. He cradled the back of her head, nipped her lips and dropped his mouth to her ear.
“We gotta slow down,” he repeated, his voice like chocolate gravel, a glass of red wine drip-drip-dropped from one lover’s mouth to another.
“Why?” was the only word that made its way to the surface of Via’s electrified, squirming ocean.
“Because you’re about to get yourself fucked in a coat closet, and that is not how I pictured this going.”
No one had ever said something like that to her before. She tightened and clung to him, her body stiff while her insides melted into the hottest honey. She was very aware of the fact that she’d soaked through her underwear.
“You’ve pictured this?” she asked with basically the very last bit of air in her lungs.
He laughed, kissing her lips, one eye, the skin just under her ear. “Jesus, yes. God. Haven’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispered, and their eyes clashed for the first time since she’d marched up to him. His eyes were storm gray in the dark hallway. There must have been a window open somewhere because she could smell the fresh earth of the gardens, the sharp, dying tang of autumn leaves. And Sebastian. She could smell Sebastian.
“We have to slow down,” he asserted, for the third time. But Via couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t unhanded her. His hands were on the outside of her dress now, sure, but he still had one hand on her ass as he pressed her into a brick wall.
She tested him, attempting to lower her leg, but he held her still, kept her wrapped around him.
“We don’t have to,” she said in a low voice, making sure to keep her eyes on him. “Slow down, I mean. We don’t have to. I won’t break.”
He sighed, equal parts pained and joyful. Leaning down, he planted one openmouthed kiss on her neck. “You’re right, we don’t have to. But we’re going to.”
“Why?” she asked again, dizzy with heat for him, like she’d been dozing in a hot car. This time the word was much more desperate than the first time she’d asked it.
Slowly, he lowered her leg from around his waist and straightened her dress. He bent toward her, about to kiss her again, but instead he raked his hand over his face. The sound of stubble against his rough hand was loud in the quiet hallway. He pulled back and paced away.
Seb pulled something from his pocket and handed it to her. “What do you see when you look at that?”
Via felt shocked and soft, as she had the first time she’d looked at the Polaroid. She glanced up at him and saw that he was legitimately waiting for her to answer the question. She cleared her throat and was pretty surprised when her voice didn’t shake. “I see you, looking so handsome I can barely breathe. And you’re holding me. And I see me.” Unbidden, her eyes tightened with tears. She blinked them immediately back. “I look so happy that it makes me sad.”
“Makes you sad?”
She didn’t look up at him, instead kept her gaze on the Polaroid. “Because I haven’t seen myself look this happy in a really long time. And more than happy. I look like I belong. Look at that! I look like I got invited to this party and I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” She held the photo far away and then close again. “I haven’t looked this happy since I was a child.”
Since before my parents died.
The words were unspoken as she handed the precious Polaroid back to him. He studied her face for a second and then looked back at the picture. “That’s really what you see?”
“Yes.” She cocked her head to one side, wondering what he was trying to get at.
He shucked the Polaroid against the fingers of the opposite hand. “Via, I’m forty-two years old.”
“Okay.” What was he getting at?
“That doesn’t give you any sort of reaction?” His eyes were shadowed and inscrutable across the hallway.
She wanted to cross over to him. But she had the feeling that a lot hung in the balance of her answer. She did the only thing she could. She told the truth. “It gives me a little thrill, I suppose. The same way any new information about you does. But I’d figured that’s about how old you were.” She took a tentative step forward. “I love learning new things about you, Seb. I’m hungry for it all. I wanna know everything.”
He made a sound, almost like she’d punched him. Seb crouched down, onto the balls of his feet and gripped his silver-brown hair with both hands for a moment. She took another step toward him. When he rose up again, his eyes were blazing. He was bright with so many emotions she couldn’t have begun to separate one from the other.
“All right,” he said, almost to himself. “All right.”
He stepped toward her and met her in the middle of the hallway. He reached for her face, took her in his hands, swallowed her up in that warm grip.
“All right,” he said one more time and let his hands fall to her shoulders. “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna stick to the original plan. We’re gonna go downstairs and drink a little and dance a little and celebrate Sadie and Rae.”
She squinted up at him, her blood humming and her heart turning cartwheels in her chest. “Okay...but I gotta say, I’m kind of partial to the coat closet plan.”
He laughed and groaned and dragged her to his chest all at once. “Yeah. Me, too. But we’re going slow, remember?”
Via sighed and traced her hands up the lapel of his coat. When she got to his neck, she tucked her fingertips into the collar of his shirt, making him squirm. “At the risk of sounding repetitive here, why the hell are we going slow?”
He quirked a little indulgent smile at her. “Let me think of a way to explain it.” His eyes got distant as he thought, and his hands traced over her back. Via briefly let herself dream of a world where Sebastian Dorner absently touched her with freedom. It made her shiver. He brought those green-gray lasers back to her face. “You like dark chocolate?”
“Of course.”
He smiled at her almost affronted tone.
“Well, you know, a Hershey’s Kiss you can just unwrap and eat any old time, right? Circumstances don’t matter, it’s always—” he shrugged “—pretty good. But dark chocolate? A really nice slice of dark chocolate?” He brushed the waves of hair back from her neck and landed another one of those endless, searching kisses on her throat. “Well, that’s not the way you eat the dark chocolate you’ve been saving.”
He took a second and exhaled against her. “You ever tried to eat dark chocolate when it’s cold? It’s still delicious, better than any other chocolate by far. But if you let it warm up, in your mouth, it melts. And there are fifty—a hundred—times the flavors there. You can taste things you never knew existed.”
She was pretty sure she’d never breathe again, but whatever, it had been a good life. “So that’s what we’re gonna do?” she asked, sounding like she’d just run a mile.
“Yeah.” He kissed her neck again. “I’m gonna warm you up, Via. Until I can lick you off my fingers.”
“Fuh-uck.” She dropped her forehead to his chest and was utterly delighted when he burst out laughing. She lifted her face to his. “I guess I’m not gonna argue with that.”
He slid his hands to hers, their palms meeting for the first time. She gave a deep sigh. She tugged herself away from him and yanked his hand. He loomed over her, barely budging.
“Well, let’s go do the Electric Slide,” she said, making him laugh and follow after her.
They held hands until they made it down the stairs and then she turned to him.
“You don’t have to explain, baby,” he said, reading her mind and making her pulse skitter at the endearment. There was just really something about that word in his deep voice that made her feel like she was lifting off from Earth. He took her fingers and rubbed them over the stubble on his face. “You’re not quite ready for holding hands in front of everybody.”
He kissed her fingers and let them drop.
She was both wildly disappointed and intensely relieved. Tonight, they didn’t have to make public declarations. They could just dance the night away, laughing and shouting with their friends. And that’s exactly what they did.