After we return to the tower, we settle into a synchronous routine that allows us to sharpen our avoidance skills. For the first couple of days, I’m too angry to clear the air, so I throw myself into work, using Landon and Elise’s upcoming wedding as an excuse to hide in my studio late into the evenings.
On our first night back, when I return to the House of Leo, having already eaten dinner while pouring over a new batch of designs, Sebastian is nowhere in sight. He left me a note directing me to my room. The fact that it’s across from his quarters doesn’t escape me. I’ve never seen the inside of his bedroom, but he left the door ajar, and on the end of the bed, I spy the clothes he wore home from the cottage.
The following morning, we exchange a curt and polite greeting over breakfast. Five minutes later, he grabs a croissant and makes his escape, mumbling something about a full schedule of clients. As he makes his way out the door, his signature ripped jeans send my fingers into a curl from wanting to touch him.
That’s when I realize my anger is subsiding, no matter how much I try to hold on to the bitter emotion. Now it’s pride stopping me from closing this horrible chasm. By the time the fifth night of this impasse comes to a head, and the painful silence over dinner shreds my defenses, his hurt-filled eyes flaying me alive, neither anger nor pride have any place inside my heart.
Not when it comes to him.
It’s almost midnight when I leave my quarters and find him barefoot, shirt removed and gripping a paintbrush in the living room. It’s the only space in the House of Leo where he seems to fit. His art covers the walls, and though there’s ample seating for entertaining guests, the great room resembles an art studio more than a main living space—almost as if he moved in and setup shop in this room while ignoring the rest.
Folding my arms, I watch him work for several moments before he senses me loitering on the threshold.
“You don’t have to hide in the shadows.” He acknowledges my presence without turning around, leaving me to wonder how he knew I was standing there.
Taking that first step toward him is like mounting a horse for the first time, or learning to drive. It’s scary and exhilarating all at once. I wander close enough to see what magic he’s stroking to life on his canvas, and my breath stalls.
The girl on his easel is me, her flushed face taking up most of the canvas, brown eyes warm with a glint of a smile even as they impart a lustful vibe. Her blond hair is mussed, the strands led astray by a man’s fingers holding her face in the cradle of his hands.
That girl isn’t just me—it’s me on the beach.
Me and him.
I’d give anything to go back to that moment, to how perfect things were between us for that single day. As he studies the painting, no doubt looking for imperfections, I eye him. One of us has to make the first move, but I’m not sure how to do it.
Things spiraled out of control so fast on that highway.
“Should I initial it, or should I just put Sexy As Sin on there?” The half grin he gives me weakens my knees.
It’s an olive branch, and I can’t help but smile back as my soul fills with hope. “Just your initials. That nickname isn’t for the public. It’s mine alone.”
He adds his initials with a scrawl of his brush before washing the tool in soapy water. He’s covered in paint, from a splotch of canary yellow on his cheek to the stains on his fingers. Waving toward his latest masterpiece, he asks, “You like it?”
“I love it.”
He hesitates for a moment. “I want to show you something.” His long stride carries him to a large painting in front of the wall of windows facing the sea. Whatever’s hiding underneath that black sheet is humongous, and it’s in the same spot it was two months ago when Landon brought me to the lion’s lair for the first time.
Sebastian shoots me an uncertain look as he fingers the edge of the sheet. “You’ll be the first to see this.” He tugs the covering off and reveals a wispy painting of my favorite place on the cliffs. A blonde stands on the edge, her flaxen hair caught in the wind as a white dress whirls around her ankles.
“It’s breathtaking.” I halt at his side, enraptured by the painting and the talent flowing through his blood.
“You’re easy to paint, Novalee. I could watch you all day.”
I think about all the times I escaped to that spot on the edge of the sea, needing to find a slice of solitude in a tower of demanding men. Knowing he was watching me, studying my private moments from the ninth floor, paintbrush in hand, should upset me. It would disturb me on a deep level if it were anyone else.
But Sebastian makes stalking a form of flattery. A work of art.
“Does it bother you that I was spying on you?”
I shake my head. “You weren’t doing it for nefarious reasons. This is who you are.” I gesture at the painting. “You find beauty in everything you see. I’m honored you found me to be a worthy subject.”
We settle into a long stretch of silence on the verge of disquiet. Unable to take it a moment longer, I gather my courage and do what I came here to do. “We should talk about what happened the other day.”
Our eyes meet, and something shifts between us, clicking into place.
“I’m sorry,” we say at the same time.
He reaches a hand out, knuckles brushing my cheekbone. “You already apologized. Now it’s my turn.” Another caress, and I turn to liquid from his touch. “You were right to smack the shit out of me. I shouldn’t have said the things I did. I have a mean temper, and when someone pokes it, I strike without considering the fallout.”
“I know you have a temper.”
“And I know you have feelings for Castle. It’s wrong for me to hold them against you, all things considered.”
I gulp, taking the last step into the territory of courage. “But I’m in love with you.” My declaration hangs in the air. His reaction is subtle, but the quick rise and fall of his shoulders tells me it affected him.
“You don’t know how bad I want to believe that.”
“Then I guess I’ll have to prove it to you.” Standing on tiptoe, I grab his face and bring my mouth to his. The instant our lips touch, the coil tightens, sexual tension mounting in our bones. He picks me up, his hands steady on my ass.
“Will you come to bed with me?” The question holds a hint of a plea against my lips.
“You don’t need my permission, Sebastian.”
“Maybe so, but I want it.” His stare holds me captive, guard crashing at his feet.
“Take me to bed.”
He carries me toward his quarters, switching the light off as we go. His bedroom welcomes us with sense-heightening darkness, and we fumble our way out of our clothes, mouths merging as he guides me to the place where he sleeps. His hands and tongue explore me as if I’m a sensual canvas, like a work of art he intends to worship for the rest of his life. When he enters me for the second time, his lubed cock pushing past the ring of resistance, I’m aroused and prepared. He takes me like he did at the cottage, face to face with a pillow under my hips, inching his way into my ass with careful thrusts.
“I think you’re in trouble.” His head hovers above me, cast in silhouette.
“Why is that?” I ask.
“I could get used to being inside of you.”
“We’re both in trouble then. I could get used to it too.”
Seating himself fully, he groans as he cradles my face. “Explosive chemistry, princess. We have it.”
We also have explosive tempers, but I shove the admission to the back of my mind to deal with later. We have plenty of time to talk about the things we’ve put off.
Because after barely speaking to him for five days, let alone touching him, I just want to be in the moment with him, climbing higher from the full sensation of him moving inside me. He makes sure I reach the summit first, then he catapults me there again before finding his own climax.
Afterward, a sense of calm steals over his bedroom as we lie in the sheets, skin slick with sweat and flushed from release. He wouldn’t be him if he weren’t playing with my hair.
“I promised you the heavy shit, didn’t I?” He twirls a tiny braid around a finger.
“I recall you saying something along those lines.”
“I hate to wreck this, but I’d rather get it over with than have it bite us in the ass later.” He sighs, his breath hitting my forehead. “No more repeats of the last five days, okay?”
“It was your fault.”
“Novalee.” His voice dips with warning.
“I was teasing.” I burrow further into his arms. “I don’t enjoy fighting with you.”
“I don’t like it either, princess.” He pauses a beat. “I see a shitload of arguments in our future, but let’s not let five fucking days go by without fixing it.”
“Agreed.”
“Good, because I want this to work, but it won’t be easy.” He swallows hard. “The Brotherhood will destroy us if we let it.”
“You mean them?” He talks about the Brotherhood as if it’s an entity and not a group of men holding on to archaic ideologies.
“No, it. The Brotherhood is a way of life, Novalee. It’s an institution forged in a centuries-old curse.”
“So you believe in the curse?”
“There was a time when I didn’t, but life taught me otherwise.”
“Will you tell me what happened?” I struggle to keep my voice steady.
He’s quiet for several moments, and then his soft-spoken “yeah” drifts in the darkness. I wait him out, clinging to a sense of patience I don’t have, because I’ve waited to uncover the mystery of Sebastian Stone for months.
“My mother was the last queen.”
I blink. “I didn’t know that.”
He smoothes a palm down the back of my head. “She cared about my father, but during her first year at the tower, she fell hard for the chancellor.”
Another bout of silence descends, hovering in the air like a stifling blanket. He wasn’t kidding about the shit being heavy.
“And your father loved her,” I conclude, the disquiet cutting through me like a burning blade.
“I like to think he loved her, but my father isn’t big on showing weakness. To him, love is the biggest weakness of all.” He returns to his absent-minded molestation of my hair. “I blame him for my sister’s death.”
The air stalls in my lungs. “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
Or that she’d died.
My verbal prod for him to continue tiptoes between us, fearful of stumbling on a landmine.
“She did everything she could to get the bastard’s attention, but he only saw me—the child with a penis who would carry on the legacy for the House of Leo.”
My lashes flutter, staving off the burn of tears, because I know how painful it is to lose someone you love. “What happened to her?”
“She committed suicide when I was fifteen.”
“I’m so sorry, Sebastian.”
“I’m the one who found her.” He rolls to his back, and I try not to let his need for space bother me. “After she died…” He draws in a shaky breath before letting it out in a noisy exhale. “I told my father I wouldn’t transition into the Brotherhood. He had me beaten for even thinking such a thing and threatened to have me locked in my quarters.”
His words thunder in my ears, every muscle in my body tense with stunned disbelief. “What did you do?”
“I told him what he wanted to hear, then I ran the first chance I got.” A scornful laugh falls from his lips. “I wasn’t gone three days when the news of my mother’s death hit the media. It was a freak car accident, but…” His voice cracks, and it takes him a few seconds to complete the tragic thought. “I’m the reason she’s dead.”
I reach for his hand. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is. No one escapes this place, Novalee. If they try, tragedy strikes. I didn’t believe it until I tried shirking my duty. My mother died for it.”
The mention of the word duty makes me think of the one I didn’t choose either—a duty to twelve men. As the thought ferments in my soul, turning my stomach to acid, the reality of what we’ll endure as a couple haunts the space between us.
“You couldn’t have known. You were just a kid.”
“I knew, but I was too goddamn arrogant, even back then.” He turns to face me again, his hand squeezing mine. “I met you for the first time a few weeks later. You were so proper and innocent and fucking perfect. I was drawn to you even as I hated your guts for what you represented.”
His attitude all those years ago—as I kneeled while my uncle agreed to auction me off to the Brotherhood in the next room—clicks into place. For the first time, I understand Sebastian’s behavior, back then and more recently. It doesn’t matter if it was unwarranted and unforgivable because it came from a place of tragedy and pain.
If I relate to nothing else, I can relate to that.
“Everything you went through…is that why you ended up with Lilith?”
He tenses beside me. “She and my sister were close. After Caroline died, we started spending time together.”
“She’s a lot older than you,” I say without blurting out how Lilith took advantage of him. If I thought I hated her before, it’s nothing compared to the fury simmering in my gut for my half-sister.
“If you’re implying I was the innocent one in our relationship, if you could even call it that, you should know that I pursued her. She resisted for over two years.”
“Just because you were of age didn’t make it right.” Jealousy runs thick in my vocal cords, infusing my words with venomous accusation. “Lilith knew what she was doing.”
“She wasn’t the only one. I’ve never been innocent, princess.” His hard-edged tone makes me defensive.
“Are we headed for another five-day standoff?” I ask.
“Hell no.” He reaches for me in the darkness, tucking me against his chest with possessive strength. “The only reason I’m telling you any of this is because I want you to know me, the good, the bad, the ugly. If I win the auction, I’ll be the luckiest asshole on this planet, Novalee. But it won’t be easy. There will always be thirteen people in this marriage.”
I bring his hand to my chest, covering the place where my heartbeat races in fear, awe, and uncontrollable love for this man. “Not in here where it counts. In here, there’s only you and me.”
“I know you believe that,” he says, splaying his fingers, palm warm on my skin.
“You need to believe it too.” I pause, wishing I could see more than the shadow of his face. “Your mother loved the chancellor and cared about your father. For me, it’s the other way around.”
“I think I needed to hear that.” He pauses on a sigh. “But will you still love me when I tell you about our wedding night?”
Another piece of the heavy shit he avoided sharing. I brush my thumb over his bottom lip. “The way I feel about you isn’t a choice, so you might as well spill it.”
“When I take your virginity, every member of the Brotherhood will be present.”
His admission paints a scene in my mind that threatens to send me into a dark hole, but I claw my way to the top and cling to the moment, to this bed, to the sexy and warm man who’s experienced his own share of trauma.
“As far as I’m concerned, that night in the cottage was our first time. You made it special. You made me feel special.” I draw him into a slow, open-mouthed kiss that makes talking for the next hour impossible.