K Caverly - Shards of Us

And then, all of a sudden, he pulls back. I gasp for breath, but he doesn't even seem fazed. His eyes stay fixed on mine, watching me intently, and then he's pressed against me again.

His kiss starts at my chin, then move slowly down my neck, my collarbone, until he stops at my breast. My body tingles and aches all at once as he kisses teasingly around my breast--slowly, softly. His lips move in a circle, moving closer and closer, nipping at my breast until he's fully kissing it. Then, he opens his mouth, and tongues my nipple so gently I have to suppress a moan.

"Sebastian," I gasp out, but he already knows what to do. His lips move from breast to my stomach, his hands clutching my side. He trails his kisses down the center of my stomach, and all I want is for him to move lower, lower, lower. I have to force myself to continue breathing as his lips reach my belly button, then the end of my stomach, and then he kisses slower and slower, teasing me, as he reaches my inner thigh. My head sinks back a little, already starting to roll back into my bed, and I wait for it to happen, for him to touch me there, but nothing comes.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Nothing. happens.

He's stopped kissing me now. His lips and tongue stay frozen in place, locked on my inner thigh, and he looks like he's in the middle of intense inner conflict.

"Make me come, Sebastian," I gasp. My skin is hot and tingling, and I can't take the ache anymore. I just need him to be inside of me, that's all I know. I need him to make it all better.

He doesn't say anything. Doesn't move. For a long while, his lips stay there, tickling at my soft skin, waiting for something I can't place. I try to keep breathing, focusing on anything but how close he is to finishing this whole thing and how much I want him to.

But then he pulls back, and my whole world comes crashing down.

"No," he says, more to himself than to me. He looks weird, really weird. Almost unsettled. And if Sebastian is anything, it's most certainly not easily unsettled.

"I can't have you there," he says at least, glancing up at me. His eyes look almost pleading. "Not yet."

My hand trembles. I need him to touch me. "Please, Sebastian. Give it to me."

He smiles distantly. "I wish I could. But I can't. Rule #1, my beautiful, my beautiful angel," he coos. "Remember?"

He stands up, but I just keep shaking my head. This can't be happening. Can't. be. happening. "Why not?" I say. "Because you don't love me?"

That takes him aback. He frowns at first, and then the rage starts spreading across his face. "No," he says harshly, his eyes flaring. "Never. I want you, angel. I want you everywhere. I want you so fucking much I can't even understand. But I can't have you. I can't, trust me."

My body starts shaking, and I can't think to do anything but look away. "Then why not?" I whisper, eyes searching the white walls as if they'll give me a solution to all of this.

He doesn't move for a long time. Just watches me, carefully, like he's testing to see if a frozen lake will hold his weight. "I just can't," he says after a while.

And then I don't even know what I'm doing, but the next thing I know I'm throwing on clothes and running to the door. My heart hammers in the chest. I have to leave. I have to leave. I have to leave.

I reach the knob in a few seconds, turn it, and am about to slip out of the room when Sebastian grabs my arm and pulls me back. He spins me around to face him, his eyes a fiery blue, passionate in a way nothing else is.

"Rule number three," Sebastian growls, wrapping his warm and hard arms around me as he shuts the door, then brings me back inside. He doesn't sound angry, just disappointed. "No leaving the hotel room until morning. Never."

"But--" I gasp, feeling hot tears form in my eyes.

"But no," is all he says as he turns back to bed.

I race into the bathroom as the sobs rack through me. 

"Did I upset you, angel?" Sebastian asks when I awake. My head rests on his well-muscled body, the kind of muscle you only get from years of hard labor. His body is like a furnace, and I realize I slept all night with my head on his stomach.

Sebastian is older than me. Two, three years, maybe. I don't know. And I'm not sure I care either.

He strokes my hair with his delicate fingers, kissing my head, and I close my eyes, taking him in. He smells the way men do: of cologne and alcohol, and it's nice on him. Fresh.

"What?" I ask, opening and closing my eyes as I fully awake.

His lips meet my forehead again. Slow and gentle, like he's kissing glass about to shatter. "Did last night upset you?" he repeats. His words are slow and quiet, like honey.

"Oh," I say. I'd already forgotten about last night. But am I upset? I don't even know. Sebastian has this way of making everything else go away, making everything better purely by touching me. It's dangerous, really, but I guess what we have is dangerous. That's the point. Our relationship should be toxic, but it's just… not. It's amazing. Beautiful. Nonsensical.

Perfect.

"I hope you know that I would never want to upset you, angel. Never," he whispers into my ear. "You don't know anything about me, sure, but that doesn't mean I'm here to hurt you. I'm not. Hurting you hurts me, don't you see? I can't do certain things for reasons I can't really say, but that doesn't mean… that this is wrong. What we have here is not a bad thing." His eyes are intense, passionate, as he drags his lips across my forehead, curing the ache in my body. "Nothing is bad when it comes to you."

Sebastian's voice is so raw and strong it takes me off guard. I sit up and lock eyes with him, see the fire in pupils. He cares about me, I realize then. Really cares about me. And no matter how fucked up our little setup is, I guess maybe, in a strange way, I care about him too.

The heater hums below us, creaking every once in a while as hot air is released. The sheets and covers are thrown off the bed, and it's just me and Sebastian lying next to each other, wearing nothing at all.

"Do you love me?" I say after a minute. The words come out of my mouth before I have time to stop them.

He seems a little surprised at the question, or at least as surprised as someone like Sebastian can be. "Why do you want to know?" he says. I don't meet his gaze, but I can tell he's looking down at me, still kissing my forehead slowly and softly.

"Just answer the question, Sebastian." Tears sting at my eyes once the realization strikes again: that there is no one left in this world that stills loves me. That I have no one, not even family, not even friends. I just have Sebastian. And as stupid as it sounds, I just… I want him to love me. I want something real in my life. Whether I know anything about him or not, I need someone who will care about me, who does care about me.

Finally, Sebastian sighs. "I've been through a lot. I'm not sure I know what love is anymore. I've done some things in my life. Bad things. The kind of things that change people, hurt people, and love was never there to rescue when I needed it most. So I don't really know how to love anymore, I guess. I just know how to survive."

There's a long pause. "But you care about me," I say slowly, relaxing at the feel of his body beneath mine. "Don't you?"

"Angel," he whispers, his voice as soft as the faint wind outside. He kisses the top of my head, then my nose, and then his lips find their way to mine. I breathe in slowly as he kisses me, as he expertly dances his tongue along my mouth. "I care about you more than anything else in the world," he whispers in between his kisses. "You are all I have left. All I need. I'm not sure if I can ever love again, but we don't need love, do we? We care so much about each other, are connected so deeply… isn't that what matters? Us?"

His lips are hot on mine, burning into me, and I let him kiss me, let his taste and his skin become one with mine. Sebastian feels good, so good, and I know from the bottom of my heart, whether or not it's love I feel for him, that I can't ever let him go.

That I can't ever lose the one person I have left.

"Yes," I whisper after a while. My voice is rigid, not as soft and smooth as Sebastian, but I don't even care as I kiss him back harder, faster. "We are all that matters," I say in between breaths.

A satisfied smile spreads across his lips, and he wraps his arms around me, drawing me into his chest. "Come here, angel," he whispers into my ear. "Let me make you better."

And so we stay there for the longest time, kissing slowly, then fiercely, and holding each other, just holding each other, until the rest of the world fades away.

"Maybe he's a virgin," Ash calls after me the next day.

"Who?" I say. She lies on the leather couch in her tiny-as-mine apartment, eating potato chips and watching some pointless reality show while I grab some orange juice from the fridge.

She rolls her eyes. "Sebastian. Your fuck buddy who doesn't fuck."

I frown at her. Technically, Ash is my one friend, although we aren't really friends. I don't especially connect with her, and she doesn't connect with me, either. We work the same shift at Starbucks, and we just hang out because we both know I have nowhere else to be. "What makes you think that?" I follow her into her living room and collapse beside her on the couch.