Shards of Us Read online

  Finally, Sebastian takes off his clothes. He strips of his pants and tux before I can even blink. His undershirt is the next to go, and I find myself infatuated with the muscle rippling across his abs and chest, with the perfect arch of his body. Then, finally, he slips off his boxers. I gasp as soon as my eyes lock on his erection. It's not that I've never seen it before, but it never fails to turn me on. My belly feels hotter and hotter all of a sudden, like a deep and carnal tension waiting to be released.

  He presses up against me then, his naked body against mine, his erection against my legs, so raw and real and vulnerable it makes everything else wash away. The wind continues to howl and I know it's totally freezing outside but in here, in this little room, in this safe zone with Sebastian, it's a furnace. Everything feels on fire. Everything feels so intense it's like I will die if I can't have him.

  "Can I have you, angel?" he says fiercely, eyes burning into mine.

  My heart rate picks up speed. "I'm all yours," I whisper, my body aching for him to touch me. And then he kisses me. Hard and passionate and real. I kiss him back, my lips numb and on fire all at once. I kiss him with such ferocity it's like kissing him is breathing, and I need to keep his lips and his body on mine if I want to keep myself from crumbling. My body buzzes with energy and desire, and his lips are hot and heavy against mine. His tongue tickles at my lips at first, then slips slowly into my mouth and I try to close my eyes and let everything else but this kiss slip away, but I can't stop staring into Sebastian's deep eyes. They're full of need. Hunger. So much it makes me work to keep from him touching me more.

  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.

  Chapter Two

  "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.

  "For starters, the fact that he asks you to get totally naked but doesn't finish the job."

  "So?" I say. I don't understand. Then again, I don't really like anyone else talking about Sebastian--my Sebastian--especially not negatively like this.

  She sighs. "So, how do you know he is safe? He could be, like, luring you in, only to murder you and leave you on the side of the road in a few weeks, and then you'll be all over the news. People do that shit, you know," she says to me like she has any idea what she's talking about.

  I take a sip of my orange juice. "All right, fine. If you see me dead on the side of the road in a few weeks, you can consider yourself right."

  She smiles. "I'm being serious, you bitch."

  Cool air slips in through the windows, making me shiver. Ash's living room is small and cramped, holding no more than a single couch, a tiny TV, and a chair shoved in the corner of the room. "And so am I. But Sebastian wouldn't do that. He's not that kind of guy," I say, not doubting my words for a second. I trust Sebastian. I really do. Smart or not, I know he was telling the truth when he said he'd never hurt me.

  She sits up, watching me closely. "Why do you think that? Do you even know anything about him?"

  I look at my feet to hide the blush creeping into my cheeks. "No."

  "So how can you even trust him? All you know is his first name, if Sebastian is even his real name, right?" Her nasal voice is filled with concern.

  "And I know his parents are dead," I say quietly. "And so is everyone he cares about."

  "Ah yes, his alcoholic family story. Drinking themselves into the ground. Sounds kind of cliché, yes?" Ash shifts closer to me so that her side is touching mine, her eyes full of concern. "Look, Crystal, I know you trust him, but--"

  "But what?" I say, maybe too defensively. I know Sebastian isn't lying about having no one, like me. I don't know how, but I know. Sebastian is as broken as I am, pieces of what is left of the person he was. I don't know what happened to him exactly, and I don't care. I just care that he needs me, and I need him back, and the rest can go to hell.

  Ash pushes her long blonde hair out of her eyes. "But don't let yourself get too close," she says quietly. "Just in case."

  I sigh. "Thanks for the concern, but I trust him. I really do." I look away. "He isn't going to hurt me," I add in a voice that is so quiet it doesn't even feel like mine.

  "That's good. All I'm saying is to be careful, okay? I'm your friend, Crystal, whether you like it or not. I don't want to see you get hurt. Or worse..." She trails off.

  There's a long pause after that. We both just sit there, on the sofa, listening to the sound of the TV in front of us playing reality shows or whatever, but somehow it feels far-off. I can only think of Sebastian, his touch, the gruff tenderness in his voice as he calls me his angel. I think about what it would be like if we went all the way, if rule number one never existed and whatever is keeping him from fucking me could be gone, and he could be inside of me, really inside of me. It wouldn't be my first time having sex--I've had a lot of hookups in the last two years, but they've never succeeded in getting rid of the raw ache in the pit of my stomach. But Sebastian… Sebastian feels so right, that I can't even imagine him not making the ache go away, the everything but each other disappear.

  I'm infatuated with a man I don't even know, and whether I like it or not, he's all I really have left in this world.

  "Do you ever wonder about him? About who he really is?" Ash asks for a minute. Her voice is quiet, curious.

  I don't hesitate. "Yes," I say, meeting her gaze. "Always."

  "And what if you… what if you did know?" She narrows her eyes at me. "Would that make you feel better about this whole thing? I know it would make me feel better."

  I pause. Would it really help? I'm fine with not knowing, fine with our perfect setup, but sometimes I think one night a week is not enough. I need Sebastian more than that. I need the real him. And I need him everywhere, all the time. I want to know who he is, I really do. He's the first bright spot in my life since the murder, and maybe I do need to find out more about who he is. He means to me what dancing used to. He's an escape, something that makes my heart beat faster and my body and mind and heart feel connected, something beautiful and heart wrenching and elegant and inexplicable. Something that never fails to cure me. "Yes," I say. "It would help."

  A small smile flickers across her lips. "Good. Because I have an idea."

  I frown. "Yes?"

  The smile expands into a broad, toothy grin. "What if one night, when you leave the hotel in the morning… what if I follow him for you?"

  The blood in my head starts pounding. "What?" I say, almost angry.

  Her grin grows into a full-on beam. "Like the shit they do in movies. I'll follow him. See where he goes. Find out who he is. He doesn't know me, so he wouldn't even notice, or be able to connect me back to you."

  "This isn't a good idea," I say, shaking my head. My stomach is throbbing now. "No, no, no," I say again, more defiantly. "This isn't going to end well."

  "C'mon," Ash says. "What's the harm?"

  "He seems dangerous," I say. "And we don't know what he'd do if--"

  She cuts me off. "You said you
rself he wouldn't hurt you, right?"

  "Yes," I say slowly. My hand has started trembling. This is a bad idea. Bad. Bad bad bad. Every part of me knows it then, every inch of my mind, every bit of what's left of my sanity. I don't know who Sebastian is. I know he won't hurt me, but he could be dangerous to others. He could hurt Ash if he catches her. Or worse.

  But a small part of me, a really stupid, small part of me, is too curious. I want to know who this man is. I want to know the person behind the Sebastian who makes my heart flutter and my insides feel mine again. I want to know who the man who has brought me back into reality is, and I want to understand him, to be with him, to really be with him.

  "So he has no reason to hurt me, either," Ash says proudly, like she already knows she's won.

  "But--" I protest.

  "No buts. This is happening. Unless you tell me you honestly don't want to know who he is right this second. But you want to know," she says, inching closer to me, her smile growing. "Right?"

  I drop my head into my lap, defeated. "Yes," I whisper, hating myself for it.

  "Good," Ash says, standing up. "We'll plan this later." Then she starts walking out of the room, leaving me in nothing but silence and cool air and the hum of the TV in front of me. My stomach hurts and I want nothing more than to run after her and tell her no, let's not do this, but a part of me knows she's right. I want to know who Sebastian is too much. I want him too much. So I just sit there, shaking, like a pathetic waste of space just as I'd done after I learned my parents had been shot.