“Don’t say that.”
“Why?” He gives me a kiss on my jaw. “Stop being afraid of the truth, Lillith.”
He plants another kiss just above my lip, making me gasp.
“I love you,” he whispers. “Nothing will change that fact. I love you more than anything in this world. I need you. You are perfect, in every way. With you, I can give into my controlling urges. I can be the person I want to be with you, for you.”
His tongue darts out to wet his lips. “You changed me, for the better. Now let me give it back to you.”
“But …”
“Shh … I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s the truth. Accept it when I say it. I love you.” He presses another kiss to my lips. “I love you, Lillith Carrigan. You own my heart.”
“If that is all I own, what does it mean?” I say.
“Can you not see? It means the world. It means that I am not the one with the power here, Lillith. You have my heart. I am bound to you now. You hold all the power.”
This admission makes me gasp for air. Is he afraid that I don’t love him and in turn will hurt him because of this?
He places his chin over mine, kissing my throat. “I hurt you because I have to, not because I want to.”
“You want me to love you too,” I say.
“Yes, but only when you’re ready.” He licks my skin, setting me on fire.
“You hold the key now,” he says. “The key to your own freedom. Let go of all your reservations and let the love in. I love you, Lillith. This pain you feel is because I want you to put behind you all that happened before and focus on the here and now. To let love back in. Let me back in.”
His tongue draws a line all the way up to my breasts as he leans up on his knees and kisses my nipple. A soft, unwanted moan escapes my mouth. My body responds to his touch, even though I still feel bad about it. The lashes on my skin are covered with his lips, sizzling in his mouth.
“You are so beautiful. Red suits you so well.” His fingers caress my belly, drawing a line toward my other nipple, which he isn’t sucking.
“Let me soothe your aching skin,” he murmurs, licking and sucking at the peak of my breast until it’s hardened. He switches places with his finger, sucking and licking the other nipple while rolling the previous between his index finger and thumb.
I’m lost in delirium. My emotions have gone haywire now; I don’t know what to feel anymore. On one hand, I want him to love me, to continue to touch me and heal the wounds in my mind, give me pain so I can let go and fuck me until the night is over. On the other hand, I want to hit him in the face and kick him in the balls.
Such a difficult choice.
When Sebastian crawls away, getting up on his feet, I’m left with a yearning for his body to be close to mine that’s hard to ignore. He starts undoing the buttons on his shirt, slowly, peeling them away one by one while he keeps his gaze fixated on me. It’s strange to watch him do this upside down as if it’s completely different from before. The man who wanted me gone now loves me, and the girl who wanted so desperately to be loved now hates the man who captured her. The world turned upside down.
Or maybe not entirely.
A yearning for him grows inside me, and although I keep pushing it away as false, it keeps swarming back into my mind.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“Nothing …” I mutter.
He undoes the button on his pants. “This?” He zips down.
I smash my lips together, preventing any sound from coming out that I might regret later.
The corner of his lip lifts into a cheeky smile. “Remember what I said before? Love comes in all shapes and sizes. Now, it comes in the form of a fuck.”
All sizes indeed … I gulp, seeing him take out his cock. With his pants dropping to the floor, he steps forward, all while stroking his cock eagerly. My tongue darts out to lick my lips as he stands in front of me with his hardness in his hand, rubbing the top with his hand. The way he bites his lip makes heat pool in my belly to the point where I can almost completely forget about the pain he just put me through.
“Seeing you like this makes me so … hard,” he says, groaning loud after that last word, making my pussy thump. Even now, my body still responds to his voice, the way he sounds when he’s riled up.
“But it is not me who is important right now.” He lets go of his cock to stand in front of me and place a flat hand between my breasts. He slides it up my belly, and as I suck in a breath, he cups my pussy and keeps his hand steady. No movement. Just holding it captive, like my mind.
“This is mine,” he says, and then he turns his head toward me. “Is this mine, Lillith?”