She owed him so fucking much.
“Sebastian…” His name tripped off her lips and she sighed. Just thinking his name brought back the same feelings she’d had when she stood outside of his door in the pouring rain. The heavy weight on her chest, the burn in her throat. Why was it so fucking cold?
Penny dropped the sketch pad and stood up. There was no spare money to put the heating on so she went into their bedroom and grabbed her bedspread. Wrapping it round her shoulders she felt marginally warmer, but knew in reality that it wasn’t just the temperature getting to her. Not at all.
She sat back down on their dilapidated couch, pulling the bedspread in tight around her and rested her head back against it. The applications were all in for The Point and that was good. It meant along with the temporary centre that she was kept busy, that she had lots of things to fill her thoughts. Really there were a hundred things she should be doing before Rachel came home. Rachel who was in just as bad a state as she when it came right down to it…and Lyra. Well Lyra was another matter entirely.
Penny scowled and let her gaze wander around their flat. They’d each come out of their missions battered and bruised. Each raw and needing one another more than ever. But they had The Point. They had what they’d worked so long for and Penny was sure that once the work began on it she’d come out of her funk. She’d stop moping around and feeling like something was crushing her chest. She’d be fine. She would!
Yeah you tell yourself that.
The door opened and Penny started from her thoughts, sitting up and trying for a smile as Rachel came in. Her sister was dressed for the cold in a flowered, chunky sweater and a tight pair of faded blue jeans. Her blonde curls were windswept and her face was red from the cold.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
Rachel kicked off her boots and pulled a corner of the bedspread aside. “Let me in. It’s freezing out there.”
“You’ve been down to the centre?”
Rachel nodded as she cuddled up against her sister. Her hands were freezing and Penny jumped. “Bloody hell, Rach, you’re not wrong. Your hands are like ice.”
“Everything is like ice,” Rachel said.
“Babe…” Penny wrapped her arms around her sister and held her close. Sure she was a mess, but Rachel was worse. Maybe because she was more sensitive? Penny thought again about the moment she’d gone to rescue her sister, the things Rachel had told her and the desire to go hunt down Rimeria filled her all over again. The bastard.
Sebastian at least had been a gentleman, she thought. He’d been kind and considerate. He’d wanted her and he’d taken her, but he’d done it in a way so that she’d never felt used or taken advantage of.
She’d wanted him just as much. Still wanted him…and she missed him. She missed him so damn much. She could admit that to herself now. Hell after almost a month she could admit everything. That the madness had consumed her. That she’d drowned in him. The tender sex…she swallowed. It was so obvious to her now why it had been something she felt she had to run from. The chink in the armor. Only it hadn’t been a chink, it had been a hole and Sebastian had made his way through it before she’d even realized.
“Pen?” Rachel asked. “Did you hear what I said?”
“Sorry, babe, I was in a world of my own. What did you say?”
“I asked how you’re feeling.”
She shrugged, ignoring the lump in her throat. “Oh you know me. I’m fine.”
“No you’re not.”
Penny sighed. “Well, no, but I will be.”
“Do you miss him?”
The lump expanded. “I don’t really want to talk about it, Rach. It doesn’t help.”
“It might.”
“What do you want me to say?” she asked. “That I miss him all the time? That I play the time we spent together over and over again in my mind? That I wake up in the morning freezing cold because he’s not lying next to me? Is that what you want to hear?”
“Pen….”
She swallowed unsteadily and took her sister’s hand. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I just…I do miss him. I want him, but it was never going to happen, Rach, you know that right?”
Her sister nodded and Penny lifted her chin so that their eyes met.
“You get it don’t you?” she said gently, unsure if she was trying to convince Rachel or herself. “The thieves and the billionaires. It was never going to happen. Not for any of us. It should never have even gotten to where it did. Our plans were…” She gulped and shook her head. “We never stood a chance really did we? We thought we had it all worked out, but we were fools.”