Chapter 129

SEBASTIAN

“Now? Like right now?”

For a full second, I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly.

Her voice was soft, careful… almost shy.

But her eyes… wide, startled… told me she’d heard something entirely different from what I actually asked.

I had simply meant, “Can we sleep now?”

Nothing more. Nothing less.

But from the look on her face?

She heard something else.

Very something else.

“Yes? Except you aren’t ready.”

Her breath hitched, just a little. Her fingers twisted in the blanket. Her pulse jumped in her throat.

And I realized, slowly, almost painfully… she thought I meant sex.

My heart slammed against my ribs. Not out of shock. Not out of embarrassment.

But because… God help me… I wanted her too. More than I wanted oxygen.

But not like this.

Not when she was nervous. Not when she was shaking. Not when her mind was spinning in twelve different directions.

So I forced myself to breat