Page 32 of Twins to Tame Him

“Are you well, Dr. Jaafri?”

The tenderness of his question made Laila swallow.

She heard a distinct ringing in her ears, which was probably her heart trying to pound out of her body because she was...so in love with this man who held her as if she was fragile and precious. The realization moved through her in far-flung ripples, turning her inside out, making her feel both new and entrenched in her own skin.

Feeling vulnerable, she tried to pull away from him, but her legs gave out from under her like a newborn fawn’s. With a tenderness she suddenly, desperately wished was real, he gathered her and pulled her higher against his solid warmth. A tear ran out of the corner of her eye, and she wiped at it roughly, wishing her body didn’t betray her so easily.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening,” she said, still battling the sudden realization.

“Shh... There’s no need for words when it comes to this between us,” he said, rubbing his cheek against hers. “Except praise for me for sending you to outer space.”

She chuckled, but it was slight and watery, and she kept her eyes closed, wondering what he would see if she let him. He kissed her temple and then her cheek and then the corner of her mouth. “It’s okay, Laila.”

He’d said that before, too, infinitely patient, and so ready to grant her whatever she asked for.

God, how had she allowed this? How could she love him with this wild abandon she’d never known before? What if he tired of her while this new...emotion flickered in her chest like a live flame? What if she agreed to marry him and they were locked in a convenient, sterile marriage for the rest of their lives? Could she bear to be near him and know he might never want her for the right reasons? What was the shape of her life if she always just stayed a means for him to fulfill what he’d been denied as a child?

The more she learned of his childhood, the more Laila was sure that Sebastian had never cared about anything much, had never been given the chance to. His art and his sons were now the only things that mattered to him. What if he just didn’t have the ability to care about her like she did him?

“You’re still trembling,” he said, tightening his arms around her.

“You rocked my world,” she said, striving for a flirty tone that had never come easy even before this. So she gave in to the only avenue open to her, to feel and show this new emotion. Opening her mouth, she tasted his skin, bit into the hard muscle of his shoulder. “You never told me what had you in such a foul mood.”

He was quiet for so long that she resigned herself to his silence, to the fact that there was only so much she could demand, that soon she was going to come up on his hard limits.

With a rough exhale, she tried to pull back when he said, “This...painting I’m working on...” He cleared his throat, his words sounding like they came from some far-off place in him that he never went to in front of others. Laila instinctively knew that he wasn’t used to talking about this, that he was letting her enter a forbidden place in his head. “It won’t come together. It’s the one thing in my goddamned life I’ve always been good at and the one thing that...calms that noise in my head. But for some reason, this one won’t come together the way I see it in my head. I hate it. And I...hate feeling like my canvas won’t speak to me when it is the only thing that has always known me.”

The real, unfiltered, unmasked Sebastian Skalas...

Laila nodded wordlessly, tears prickling behind her eyelids, and tightened her arms around his waist, hoping he wouldn’t push her away. She didn’t understand why he didn’t let the world see who he was or what peace he gained by hiding himself away—even from himself, she was beginning to realize. But she felt his pain and his powerlessness as if it were her own and she loved him a little more for giving her a tiny bit more than he wanted to, clearly.

She clung to him for long moments, knowing all she had were trite words to take on what she was realizing was a lifetime’s pain, so she just held him and he let her and it was enough as darkness fell around them.

CHAPTER TEN

DAYS AFTER LAILA had driven him wild and ravenous with her words and her mouth in the very place where he had never brought another soul to, Sebastian was still feeling unsettled. That encounter had been replaying in his head like a loop, for more than one reason.

Laila with her wild hair and generous promises, granting him a wish.

Laila, who made it easy to talk about things he’d never talked to another soul about—not even his twin.

Laila with her roving mouth all over his chest.

Laila on her knees looking up at him with those big eyes and those dark cherry-colored lips.

Laila holding his gaze with a tender, possessive hunger as her soft hand stroked him to dizzying heights of pleasure.

Laila who clung to him, trembling, and shaking, hiding none of her vulnerability.

He’d never looked a lover in the eye like that, at the throes of release. Never had been pushed off the edge because of the look in a woman’s eye. Never needed to hold the woman after, a little flicker of dread and a host of other emotions rooting him in place.

It was as if Laila was the genie with all the magic and she had sprinkled it all over him, alchemizing sex into something else. For the first time in his life, he’d been left with a niggling sense of loss he’d never known before, even as his body felt fully satiated. Usually, it was all he could do to get away from his partner when he’d satisfied them both. With Laila, he had been glad that she’d clung to him because he hadn’t been ready to let go of her, either.

Now he wondered if it was all so different with her because when he saw her, he saw his sons’ faces first. Saw Nikos’s grin and Zayn’s considering stare in her features. Saw the means to the deepest wish he’d indulged in as a child who would never have his father’s approval.

With a desperation that kept clawing at him every moment now, he wanted all those reasons to be true. He needed them to be true. He needed Laila to mean nothing but a means to the end.

All of it rang untrue and hollow to his own ears.

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