Page 67 of The Arrangement

We stayed there, locked together with my arms still around Sebastian's neck as he cradled my head against him, and I could feel the fluttering of his heart that seemed so perfectly in sync with my own.

"Please, let me keep you."

I wasn't sure if Sebastian knew he spoke those words out loud.

Chapter 31

Sebastian

I'd never slept this well in my entire life; of that, I was certain. The comfortable weight nestled against me kept me fighting against the grasp of wakefulness as I struggled to remember where I was and who was in my bed. It had been forever since I had let someone stay the night.

It took a moment for my sleep-addled mind to remember what happened and with whom. Georgia. I’d slept with Georgia, not like the sex we had for my channel but sex that…couples had. I might not have had a relationship in a while, but I knew for a fact that we agreed not to sleep together unless we were filming.

But as she lay nestled against me, her ass pressed against my rapidly thickening cock as she nuzzled back into me, I allowed myself to bury my face in her wild hair, inhaling the scents of the perfume she wore the night before.

It was perfect.

Until it wasn't.

I felt her body stiffen and Georgia sat up with a start, bringing the comforter to her breasts as she looked around the room in confusion.

"Quinn?"

Fuck.

I sat up slowly, my brain trying to keep myself calm as she seemed to be remembering what we had done the night before.

"So, that wasn't a dream?" Georgia whispered, and I could see how hard she swallowed around the question. I quickly hid the hurt that I knew was leeching onto my features as I steeled myself.

"Did you want it to be?" I dragged the question out of myself, forcing myself to look stoic despite my heart breaking in half.

Georgia ran her hand through her untamed hair. "I just…no, it was great, Quinn, really." There it was. My last name again.

"We on a last name basis again, Clark?" I tried to keep the hurt from seeping into my voice, but I’d felt the chill in her tone seeping into my bones.

The way the wince flashed across her face had my jaw steeling as I tossed the body-warmed duvet off me, trying not to feel the pang of loss from the press of her body.

"Yeah, it's fine," I whispered, my voice deep and emotionless. It was better this way; there was no reason that Geor–-that Clark would have slept with me if it hadn't been for our stupid arrangement. The one I suggested. The one that had turned me into a fucking mess of emotions and smelling the pillow where she laid her head so that I could inhale the scent of her. "I'm going to hit the shower. Brunch is in an hour."

I didn't wait to hear her response, and I purposely turned on the water as quickly as I entered so as to drown out anything she decided to say. It was louder than the roaring of the blood in my ears as I gripped the marble countertop, the cold biting through my skin to ground me as the small room heated quickly.

I breathed in through my nose and out of my mouth, a choked laugh biting past my lips so quickly I didn't even get a chance to stifle it.

Stepping into the lurid heat of the shower, I scrubbed my hands over my face as my mind raced with every possible endgame; she could tell everyone who I was. Though that was unlikely, as she was also online and attached to me, I folded that fear deep into the recesses of my mind.

Clark could stop working with me. That was the one that hurt like a gunshot through the heart, not because of the loss of income but because the thought of her not over at my apartment for dinner on Thursday made my stomach hollow like a pit. It had become something I looked forward to, something that I craved that had nothing to do with the money.

It had been there for the first time after I felt the electricity of her touch and worshiped the small sounds she made in my red-lit room as she writhed on my bed while I unwound her with my tongue, my fingers, and my cock.

I had never felt this connection with anyone. Ever. And when I finally did, it was with someone who could only stand to be around me if I was paying them. I scrubbed until the smell of Georgia Clark had been cleansed from my skin and rolled down the shower drain as quickly as it had come.

I didn't remember brushing my teeth or running the product through my dark hair. My skin was abuzz with anxiety, and static filled my ears as I went through the motions of getting dressed. The last thing I wanted was to go to this stupid fucking brunch, and my mind immediately went to different ways I could get out of it.

It was then that my phone buzzed to life, my grandfather's name lighting up the screen. The twist of anxiety intensified as I steeled myself, answering the phone robotically. "Yes, sir?"

"Where are you?" Came the heavily accented voice on the other line, my grandfather never was one for pleasantries.

“An hour east, downtown."

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