Page 87 of Second Sin

Can’t—not when it feels like something’s cracking wide open in my chest. Like I’ve been holding this breath for too long, and she’s the only one who ever made me forget I was suffocating.

I lift a hand. Brush her hair back slow. Thumb grazing her jaw, then her cheekbone. I don’t mean to be gentle—but fuck, I am.

Like my body knows what it’s holding. What it could lose.

She stills.

My fingers trail lower, curl around the side of her neck. And then—God help me—I drag my thumb across her bottom lip.

She exhales. Soft. Shaky. Like the air just turned thin.

And that sound—barely there, but wrecking—goes straight to the part of me that doesn’t let anyone in. The part that’s been locked up so long I forgot how to open it.

But she’s already inside.

And I don’t want to run from it.

“You mess me up,” I murmur, voice low, rough. Not planned. Just scraped out of me like truth.

Her lashes flick up. Her mouth parts, like she might say something.

But she doesn’t.

Just stands there, eyes on mine, like this—us—might matter more than either of us is ready for.

And maybe I don’t get to keep things like this.

But hell if I’m not going to fight like I do.

CHAPTER 34

OLIVIA

The shirt I slept in smells like Sebastian.

Warm cotton. A faint trace of cologne. And something else—something only him, like ice and heat that’s settled into the fabric.

I tug it down over my hips and pause at the edge of the bed. My thong’s halfway across the floor, abandoned somewhere between late-night laughter and the ridiculous excuse for a dinner we tried to cook. I step into it, smooth the waistband into place, then run my fingers through my hair and breathe.

I open the bedroom door and slip into the hall.

At the stove, shirtless, sweatpants riding low on his hips, Sebastian stands with his back to me, hair sticking up like he fought sleep and lost. Morning light slants across his shoulders, casting warmth along the muscular lines of his back and arms.

I lean against the wall, arms folded. “You’re really tempting fate with that stove.”

A glance back, a slow rake of his eyes over me, a smile tugging at his mouth. “I figured eggs and toast were in my skill set.”

Muscles shift beneath golden skin as he turns back to the pan. The curve of his spine disappears into those low-slung sweats, and something slow and hot curls in my belly.

I pad across the tile, toes curling against the cool floor.

Two plates land on the counter, one after the other. He sets them down and steps in, hand finding my hip—warm, easy, like he’s done it a hundred times.

“You sleep okay?” he asks, voice low, gaze steady.

“Yeah.” Better than okay. The kind of good that settles into your bones and stays.

A soft kiss lands just beneath my jaw. “Good.”

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