Page 99 of Worth Every Moment
The hiatus before his final word makes me wonder ifsurprisedwasn’t the first thing he meant to say, and whether he used it to replace a deeper sentiment. Has Seb had me fooled this whole time? The smiles, the jokes, the impression that he doesn’t really care too much or think too hard about anything…
But is that even true?There’s always been that watchful look in his eye, like he notices more than you want to show. He seeseverything.
“I want to sleep with you,” he says, interrupting my thoughts. “Don’t for a second think that I don’t. But it’s… it’s just different. I wasn’t expecting it, and I’m out at sea here.” He nods at the water and laughs, but it’s a pitiful little chuckle. “I want to do right by you. I want…”
“You want to make it perfect.”
One side of his lips tugs up, but his dimple doesn’t appear. “Yeah.” He scoops up a handful of sand and lets it filter through his fingers. “Thing is, I don’t know if I can do that.”
I want to reach out and touch him. To close the distance between us that feels much more than the physical space. "I don’t need it to be perfect. I just need it to be with you."
He’s quiet, and I imagine him rolling my words around in his mind, examining every possible meaning for them.
“I need you to look at me when you fuck me,” I add, and Seb hangs his head. Both hands come up to cup the back of his skull and his biceps flex as he pulls his head down. It doesn’t look comfortable.
He releases the position, picks up a fragment of shell nearby, and flings it towards the sea. It doesn’t reach the water. “I’m not going to fuck you.” He pauses, and my heart dips in the silence before he adds, “I’m going to make love to you.”
For some reason, this makes my nose tingle and a lump rise in my throat, even though his tone suggests it was a mere statement of fact. “Oh.”
“Can you tell me what you have done?”
“Nothing, really.” I sense his body tighten, but I’m not going to make this more palatable for him. “No one had really touched me until you did that night in the gallery.” He nods as though this explains something he doesn’t share. “Apart from that,there’s nothing to tell, really. I had a minor fumble when I was a teenager, but I was drunk and so was he, so his dick wasn’t even… "
Seb glances sideways at me, and I can’t force the word ‘hard’ from my mouth. “Hmm.”
“I never even saw it. It was dark. He still had his clothes on.Ugh. It was stupid. I didn’t even know his name.” I shudder, but the memory is interrupted by the slight shift of Seb’s body away from me. “Sorry. I know you’ve done it with loads of people whose names you don’t know. But it wasn’t for me. I woke up the next morning feeling like shit, and I vowed I wouldn't do it again, and that if I wanted to be with someone, I would choose them in sobriety. It would be a deliberate, considered decision. Not an impulse. Not something I’d regret. You know?”
He doesn’t look at me, but I can sense the sadness coming off him, and I’m not sure how it relates to what I’m telling him, but he’s not sharing, so I keep going.
“Mum was also watching me. Measuring up every potential boyfriend against some unknown set of criteria. No one met it. When I came back from that party, twigs in my hair and mud on my jeans, she called me a little whore. Demanded to know what had happened. And after that, she watched me even more closely. And then stuff with my career kicked off, and I was busy, and I suppose I was in the habit of not seeing anyone. So I didn’t. And then I was famous and still a virgin, and I hadn’t met anyone and there was no way I could have done it with someone I didn’t really know because the story would have leaked to the tabloids, or there would have been photos of my bloodied sheets on social media, or…”
Heat spreads from my heart, spilling through my torso. I never imagined having this conversation with him.
Seb rubs a hand over his eyes. “Fuck.”
I bump my shoulder against his in a transparent attempt to lighten the mood. "So, yeah. I haven't seen a...penis.” I cringe at how hard it is for me to say the word out loud, but Seb gives no indication that he notices, even though I’m sure he does. “In real life, or touched one or…”
He offers me his hand without a word, without even glancing at it. I thread my fingers through his larger ones and just being held by him that way makes whatever we’re working through feel more manageable.
He shifts to look at me, and I turn to face him too. The openness in his expression causes a dull, wary ache beneath my ribs. “Are you sure you want it to be me?”
The question lights up my skin. My heart. Every erogenous zone in my body. “Yes. I’m sure.”
He pulses my hand in his once, twice, before he looks back out at the sea and lets go. Just as I worry that he’s going to shut down on me again, his arm comes around my shoulders as he pulls me into him until I’m leaning against him. He kisses my temple, and for a brief second I think he’s actually going to whisper some secret, share something to explain his behavior, but he merelyhmmsin the back of his throat and kisses the same spot again. “I love you,” he murmurs, and I know that’s all I’m going to get, and for now, it’s enough.
34
SEB
Islept on the sofa. There was a strange, crackling energy in the room, and although we’d talked on the beach, it still felt too tense between us to jump into bed together. Maybe it was me.It was probably me.
But it didn’t feel right to come back and sleep next to one another because…fuck, I don’t even know. The weight of expectation was so huge, I didn’t know what to do. Which is totally unlike me. Sex is… easy, normally. As long as I don’t actually think about it too hard.I’ve probably been dissociating every time I’ve done it.Is that even possible?The thought fills me with horror, but I couldn’t process it last night, and I can’t now, not with my father’s cruel words constantly booming in my mind.
Letting Erica have the bed to herself was less about being a gentleman and more about being fucking confused and weighed down by a blanket of shame I hadn’t even realised was there. But now that I’ve acknowledged it, it’s so fucking heavy I can hardly move beneath its weight.
I crept out of the cabin just after dawn without saying goodbye. Erica was asleep, and I didn’t want to wake her, but I had to leave early for Nico’s stag do.
He didn’t want a traditional stag. Nothing overly fancy. No crazy Vegas nights. No strippers, drugs, or excessive amounts of alcohol. Just a morning’s fishing, an elaborate lunch on a beach on a neighbouring island owned by one of our family friends, and a night at an exclusive restaurant in town. Then back to our island the following day.
