ayu

The vibration of your phone on the nightstand doesn’t wake you up — you were already awake.

It’s two in the morning, and the farm is silent, the kind of silence Pelican Town insists on building after midnight, when even the wind seems to have gone to sleep. You’ve been staring at the ceiling for forty minutes now, for no particular reason, in that irritating way the body sometimes decides it doesn’t want to rest even when it desperately needs to. That spring day had been brutal: hot and, as always, full of things to do. Crops to water. Stubborn weeds you had to pull out so your strawberries could grow. Two duck eggs had hatched, and now you had ridiculously cute ducklings to keep an eye on (definitely the least brutal part of the day).

The glow of the screen cuts through the darkness of the room like a knife. A message. Sender: Sebastian.

You take a full three seconds before opening it.

u awake?

Three seconds where you think don’t open it, and open it anyway.

Simple. No capital letters, no punctuation at the end. You know his late-night typing style by heart — it’s different from his daytime texting, messier. You’ve spent too much time deciphering his messages not to notice the difference.

The problem is that you reply before thinking.

yeah.

Send. You drop the phone onto your chest, close your eyes, and wait for your heart to stop doing that stupid thing it does whenever Sebastian’s name appears on your screen.

It doesn’t stop.

It never does, and that’s humiliating in a way you’ve learned to swallow down.

His reply comes in less than a minute.

can i come over?

There’s a version of you — the version that existed around eight months ago, before everything went to hell — that would’ve sent a clear yes without even blinking. She would’ve already been getting up, pushing her hair out of her face, checking her breath, leaving the door unlocked. That version of you was stupid in a very specific, sweet kind of way, the kind of stupid that still believes that just because someone looks at you a certain way, it means something lasting.

The version of you that exists now stays frozen with your thumb hovering over the screen long enough for it to dim on its own.

Then you type:

okay.

—✦—

It takes him twenty minutes to show up, which means he walked from his place, down Main Street with his hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie, across the bridge. You know that because you know how long the walk takes. You know that because you’ve made that same walk yourself, late at night, more times than is reasonable to admit.

When the knock finally comes, it’s quiet. He never knocks loudly — it’s always this restrained, almost lazy thing, as if the urgency of being here is a detail he refuses to let rise to the surface.

You open the door.

Sebastian is leaning against the frame with one shoulder, not because he needs the support, but because he’s the kind of man who takes up space like space itself is a concession the world makes for him. Black leather jacket over a faded gray hoodie, hair falling into the corner of his face in the way he never bothers fixing. There’s a new hoop in his ear you hadn’t noticed before — or maybe you just weren’t paying enough attention last time, which is also possible.

His eyes drag over you slowly, deliberately, no rush, no embarrassment. His pupils are bigger than they should be. The slightly delayed focus of someone processing the world half a second after it happens, and still looking at you like it’s a decision he made carefully.

The corner of his mouth shifts; a restrained smile, like someone calculating every move before making it.

“Hey.”

His voice around you is lower, stripped of some of the controlled coldness he carries during the day, away from you. You hate how much you like that.

“Come in,” you say, stepping away from the door.

“You smoked,” you say. Not a question.

The kitchen is dark; you don’t turn on the light. There’s enough coming through the window — the moon is almost full, and Pelican Town doesn’t have good enough streetlights to compete with it. Sebastian doesn’t sit down — he leans against the counter with both arms braced on the edge, ankles crossed, watching you the way he watches you when he thinks you aren’t paying attention.

But you always are.

“Always.” He says it the same way someone would say the sky is blue — a fact that exists independently of your opinion.

You nod. Keep looking at him. He keeps looking at you.

There’s a conversation both of you know you’re not having. Actually, there’s a conversation you’ve never really managed to have; you came close about three times, you remember every single one with irritating precision, and every time one of three things happened: he shut down, or you pulled away, or something mundane and stupid interrupted before any real words could come out. Now there are eight months of unspoken conversations stacked between you, and getting to the other side would require maneuvers neither of you is willing to make during the day, sober, with the lights on.

That’s why it’s two in the morning. And that’s why he smokes before coming here. It’s not the first time, and as much as you hate admitting it, you know it won’t be the last.

You came to that conclusion a while ago and kept it tucked away because putting it into words would make it real in a way that would be hard to ignore. And Sebastian is very good at making you keep things tucked away. It’s almost a talent.

“How’s the farm?” he asks, but he doesn’t sound like someone who actually wants to know about the farm. He sounds like someone testing the temperature of the room. Seeing how much you’ll let slide before saying something he’ll have to answer honestly.

“It’s good.”

“Plant anything new?”

“Strawberries. Last week.”

He nods slowly, eyes drifting over your shirt, your neck, back to your face, with that inventory-like quality he sometimes has — as if he’s checking to make sure you’re still what he remembers. Daytime Sebastian gives out attention sparingly, always seeming partially somewhere else, behind a glass wall he built and has no intention of tearing down. This Sebastian looks at you without the wall, and that’s dangerous in a way you learned to recognize far too late.

“Sebastian—” you start.

“No.” Immediate. Soft as a door shutting against velvet.

You close your mouth.

He pushes himself away from the counter slowly, with the slightly careful coordination of someone monitoring his own balance without letting it show on his face, and when he moves toward you, it isn’t hesitant — it never is, and that’s one of the things about him that ruined you from the start. Men who hesitate give you time to think. Sebastian doesn’t hesitate. Sebastian decides and acts and leaves you dealing with the consequences.

He stops at a distance that isn’t a friend-distance. You don’t step back.

“You should tell me to leave.” His tone is almost bored, almost — but there’s something underneath it that isn’t bored at all. You learned how to listen underneath.

“Probably,” you agree.

“So?” His eyes dip to your mouth and lift again lazily, like time is a resource that exists in abundance specifically for him.

You place your open hand against his chest before answering. Not to push him away, just to feel. His heart is racing beneath your palm — and for some reason you can’t be bothered to analyze right now, that’s exactly what makes you answer:

“Because I don’t want to.”

His hand comes up and wraps around your wrist — not removing your hand from his chest, just holding it there, his large fingers closing slowly around yours like he’s checking that you’re real.

Something changes in his face. Not much. Sebastian never lets too much show at once — it always comes in measured doses, carefully calibrated, like caring is a currency he spends cautiously.

But it’s enough for you to see.

“You’re gonna regret this,” he says quietly. His voice sounds different this time, rougher, less controlled.

“I know.”

“And still—” He doesn’t finish.

You smile. He looks at you for a second that lasts longer than a second should, then his thumb traces a slow arc along the inside of your wrist, over your pulse, and you feel it in your entire chest like he touched somewhere else entirely.

“You’re terrible at taking care of yourself,” he murmurs, and it isn’t cruel — it’s almost intimate, almost affectionate in the wrong way, in the Sebastian way, which is the only way he knows how to be.

“Look who’s talking,” you say.

And finally his mouth does what you’ve been waiting for since you opened the door — a smile that only appears when the walls come down, a small crack in the armor, and for one second he looks less like the Sebastian the town knows and more like the Sebastian that only exists in these dark spaces between two a.m. and sunrise.

Then he pulls you by the wrist, and whatever distance remained between you disappears.

His mouth finds yours without ceremony.

It isn’t the kind of kiss that asks permission. It’s the kind that arrives like the conclusion to a sentence that started a long time ago — no preamble, none of the polite hesitation first kisses usually have. But this isn’t the first time, that’s the problem. With him, it’s never the first time, even when months pass in between, even when you spend entire weeks convincing yourself you’re capable of being indifferent to his name on a screen.

The body has a memory of its own. Yours remembered immediately.

The hand that had been holding your wrist slides up your arm, over your shoulder, and settles at the side of your neck — thumb beneath your jaw, fingers behind your ear, holding you in a way that feels possessive and careful at the same time, like you’re something he doesn’t want to break but also has no intention of letting go of. You grab the front of his jacket with both hands, clutching the leather for no reason beyond needing something to hold onto.

He knows how to kiss. You tried to forget that and failed.

There’s a rhythm to him that neither rushes nor drags, something that makes you lose track of time in an almost irritating way — you lose any sense of how long it’s been, whether thirty seconds or three minutes, and when he finally pulls back an inch, you realize your breathing has gone shallow without noticing the transition.

“I missed you,” he says quietly, like it’s a secret only you’re allowed to know.

You don’t even notice when his leather jacket ends up on a chair neither of you looked at. The hoodie follows soon after, and you spend one useless second registering what you already know — that he’s broader than he looks beneath oversized clothes, that there’s a tattoo along the left side of his torso you memorized by accident on a night that never should’ve happened and happened anyway.

Your breath stumbles for a second. Before you can answer, his mouth is already on yours again, and this kiss is more desperate, hungry, proving that yes, he missed you, and you know that.

You always did.

His mouth finds your neck and you close your eyes.

“Sebastian.” His name leaves your mouth quieter than you intended.

“Mm?”

He backs you up slowly until the counter presses against your spine, unhurried, like he knows you’re not going anywhere — and the worst part is that he does know, that’s the ache you’ve learned to carry at a low frequency, the fact that he knows and still shows up like this, high, in the middle of the night, pupils blown wide, because he knows you’ll open the door.

You thread your fingers into his hair and he makes a sound against your skin that goes straight to some inconvenient place in the center of your chest.

It isn’t fair. The list of unfair things about Sebastian is long, and you’re adding more items to it in the middle of the night instead of sleeping like a reasonable person.

Because you always do.

“Hey.” He lifts his head and looks at you, and you realize something in your expression must’ve given something away because his own changes slightly — not much, not enough for anyone who doesn’t know him to read it, but you do know him. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” A pause. “I’m okay.”

He watches you for another second. Daytime Sebastian would’ve accepted that and moved on; this Sebastian — the two a.m. version, the one without walls — frowns faintly and doesn’t look convinced.

“You can tell me,” he says.

“There’s nothing to tell.”

“There is.” He says it with the calm certainty of someone who isn’t asking.

You glance away because looking at him right now, with the expression he’s wearing, is the kind of thing that makes you say truths you didn’t plan on saying.

“You only come around when you’re high,” you say. Your voice comes out flatter than you wanted — not angry, not accusing, just clinically observant, which somehow makes it worse.

He doesn’t answer immediately.

You keep staring off to the side. Moonlight cuts shadows across the sink, the kettle, the plant you’ve almost killed three times and stubbornly keep alive anyway.

“I know,” he says finally.

That’s the problem with Sebastian: he doesn’t lie. You’d expect a man who does what he does to lie, to make excuses, to build some softer version of the truth, but he doesn’t. He says the raw thing and leaves it there unwrapped, and somehow that’s harder to deal with than a lie would be.

“That’s not enough,” you say.

“I know.” A pause. “I know it isn’t.”

You finally look at him.

His face is serious. Not defensive, not shut off in the usual way — just serious, with something in his eyes you can’t quite name. He’s still close, his hand still at your neck, thumb tracing that absentminded arc over your pulse that he probably doesn’t even realize he’s doing.

“Then why do you come here?” you ask.

That’s the real question, the question all the others were trying to reach. You’ve asked it before, not with these exact words, not this clearly, but the substance of it has lingered beneath several conversations that sank before reaching the end.

This time he doesn’t look away.

“Because when I’m like this,” he starts, then stops. Starts again. “When I’m like this, it’s harder to pretend I don’t want to.” His eyes never leave yours. “It’s harder to pretend a lot of things.”

The silence that follows has a different texture than all the other silences tonight.

You should say something smart. You should say that isn’t fair, which is true. Or then stop pretending during the day, which is also true. Or you can’t keep showing up like this and think it fixes anything, which is the truest thing of all and the one you’re least capable of turning into sound when he’s standing this close, thumb at your throat, looking at you without the glass wall.

What you say instead is:

“How long do you have?”

Something lights up in him.

“All night,” he says.

Sebastian’s answer is a trigger.

There’s no more room for words after that. No more room for doubt, for conversations that never end, for questions lingering in the air like smoke. All night is a promise and a threat at the same time — because you know what it means. You know what he wants it to mean.

And this time, you’re not going to pull away.

His hand at your neck slides downward, fingers tracing your collarbone before bunching in the fabric of your shirt. He doesn’t pull hard, but it’s enough. Not an invitation, but a silent command you know all too well. You don’t resist.

When your bodies collide again, Sebastian is warmth and weight and the firm pressure of his hands, one at your waist now, the other still at your neck, like he needs to anchor you there, like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he lets go.

You’re not going to disappear.

Your mouth is back on his before you even realize you moved, and this time it’s not just a kiss — it’s a collision. Teeth, tongues, ragged breathing. Sebastian makes a low sound in his throat, somewhere between a groan and a growl, and then your back hits the counter harder this time, the impact knocking the breath out of you for a second. It doesn’t hurt. It wouldn’t matter if it did.

His hands are everywhere at once: your hip, your neck, sliding beneath the hem of your shirt to find warm skin. You arch involuntarily when his fingers brush the side of your breast, and the sound he makes in response is obscene, a rough, satisfied laugh vibrating against your lips.

“You like that, don’t you?”

Not a question.

You don’t answer with words. Instead your hands find his waist, fingers digging into bare skin as you pull him closer, like it’s possible to erase the last millimeter of space between you. Sebastian groans, mouth trailing down your jaw, your throat, teeth scraping lightly against the sensitive skin below your ear.

“Sebastian—”

“Shh.” His hand rises, fingers wrapping gently around your throat, not squeezing, just a reminder that he’s in control, that you let him be. “Don’t talk right now.”

You tilt your head to the side, giving him better access, and the sound he makes — a guttural, nearly desperate growl — is the most honestly Sebastian thing you’ve ever heard. There are no more walls. You moan when his teeth nip at your skin, not enough to hurt, just enough to leave a mark.

“You’re gonna drive me insane,” he murmurs against your throat, voice so low you almost don’t hear it. “It happens every time. Every. Fucking. Time.”

You laugh, breathless, because he’s the one showing up at your house in the middle of the night, he’s the one disappearing without a word and then coming back like—

His hand tightens slightly, like he knows exactly where your thoughts were heading. “Stop thinking.”

And then his mouth is on yours again with a kind of need that feels like it’s been restrained for so long there’s no holding it back anymore. You taste nicotine mixed with weed, a taste you tried to forget and never could.

Your hands find his belt, fingers trembling slightly as you try to undo it. Sebastian pulls back just enough to give you room, eyes dark and glassy, breathing heavy.

“You sure?”

It’s not a real question. It’s a warning. One last chance to back away.

You don’t.

Instead you yank the belt loose in one sharp motion, the sound of leather sliding loud in the silence of the kitchen. Sebastian exhales, something between relief and lust, and then he’s back against you.

You help when his shaky hands start pulling your bra off, which ends up on the floor alongside the rest of the discarded clothes. The moan that slips from your mouth when he touches your breasts is almost embarrassing.

“Fuck,” Sebastian growls, voice rough, eyes fixed on your chest as he rolls your hardened nipples between his fingers, pinching gently. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

You don’t answer. You can’t, because words disappear the second his lips close around one nipple, tongue hot and wet as it circles before sucking it into his mouth, and you arch against him, nails digging into his shoulders, the back of your head knocking lightly against the wall.

“Sebastian— please—”

He laughs, low and satisfied, before switching to the other side, giving it the same attention. “Please what?” His voice is muffled against your skin while he sucks harder this time. “Answer me.”

You should feel embarrassed. Exposed. Vulnerable.

You don’t.

“Touch me.”

His body shudders against yours. For a second he goes still, like he needs to process what you just said, then his eyes lift to yours, dark and intense, and something in them makes your stomach twist.

“How do you want it?”

It’s not an innocent question. He knows how you want it.

“However you want.”

The smile that spreads across his mouth is slow, predatory.

“Dangerous, farm girl.”

His hands slide downward, over your stomach, fingers hooking into the waistband of your jeans. You hold your breath while he unbuttons them slowly, like he’s savoring every second, every inch of exposed skin.

By the time your jeans and underwear finally hit the floor, you’re trembling, not from the cold, and both of you know it. It’s the way he’s looking at you, like it’s the first time, like it’s the last time, like you’re the only thing in the world that matters.

Sebastian kneels.

Not in submission.

In worship.

You’ve always loved the way he kneels in front of you, like he’s worshipping every inch of your body and you’re the only woman in the world, because that’s exactly how he makes you feel every time he shows up. And when his mouth finally finds you, when his tongue drags a hot, wet line right on your clit, a shaky moan tears out of you. The touch of his tongue is precise, because he knows you like the back of his hand. He knows exactly how to touch you.

Fuck, does he know.

Sebastian makes a sound in response to your moans, somewhere between a growl and a murmur of approval, his hands gripping your thighs hard, fingers digging into your skin to keep you from moving.

Your legs shake when he buries himself deeper between them, tongue hot and insistent, tracing circles that make your stomach tighten, make your fingers twist into his hair and pull without gentleness. He doesn’t complain. If anything, the sound he makes vibrates against you, and that makes your eyes roll back in pure pleasure.

“Sebastian—” Your voice comes out like a sigh, a plea, a warning.

He lifts his head just enough to look at you, lips glistening, eyes dark and blown wide. “Tell me.” His voice is rough and hoarse. “Tell me what you want.”

“More.”

The smile he gives you is slow, almost cruel. “However I want, hm?”

You nod breathlessly, and he doesn’t wait any longer.

His tongue moves with an intensity that makes your back arch and your fingers tighten harder in his hair. Heat climbs through your body, and when his fingers join his mouth, sliding inside your pussy without warning, making you cry out.

It isn’t a pretty sound. It’s desperate and shaking, but to him there’s nothing in the world better than that.

Sebastian doesn’t stop.

He touches you with a skill that makes you forget your own name. You try to breathe, but all that comes out are broken moans, meaningless words, his name repeated like a prayer. His tongue moves just right while his fingers keep hitting that soft spot inside you that makes you see stars.

“You’re so good f'me,” he murmurs against your skin, voice muffled, words nearly lost in the wet sound of kisses. “So fucking good.”

You can’t answer. Can’t think. There’s only the feeling of his hands, his mouth, the way he seems determined to take you apart piece by piece.

And then—

“Come for me, sweetheart.”

It isn’t a request.

It’s an order.

And you obey.

The orgasm crashes over you like a wave, intense and inevitable, dragging you under before you can prepare for it. You cry out, legs shaking, fingers digging into his shoulders like he’s the only thing keeping you anchored to earth. Sebastian doesn’t pull away. He keeps going, drawing out every second, every tremor, until you’re panting, exhausted, broken open in a way that should scare you.

But it doesn’t.

Not with him. Not now.

“Good?” The question is unnecessary. He already knows the answer.

When he finally pulls back, it’s slow, like he’s savoring every second. You can barely keep him in focus, vision blurred, body still humming with the aftermath of what just happened.

He stands, lips still wet, eyes dark and satisfied.

You laugh breathlessly, almost incredulous. “You know it was.”

The smile he gives you is arrogant. “Just wanted to hear you say it.”

You shake your head, still trying to catch your breath, still trying to exist after what he just did to you. But before you can answer, he’s pulling you back against him again, mouth crashing into yours in another intense kiss.

His cock, already exposed and fully hard, pulses against your stomach, making your whole body tremble with want. He pulls back for a moment, eyes dark, almost black, breathing heavy while he looks at you like he’s trying to decide where to start, like he has too many ideas and doesn’t know which one to act on first.

“You still okay?” The question comes out like a growl, voice rough, like forming the words costs him something.

You nod, breathless. “Yeah.”

You rise onto your toes and kiss him again, nibbling at his lower lip with a boldness that never used to belong to you before him. Sebastian makes a low sound in his throat, somewhere between a groan and a warning, and then he’s lifting you up like you weigh nothing. Just like that.

Your legs wrap around his waist instinctively, arms around his neck, and he carries you to the kitchen table before setting you on top of it in one motion that makes you gasp. The surface is cold beneath your thighs, a sharp contrast to the heat of his body pressed between your legs.

“Sebastian—” you start, but you don’t even know what you were going to say. It doesn’t matter.

He doesn’t let you finish.

His mouth is on yours again, hungry and possessive, while his hands roam your body like he’s memorizing every curve, every sigh. You feel his fingers slipping between your thighs, sliding inside you again, making your eyes squeeze shut.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he murmurs against your lips, voice rough with approval. “All for me, hm?”

Your words disappear when his fingers move inside you again, fast and precise, while his other hand grips your hip to hold you in place. You arch, a loud moan escaping your throat, and Sebastian swallows the sound with another kiss like he doesn’t want anyone but him hearing it.

“You make the prettiest sounds for me,” he says, voice rough, lips brushing your ear. “Wanna hear them when I’m inside you.”

“Sebastian, please,” you whine.

“You get even hotter when you beg for me.” He lets out an almost wicked little laugh, running his tongue over his lips like he’s staring at the best feast of his life.

You don’t have time to think of an answer — again — because you feel him positioning himself between your legs, the head of his cock pressing against you, hot and hard. You hold your breath, fingers digging into his shoulders while he pushes inside you slowly — so slowly — like he’s savoring every inch, every sound that falls from your mouth.

“Fuck,” he growls, forehead pressed against yours, eyes closed for a second like he’s fighting for control. “You’re so tight. Bet you haven’t fucked anyone else because you were waiting f'me.”

You have the distinct feeling your entire vocabulary has disappeared and you’ve gone stupid. There’s only the feeling of him inside you, filling you in a way that makes your body shake, makes your heart beat so hard you think you might pass out.

“Answer me,” he demands. “Who does this pussy belong to?”

When he’s finally all the way inside you, he stills, giving you a second to adjust, to breathe. But you don’t want to breathe. You want more.

“Sebastian—” you whisper desperately. “Please.”

He opens his eyes and looks at you with an intensity that makes your stomach twist. “Answer me, damnit.”

His hand smacks sharply against your thigh, making you moan.

“You,” you whimper, your cunt clenching around him. “My pussy’s only yours.”

He smiles, satisfied.

“Good girl", he purrs, but he still hasn't moved, just watching you. "Just like that."

“Move, please,” you beg, almost pathetically.

“Since you asked so nicely.”

And then he obeys.

The first thrust is slow, almost torturous, like he’s testing you, seeing how far he can go before you break. But you don’t break; you never do.

“Faster,” you murmur, nails digging into his skin.

Sebastian laughs, low and rough, before giving you exactly that.

Every thrust is faster, harder, the table creaking beneath you while he fucks you like it’s the last time, like there’s no tomorrow, like the entire world has disappeared and all that’s left is the two of you and this desperate need to lose yourselves inside each other.

You cry out. Every movement drags you closer to the edge, every kiss, every filthy murmur in your ear, every time he says your name like it’s a prayer.

“You’re mine,” he growls, fingers digging into your hip, voice so rough it barely sounds human. “Only mine. Every fucking inch.”

You should protest. Should tell him it isn’t true, that none of this is simple, that tomorrow it’ll all hurt again.

You say nothing.

Because right now, with his body inside yours, with his hands on you, with his voice in your ear, it is true.

When the orgasm hits you again, it’s stronger than before, more intense, like it’s dragging something out of you that can never be put back. You cry out, body shaking, legs tightening around him while he keeps moving, every thrust stretching the pleasure until it becomes almost unbearable.

"So good," he let out a shaky moan. "Shit— It feels so good to feel that pussy squeezing me while you cum."

It doesn’t take long before Sebastian finally breaks too, body tense, breathing ragged as he comes with a low, guttural groan, fingers digging into your skin like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded. A shaky moan escapes you when you feel the hot spill of him filling you completely.

For a long moment, there’s only the sound of your breathing, uneven and breathless, his body still pressed against yours, sweat sliding over both your skin.

Sebastian finally lifts his head, looking at you through dark, glassy eyes, hair stuck to his forehead. “Fuck,” he murmurs hoarsely. “You’re gonna kill me one day.”

You laugh breathlessly, almost disbelieving. “You started it.”

He smiles, slow and satisfied, before kissing you again, softer this time, like he’s savoring it. “I know.”

Then, with a sigh, he pulls back slightly, still inside you, one hand rising to cup your face like he’s thinking about what to say next.

“Can I stay?” he whispers.

Your heart stumbles in a deeply humiliating way. It takes you a few seconds before you finally nod slowly.

“Stay,” you whisper back.

Sebastian pulls out of you slowly before offering you a hand to help you down from the table.

You know this pattern. It’s happened enough times to feel almost instinctive by now.

You consider asking if he wants to talk. If he wants to figure out what exactly the two of you are.

But you don’t say anything.

There’s no need.

“I’ll make up the sofa bed for myself,” June commented casually, already heading towards the sofa bed.

“What?” Sebastian looked at her as if she had just insulted his grandmother.

“What what?” June frowned.

Sebastian sighed deeply.

“No,” he shook his head. “You sleep in the bed. I’ll take the sofa.”

Oh.

June took a few seconds to process this genuine display of kindness from Sebastian.

It was sweet. Really. Adorable, even.

“Sebastian, you don’t need to bother with this, I—”

“You’re already here, aren’t you?” He interrupted her, starting to straighten the clean sheets on the sofa. “At least get a little comfortable. You look awful.”

To hell with the previous kindness.

June was starting to be sure that Sebastian hated her.

She sighed, shoving her hands into the pockets of the sweatshirt that, until then, she hadn’t yet discovered was his. Sebastian, on the other hand, had no intention of commenting on it.

June felt herself melting the moment she lay down on Sebastian’s bed. It was warm, soft, and comfortable, unlike the bed she had at home: old and with springs (apparently decorative, because the bed was hard) that creaked every time June breathed. And it smelled like him… Sebastian’s scent was all over the bed, and she felt practically physical pain just mentally admitting that the smell was good. She practically let out a soft moan as she snuggled into the blankets, her body finally beginning to relax.

On the other side of the room, Sebastian looked up at the same instant.

The silence that fell after that sound was so awkward that June seriously considered getting out of bed and running back into the storm.

She pulled the blanket up to her nose.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” June murmured to the ceiling, mortified. “My bed is awful.”

Sebastian was silent for a few seconds.

“I noticed.”

June narrowed her eyes immediately.

“Are you naturally rude or are you taking a course in it?”