Sweet Love of Mine

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Emily didn't know why she said it, or even why she needed to. There was an unbearable weight upon her chest, constricting her heart, emitting a low roar in her ears, and she needed a distraction. She could not endure this feeling, this pain, and her grief was too great to comprehend- the death of a mother she hadn't known, who had abandoned her at a young age, and now who she would never know.

And the man she thought she might love had withheld this vitally pertinent information from her.

It was too much. Emily couldn't endure it. She didn't want to sort through the myriad of emotions that were fighting for control through her body- she wanted to forget, to escape, and Sebastian could aid her with that.

"Kiss me," she begged, again, her voice strained and aching. Every part of her anatomy trembled with uncontrollable, palpable force. She didn't want to relinquish control and allow the torrent of what she felt, of what she contained, to ravage through her body, to tear at her limbs and her mind.

"Emily-"

"Sebastian, please." She felt the tears stream down her cheeks, unchecked, but she hardly minded. His arms around her, securing her frame to his hard body, were comforting, solacing, which was strange considering he was the cause behind her distress. Emily studied the angular, shadowed panes of his face through a mist of tears, silently begging him to love her.

He sighed, the sound ragged and harsh to her ears. "If I kiss you," he told her quietly, "I'm not going to stop. If I don't stop, I'm going to take you to bed. Once you are in that bed with me, I expect you to marry me. Can you promise me you will do that?"

He couldn't ask that of her now, not when she felt so very vulnerable. Her bottom lip trembled and she fleetingly contemplated what he was asking: Marriage- to a man who had the audacity to refrain from informing her of the death of her mother, who had secretly harboured the news for days afterward.  She needed to think, to reason, something she was incapable of at present, but yet he was demanding it of her. Emily shook her head. "Don't ask that of me yet," she mumbled. "I can't."

"Yet you'd so willingly lie with me and become a fallen woman?" he berated harshly and then winced, his words followed by a vehement oath.

Emily closed her eyes against the truth of his words because that was exactly what she had been asking, had been willing to do, merely for the escape and temporary pleasure of losing herself in this devastatingly handsome man.

"I apologise," he growled. "That was uncalled for."

Emily inhaled a shuddering breath and firmly extricated herself from the sanctity of his embrace. "No, you're right," she told him. "I should go."

She made it two steps towards his door when his voice stopped her. "Don't."

"I should."

He shifted and she felt the air warm around her as he closed the distance that separated them. Gently, he eased his hands closed around the tops of her arms, pulling her back against his chest. "I know," he murmured, his mouth close to her ear. His warm breath teased the loose wisps of hair that lay against her cheek. "But I don't want you to."

"I don't want to," she sighed, infused with his nearness, his warmth.

"Then stay."

"I can't make that promise."

"You will." Gradually, his lips descended until they encompassed the sensitive shell of her ear. Emily was suddenly aware that her tears had seized to fall, that her body has soothed its insurgent tremors to be replaced by altogether different quivers. "I'm willing to take that risk."