Chapter Twelve
EVENING HAD QUICKLY TURNED into Sebastian’s favorite time of the day and the only time he relaxed completely. Candra’s fingers absently twirled the short hair on his leg, just above his ankle where her hand pushed up under his jeans. She sat up at the head of his bed with her book resting on her bent knees and a pen lightly tapping against her bottom lip. He lay on his side with his legs crossed and propped up on one elbow. Her touch tickled, sending warmth through his entire body, and the insistent tapping kept his attention firmly on her mouth. He had never felt so safe and yet so exposed at the same time.
After his conversation with Ambriel, he knew he had to give more. Ambriel would never accept anything less than full commitment to the girl she thought of as her daughter, and Candra deserved nothing less. He’d exhausted the volumes in his own library, including a number he had shipped from his homes in England and Italy, and then he’d redirected his efforts to the books and scrolls in Draven’s library, searching for some clue. Nothing in their history compared to Candra. Her abilities remained a mystery.
The first date had been a success, especially when he’d surprised her with the dress bags containing a selection of jeans and sweaters. It had impressed her that he’d noticed she preferred comfort to dressing up. The venue had been another inspired choice. Sebastian had taken her to a restaurant in the city. They’d closed the roof garden for the winter. He’d arranged for heaters and twinkling lights to be strung up overhead, substituting for the stars she loved hidden behind blankets of clouds and smog.
Sebastian wasn’t the least bit surprised when she’d become emotional and even shed tears…but she’d smiled too. She smiled more and more often as the days passed, even though he appreciated the weight of her loss.
She believed she was doing better and coping, but on some nights, Candra’s nightmares became so bad, her body convulsed and twisted. He often found himself holding her down against her thrashes as tears poured over her cheeks. Some mornings, she woke in his arms, and it was just like the first morning after Ivy’s death when he saw those brief seconds of peace in her eyes before the world came crashing in like a tide on a stormy day.
He perceived her grief as relentless and unyielding. It created a barrier between them he had yet to break through. Occasionally, it was almost transparent enough for him to catch a glimpse of the girl she had been when he’d found her first: feisty and full of life, determined and selfless.
Ambriel reluctantly agreed to him staying at the townhouse again. He intended to stay nearby regardless, but having Ambriel’s blessing made the logistics easier. She’d taken some convincing that he was trying to change.
Candra’s lip twitched at the corner, and her eyelashes fluttered when she attempted to glance at him without being obvious. His grin widened. In all his existence, he’d never imagined he could be so happy with the world ready to collapse around him.
“You’re doing it again,” she scolded, biting down on her lip to keep from smiling too. Blood rushed to below the thin layer of skin, making them flush a dark pink.
“What exactly?” Sebastian asked innocently.
He saw a flash of brown below her thick eyelashes, although she didn’t lift her eyes. “I need to get this done, and you are not conducive to study.”
“Do you want help?”
“It would be great if you could. I think I would possibly be the only student turning in a paper with genuine source material.” She paused and sighed before she closed the book and tossed it aside. It landed on the wooden floor with a hollow-sounding thump. “Remind me again why I’m doing this? Nothing about what they’re teaching us is what really happened, and learning a messed-up version of history won’t benefit any of us now.”
Candra crawled up the bed, shoved him over onto his back, and lay down on his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, reminding himself, as always, that he didn’t have to feel guilty. She picked me, he told himself and chased away those insecurities that constantly haunted him. Despite what Ambriel had said that day in the park, Candra didn’t have to be with him—she had a choice, and she chose to be with him. She chose it every single day.
“You want a normal life, remember?”
“Maybe normal is overrated. Look where normal got all of you. What if all I’m doing is building myself up to a huge disappointment?”
Sebastian placed his index finger under her chin and forced her eyes up to meet his. He was glad to know there was no defeat there. Nevertheless, he could see the pale purple shadows of sleepless nights and nightmares evident below her eyes.
“This isn’t over. Nothing will take me away from you. I promise.”
Candra ducked her head toward his neck too quickly for him to read her expression and kissed the pulse point just below his ear. She didn’t need to say it out loud for Sebastian to hazard a guess at her thoughts: she didn’t believe him.
Right from the moment they’d realized their feeling for each other and had known they wanted to be together, they’d fought against fate or destiny. Even without any other consideration, without Lilith showing up or Draven holding onto his desire to be with Candra, they both knew she was aging as a human. The unspoken question still lingered like a bad smell in the room. Something would win out and eventually separate them.
Candra’s hand trailed up Sebastian’s side, raising a line of goose bumps. He shivered. Such a human reaction, he observed and wondered when he had begun to be more human than angel? Had it always been that way and he simply hadn’t noticed? Candra’s lips grazed over his ear, and her warm breath caressed his skin. His heart pounded, and the question knocked around inside his skull…the one Ambriel had asked him: What was he prepared to give up for her? They both knew what she meant, but it wasn’t that simple.
Candra’s hands roamed over his body, shooting intense fiery tingles across his skin. “Since you are distracting me anyway, I hope you are planning to make it worth my while.”
In a flash, he reversed their position, pressing her into the bed with the weight of his body, and kissed her. Her hands ghosted down his back and slipped innocently between their crushed bodies, dragging upward over his hipbones. Candra squirmed below him and looped her ankle around his calf as he worked up to backing off.
His guy card was well and truly revoked at this point. Caring about someone too much was never a situation Sebastian had contemplated finding himself in. Yet here he was, impossibly turned on and madly in love, but holding out like a virgin before prom. Honestly, he’d had no idea before about the magnitude of not having sex. Every nerve inside him was ten times more attuned to the slightest movement of her body. His ears picked out even the tiniest hitch in her breath. Kissing her was like two clouds crashing before a thunderstorm. Everything she did utterly fascinated him, from the way she scooped hair behind her ear to the muscles in her throat working when she swallowed. Candra’s passion was a raging hurricane, and he longed to dance in the rain. Touching her was a sublime torment, one he subjected himself to of his own accord, albeit fleetingly, over and over. He didn’t regret being with her, but Sebastian had known sex without love for far too long. The idea of getting this wrong and falling off a ledge into an abyss, where the tentative control he still clung onto was lost, terrified him.
So, just like every other time since the morning of the ball, Sebastian backed off. Candra propped herself up on her elbows, with messed hair, flushed cheeks, and a look of sheer exasperation on her face.
“What are you doing?” she asked breathlessly, watching Sebastian’s uncharacteristic nervous excitement.
His hand curled into fists with his nails pressed into his palms. After three steady inhales and exhales, Sebastian was sure he had calmed himself enough so his wings, tingling below his skin, would remain unseen. His wings, he thought and barked out a laugh that made Candra jump, although her questioning smile didn’t falter.
“I have to go.”
“What are you waiting for?” Candra sat up and scooted to the edge of the bed. She closed her slender fingers around the hem of his T-shirt and gently tugged him toward her, her head tilted back to focus on his downturned face.
He moved unwillingly, wanting to be anywhere else. Temptation crackled in the air like static. Her other hand crept underneath his T-shirt. Sebastian raked his fingers through his hair, scratching across his scalp to distract from Candra’s nails gently teasing down his stomach toward the band of his jeans. The scent of her apple shampoo filled his head, and the combination made it hard to think straight. He practically swooned before he came to his senses.
“You’ve bewitched me, Candra,” he groaned and covered her hands with his to remove them from his body. His heart and his gut warred against him every step of the way. “The way I feel about you, it’s here—” he flattened her palm over his heart “—in every beat, growing unbidden. Sometimes, I think it was there all along, sleeping and waiting for you.” He smiled. “I sound like an idiot.”
“No.” She returned his smile. “It’s sort of refreshing. I spent so long questioning myself and wondering if you felt anything at all.”
“I don’t want to get this wrong,” he admitted, flinching at the almost debilitating fear it stirred up in him to talk about his feelings. Feelings were uncontrollable, unstoppable…regardless of whether or not they were welcome. It went against his very nature to give up control.
Candra lowered her head and took her hand away from his chest. She threaded her fingers through his hair and kissed his palm. When Candra lifted her eyes, they were glassy with unshed tears. “The past is gone, and there is nothing we can do about it. It’s dust if we want it to be, stardust, nothing more…we can shake it off and move on.” Her hushed voice broke. “Maybe we’ll have tomorrow, maybe we won’t, but I do know we have right now, and I don’t want to gamble on wasting a moment. Do you?”
