Unfinished Heroes: Sebring Part 31

I didn't like that.

"Georgie-"

She lifted a hand my way. "You're too easy on them, Liv. They're good. They've got money coming in, product going out. And Tommy's definitely watched you for years. He knows those boys and how to handle them. It's already working."

I could believe that.

"Right, then I'll let you get to it," I murmured, turning to leave.

"Thanks" she said to my back, but distantly. She was moving on.

I moved on too, only glancing at her marking on the papers in that folder before I closed the door to her office and moved to mine.

It had been weeks so it felt weird being there. Especially right then, with the unexpected but definitely not unwanted news that my job description had changed. Changed to something I greatly preferred doing. Something safer. Something that maybe in doing it, I might get an hour or two's sleep at night, having a clear head and feeling moderately (but not completely, never that) clean.

It was something that should make me smile.

h.e.l.l, it was something that should make me twirl with glee.

I did not twirl with glee.

Because it was unexpected. And it was swift. There had been nearly zero discussion about it with me, and my sister could be decisive, but she wasn't stupid, she knew I had the most level head of all of us and she talked things through.

She hadn't talked it through about the labs before she put them in operation either.

Not with me.

Not with our father.

Something was changing and as much as I wanted it to feel right, it felt wrong and it did nothing to make me feel any less like the world as I knew it was s.h.i.+fting under my feet.

And, even more than usual, I was powerless to stop the results of that s.h.i.+ft.

Even if it meant the earth opened up and swallowed the whole of me.

10:42 That Evening "Hey."

My eyes moved from their contemplation of Nick's super-cool reddish-pink glow light to his face.

He was curled up, head and shoulders to a pile of pillows in his bed at his headboard, his chest on display, his lower body partially tangled in sheets.

Somehow, between o.r.g.a.s.m and post-o.r.g.a.s.m cuddling-esque maneuvers (as we did them, Nick didn't cuddle, I didn't either-we both still did) to now, I'd s.h.i.+fted position.

I had some of his sheets tangled around my legs, partially around my a.s.s, but my back was exposed, including my scar, and I had my arm on his gut, my chin to my arm, and my attention to the doom I sensed hovering in my world.

When he got that attention, I decided first things first and s.h.i.+fted the sheet so it covered my a.s.s and the scars.

I watched his eyes shaft that way briefly, his mouth tightening in what appeared to be mild frustration. This was something he did whenever I showed any indication of embarra.s.sment about my scar. Though, I had to admit, me doing that was happening on a rarer occasion. It was just that I felt vulnerable right then for some reason.

It was also something he wiped clean from his expression when he looked back to me.

"You're a million miles away," he noted.

"I want you to be someone else," I blurted.

He blinked before he smiled, his body faintly shaking, his smiling lips muttering, "And she knows just how to gut a guy."

"Someone I can trust," I explained.

His humor instantly fled.

"In fact," I went on ridiculously and definitely stupidly, "it'd be good if there was a single f.u.c.king person on this G.o.dforsaken planet I could trust."

Knowing that was ridiculous and stupid, but it feeling good to get out anyway, I decided that was enough and it was time to go home.

So I pushed up and twisted around to exit the bed.

As I was learning with Nick, I shouldn't have wasted the effort. If I dropped a bomb like that, he'd not let it go and make it so I couldn't either.

So it was not a surprise I found myself on my back, more tangled in the sheets, now hopelessly so, and if that wasn't enough, a good deal of his weight was bearing down on me.

"You okay?" he asked.

I looked up at him and I did it hard, searching, trying to find anything, absolutely anything that would tell me where he was at, really at, with me.

But all I could see was marginal concern, the rest he held hidden.

Which told me where he was at with me.

Which was precisely where I was at with him.

And lastly, it was exactly where we'd always be.

I was never okay but that wasn't for then or ever, for him or anyone. It was just what it was and it was all for me.

So I weighed my words and gave him what I thought was safe.

"It's just that I learned some interesting things today which could lead to good or it could..." I shrugged, "not."

"Let me guess, Olivia Shade is not an optimist," he remarked.

I almost smiled.

Instead I confirmed, "My gla.s.s has always been half empty. That is, when there was anything in the d.a.m.ned thing at all."

I watched his features at war again, definite concern and also curiosity, those along with what appeared to be a hint of unease.

But he settled into the concern.

"Wanna make a deal?" he asked quietly.

I felt my neck muscles tense as I felt us s.h.i.+ft to dangerous ground.

"Sebring," was all I said.

"Half an hour, you let it all hang out, you give me what you got, lay it all on me. You're worried, you let it out. You want advice, I'll give it to you honestly. Cone of silence. It goes no further than this bed. It's just you and me. And after that half an hour, it's forgotten. We'll never speak of it again and you can trust it's buried with me. And you can trust that, Olivia. Swear to f.u.c.k. You got half an hour where you are not you and I am not me. We're other people, something else to each other and you can know down to your soul during that time that you've got what you need from me and you got it safely."

I stared into his beautiful blue eyes set in his handsome face before my gaze drifted. To his spiky dark hair. His corded neck. Even his well-formed ears. Taking him all in, wanting that. Wanting it, and really having it, even if only for half an hour. Wanting it like you wouldn't believe.

I could taste that want in my mouth.

I even fancied I could live forever feeding on just those thirty short minutes with him being everything I needed him to be, naked, his weight warming me, his c.u.m still inside me, tangled up in his sheets, safe in his bed, safe, safe, safe to unload on somebody even a hint of the s.h.i.+t that buried me.

And the tingling in my throat hurt so bad, it felt like it would strangle me, knowing how bad I wanted that, and using his words-knowing how down deep in my soul I could never risk it.

Which meant I could never have it.

Not with him.

Not with anybody.

But that pain wasn't about anybody.

That pain was about not ever having it with Nick.

"Olivia," he whispered and the way he said my name I knew at least some of what I was feeling was leaking out of me.

"I have to go," I whispered back.

"Spend the night," he urged gently.

G.o.d, I wanted that too. To again sleep beside Nick. To wake up next to him. I fought that want every night. Every single night, I fought a want I wanted badly.

To have it just one more time.

One more.

I shook my head and swallowed against the pain.

He dropped closer, his hand coming up to stroke the side my neck.

"Change the deal. Take the whole night. We got until morning to be what you need us to be," he pushed. "Swear to Christ, you're safe right here. I can give you that, Olivia. I can give you the night. I promise you that."

The night.

Heaven.

Bliss.

For me, an eternity.

I shook my head again.

"Whatever it is, you don't give it to me, what'll you do with it?" he asked.

I shook my head again.

"Give it to me," he whispered.

"I have to go, Sebring."

"Give it to me, Olivia."

"Please get off me."

We stared at each other.

He stroked my neck.

I battled the burn in my throat.

Finally, he dipped his head, his nose gliding along my cheek until he touched his mouth to the skin just in front of my ear.

And then he shattered my world.

"You didn't take that deal and I get that, Olivia. It's smart. I know, I'd do the same thing," he said there, his lips skimming against my skin. "You didn't take what I was offering but in this moment, I gotta say something. I'm gonna say it once and it's what you need know."

With that introduction, he pressed closer and gave it to me.

"If you let whatever you got inside you loose, you'd make a man incredibly happy. You'd be a dream he couldn't build. You'd be everything. You should not be f.u.c.kin' a man who can give you nothing. You should find one you can trust who knows nothing for certain in the world except you're his everything. I want you to come back to me tomorrow night. And the next. And the next. But I hope like f.u.c.k one day you disappear and I never hear from you again, no one ever hears from you again. And I hope that because I'll know that'll be the day you get what you deserve. Bein' able to let loose with a man you trust who thinks you're his everything."

When he stopped talking, I turned my head and drew in a slow, deep breath, taking him in, my nose brus.h.i.+ng his skin, knowing, the day I died, my last thought, my last feeling, the last scent I'd experience was going to be the memory of that breath.

Drawing in what I wanted but could never have.

Drawing in Nick Sebring.

Drawing in a Nick Sebring who'd just told me that man who I could trust who would think I was his everything was not nor ever would be him.

Then I whispered, "Sebring, please get off of me."

It felt like I took more of his weight, like his powerful body slumped in defeat, right before he got off me.

And unfortunately, so gently to the point it was tenderly, he helped extricate me from the sheets and put me on my feet.

I got dressed. He did too so we could dance our dance, one neither of us enjoyed, one neither of us had the strength to stop.