Chapter Nineteen
Now
Sebastian was out of his seat and around the table before I knew what was happening, the space between us vanishing so quickly I had no time to prepare for impact. When he reached me his fists locked tightly around my wrists, and I was pulled bodily from my seat and lifted up onto the table.
I gasped in shock and pain. This was no gentle placement, no tender lift. He’d slammed me down hard enough that the backs of my thighs smarted on contact and my teeth rattled in my mouth. His grip was biting, his fingers digging into the flesh at my hips with a force that hovered on the razors edge between carnality and brutality.
“Bash,” I protested, shocked at the way he was treating me. He’d never touched me like this when we were together.
“My name is Sebastian,” he bit out, removing one hand from its hold at my hip. His fingers slid around to the nape of my neck, fisting the hair there tightly enough that I whimpered. “Or Mr. Covington. It’s your choice.”
I stared into his eyes, not recognizing the look in them. They swam with desire and anger, lust and hatred. He wanted me, and he loathed the fact that he did.
I wish I were strong enough to say I was outraged at his treatment. I wish I could say that the feeling of his hands on me, even though they were rough and lacking the tenderness of the boy he used to be, didn’t set my blood boiling in my veins. I’d never been so turned on in my life — not by a long shot. Not even when we were kids, sneaking around on the back roads in his gardener’s borrowed pickup truck and discovering one another beneath a blanket of stars.
The memory snapped me back into reason. This couldn’t happen. Thisshouldn’thappen.
“Bash, you’re hurting me,” I told him, my eyes wide.
“My name,” he leaned forward, eyes burning into mine. “IsSebastian. You lost the right to call me anything else seven years ago,Ms. Kincaid.”
He was so close now, I could feel each word as it took shape on his lips. He hadn’t ever handled me with anger before. At seventeen he'd been gentle, loving, respectful. The man holding me so roughly now was a different creature entirely — one stripped of any genteel fronts a young lover might construct in hopes of shielding his partner’s more delicate sensibilities.
Before me was a man, not a boy. Passion warred with anger in his eyes. Pressed so tightly against him, I could feel how much he wanted me, yet his words were cruel when he spoke again.
“What's my name?”
I whimpered in response, ashamed of the dampness I felt gathering in my underwear, of the telltale tightening of my nipples beneath my bra. This shouldn’t turn me on. This was wrong.
“Say it,” he growled, clutching me tighter against him. His other hand left my hair and found its way to the base of my skirt, viciously bunching the fabric in a clenched fist as he pushed it higher up my thigh. He ground himself against me, and I let out a whimper as the last of shred of my control slipped away.
“Sebastian,” I gasped out finally, arching my body against his chest.
“Say it again.”
“Sebastian,” I breathed, my head falling back.
“I should fuck you right here, like the little whore you are.”
My eyes snapped open and my spine went rigid at his cold words. There was no lust in his eyes anymore — only anger and distrust. Vengeance. Maybe some hatred.
He raised a hand to grip my chin firmly between his fingers, with just enough pressure to keep me in place without causing pain.
“You,” he whispered, leaning so close our lips brushed. “Are the most selfish, manipulative woman I have ever had the displeasure of knowing, and I have regretted our every moment together for the past seven years. Frankly, the very sight of you makes me sick. But I suppose it’s nice to know if I still wanted you, I could have you on your knees begging in under a minute.”
I glared at him and raised my hand to slap him across the face, but he caught my flying fist midair within one of his own.
“Lucky for you,” he murmured, his eyes trapping mine. “I don’t do sloppy seconds.”
With that, his right hand disappeared from my chin and his left released my fist, which I let fall to my lap like deadweight. He turned without a backward glance and headed for the elevators, leaving me sitting on the conference room table like a naive little girl — legs spread, skirt rucked, hair tousled.
Like I was a cheap, five-dollar fuck you didn’t bother to ask for a phone number or even a first name.
Only when the elevator doors had closed at his back, did I hop down from the table, smooth my skirt, and allow the tears to fill my eyes. I was a fool. He hated me for what I’d done to him all those years ago. And, clearly, he wasn’t the same man I’d loved back then. I needed to let go, to harden my heart against him.
If only he’d give it back, first.
Tears of humiliation and grief — for both myself and for the man Sebastian had become — streamed down my face as I collected my things and headed for the elevator. It was time to go home.