“I don’t want to wake up alone.”
His thumb stills against my jaw. “I’d stay if I could, princess. You know I would.”
“I know.”
“Don’t think about tomorrow. I’ll stay and hold you like this for as long as I can.”
Letting my lids drift shut, I allow the heat of his body to pull me into the illusion. For now, the sun isn’t here to steal our happiness, to shine a light on the danger that threatens. We don’t have to consider the Brotherhood, their rules, or their damn auction.
For now, we can just beus.
But illusions tend to shatter, and mine splinters under the weight of reality.
“You’ll be back in time for the auction, right?”
“Nothing on earth will keep me from coming back in time for that.”
I want to believe him.
Ihaveto believe him, because the alternative is a desolate scenario I won’t survive twice.
For a moment, I memorize him, my palm flat over the steady thud of a heart I was sure had stopped beating. It’s that impossible fact that finally shakes loose the practical questions—the ones I haven’t allowed myself to think about since I discovered him alive in my room.
“How did you get in here?”
“A friend of Tatum’s.”
“The woman I saw you with downstairs?”
Sebastian nods. “She has a network of people in high places. She got me into the ball.”
“But that still doesn’t tell me how you got inhere.”
“She bribed the guard outside your door. His piss breaks are on a schedule tonight.”
His crude humor almost makes me laugh, except the dread in my chest won’t ease. Tomorrow, I’ll step back into a world that believes he’s gone, and until he returns, I’ll have to pretend it’s the truth.
He pulls me tighter, one hand stroking a hypnotic path down my spine. Eventually, my eyelids droop.
Somewhere in the distance, a train howls.
“Sleep, baby,” he murmurs against my temple. “You need it.”
“I don’t want to wake up without you.”
“You won’t. I’m with you, no matter what.” He kisses me, his tongue sliding between my lips, languid with promise. “An ocean might separate us, but you’re mine, and I’m yours. Don’t ever forget that.”
A vow of certainty strings those words together, and I feel his faith in us—like a tangibleknowingthat lives in my blood. But even as my eyes drift shut, the seconds tick toward the dawning day…
When he’ll be gone again.
5
If I keep my eyes shut and sink further into the haze of half-sleep, I can almost feel him spooning me, every inch of him entwined with every inch of me.
It’s how I fell asleep, locked in his embrace.
But as the sun coaxes my eyes open, my attempt to delude myself slips away, and I’m faced with the cold, empty spot where Sebastianshouldbe.