The air in the pavilion is heavy with gardenias and held breath.

Amelia stands beneath an arch woven with white roses, her hand in Arthur’s. She doesn’t look like my sister. She looks like a statue of a bride, perfect and still, her sleek bob tucked behind one ear. Arthur’s eyes are wet. He keeps blinking, like he can’t believe the math worked out this well.

“I promise,” Amelia says, her voice clear and measured, a surgeon making an incision, “to be your harbor. To chart the sensible course. To keep the books balanced and the emergencies filed in triplicate.”

A soft laugh ripples through the small gathering. Arthur’s thumb strokes her knuckles.

“I promise,” he says, his voice a warm, rumpled sweater, “to forget my keys, and to remember your coffee. To get lost in thought, and to always, always find my way back to you.”

My chest is too tight. The latte-colored silk of the dress Amelia surprised me with—a replacement for the grey armor I left in a heap—feels like a second skin. It’s simple. Elegant. Severe in its own way, with a neckline that frames my collarbones and a skirt that whispers against my thighs. I feel seen. And I feel like a secret.

Sebastian stands beside Arthur, his best man. He hasn’t looked at the couple once.

His gaze is a physical weight on the side of my face, a blue flame I can feel in the roots of my hair. I keep my eyes forward, on my sister, but my entire being is tilted toward him, a planet locked in orbit.

The officiant pronounces them married. Arthur kisses Amelia. It’s sweet. Chaste. A sealing of a contract they both drafted in triplicate. The guests applaud. The string quartet swells.

And Sebastian finally moves. Not toward the newlyweds. He takes one step, just one, to the side, his shoulder now angled directly toward me. His hands are clasped loosely in front of him. I see the tremor in his right thumb, a tiny, frantic heartbeat against his knuckle.

“Photographs!” the planner trills, and we are herded like elegant cattle onto the manicured lawn overlooking the sea.

The sun is a bloody orange wound on the horizon. It gilds Sebastian’s profile as he stands rigidly for a family portrait. Eleanor is not here. The space beside him is a silent, screaming vacancy.

“Imogen, with the bride’s family, please!”

I’m pulled into the frame beside Amelia. She slips her arm through mine. Her grip is vice-tight. “You look beautiful,” she murmurs, her smile never wavering for the camera.

“You gave me the dress,” I whisper back.

“I know what I gave you,” she says, her eyes ahead. “I also know what you’re not wearing underneath it.”

My face floods with heat. The photographer clicks away, capturing my blush.

“Just,” Amelia breathes out, the word barely audible, “be careful. For one more night.”

Then she’s swept away for photos with Arthur, and Sebastian is there. The photographer motions us together. “Sibling shot! Groom’s brother and bride’s sister, lovely.”

We stand side-by-side, not touching. The space between our arms crackles.

“Closer,” the photographer chirps. “You look like you’re awaiting execution.”

Sebastian’s hand comes to rest on the small of my back. The contact is a brand through the thin silk. His fingers spread, possessive, his thumb finding the dip of my spine. I feel the imprint of each one.

“Smile,” he says, low, just for me. His voice is rough.

“I am.”

“You’re baring your teeth. It’s terrifying.”

I laugh, and the camera catches it. My head tilted back, his gaze not on the lens but on the line of my throat.

The reception is in a glass-walled ballroom, the night sky and the endless black Pacific the only decoration. I float through it. Champagne flutes land in my hand and are taken away, empty. Canapés taste like delicious. Every laugh, every clink of silverware, is muffled, happening in another room.

Sebastian is across the room. He is talking to a university donor. He is nodding at something Arthur says. He is accepting a glass of whisky. He is looking at me.

Always, he is looking at me.

His eyes track the sway of my skirt. They linger on the bare skin of my shoulders. They darken when a groomsman leans in to compliment my dress. It is a constant, relentless claiming. A silent conversation conducted over the heads of everyone we know.

My skin is too hot. The silk is damp between my shoulder blades. I am hyper-aware of my own body, of the memory of his hands on it hours ago, of the delicious, aching tenderness between my legs. A souvenir.

The first dance is announced. Arthur and Amelia glide to the center of the floor to something classic, something slow. They move perfectly in time. A planned routine.

Then the floor opens. The music shifts, something with a pulse.

I feel him before I see him. A shift in the air pressure. Then his hand is on my waist, his breath at my ear. “Dance with me.”

It isn’t a question. He pulls me into the crowd of moving bodies, and the world narrows to the space where we touch.

His right hand is firm on my back, his left cradles my hand against his chest. I can feel the hard plane of his pectoral muscle, the beat of his heart through his crisp white shirt. It’s a proper hold. A waltz hold. But we are not waltzing.

We sway. A minimal, desperate movement. My forehead rests against his jaw. His stubble scrapes my skin. I smell his soap, his sweat, the faint, clean scent of his shampoo. The heat coming off him is immense.

“You’re staring,” I murmur into his throat.

“Yes.”

“People will talk.”

“Let them.” His hand slides lower, his fingertips brushing the top of my tailbone. A shockwave rolls down to my heels. “The dress is a cruelty.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“It covers you. I find I object to that.” His voice is a gravelly vibration against my temple. “I spent the entire ceremony cataloging the places I’ve touched you that the silk is hiding. It was a compelling list.”

A throbbing ache starts low in my belly. “Sebastian.”

“Say it again.”

“Sebastian.”

His fingers flex, digging into my spine. He pulls me an inch closer. Our bodies align, and I feel him, hard and insistent against my stomach. The air leaves my lungs in a rush.

We’re moving, but we’re utterly still. A locked tableau in the middle of the dance floor. His breath is coming faster now, warm on my hair. My hand on his chest curls, clutching the fabric of his shirt.

“I can smell you,” he whispers, raw and brutal. “Through the perfume. Through everything. I can smell *me* on you. Can you feel it? Where I was inside you?”

My knees go weak. He holds me up, his arm an iron band.

“Yes.”

“Good.” He turns his head, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. “I want you thinking of nothing else. I want you wet for me in the middle of my brother’s wedding reception. I want you aching.”

“I am.” The confession is a tear in the fabric of the evening. “God, I am.”

His control splinters. Just for a second. His hips roll forward, a slow, deliberate grind against me. The friction, even through our clothes, is blinding. A moan catches in my throat. He swallows the sound with his body.

When he speaks again, his voice is wrecked. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“We can’t.”

“Watch me.”

He guides me off the dance floor, his hand a brand on my back. We don’t look at anyone. We move through the glittering crowd like a knife through water. My heart is a frantic bird in my chest. The tender, swollen flesh between my legs pulses with every step, a relentless reminder of him, of his possession.

We reach the French doors leading to a dark terrace. He pauses, looks down at me. His blue eyes are black in the low light, full of a hunger that mirrors the yawning void of the ocean beyond the glass.

“Last chance to be good,” he says, but it’s not a choice he’s offering. It’s a dare.

I take his hand and pull him into the night.

The cool night air hits my skin for one second. One breath. Then his body slams into mine, his hands on my shoulders, pinning me back against the rough stone wall of the terrace. The impact steals the air from my lungs. My head knocks against the stone, a bright spark of pain. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t speak.

He kisses me.

It’s not a kiss. It’s a conquest. A violence. His mouth is hot and desperate, his tongue sweeping past my lips with a low, guttural sound that vibrates through my teeth. His hands slide from my shoulders to frame my face, his thumbs digging into my jaw, holding me still for the onslaught. I can’t breathe. I don’t want to. I kiss him back with equal ferocity, my fingers twisting in the fine wool of his tuxedo jacket, pulling him closer, trying to erase the space the silk of my dress creates.

The music from the reception is a dull, rhythmic throb through the walls. Laughter. Clinking glasses. A world away. Here, there is only the scrape of his stubble, the taste of champagne and salt on his tongue, the punishing pressure of his body keeping me anchored to the earth.

He breaks the kiss, but only to drag his mouth along my jaw, down the column of my throat. His breath is ragged, scorching. “I have wanted to do that,” he bites out against my pulse, “for seven hours and thirty-two minutes.”

“You were counting?” My voice is shattered.

“I was counting.” His teeth graze my collarbone, a sharp, bright promise. “Every second I had to watch you stand there in that fucking dress. Every smile you gave to someone else. Every time you looked at me and then away.” He pulls back, his eyes searching my face in the jagged moonlight. His blue irises are swallowed by black, his expression stripped raw. “Tell me you want this.”

It’s the last vestige of his propriety. A formality. A plea.

I lift my hand, cup the hard line of his jaw. Feel the muscle jump under my palm. “I want this. I want you. I’m so tired of pretending I don’t.”

The words unravel him. A shudder runs through his entire frame. He kisses me again, slower now, deeper, a deliberate savoring that melts my bones. His hands leave my face, travel down my sides, mapping the silk. They settle on my hips, his grip possessive, and he grinds himself against me, letting me feel the hard, thick length of him straining against his trousers.

A helpless sound escapes me. My head falls back against the wall. “Sebastian.”

“I know.” He rests his forehead against mine, our breaths mingling in frantic clouds. “I can’t. Not here. They could walk out.”

The ‘they’ hangs between us. Amelia. Arthur. Eleanor. A hundred judging eyes.

“Where?” The word is a whisper.

He looks past me, over my shoulder, his gaze scanning the dark grounds. The resort is a sprawl of low buildings and landscaped paths, dotted with the soft glow of pathway lights. His eyes lock on a point to our left. “There.”

He takes my hand, his fingers lacing through mine with a certainty that leaves no room for doubt. He leads me off the terrace, away from the golden spill of the ballroom windows, onto a gravel path that crunches under our feet. We move quickly, silently, two shadows fleeing a feast. The night air is cool on my heated skin, a shock that makes me tremble. Or maybe it’s just him.

We round a corner of manicured hedge and it appears: the private plunge pool, a square of luminous turquoise set into a stone deck. It’s deserted. The water is still, steam rising from its surface into the cool air. The scent of chlorine is sharp, undercut by the sweet, heavy perfume of night-blooming jasmine from a nearby trellis.

He stops at the edge of the deck, turns to face me. The underwater lights of the pool cast shifting blue patterns over his face, over the severe black and white of his tuxedo. He looks like a myth. A dangerous one.

“Last chance to be good,” he says again, but his voice is thick, his chest rising and falling too fast.

I step out of my shoes. The cold stone is a shock against my bare soles. I reach for the hidden zipper at the side of my dress. The sound is loud in the silence. The silk sighs, sliding down my body, pooling at my feet in a whisper of latte. I stand before him, completely bare. The night air kisses my skin, my breasts, the curve of my hip, raising goosebumps.

His gaze is a physical touch. It travels over me, slow, worshipful, hungry. He doesn’t move. He just watches. The intensity of his stare is more intimate than his hands were against the wall.

“Your turn,” I say, and my voice doesn’t shake.

He obeys. His movements are efficient, practiced. The jacket is shrugged off, tossed carelessly onto a lounger. The bowtie is pulled loose. His fingers work the buttons of his shirt, one by one, revealing the golden skin and hard muscle I’ve become so familiar with. He sheds the shirt, the undershirt beneath it. His chest is broad, sculpted, dusted with dark hair that trails down his flat stomach and disappears into the waistband of his trousers.

He toes off his shoes, sheds his socks. Then his hands go to his belt. The buckle clinks. The zip lowers. He pushes the trousers and his briefs down in one motion, stepping out of the puddle of fine fabric.

And there he is. Fully revealed in the aquamarine light. Tall, powerful, beautifully made. His erection is thick and heavy, curving up against his stomach, the head flushed dark and already wet. My mouth goes dry. My own body clenches in response, a deep, aching pulse between my legs that has me swaying on my feet.

He closes the distance between us. His skin radiates heat. He doesn’t touch me yet. He just looks down, his eyes tracing the bare curve of my hip, the swell of my breast. “This,” he says softly, “is still a cruelty.”

His hands come up. They don’t fumble. His palms are rough and hot as they slide up my ribs, over the sensitive undersides of my breasts. His thumbs brush my nipples. A low groan tears from his throat.

He bends his head and takes one into his mouth.

The heat. The wet suction. The graze of his teeth. A bolt of pure lightning shoots from my breast to my core. My knees buckle. He holds me up, one arm banding around my back, his mouth working me with a focused, devastating attention. He switches to the other, lavishing it with the same thorough, sucking kisses until I’m panting, my fingers tangled in his dark hair, pulling.

He straightens, his lips swollen, his breath ragged. His thumbs hook into the sides of my underwear. “Lift your foot.”

I do. He peels the lace down one leg, then the other. He kneels before me to remove the stockings, his fingers deft on the clips of the garters. His touch is reverent on my ankles, my calves, my thighs. When I am completely bare, he stays there, on his knees, his face level with my stomach. He presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss just below my navel. His hands slide up the backs of my thighs, urging me to open for him.

I do.

He looks. He breathes in. The night air, the chlorine, the jasmine—it’s all obliterated by the musk of my arousal. A raw, hungry sound escapes him. “You’re dripping.”

He doesn’t use his fingers. He uses his tongue.

A broad, flat stroke from bottom to top. Slow. Deliberate. A mapping of my most intimate flesh. The sensation is so shockingly direct, so wet and hot and perfect, that a broken cry echoes off the stone deck. My hands fly to his shoulders for balance.

“Quiet, darling,” he murmurs against me, the vibration making me shudder. “We’re not entirely alone.”

Then he devotes himself to the task. His mouth is an instrument of exquisite torture. He licks, he sucks, he flicks his tongue over the sensitive bundle of nerves until I’m trembling, my thighs shaking around his head. He pushes his tongue inside me, tasting me deeply, and the obscene, wet sound of it mingles with my choked gasps. He brings me to the edge, again and again, only to pull back, to lave gentle, soothing circles that make me whimper with frustration.

“Please,” I beg, my fingers clutching at his hair. “Sebastian, please.”

“What do you want?” His voice is muffled, dark with my taste.

“You. Inside. Now.”

He rises in one fluid motion. His body is sheened with a light sweat. He takes my hand, leads me to the steps at the shallow end of the plunge pool. “In.”

The water is warm, enveloping. It licks up my legs, my waist, as I descend. He follows me in. The water settles around our chests. We face each other, the steam rising between us. The underwater lights make his skin glow, make the water around us a shifting, liquid sapphire.

He pulls me to him. Our bodies slide together, slick and hot. His erection presses against my stomach, a hard, insistent brand. I wrap my legs around his waist, locking my ankles at the small of his back. He supports me easily, his hands gripping the backs of my thighs.

He notches himself at my entrance. The broad head of him presses against me, a blunt, perfect pressure. He doesn’t push. He holds there, his eyes locked on mine. In the strange light, his face is all stark angles and desperate need.

“Look at me,” he says, his voice rough. “I want to see you.”

I nod, my breath coming in short pants. I am stretched, full, aching. I am ready.

He pushes in.

It’s a slow, inexorable invasion. The water offers no resistance, only a surreal, weightless sensuality. I feel every ridge, every inch of him as he fills me, stretching me to a perfect, burning fit. A moan is torn from my throat. My head falls forward against his shoulder. The feeling is overwhelming. The heat of him inside me, the warm water surrounding us, the solid wall of his chest under my cheek.

He is still, buried to the hilt, letting me adjust, letting us both feel the shocking reality of our connection. His breath gusts hot against my ear. “Christ, Imogen. You feel…” He has no words. He just holds me tighter.

Then he begins to move.

Slow, at first. Deep, rolling thrusts that stroke a place inside me I didn’t know existed. The water swirls around us, amplifying every motion, every slide. There is no sound but our ragged breathing, the soft lap of water against stone, the distant, ghostly melody of the wedding band.

“Look at me,” he grits out again.

I force my head up. Our eyes meet. His are blazing, stripped of all pretence, all control. In them, I see the same terrifying wonder I feel. This isn’t just sex. This is a collision. This is the thing we’ve been hurtling toward since I stepped naked into his path.

His pace quickens. The slow, deep rolls become harder, more urgent. He drives into me, his hips pistoning, the muscles in his neck cording with strain. The water splashes around us with each powerful thrust. I meet him, move with him, my nails digging into the hard muscles of his back. Pleasure coils tight and hot in my belly, a spring winding to its breaking point.

“You’re mine,” he growls into my mouth, kissing me, stealing my breath. “Say it.”

“I’m yours.”

“Again.”

“Yours, Sebastian, God, I’m yours—”