AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Leon needed to get out of this situation. “Let it go.”
“So you admit it?” Sebastian’s eyes blazed, and Leon bared his teeth in a snarl.
“Yes, Sebastian! I have a fucking problem with you!” He had a problem with how he couldn’t stop falling into his eyes no matter what color or shape they were. He had a problem with how his fingers twitched and his hands ached to touch whenever Sebastian stood close enough. He had a problem with the way his cocky grins and his utter surety made everything seem manageable in a world that was out of control, and Leon couldn’t stay away. Leon yanked his arm back. “But it’s my fucking problem, so let it go.”
Leon had half turned on his heel—he’d almost made his escape—when he caught the crash of Sebastian’s face out of the corner of his eye. He’d seen devastation on Sebastian’s face before—when they lost soldiers; when they’d lost Farlon—and it had killed him then. It didn’t hurt him any less now.
He turned back. “Sebastian—”
But Sebastian had wiped the vulnerability away and replaced it with brittle stoniness. “Fine. I’ll let it go.”
He turned away, and this time, it was Leon who grabbed his arm before his self-preservation instinct could get the better of him. “You don’t understand.”
Sebastian only glanced back at Leon and didn’t give him a full view of his face, but he didn’t pull his arm away either. The muscle was lean but pliant under Leon’s fingers and warm against his palm. Sebastian would give in if Leon pulled him closer; he knew he would. Sebastian fought him with words, but he’d always given in to Leon in his actions.
Leon’s mouth went dry.
“You don’t understand,” he repeated around a tongue that felt like it had both dried out and swelled up, so it stuck in his mouth awkwardly and made it difficult to form words.
“Yes, I do.” Sebastian’s tone was caustic, but the furrow between his brow was too deep, and the shine on his eyes too bright for the tone to be believable. “It’s because I’m a torvar.”
Leon’s eyes widened, and he opened his mouth, but Sebastian wasn’t done.
“You love my usefulness, but you’re sickened by my reality.” Sebastian tried to pull away, but Leon tightened his grip. “It’s normal, it’s—”
“It’s not true.” Leon pulled Sebastian around and grabbed his other arm. It was only once he’d gotten two hands on the man and was holding him just barely an arm’s length away that he realized how dangerous of a position he’d gotten himself into. “I am not sickened by you, Sebastian.”
Sebastian looked at him warily. As though he was too afraid to like what he was hearing. Leon wondered how he had survived for so long, wearing his emotions like that. “Do you realize this conversation is the first time you’ve ever used my name? And not just called me ‘torvar.’”
Guilt rolled up Leon’s throat. “That…that’s not about you.” It was about keeping him separate and apart. It was about holding Sebastian back because he hated how strongly he wanted to pull him close.
“It’s my name, Hess.” Sebastian scowled but stayed in Leon’s grip. “How can you say it’s not about me?”
Why was Leon even doing this? Hadn’t he just told Joan less than an hour ago that he didn’t care what Sebastian wanted? But that had been a blatant lie. Leon hated the way he felt specifically because he did care, and he couldn’t afford to care about things right now. Not when there was so much at stake and so many people relying on him.
But when Sebastian tried to pull away again, Leon didn’t let go. And Sebastian didn’t fight him. He stayed in Leon’s grip, patient, waiting. Leon almost laughed. Sebastian was the most energetic person he knew. Constantly in motion, doing things, talking to people, working. He was impulsive almost to a fault, and he was never patient.
And now he stood in Leon’s grip, patient for him.
Leon could send him on his way now. Sebastian would go. He’d do his duty. He’d do it well. He always did.
And Leon would have hurt him. Would have let him go feeling like he wasn’t enough, and Leon knew what it felt like to feel like you weren’t enough. He knew the corrosive effect on the inside of feeling like you lacked something, and the very last person in the world that Leon felt was missing anything was Sebastian.
Sebastian’s expression morphed into pained frustration, and he tried to pull away again. “I need to—”
Leon tightened his grip and pulled him in. He came just as easily as Leon knew he would, bending right to Leon’s will, and Leon saw his eyes widen just before he closed them, and Leon captured his lips.
Leon had played this moment in his head more times than he ever should have. He’d imagined all the ways he could be lucky enough or brave enough or foolish enough to find himself in a position to kiss Sebastian. It had felt like such an impossible and unattainable dream that he’d always stopped it right as the moment before dragged out. It had seemed too hard, too difficult, too complex, utterly beyond him.
But it was easy.
The softness and pliancy of Sebastian’s lips under his. The way his breath caught and his muscles loosened as he melted into Leon. The heat and nearness of his body. A surety and confidence replaced Leon’s hesitancy, and he pushed Sebastian backward and pressed him up against the hard metal of the ship behind him.
Sebastian went easily, and when his back hit the ship, his eyes started to flutter back open, but Leon captured his lips again before they did. He kissed him roughly, heart pounding in his chest and his fingers flexing against Sebastian’s biceps.
He wanted.
He wanted so much, it was like a thing inside him that raged and struggled and didn’t know where to go. Leon hadn’t done this enough—with anyone—to carve out the usual grooves for his desire to flow through. And he’d never wanted like he’d wanted Sebastian from the first time he’d set eyes on him, before he even knew what he was.
