Page 149 of The Gods Forbid

Sebastian grinned, his eyes going soft as they bore into mine. “You would have had a lot of power to look forward to.”

This time, I pushed him hard enough that he stumbled back a step. “I don’t want power, you asshole! I want you! There will never be a time where I’d chose power over the man I—”

Sebastian stilled, his body snapping taut with tension. “The man you what?” When I hesitated, his gaze darkened to an almost threatening degree. “Come on. Say it.”

Whether it was the anger or the fear or some combination of the two that made me speak, I would never know. I clenched my fists at my sides and breathed in, steeling my spine. No avoiding the truth now. “The man I love.”

Sebastian moved so fast I missed half of it. The next thing I knew he was kneeling before me and reaching for my hands. “Persy, sweet love, I’m sorry.”

My hands threaded through his hair on instinct, and he pressed a quick kiss to my stomach. “Please don’t do that again.”

Sebastian shook his head rapidly, squeezing my hands tighter. “Never. If you are feeling even half of what I felt seeing that arrow point at you, I apologize. That was torture.”

“Why was it torture?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Sebastian smiled, so full it made my stomach clench. “If it wasn’t already clear, I’m quite obsessed with you, love.” My chest went tight with hope. “I know it makes me selfish and awful, but you have to have me. I love you too much to accept any other outcome.”

I’m sure he expected a different reaction, but the one that left my lips was, “If you love me, then why did you do that to me?”

Sebastian paused, pulling back slightly. He looked at me with that observant expression I’d come to crave and took his sweet time staring at me and cataloging every inch of my face. His eyes moved down to my chest, still heaving and shaky with desperate pulls of air.

I tried not to squirm under the attention but I didn’t think I’d ever get used to the way he looked at me, like he could see right to my very core. After a moment, he finally said, “Ah, I see.”

“What?” The word was nothing more than a breath. There was no chance for anything else when my heart felt like it was going to beat out of my chest.

Sebastian smiled, sliding his hands up my back and pulling me closer to him. “You’re feeling too much.” He was right. There were too many emotions warring in my body. All I could do was nod in agreement, which made Sebastian’s smile widen. “I can help with that.”

My breath hitched, anticipation lancing through my stomach. “Good. It’s your fault I’m like this. You made me love you.”

A rumble sounded from Sebastian’s chest then, and my instincts were to take it as a warning. I was never good at heeding those.

I dropped to my knees with him, twisting my hands into his shirt.

“You made me love you,” I repeated, my tone bordering on angry again. I’d never felt something so consuming in my life and it knocked me so far off kilter maybe I did have a right to be mad.

Sebastian’s hand traced the perimeter of my face, before trailing down and gripping my chin in a firm hold. “I love you too much to be sorry.”

There were no words that were able to capture the force with which Sebastian kissed me, then. It was a total invasion. It was a world-consuming, mind-altering kiss that would have cemented the fact there would be no one else for me if his words hadn’t.

I matched his ferocity, the last licks of my anger and panic making my movements shaky and rushed.

“Shhh, my love,” Sebastian said in between coaxing kisses. “I’m here.”

The only response he got from me was a firm yank on his hair.

I really hoped someone wasn’t about to come knocking to make sure either of us was okay, because I really wasn’t sure if I could peel myself away from Sebastian right now.

Faster than I could blink, he flipped us around, laying me down on the floor. Before I could lift my head to ask what he was doing, Sebastian placed a gentle hand in the center of my chest and cemented me to the floor.

I couldn’t move, especially considering the fact that both of us were still in our formal clothes.

“Sebastian, take your shirt off,” I said, suddenly remembering that he was covered in blood. His own blood.

“It’s gone, love,” he said, his words hitting the plane of my lower stomach. “You don’t need to see it anymore.”

I did like seeing him in a suit, but not when it was stained with the reminder of what just happened.

“Now,” Sebastian said, placing a kiss on my lower stomach. “Let me remind you I’m here.”