The Education of Sebastian & the Education of Caroline (41 page)

“Sit up,” I said, my voice high from tension.

I wrapped one hand around his neck as he raised himself off the bed, and then held his length in my hand to position myself over him. I stroked him several times and he took a deep, faltering breath. As I sank down onto him, he groaned and I felt him tremble.

It was an extraordinarily intimate moment as our bodies joined together, our faces just inches apart.

His eyes were wide and wondering and I pulled his head toward me, breathing a soft kiss onto his lips. Then his mouth locked onto mine and our tongues moved in a new rhythm as our bodies thrust together. I pulled my knees up slightly and he did the same, almost lifting me off the bed with each powerful movement of his hips. He wrapped his arms behind me, pulling me still closer.

I needed to take a breath and Sebastian mirrored my actions. His eyes were fixed on mine and in a moment of utter stillness, I stroked his face, letting my fingers whisper across his cheek, his
eyelids, along his soft eyebrows, down his nose, across the slight flare of his nostrils, along his jaw and fluttering across his lips, where he kissed them.

We were joined together as one; it was impossible to be closer, more intimate—all the barriers between us were finally down. We were equal and open and unafraid.

I ran my hands down his back and felt him move inside me. I pulled back and leaned away from him, changing the angle of connection and he groaned again and began to pump faster.

I clenched around him, unable to control the waves of sensation pulsing through me.

He called out and I felt him shudder into me with one, deep thrust. He gasped, pulling in lungfuls of air and then he gathered me to him, crushing me to his chest so hard I could barely breathe myself.

We sat like that, still joined together, and I felt a small giggle bubble up as I wiped a bead of sweat off my forehead.

“Who needs gym classes,” I said, stroking his face.

He laughed softly. “You don’t need anything, Caro, you’re perfect.”

“Oh, I’m far from perfect, but I’m very happy that you think I am. I’ll have to keep you in a darkened room forever.”

“Suits me.”

“You might get hungry,” I pointed out. “You’d starve to death.”

“We’d order take-out,” he said pragmatically.

I eased myself off him gently and lay back in his arms as he stroked my hair.

“Hey, did you check out the bath situation?” he said.

“Hmm, what? No. I was too busy checking you out.”

He laughed. “Seriously! We could take a bath together.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, reluctant to move from my semi-comatose position. “If you go run it. See if they’ve put out any bubble bath.”

He kissed me quickly and leapt off the bed. He had so much energy. I was exhausted already and I sensed it was going to be a long and wonderful night.

I heard the sounds of the faucet running as if from a great distance while I felt myself drifting asleep. But then a strange, unfamiliar sound reached my ears and suddenly, unexpectedly, I was wide awake: Sebastian was singing to himself. I strained to hear the words. When I did, my heart broke open, filling with the love that poured from those faint, heartfelt words. Peace and joy and a sense of wholeness that I’d never known utterly overwhelmed me and I began to cry softly.

When I hear her voice, the world disappears

When I hear her voice, I have no more fears.

I had never believed it was possible to cry from happiness.

Quietly, I slipped off the bed and moved silently to the bathroom door, standing half hidden, watching him. He was leaning over the tub, testing the water with his fingers, the steam weaving through the air like ghosts.

He’d switched on the light above the shaving mirror and the yellow glow bathed his skin with gold. I watched the ripple and play of his muscles as he continued to reach into the bath, drawing pictures with his fingers in the hot water.

She takes away the sadness, she takes away the pain

She takes away the darkness, she takes away the rain.

He stretched up to pull down two white towels, placing them carefully at the side of the bath.

When I’m traveling from so far away

She’s my path, she’s my sun, she lights my way.

Then he turned and saw me standing in the shadows.

“Caro! Why are you crying?”

“Because I love you.”

CHAPTER 18

He stared at me, then one, long second later he strode toward me and took my face in his hands, kissing the tears as they trickled down my cheeks.

And there we were, two fools in love.

“I waited and waited and waited,” he stammered. “You never said it … you never told me … and now you have. I love you I love you I love you. Oh, Caro, so much.”

A sob escaped his throat and I felt ashamed of having held back for so long, not realizing how much he’d needed to hear me say the words.

I wrapped my arms around his waist as he took long, shuddering breaths. My own tears soon dried, overwhelmed as I was by my own happiness and my need to protect and comfort this beautiful man-child who had known so little love in his life.

Skin to skin, my head to his shoulder, we stood, drinking each other in. Finally his breathing slowed and he kissed the base of my neck. A smile lifted my lips and I opened my eyes.

“Sebastian, the water!”

The bath was nearly full and in danger of overflowing—like me.

“Oh, crap!”

He leaned down to turn off the stream of water and pulled out the plug to let some escape. He continued to stare into the water and I sensed he was using the time to compose himself.

When he looked up again, his focus was slightly to the left of my shoulder. He couldn’t meet my eyes and the expression on his face was sheepish.

“Sorry for spazzing out on you.”

I laid my hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at me.

“No, Sebastian! Don’t
ever
be embarrassed about how you feel—not with me. Not ever. I love that you’re so open with me; I love that you show me how you feel every moment of the day and night; it drives me crazy when you do it in front of other people but I love it, too, because it’s part of who you are. I’ve never known anything like it and I don’t want it to stop. Because I feel the same.”

He gasped slightly then beamed at me.

“Okay,” he said softly.

I smiled back and all the tension drained from the room leaving us calm and replete.

“Shall we have a bath now?”

He nodded, then his forehead creased as he glanced at my right foot that was still swathed in thick gauze.

“Can you? You don’t want to get that wet,” he said, and his expression darkened to something quite intimidating.

“I’ll hang it over the side,” I said, trying to stop him from brooding on my injury, “but I’ll need to lean on something: I had you in mind.”

He smiled. “You think I’ll make a good pillow?”

“Well, you’re a bit hard...”

He grinned at me salaciously, then looked down at his dick.

“Not at the moment, but I could be…”

“Can’t you get your mind off sex for two minutes?!”

“Nope, don’t think so.”

I sighed, pretending to be annoyed, but it was hopeless—a huge smile cracked my face.

He grinned back and even as I looked at him, his dick twitched. It really did have a life of its own.

“Oh no! I’m not ready for round two yet! I want a nice, relaxing bath. I’ve used muscles that I didn’t even know I had.”

“Okay,” he said, still smiling, “but it’ll have to be a quick one.”

“‘Quick’ and ‘relaxing’ aren’t words that really go to together,” I pointed out.

“Oh, I don’t know—I can think of an occasion when they’d go together.”

His eyes seemed to darken and I couldn’t help it as my gaze dropped to below his waist; it was apparent that he wasn’t just having a rush of blood to his head.

“Can I take a rain check?” I said, my voice a little shaky.

“Nope, don’t think so,” he repeated, pacing toward me.

“I want to take a bath.”

“We will. Later.”

I backed into the vanity unit and had nowhere else to go.

He caught me by my hips, pressing himself against me and nuzzled my neck.

“I really want to take a bath,” I gasped, gripping onto his wrists.

“Mmm,” he replied, as my body arched at his touch. “You’re definitely not dirty enough yet.”

I watched, speechless, if not completely soundless, as he slowly sank to his knees. His mouth followed the general downward direction and I swallowed hard.

His tongue traced around my left nipple then he bared his teeth and pulled against the heated flesh, tugging not very gently while his hands continued to knead my hips, his fingers digging into my ass. Then he turned his attention to my right breast, sucking and kissing and grazing it with his teeth.

My blood was thrumming through my veins and my knees began to tremble. Then his right hand slid down from hip to my calf, and started a slow ascent back up to my inner thigh. My breathing sounded loud and seemed to echo around the bathroom. The volume was almost embarrassing but it seemed to turn Sebastian on even more because he began to bite harder, making me shudder and call out. Then he began to rub me, gently at first and then harder, circling around and in and out.

He glanced up, giving me one quick look, a slight smile on his face, then his head disappeared between my thighs and I felt his tongue and fingers working me, playing with me, stroking me inside and out.

I thought my legs would buckle but then he hooked my right knee over his shoulder and pushed his tongue deeper inside me. I could barely stand on two legs, let alone one; I hung onto the vanity unit behind me for dear life.

I came loudly and had a brief glimpse of his grinning face before my eyes squeezed shut. He placed my right leg back on the floor and spun me around so I was facing the mirror. I was still quaking from my orgasm when he bent me over and pushed in from behind. He circled his hips, pulled out slowly and plunged in again. My face in the mirror was unrecognizable, my mouth hanging open, my eyes wide, my breasts seemed larger, the nipples flaring outwards, engorged, standing rigid. He pulled out again and sank in achingly slow, rolling his hips, massaging every part of me, all the way in and in. Just as the thought flashed across my mind,
He’s learned to ‘do’ slow
, he started moving hard and fast, increasing the pace as his breathing began to turn to gasps.

He reached around to the front of my legs and pressed hard, sending me plunging into the deep end where I couldn’t even remember my own name. I think I actually passed out for half a second because when awareness trickled back, his arm was around my waist holding me up as my hands
flapped limply by my sides. His hips pumped hard and he bit the back of my neck as he came.

We sank to the floor and I lay curled up on my side, grateful for the bathmat beneath my hip. Sebastian’s chest was against my back and his knees flexed behind mine, his arm still around my waist.

Neither of us could speak for several minutes.

I felt lightheaded and flushed all over, superheated from the inside out.

“What is it with you and bathrooms?” I gasped.

I heard his quiet chuckle. “I think it’s the mirrors—I fucking love watching your face when you come—I can see you from all angles. And I can see myself fucking you.” I felt his shoulders shrug. “It turns me on.”

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. I realized we still had a lot to learn about each other—and I was so ready for that voyage of discovery.

I pressed my hand to my chest, feeling my heart rate beginning to return to normal.

I struggled to sit up—Sebastian was still lying on the floor, curled around me. I reached down to stroke his hair and a wicked sea-green eye blinked up at me.

“Can I have that bath now, please?” I said in my most persuasive voice.

I would have got up and crawled into the bath myself—except I didn’t think I could stand.

Sebastian bit my ass-cheek making me yelp then he pulled himself to his feet.

“You’ll have to help me up,” I mumbled petulantly.

He grinned then bent to scoop me into his arms.

“Bed or bath?” he said, raising one eyebrow.

It was a tough choice but I was half afraid that if I said ‘bed’ it would mean more sex and I really needed a rest.

“Bath,” I said, at last.

He grinned and carefully lowered me into the hot water, making sure that my right leg hung over the side, keeping the dressing on my foot dry.

It felt wonderful. Not that I needed to relax—my body was so limp I was nine-tenths unconscious already. Two orgasms in two minutes might have had something to do with it.

“Are you going to join me?”

“In a minute—I want to wash you first.”

Slowly and methodically he soaped me all over using the small bar provided by the hotel, cupping his hands to rinse me off. No one had washed me like that since … well, I guessed the last time must have been when I was a young child because I couldn’t actually remember it ever happening.

His face was serious as if he was concentrating hard, revealing a small frown as his eyebrows pulled together. He moved my hair off my shoulders and massaged soap into my neck.

“Your eyelashes are really long,” he said quietly.

I squinted up at him and waved my fingers indicating that he should come and join me, I was almost too tired to talk.

He smiled and helped me scoot forward so he could climb in behind me. The water lapped perilously close to the edge as he sank down.

I leaned back against him and he kissed the top of my head, letting his left arm rest on the ledge alongside the bath while the right wrapped around my shoulder and across my chest.

“This is nice,” he said softly. “I could get used to this.”

“We might not be able to afford an apartment with a bathtub
and
a shower in New York,” I pointed out.

“I’ll get an extra job to pay for it,” he said casually. “It’ll be worth it.”

His optimism made me smile; it made me a little sad, too. I didn’t think life was going to be as easy as he seemed to expect. We might be moving across the country but we’d be taking a whole heap of our problems with us.
No, time enough to think about that tomorrow
.

“What shall we name our first child?” he said, in a dreamy, offbeat voice.

“Excuse me, what?!”

I was so shocked I jumped, causing a small tidal wave to cascade over the side of the bath. Sebastian didn’t move; he just kissed my hair again.

“If it’s a boy, we could call him Chester—Ches would get a kick out of that. Or maybe Chesney if it’s a girl.”

I struggled to sit up but he wouldn’t let me go.

“What are you talking about?” I said, my voice rising about four octaves. “We can’t have children!”

“Why not?” he said challengingly. “You said you wanted to have kids, so let’s do it. We’ll find a way.”

My head was about to explode with the impossibility of what he was saying. We had nowhere to live, no jobs, no money, he’d only just got his high school diploma and was thinking about going back to study at college and
he was still only 17!
And then, that sneaky little voice in the back of my head said,
Why not? What are you waiting for? He’s got all the time in the world but you haven’t. You want to wait till you’re middle-aged to be pregnant?

His body had tensed up and I could tell he was waiting for my reaction. I tried to make light of the situation.

“Fine. But let’s talk about it when you’ve got your degree. I’m not going to rob you of a chance to go to school. We can wait three years—we’re not in
that
much of a hurry. Besides, we want to see Italy first, don’t we?”

I felt his body relax again and he kissed my shoulder.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want to miss that. Okay, when I’m 21. That would be cool. Hey, do you like the name ‘Orlando’? I went to school with a kid who was named that—he said it was after some character in a play.”

I smiled.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are. The name ‘Orlando’ is the Italian form of Roland. It’s also used in Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It’—but I always think of the book by Virginia Woolf.”

“What’s that about?”

“A time-traveling man who becomes a woman.”

Sebastian was speechless for exactly three seconds—then he started laughing.

“You’re kidding me! Seriously?”

Small waves started washing over the side of the tub as laughter rippled up through him.

“Sebastian! You’re causing a flood!”

But he couldn’t stop laughing. I twisted around to look at him, adding to the water spilling over the edge.

Tears were squeezing themselves from the corner of his eyes and there didn’t seem to be much chance that he’d gain control of himself anytime soon. I shook my head, a smile pinned to my face.
Hopeless!

I climbed out of the tub awkwardly. Sebastian made a half-hearted grab for me but was too weak from laughter and I slipped out of his grasp.

I picked up one of the towels he’d laid aside and started drying myself while he lay helpless in the now tepid water.