Lights were turned off. Soft, creamy light filled the tall room and poured in through the wide, open long windows spilling over him as he lay sprawled on his stomach, naked on the bed.

Viola had listened to his restless movements for what seemed like hours, working up the courage to creep into the room.

But now he was asleep, she could tell by his measured breath and the one foot that dangled off the end of the bed carelessly.

She came trembling to the bedroom doorway, afraid to enter, afraid not to. What if he turned her away? She didn’t know what she would do if he turned her away.

She clenched her hands into small fists as she eased closer. Her chest felt as if it were in a vice. How should she wake him? What should she say? Should she touch him?

Suddenly she felt awkward and out of place and knew for sure he’d tell her to get her inexperienced ass back to the room and she would die of humiliation.

Yet she whispered his name anyway. Or did she whimper it?

"Se... Sebastian?"

It might have just been the curtain brushing against the windowsill, the sound was that faint.

"Sebastian?" she called again, looking at his body covered in moonlight, every sharp ridge highlighted by the silver light making her fist tighten and release again.

He straightened his head around on the pillow drowsily. Although she couldn’t make out his eyes, she saw the moon’s reflection on the bolder lines of his face. He lowered his chin, looked over his arm and saw her, his eyes shadowed in disbelief as he pulled the sheet up to cover himself.

"Amor? What is it?" he asked sleepily, disoriented, braced up on his elbows now.

"Se... Sebastian?" She quavered, suddenly not knowing what else to say. This was awful. This was so awful. It was worse than any of the insults she’d suffered at the hands of people in the past years that had made her become so insecure and awkward, yet she stood as she was, her two hands fisted tight.

He sat up, taking more of the sheet across his lap, dropping a single leg over the edge of the bed for balance.

"What’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?" He asked gently and she shook her head. "Then why are you here?"

"I...I want to..." She couldn’t finish the sentence.

The night was silent around them, and for a moment time felt frozen, unit his low voice broke the quiet. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

"What is it, Amor?"

She gulped, unable to speak.

He could recall the startled hue in her blue eyes when he’d whispered those words to her in the garden. He didn’t want her looking that frightened again, not when her scent rocked into him now that she was near, awakening the blazing heat he had been trying to suppress.

When he had gone to take his suppressants earlier, he had realized that Matt had not given them to Gilbert to bring because of the remarks he’d made to him earlier. Matt must have thought he had it covered with his wife here with him, and probably because he’d called him a virgin.

Yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have mocked his beta like that earlier. He was paying for it now, keeping his desires agonizingly stuffed deep in his stomach.

"Go back to the room, Amor. You don’t know what you’re doing. I shouldn’t have let you have that champagne." He drew a palm over his face, frustrated. It was the only explanation for why she would be here, she was still drunk and had no idea she had walked right into a beast’s den, a beast who wanted nothing more than to devour her inch by inch until she was begging for more.

"I’m not drunk, Seb. I... I’m not. And I do not want to go back to that room. I want be here with you, doing...doing all the things you said to me."

She finally admitted and it brought a stunned silence for merely a moment before he got off the bed, twisting the sheet around him, holding it low against one hip.

"Goddamnit, that’s not fair. You can’t keep teasing me like this and not mean it. You shouldn’t have come here while you were still drunk." He yanked at the sheet angrily but it was tucked under the mattress and held him in place in front of her. He didn’t believe she meant a word of what she said or even knew what she was asking for, if she did she would be keeping her distance from him, not coming anywhere near.

Viola swallowed her pride and spoke in a strained whisper. "You’re sending me away then?"

Oh, hell, he thought. Hell, Viola, don’t do this to me when I’m trying to be noble for the first time in my life!

"Amor, if I go ahead and do this while you are still under the influence of the wine, you might not like it in the morning." If he was going to take her, Sebastian wanted to do it with raging passion and her full sober participation, he didn’t want to see regret in her eyes the morning after.

"I am not drunk. I...I want to experience everything you whispered to me in the garden. Please..." Her plaintive plea made him ache with want.

She had no idea what she did to him, standing there hugging herself, swathed in moonlight and trembles.

"I think it’s best if we do this tomorrow without any influence." He said after a long pause. His cock throbbed with anticipation at her willingness, and it was taking a lot more than willpower not to grab her right there and give her...no, show her with sweet detail everything he’d described in the garden.

Viola felt her heart tighten. "You don’t want me then..." She whispered so quietly.

The moonlight shimmered on their bodies and she squinted, trying to make out his face as he had turned off all the lights in the room.

He could smell daisies clear across the room. Her shoulders were so small, and with her arms crossed tight over her chest, she looked vulnerable and scared. But her hair hung loose, glowing in the moonlight like a halo around her shadowed face.

"Amor..." His voice sounded tortured. "I want you more than I have ever wanted anyone, but I’m not sure if this is the right time." But his conviction somehow faded into something more pleading and he took a hesitant step towards her. She took one shaky step, then another until he could see her chest rising and falling with each breath.

"I want this..." She whispered.

Her words were soft, breathy, and raised the hair along his arms. They were so close that Sebastian’s shadow fell over her face as she looked up at him. Tension pulled at both of them, leaving their bodies hovering closely.

The whisper of curtains in the night breeze was now the only sound in the room. Sebastian’s nostrils flared while he clutched the sheet tighter.

She knew absolutely nothing about what he could do to her, he was sure. She stood there pleading with him for something she couldn’t even understand, his tiny little hellcat, who had fought for his life and defied death to save him.

He wanted to give her everything and anything so badly that it physically hurt. And he’d waited so long for this moment that now that she was here in front of him he was afraid. He’d fucked, screwed before, but he had never made love. And he suddenly felt like a clumsy schoolboy.

She was only about four feet away from him now . All he had to do was take one step more.

Standing there, his teeth clenched as he fought back the pull of his heat, Sebastian breathed in the scent of daisies rolling off her. It wrecked him. The instinctive need to claim his mate roared into his chest but he forced himself to hold still, lost in her, bound to her, even as control frayed at the edges.

"Amor," he uttered, the endearment strained, deep in his throat, "you’re so damn small."

And the sheet, like a puddle of rippling milk, moved with him as he leaned to whisper in her ear, "I don’t want to break you."

His low growl ruffled the hair behind her ear and made her heart catch in her throat. A strong, corded hand reached through the moonlight to close itself around her upper arm.

Her lips parted and she lifted her face until her nose brushed his firm shoulder, breathing him in. His skin smelled of night warmth and coffee and held a faint trace of dampness, not wholly unpleasant.

She raised a hesitant hand and brushed her fingertips against his chest. He was hard, burning hot and she had no idea what she was doing. He went still, his breath hot against her ear and she waited, wondering what he wanted her to do. She didn’t know much about suh intimacy, but she knew that the way they had kissed in the garden had turned her body to sweet, shaking jelly.

So she raised her lips and asked near his, "Would you kiss me first, like you did in the garden?"