Chapter 7
476 Words
Chapter 7 – Denial Tastes Like Him
Morning light spilled across Aria’s bedroom in soft, unforgiving lines.
She woke slowly—warmth at her back, a solid presence behind her, an arm draped around her waist like it belonged there.
Reality hit.
Sebastian.
Her pulse spiked as memories rushed in—his voice in the dark, the way he’d taken his time, the way she’d let him. Chosen him.
She shifted carefully, testing the space between them.
His grip tightened instantly.
“You’re awake,” he murmured, voice rough with sleep and something darker.
“I was trying not to be,” she replied.
A low sound left his chest—half amusement, half warning. He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in like it was instinct.
“You’re terrible at lying,” he said.
She turned to face him, suddenly too aware of how exposed she felt beneath his gaze in the daylight. He looked different in the morning—less polished, more dangerous somehow. Like a man stripped down to truth.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she said quickly. “Last night was—”
“A choice,” he finished calmly. “Yours.”
That stopped her.
She pushed herself up, wrapping the sheet around her. “I don’t wake up in a billionaire’s bed and suddenly forget who I am.”
Sebastian leaned back against the headboard, studying her like a puzzle he enjoyed solving.
“I wouldn’t want you to,” he said. “I want all of you. Especially the parts that fight me.”
Her breath caught.
“That’s not comforting.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s honest.”
She swung her legs out of bed. “This can’t become a pattern.”
He rose then—unhurried, unapologetic. The sheet slid away just enough to remind her body of everything it wanted to forget. He stepped into her space, fingers tilting her chin up gently but firmly.
“You can deny me all day,” he said quietly. “But your body already knows the truth.”
Her resolve wavered dangerously.
“Sebastian—”
“I won’t chase you,” he continued, thumb brushing her lower lip. “I don’t need to. You’ll come back when you’re done pretending this didn’t matter.”
She pulled away, heart racing.
“You’re arrogant.”
“Yes.”
And impossible.”
“Also yes.”
He smiled then—not sharp, not triumphant—but slow and certain.
When he left her apartment an hour later, dressed and composed like the night before hadn’t cracked something open between them, Aria collapsed onto the couch.
Her phone buzzed moments later.
SEBASTIAN: Eat breakfast. You didn’t last night.
She stared at the message.
Denial, she realized, wasn’t cold.
It was warm.
Persistent.
And tasted exactly like him.
- Writer
