Page 41 of Innocent Salvation

Sebastian chuckled. “Me? I’m the one who is going to be nursing a groin strain tomorrow.”

Snow cuddled against him as she laughed, her breath warm on his chest as he held her close. “Want me to rub it better?”

Again, he found himself smiling as he stroked her soft skin. Remembering the scar, he stilled, his body going tense. “How did you get the scar?” Snow moved to sit up, to pull away but he held her still, his hands gentle as he stopped her from moving. “You don’t have to tell me, Snow, but don’t run.”

Snow settled and was silent for so long he figured she was going to stay quiet on the matter. “I was shot by Jimmy Doyle.”

Sebastian tensed. His whole body went cold at the thought of how close he’d come to never knowing this amazing woman, who in a few weeks had changed him in fundamental ways. “What happened?”

“He attacked the castle owned by Bein’s family. Aoife, Bein’s fiancée is Doyle’s daughter. He’d abused her for a long time, and she was running when she found us and fell in love with Bein. When Doyle found us, he attacked, and in the confusion, I got hit by a stray bullet.”

Sebastian kissed her head, feeling more shaken than he cared to admit. “Who killed him?”

Sebastian knew he was dead from the file he had, but not how or the details as they’d been kept vague, which made more sense now.

“Bein did.”

“Remind me to thank him.”

Silence filled the space between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable, rather it felt right.

“What are we doing, Seb?”

He paused, wanting to order his thoughts before he gave more than he was willing. Yet he found in that second there was nothing he didn’t want to give her. “I meant what I said. I want you. I want us to be together. I don’t know how that will look but I want to try.”

“And Fleur?”

“We go careful. We explain to her in a way she can understand, and she doesn’t need to know the details. But I want to be able to kiss you and hold you. I’m fucking addicted, Snow.”

“I want that too, but it scares me, Seb. You’ve given me no indication that you have that in you.”

“I know, and before you, I didn’t. I still don’t know if I’m in a position to make you any long-term promises, but for the first time in my life, I want to try. You changed me, baby.”

Snow looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Maybe but if we’re doing this you need to stop with the potty mouth.”

Seb turned so they were facing each other and hooked her leg over his hip, so he could be closer to her. “Me? I have a potty mouth? I think you’ll find it was you screaming ‘oh Seb. Fuck me harder, Seb’.”

Snow blushed, the pink adorable on her pale skin and he fell just a tiny bit in love with her in that moment.

The notion shocked him, and he immediately went to reject the idea but stopped. Possessive he could understand, he was a red-blooded male, but he’d never been in love, even with the woman he was meant to marry years ago before she showed her true colours by fucking his father.

Yet the idea of falling in love with Snow didn’t terrify him like it had with every other woman. Perhaps because he already trusted her with the person he loved the most or maybe it was just because it was her.

Chapter 17

To say the last week had been the best of her life was an understatement. What she had with Seb was beyond what she could’ve imagined. By day she taught Fleur like she had at home but now she included other things. Watchdog had spent the past day teaching the child how to play games on the laptop he’d loaned her, which was actually Python coding. Fleur had taken to it like she did everything else, with aplomb and excitement.

She spent the nights working on the case or curled up with Sebastian, either watching TV or simply talking. Neither one of them had revealed anything deep but it was simple things like his favourite colour or him telling her about his foray into acting that had ended when he threw up on stage from nerves at age seven.

Snow had told him a little about her life, not the details but how they’d travelled and how lonely it was.

“Earth to Snow.”

A balled-up piece of paper landed on her desk where she was going through the known contacts of Dominique Dupont and her family. Snow shook her head, blinking widely out of her thoughts and looked at Watchdog.

He was shaking his head at her and rolling his eyes. “Did you know that male Argonaut octopus can detach their penis and send it swimming after the female to mate with her while he stays put?”

Snow bugged her eyes at Watchdog, who chose the strangest moments to throw random, little-known facts at people. “I didn’t, in fact, know that. Now that I do know, I’m not sure how I feel about it.”