I am here. In her house. In Los Angeles. In California. The state he once swore, down on his knees, he would never return to.
None of it matters. Not now, when they have locked out the rest of the world and opened another door, one that activates every dead cell in his body, his mind alight with all the wants he has smothered since he told her, a year ago, I am a patient man.
It was a lie. Of course it was. And yet Willow made it truth. He caged his desire for her. He exercised a greater restraint than he has known in centuries, and allowed her to drive him willingly towards madness. Now there is more than merely his initial hunger; a fervour of feeling has grown within him. It burns as their bodies press together, his hands descending from her face, needing the proximity they have denied themselves for so long.
He kisses her with this torment in mind, the days and weeks and months they have to make up for. The awareness of where they are—Willow's bedroom—flares within him. Again, he kicks the door shut behind them, blocking out everything else, because all that exists is—
Willow, her pounding heart, pumping blood, pouring thoughts through the open doors of their minds. It is an intimacy Sebastian has never known: this melting of minds, erasing the lines between them, her thoughts becoming his, the bleeding of her heart awakening his.
Barely conscious of it, he has moved her towards the bed, her bed, and then they're falling together, down onto her sheets, and he is there above her. His lips are still against Willow's mouth before he frees her breath and moves his kisses along her jaw, towards her neck, where he lingers, devoted to her pulse point. Willow. Her name like silk, tumbling through their minds. This is no dream. Let me show you I am yours.