Chapter 198 Massage/ casual conversation_Part 2

Sebastian gave her a knowing smile as he told her where to find the arrays of massage oils in his closet cabinet.

Finding different kinds of oil bottles with different scents and spices in his cabinet, a thought crossed Viola’s mind. Did he invite women to his penthouse for a daily massage to have this many options in the cabinet?

Did Laila and all those rumored she-wolves who were identified as his mates give him such erotic massages? The thought sent a heat of displeasure to her chest and the will to do better than any of them consumed her, and Viola didn’t even realize she was beginning to think the way she would have in the past when she wanted to please someone and make them see her as a better option than anyone else, until she made her way back and then it hit her.

“Control yourself, Viola.” She told herself, reminding herself how she would never have to fight for a man’s attention again and how she didn’t need all of these feelings adding to her problems again.

She didn’t need any of them getting in the way of why she had married Sebastian and fought to be his Luna. She had done all of this for Ivy, and that hadn’t changed. This wasn’t about her.

Viola told herself as she came back to her husband on the couch. She snatched the bottle cap off, poured way too much oil into her palms, and rubbed them together until the spicy scent filled the air and the oil heated up between her palms.

She kneeled beside the couch and then hesitated to touch his skin where he lay on his stomach with his hands pillowed under his chin. Slowly and gently, she finally touched him.

The second her oiled hands touched his shoulders, Sebastian’s entire body tensed, then melted under her palms with a deep, throaty sigh.

His skin was burning hot, slick now, every muscle hard as carved stone. She pressed harder, sliding her hands down the wide plane of his back in clumsy circles, trying to copy what she’d seen even though her face felt like it was on fire.

She heard him let out a deep, satisfying groan as he huskily said, “Press harder, love. I won’t break.”

Viola bit her lip so hard she tasted blood and leaned in, letting her fingers dig into the knots along his spine, and realizing how the silence and his occasional groans made her feel strange, she decided to break the silence by saying,

“Out of everything you could have gotten as a tattoo, you got a snake and a complete scale on your back. What’s the history of it?” She asked curiously, looking down at her handiwork.

The oil made everything slippery, obscene, his tattooed back shining and reflecting the light that came from the overhead lights as all his window curtains were drawn to keep the afternoon light out. The snake scales on his back were so real she thought they would turn over with the movement of her hand.

“There’s no touching history behind my tattoos. I like ink on skin, it has fascinated me since I was a boy and I waited until I was sixteen to get one. I like things with scales so I chose snakes. The one around my neck was the first one I got.” He told her, his voice coming out thick and lazy.

Viola’s hand moved to the snake head on the side of his neck, stroking it subconsciously. “Does it hurt to get one?” She asked curiously, her hands gliding lower again, tracing the deep groove of his lower back, brushing the edge of the cloth.

Every time her thumbs pressed into a new spot, Sebastian let out another low sound that made her stomach clench.

“Not to me. I didn’t feel the pain because I got most of them at moments I was grieving. The first one was when my twin brother…” He stopped himself short as if realizing something, and then went on without completing what he had wanted to say first.

“The second one was when I lost my first Luna, and the third when I lost my second. The pain in the heart and nerves after losing a mate was too heavy for any other pain to register. So no, it wasn’t painful.” He told her quietly.

“But it helped me heal in a way, in my own way, as the ink used was added with a potion meant to heal a broken heart, or so I was told by the elders, who believed an Alpha can’t grieve for too long and needed to bounce back to his responsibilities. Emotions like that make a leader weak and vulnerable, and I couldn’t afford them, so those scales were tattooed onto my back.”

He told her with a voice that held no emotion, almost like he was speaking of the weather, and Viola looked down at the tattooed snake scales with new eyes. They had helped him heal from grief. The grief of losing the wives that had come before her. Something about that sat heavy and quiet in her chest in a way she hadn’t expected. She ran her hands slowly over them, rubbing the scales with her oiled palms as if she could feel the weight of what they carried beneath her fingertips.

She wanted to ask him about his first and second Luna, how his relationships with them had been before they died and how much time it had taken for him to recover after each loss, but she knew she wasn’t yet ready to hear any of that. She was still learning to control the feelings growing inside her, and hearing about the women who had perhaps loved him and lost him because of a curse before she ever came into the picture might not help her the way she needed right now.

“Do you plan to get ink on your skin?” Sebastian asked when she went silent for too long.

“I don’t know. Though I do know I won’t be getting a snake. Perhaps a butterfly. I like them.” She whispered, and she heard him chuckle low in his throat.

“I never imagined someone like you to like butterflies. I would have expected a tiger or a lioness.” He teased, and she pinched his shoulder, causing him to yelp.

“That hurt, love.” He complained. “That is so not professional. Masseuses don’t pinch their clients.”

“I meant for it to hurt. I like butterflies and birds, and I like cute things just like any other woman, and if you make fun of my taste again, you will receive pinch marks all over your back.” She warned, biting her lower lip to hold back a smile as she pressed into his shoulder blades with force.

“I don’t mind, as long as it’s a mark from you.” Sebastian mused softly, and then he added, “After all the guests return to their packs, I will take you somewhere. I think you will like it. Will you go with me?” He asked her.

Viola felt her heart leap in excitement. “Where?” She questioned, suppressing the excitement.

“I can’t tell you, it will be a surprise. Will you go?”

Viola would be lying to herself if she said she wasn’t curious or didn’t want to go to this place he thought she would like. She shrugged casually even though he couldn’t see her, so as to appear like she didn’t care that much. “If I don’t have anything to do. Sure, I will go.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t have anything to do.” He promised.

Viola bit the inside of her cheek as she thought that if it happened to fall on the same time she would go to Nightshade, then she would have to sadly turn him away, for finding Ivy was more important than spending time with a man she was starting to feel deeply attached to.

She could feel him relaxing as she massaged him more, but underneath that relaxation something else was happening. His hips shifted once, twice, pressing into the couch like he was fighting the urge to roll over.

Sebastian’s control was barely hanging by a thread the more her hands moved over his back. Her hands were so small, so fucking tiny, yet every stroke was pure torture.

The way she hesitated when she brushed the top of his ass, the soft little gasp she made when he groaned, it was driving him insane. His cock was rock hard beneath him, trapped against the couch, throbbing with every glide of her oiled fingers. He wanted to flip over, yank her on top of him, and show her exactly how hard she was making him. Wanted to taste those embarrassed little sounds she kept swallowing down.

His hips moved against his will again when her fingers drifted lower.