<h4>Chapter 243: Chapter 243 Descent Into Madness 1</h4>
Cecilia’s pov
Sebastian’s wet lips trailed a hungry path from the small of my back up to my ear, leaving fire in their wake, his tongue a hot, wicked stripe against my sensitive skin.
His grip was iron, unyielding, as I struggled beneath him.
He was devouring me like a starving wolf who’d found prey after weeks of hunting.
No matter how I protested, his hands continued their relentless exploration, my dress practically hanging in tatters as he tried peeling it away.
I twisted beneath him, panic rising fast. "Sebastian, stop...this isn’t you."
But he didn’t even blink. His pupils were blown wide, as if he couldn’t hear me at all.
His knee forced its way between my thighs, the rough fabric of his tailored pants a brutal friction against the thin silk of my panties.
I could feel the hard, insistent ridge of his cock pressing against my ass, a tant promise of vition even through his cks.
Every shift of his hips ground that heat against me, a crude simtion that sent a jolt of traitorous lightning straight to my core.
My body was betraying me, a damp heat gathering where his thigh met my pussy, a silent, shameful answer to his aggression.
"Sebastian!" I shouted. "Snap out of it!" He didn’t.
Not until I scraped my nails down his arm in warning.
His skin gave beneath my fingers, a red trail blooming in my wake.
I thought pain might shock him back. I was wrong.
Wrong move. Catastrophically wrong. It only made things worse.
A rough, guttural sound ripped from his throat.
Onerge hand slid from my waist, fingers hooking into the fragilece at my hip.
He didn’t tear them away, but the threat was there, his knuckles digging into my flesh, the barrier so thin it was like he was already touching me.
He yanked me back harder against his erection, making me gasp.
He flipped me over like I weighed nothing.
My cocktail dress--already more suggestion than coverage--was barely clinging to me. His eyes raked over me like I was dinner.
Hot. Ready. Served. His gaze locked on the rapid rise and fall of my chest, on the pebbled tightness of my nipples pressing against the ruined silk.
He lowered himself, his hips slotting between my spread legs, the full, daunting weight of his arousal now a direct, pulsing pressure against my clit through our clothes.
It was an intimate cage, a preview that stole the breath from my lungs.
"I swear to God, I will fight you," I warned.
Then I did.
My voice shook, but my body didn’t. I shoved hard at his chest, kicked out with my knee.
He caught my wrists mid-swing, mmed them above my head with one hand, and pinned me down like I weighed nothing.
Then he kissed me. Hard. Like punishment. Like he wanted to brand the shape of his mouth into mine.
I writhed beneath him, twisting, trying to bite, trying to breathe.
His grip was unrelenting. I kicked at him, pushed, but he didn’t let go.
He kissed me hard, without hesitation, without recognition.
We were locked in a brutal rhythm, all tension and motion, no thought.
Then he stopped.His entire body went still. His breathing hitched.
His eyes flicked toward mine. Focus returned, slowly at first, then sharply.
Realization hit him. He looked down at my face.He released me.
Without a word, he grabbed his jacket from the floor and threw it over me.
Then he stepped back quickly, as if afraid to be too close.
He copsed at the far end of the couch, chest heaving.
Every muscle in his body pulsed with restrained violence.
Veins bulged at his temples, his neck, his hands.
He was barely holding it together.
I pulled the jacket tighter around me and stood, putting space between us.
The air around him felt... dangerous. Like he could snap and tear me apart.
I staggered across the room.
"Are you..." I hesitated, eyes dropping involuntarily to the bulge in his pants.
"...okay? Can you...can you control yourself?"
My throat went dry. My brain short-circuited. Stop looking, Cecilia.
Our eyes met. He was watching me with an unreadable look.
I blinked and looked away.
Seriously, stop staring at the man’s crotch. You’re not helping.
He crossed his legs, clearly aware.
"I’m... doing my best," he said, voice tight and formal.
Like he hadn’t just tried to devour me alive.
I didn’t go back to the couch.
Instead, I dragged a chair toward the center of the room.
As I was about to sit, I noticed the painting above.
A woman stared down at me, her smile just a little too knowing.
Nope. Not dealing with that.
I moved the chair again.
Silence dragged on. Thick. ustrophobic.
Sweat pooled under Sebastian’s jacket like I was wearing a winter coat in a sauna.
"Sebastian," I said, voice hoarse, "do you smell anything weird in here?"
He frowned. "What smell?"
"You don’t smell it?" That surprised me.
Then rm set in.
We both started acting strange the second we entered this room. But I could smell something he couldn’t.
"Maybe it affects men and women differently," I said slowly, the words tasting strange in my mouth.
I paused. "Or maybe... it’s not meant to trigger wolves at all."
I looked up at Sebastian, the pieces starting to click.
"It bypasses your senses entirely--goes straight for your instincts. That would exin why you’re acting off but don’t even realize it... "
Then it hit me like a freight train.
My stomach dropped.
"Oh my God. Tang and Sawyer."
If this thing was affecting Sebastian, what about them?
Two straight guys. Locked in a room.
Under the same effect that had just turned him into a sex-starved animal.
Tang could probably fight it. Maybe. But Sawyer? Poor Sawyer.
And if it wasn’t just them--
Evelyn and Vance were alone too.
Would they snap? Tear into each other in panic?
Would they scream?
My mind spiraled, crashing into every worst-case scenario I could imagine.
At least Sebastian hadn’t been stuck with Vance.Small mercy.