A MISTY GLOW DRAPED the enormous room. Bodies were packed wall to wall in the carefree atmosphere. For years, Charlie’s had been a staple in Savannah. A place people converged to cast away their worries and concerns. To let go and feel free. Unfettered by the day’s tribulations. The entire city seemed to flock here for a reprieve. They let themselves go within these old, rustic walls that always seemed to hold a million secrets. Like the old wood echoed with them, keeping them safe and protected.
Sebastian’s and my secret had begun here.
An unrelenting attraction that had grown into something magnificent.
I felt the smile edge my mouth, and I tried to focus on my job rather than the man who refused to leave my mind.
A week had passed since I’d returned to my normal schedule here at Charlie’s where I worked nights so I could be with Kallie during the day.
But our lives hadn’t come close to returning to normal, and our days were the furthest from being ordinary or mundane. The familiar pattern I’d grown so accustomed to—one of Kallie and I surviving alone—had been eradicated. Replaced with a passion that threatened to consume me. To burn me alive with the vibrancy and intensity.
Chewing at my bottom lip, I pushed those thoughts aside and delivered drinks to a booth close to the stage. The three guys sitting there were all business, suit jackets removed, sleeves of their button-ups rolled up casually as they relaxed at the end of the day.
Two bands were scheduled to play tonight, and we were on a break between the two. Our sound guy, Derrick, was playing one of those new upbeat country songs, and it blared from the speakers.
People swarmed the dance floor at the base of the stage, couples gliding into a two-step, getting lost in the easy vibe.
I delivered drinks to a couple more tables, then stopped to take the order of a group of five barely legal girls who’d just made their way in and grabbed an open table in my section. All of them were out to celebrate the youngest girl’s twenty-first birthday. Dressed in next to nothing, clearly begging for attention, overdone hair and makeup, bare skin for miles.
I only knew it was the youngest’s birthday considering I’d double-checked her ID about five times because she looked like she couldn’t be a day older than fifteen.
Each of them ordered a frilly drink. They were giggling and whispering as if they were in middle school, and I shot them a quick grin. Even if I couldn’t relate, I was never one to judge anyone for their fun. I jotted down their order and said, “I’ll be right back with those.”
I shouldered back through the throng gathered around the high-top tables set up in the open space in front of the dance floor, and worked my way back to the ornate bar floating like an oasis in the center of Charlie’s.
My uncle Charlie stood behind it.
His never-ending smile peeked through his ratty beard and my heart throbbed in appreciation. He was mixing drinks in shakers while chatting with an old man who appeared to be doing a stand-up job of drowning his sorrows. Knowing Charlie, he was giving it his all to build the poor guy up.
That was the thing about Charlie.
He was one of the good guys.
Everything he did was for the benefit of someone else.
He caught me grinning as I approached and tossed me a wink. “Hey there, Shea Bear. You doing okay? Looks like we have some wild ones out there tonight.”
Tamar sidled up beside him, long hair the most vibrant kind of red. Her lips were dyed even redder, and she quirked them up in a sexy grin as she snatched the bottle of vodka from Charlie’s hand. “Pssh. You don’t know wild, old man.”
Laughter trickled from me, and I shook my head as I slid the napkin where I’d written the five girls’ drinks on across the bar.
“What, is Savannah getting too boring for your L.A. blood?” I teased her, lifting a brow at my friend who stood out in this bar just about as bad as Sebastian had the first time I’d seen him hidden in his corner booth.
“Never,” she shot back with a smile. “I like boring just fine. Why do you think I’ve stuck around so long?”
“Uh…pretty sure that’d be because of me, darlin’,” Charlie supplied, stretching his arms out like he was the obvious gift of living in Savannah.
No doubt, he was a bonus.
He’d been taking care of Tamar and me since we’d walked through Charlie’s doors years ago, each of us escaping here for our own reasons. I’d been running home and Tamar had been running from home.
An ironic expression slid across Tamar’s face as she poured the vodka across three shot glasses. “Now who’s full of himself?”
Charlie had been giving Tamar crap about being full of herself since she started working here. Neither of us had ever seen her not completely put together, not a piece of hair out of place, makeup thick yet flawless, clothes just like she’d stepped out of one of those motorcycle magazines, tattooed skin for days.
She was a force.
Unwilling to allow anyone to mess with her.
I had my suspicions she’d been messed with enough.
But she was the kind of force to be welcomed, the girl proud yet profoundly loyal.
Charlie’s expression turned sly. “Just tellin’ it like it is, sweetheart. And for the record, my bar isn’t anything close to boring.”
With a laugh, I shook my head.
Cocky old man.
His smile faded, and he looked at me seriously. “But for real, how’s it goin’ out there, Bear? You doing okay tonight?”
The smile I gave him was soft and appreciative, and it only just hinted at an eye-roll because my burly, softy of an uncle had taken all that fatherly concern he typically watched me with to a striking new level.
But I completely understood it. His concern wasn’t just for me. He was worried about Kallie’s welfare, just as much as the rest of us. He was thinking of her future and the threat of what may come to pass.
Martin Jennings’s resurgence lurked like cobwebs in the corners of my mind.
Weeks had passed without a word. It left me in a state of disquiet. Constantly on guard. But I refused to give my life to a worry that for the time I couldn’t control.
I would relish in this moment’s harmony and savor the love I’d been given.
No, I was no fool. There was so much to worry about, concern flying at us from every direction. But that was another thing my grandmother had taught me.
You take what you’re given and make the very best of it. Live life to the fullest even when it might feel empty. Live like there are no barriers when there are walls towering in front of you. Be prepared to fight, even in times of peace. And be willing to live in peace when there are wars raging all around you.
And God, this was going to be a war.
I could feel it.
Felt it to the deepest places in my spirit. In that instinctual place born the first time I held my daughter in my arms. A mother’s knowledge. A gut feeling that whispered and warned and told me to prepare.
Part of me had been preparing for years, because I knew Martin would never forget what I knew.
But in the meantime, while I lay in wait, I wouldn’t be shirking or shrinking, and I refused to give into the misery that simmered like a threat in the darkest fragment of me.
For now, I chose to live.
And when this life called me to fight, I would fight.
“I’m just fine, Charlie. Really,” I promised.
“That’s my girl.”
Tamar began filling my drink order when the double doors swung open. Even though there’d been a constant flow of people traipsing in and out tonight, my attention immediately sought out the source. As if there was no other place in the world I could possibly look.
Expectation.
A bond absolute.
A tension only I could feel.
Sebastian stepped through the door, all strength and mystery and damaged beauty. The lamp swinging from the rafters above him amplified it, striking against the bold, powerful lines of his face. Those strange grey eyes made a pass through the room. Hunting. They were quick to lock on me.
Chills skated down my spine. A scatter of butterflies blossomed in my belly, fluttering just under the surface of my skin, lifting my flesh in a rush of goosebumps.
It made no difference how many times he had me.
He always held me.
Captive.
Ensnared and bound.
Without conscious choice, I was moving, as if my feet weren’t even touching the ground. Erasing the space between us.
Sebastian stood there in the rays of muted, hazy light, emanating that almost frightening, masculine glory. An old black T-shirt stretched tight across his solid chest. The mural of intricate ink scrawled down the entirety of his arms, the story written there jumping and twitching with the bristling muscle.
His expression was somehow both cruel and dripping with affection.
Devastating.
And I thought perhaps I’d lost a piece of my mind, a part of my soul, because my mouth watered and my body hummed with need that bordered on unhealthy.
Vivid.
Violent.
Dangerous.
I didn’t even acknowledge the rest of the guys who stepped through the door behind him.
Instead I was pushing up on my toes and wrapping my arms around his neck, and his arms were closing around my waist.
Warmth and relief.
That pretty, pretty mouth came closer and closer until it met with mine.
Heaven.
“Hi,” he mumbled at my lips, his tweaking up at the corners beneath our connection.
God, I loved when I could feel him smile under our kiss.
“Hi,” I answered. Reluctantly, I pulled away. “I thought you guys were practicing tonight?”
Not that I was going to complain.
“We finished early,” Sebastian supplied quickly. Something passed through the savage expression that stuttered my heart with a slick of apprehension.
He forced a tight smile, and I tore my gaze from him, allowing my eyes to travel to the guys.
A rowdy pile of rock star filled up Charlie’s doorway.
Almost angtsy.
Anxious.
Wild and unruly and so obviously out of place.
“Hey, guys.”
Lyrik hazarded a hand through the mess of black atop his head, tattooed fingers flashing in the light, dark eyes in a constant blaze as he lifted his chin to me in greeting.
Zee leaned in and dropped a swift kiss to my cheek. “Hey, Shea,” he murmured lightly, casting a quick glance at Sebastian.
Wary.
A short ribbon of dread unfurled in my belly.
Something was up.
Distracting me, Ash was quick to step forward and hook his arm around my neck, flashing me his dimples. “Sitting at home on a gorgeous Tuesday night with all that Charlie’s has to offer? Now that just seems ludicrous. The temptation is too great to resist. What man in his right mind would pass up good music, great drinks, and beautiful ladies? So here we are to take advantage. You should be honored by our presence.”
As always, Ash was all too keen to lay it on thick.
The guy was larger than life, more arrogant than anyone I’d ever met, but even I had to admit it was all part of his charm. Without a doubt, he’d left a trail of dropped panties all across the world.
He kissed the top of my head, grinning as he turned us out to survey the landscape of Charlie’s. “Tell me you saved our favorite booth for us.”
Ash’s favorite booth?
I glanced to the booth secreted away in the darkest corner of the bar. The place I would forever think of as Sebastian’s.
As ours.
A place Ash, in all his arrogant grandeur, had decided to claim as his own.
The brave, bold side of me wanted to set him straight. Let him in on exactly what had transpired there. The self-conscious side said no chance in hell.
I felt the eyes on me, and I glanced over to catch Sebastian’s burning gaze, swimming in mischief and simmering with sex, and my teeth latched onto my bottom lip in an attempt to snuff out my reaction, the embarrassment and heat that instantly smoldered on my cheeks.
Without a doubt, his mind was exactly where mine was, back in that night when he’d broken me.
Marked me.
Tainted me.
I’d thought it was the end, when in reality, we were just beginning.
A couple was snuggled up in our booth, the girl playing coy and the guy looking as if he was getting ready to dive in and devour her.
Apparently it was catching.
I glanced up at Ash who still had his arm locked round my neck. “Ah…no. I’m sorry, but I didn’t think you guys were coming. You’re going to have to make do with a table down front. Do you think you can handle that?”
Ash huffed out the fakest sigh. “Fine. But that means you have to slip us some free drinks.”
He winked.
“Ha. You wish, rich boy. Just for that, I’m going to announce to the bar an entire round is on you.”
“Rich boy?” Horror lashed across his face. “Now that’s just plain cold, Shea.”
A short burst of laughter rang from me.
I had never met a group of guys more mortified by their wealth. It was kind of endearing and sweet, and there was something about it that made me love the lot of them just a little more.
Love.
It was true.
I’d come to think of Sebastian’s unorthodox family as my own. Just as he’d come to fall in love with mine.
With the one.
My child.
Hearing Kallie call him Daddy was one of the most terrifying, marvelous things to ever fall from her sweet mouth. Like the first time she said Momma. So pure and full of undying trust.
Those simple, simple dreams were making a valiant attempt at becoming my reality.
Kallie kept testing it, tasting how it felt on her tongue, and Sebastian would be blatantly overcome by emotion every time she asserted it.
We were moving fast. As if we were caught in a tunnel of speeding light. Flashing forward. Velocity hurtling us toward the future.
It was exhilarating and wholly unnerving.
Because neither of us knew where we would land. So many unanswered questions remained, but there was no stopping the momentum that had us flying.
Again, I got swept away by the feeling my feet weren’t touching the ground. As if I were suspended just above it, drifting through the most sublime kind of dream.
Around my neck, Ash squeezed his arm a little tighter and leaned forward to look at Sebastian. “Tell your woman here we work hard for our money.”
Amusement played at Sebastian, warm eyes heating me up.
I bumped Ash with my hip. “Oh, I bet you work hard, all right.”
Ash feigned a shocked gasp. “Are you speaking in innuendoes, beautiful, innocent Shea? I believe our boy here has corrupted you. And now I am most definitely hard.”
He tossed me a playful smirk, one that looked a whole lot smug as he slanted it toward Sebastian.
A threat clouded Sebastian’s striking face, and I sucked in a breath.
God, looking so good should be criminal. I guess maybe it came with the territory.
“Hands off my girl, asshole, or you won’t have the capacity to work hard at anything.”
Laughter ricocheted around the room, Ash’s and mine.
Unwinding myself from Ash, I made a move toward Sebastian, grinning wildly, and I let him wind me up instead.
Wound.
Wound.
Wound.
With him, that’s where I remained.
Insides twisted and twined. Restless and edgy.
A strong, deliberate hand skated down my back, firm palm gripping my ass over my cut-off shorts.
Aroused.
Yes.
Let’s not forget I was always, always aroused.
Sebastian nuzzled his nose into my cheek, grazing up and over the seam of my ear. He inhaled, exhaled, his expelled energy spinning through me like a tempest. “Missed you, baby.”
“I missed you, too.”
It didn’t matter that little more than eight hours had passed since I’d last seen him, it was true.
That fact was a little terrifying, too.
I was in deep.
Somewhere bottomless.
Fathomless.
Lyrik bypassed us. He glanced back over his shoulder as he headed for the riot of bodies congregating in the bar. He lifted his voice so we could hear him over the noise. “We gonna drink or stand around like a pack of bitches watching Baz feel up his girl all night?”
He headed deeper into the fray, menacing strength striding through the crowd. He was so tall I could see the tilt of his head as he turned to consume Tamar in his fiery glare.
She basically snarled at him from her post behind the bar.
Tension ricocheted between them. Maybe Tamar had warmed to the idea of Sebastian and me, but it did not apply to the rest of the guys.
Especially Lyrik.
I couldn’t tell what she wanted more—to rip off his face or his clothes. I’d asked her point-blank if something had happened between them, and she’d just grunted a slur about cocky assholes think they can take whatever they want and something about how happy it’d make her to cut off his dick and cram it down his throat.
Whatever was going on? She was fighting it with teeth bared.
Sebastian didn’t let me go as we followed Lyrik, who apparently knew exactly where he was headed. He was already taking a seat on a stool at one of the high-top tables close to the stage.
“Make yourself at home,” I teased.
I forced myself to untangle my limbs from Sebastian and he slid onto his stool.
You have a job to do, I reminded myself, because the only thing I wanted to do right then was crawl onto his lap.
One cavalier brow arched, Lyrik all kinds of smug. I swear, these guys were too much, my hands full every single time they walked through the door. “Figured we had an in and all.”
Zee and Ash took the remaining stools.
Ash let out an exaggerated sigh, and he sat back, blue gaze probing the crowd. Calculating. Ready to make a move. It was clear what was on his mind.
As much as I hated it, I couldn’t stop the prick of jealousy that jabbed at my consciousness.
There was no missing the way the women seemed immediately drawn to them. Heads turning. Attention seeking. None immune to the aura that glimmered around the whole of them, a bristle of sex and dangerous beauty and lust.
It was this way night after night, and it became ever more obvious that Sebastian was wanted. That he was and would always be the target of many affections. I couldn’t help but wonder how many times he had been in a bar just like this, staging his own move.
Pain needled at my skin. Was it crazy the idea of him with anyone else hurt? But it felt as if I’d been waiting for him my entire life. I’d never been the jealous type, but Sebastian held the power to evoke the most foolish kinds of reactions in me. He made me feel things I’d never felt before. Experience the impossible and suffer the exquisite.
I shoved off the useless thoughts. “So what is everyone drinking tonight?”
Everything about Ash gleamed. “Bring us our usual, darlin’. But make them doubles. We have cause for celebration.”
Sebastian flinched. In my periphery, I caught the glower in his expression. One that warned he was about two seconds away from reaching across the table to rip Ash’s tongue out.
That feeling was back, the sense I was being propelled forward by a rushing tide of joy, while at the same time, was about to be ensnared in an unseen undertow.
Threatened to be washed out to sea.
Sinking.
Sebastian’s voice was soft. Almost afraid to, I slowly turned to look at him.
Grey eyes caressed me softly, almost as soft as his voice. “Just get us our regulars, baby.”
“Okay.”
I walked away, though there was no distance where I couldn’t feel the weight of his stare as I struggled through the bottleneck to get back to the bar. The next band had struck up, and the already ear-splitting noise had escalated to deafening.
Tamar frowned at me as she slid drinks for the five girls I’d all but forgotten toward me. “You look green,” she shouted over the music.
“I’m fine.”
She released a chuckle of disbelief. “Liar.”
Arranging drinks on my tray, I fumbled through an incredulous laugh. “Am I that transparent?”
“Yep.” She gestured with her chin in the direction of the guys’ table. “When it comes to him, you’ve always been. Since the first night he showed up here.”
I lifted a shoulder. “Honestly, it’s nothing. I just got a…weird feeling.” I shook my head. “For so long my only focus had been coming here to earn enough to support my daughter and myself and then going home to her. It’s a little unsettling having my life so unsettled.”
She snorted. “Love has a way of unsettling you. Just be careful it doesn’t knock you off your feet.”
The warning hit me strange, inciting that ominous feeling that had been trying to make itself known for weeks. One I’d shoved down time and again, unwilling to give voice or time because all I wanted was this time with him.
The problem was, I didn’t want that time to end.
Tamar was on top of it, passing me the guys’ drinks, already knowing what they would order.
I smiled in appreciation. “You’re a rock star.”
“Ha. Not so much, but I’m pretty sure you have a table full of them waiting for you right about now. Get going, woman. You can’t leave them alone for long or they’ll incite some kind of riot. Lord knows Charlie will have a meltdown.”
Light laughter rumbled from me, because it really wasn’t that far from the truth. Trouble followed them everywhere they went.
I balanced my tray with drinks for both tables, careful not to slosh anything as I weaved my way through the throbbing crowd. Everyone had begun to move, energy alive as the upbeat country band roused the already over-eager crowd.
By the time I cleared a mob of guys blocking my path, all five party girls were standing around Baz’s table.
Hanging off the guys.
Smiling and flirting and making something I didn’t even recognize rise inside me.
God.
This wasn’t me.
Not even close.
But I had the overwhelming urge to throw the tray of drinks in the redhead’s face, because she was rubbing up against my man, whispering something in his ear, getting friendly in a way that made me want to rip her arms from her body.
But Sebastian.
Sebastian was just staring across at me, those severe eyes still caressing up and down, like they hadn’t stopped. Something like a smile ticked up at the edge of one side of his pretty, pretty mouth. As if he could read my thoughts like they were written in a book, a play-by-play of the possessiveness that crested in me, wave after wave.
But I felt his promise.
It was always going to be me.
Tamping down my insecurities, I approached, brow arched as I took in the raucous members of Sebastian’s pseudo-family. “Looks like you’ve all suckered in a little company. Guess you’re trying to make my job easy on me tonight. Shall I drop all of these here?”
Ash took an appreciative glance around the table surrounded by too much skin. “Sounds like a damned good plan to me, Beautiful Shea.”
I shouldered in between Lyrik and Baz and set my tray on the table. Maybe I shouldn’t have felt so smug when I jostled the redhead toward Lyrik, but hell, I was only human.
Who could blame me?
I passed shot glasses to the guys, frilly drinks to the girls, all the while gritting my teeth and trying to cling to some kind of maturity, because I was long past playing games. Ironic, considering I was feeling about as petulant as a fifteen-year-old girl who’s daddy told her she wasn’t allowed to go to the prom and the boy she was crushing on had asked someone else.
An arm snaked out, wrapping around my belly, hot hand splaying wide as I was dragged back onto the lap I’d had a fantasy of climbing just minutes before.
My body was awkwardly draped across his, my back to his chest and one of his knees sliding up between my thighs to keep me attached to him. One of my booted feet was planted on the ground and my other leg was pushed up under the table by the force of him.
A shocked sound left me, and his breath was rough at my ear, words hoarse. “Do you know how damned sexy you are when you’re jealous?”
I squeaked.
Caught.
Guilty.
I didn’t even have it in me to be ashamed.
“You think I want that girl?” he continued on like a threat, and a shudder rolled through me with the groan that rumbled in his chest. His voice went lower. Darker. “Only thing I want right now is to drag you down the hallway and into the bathroom, rip these shorts off your fucking insanely long legs, and sink into you from behind. I’d like nothing more than to watch you through the mirror as you shake and tremble.”
His hand wandered farther down, cupping me over my sex.
I whimpered, thanking God the evidence of what he was doing was obstructed by the height of the table and the shadowy darkness surrounding us.
“Watch you come undone,” he rumbled.
My blood pulsed and raced, and a flush sprinted across the surface of my skin. Mouth parted, I tilted my head to the side, so close his stubble rubbed at my cheek.
Intense eyes peered down at me.
Desire.
Want.
Lust.
There was no mistaking it.
No disguising it.
Guess the redhead got the message, too, because I caught just a glimpse of her pout before she turned her attention to Lyrik who already had the birthday girl crawling all over him.
He didn’t seem to mind, and normally I’d roll my eyes because, wow, that really was just ridiculous and cliché. Nothing like a rock star getting greedy and taking two.
But I was too busy trying to control the way I shivered and shook as Sebastian let his fingers go trailing beneath the frayed hem of my cut-off shorts.
Good Lord, he was bold. His brazen confidence all too eager to set me straight on my wayward worries.
“You got that?” He ran his thumb just under the edge of my panties. “Don’t make me prove it.”
Was he serious? I was about five seconds from begging him to.
Struggling for air, I gripped the edge of the table.
I was being every kind of unprofessional. Flustered and hot, I forgot where I was because Sebastian Stone had a way of making me forget everything except for him.
Peeling myself from his lap, I straightened myself. I hoped it wasn’t blatantly obvious how outrageously turned on I was.
Lyrik watched me with outright humor, raking his teeth along his bottom lip to contain his amusement, just as both girls got a little more comfortable. Ash grinned like a fool, Zee with a shake of his head and a slightly embarrassed smile.
Um…obvious. Very, very obvious. Flustered, I tucked a thick lock of hair behind my ear. “Anything else I can get y’all?”
Ash lifted his shot. “Stay…I’m about to toast.”
He looked around the guys, first at Lyrik who raised his chin at the same time as he lifted his shot glass, as if he already knew exactly what they were celebrating. He moved on to Zee who lifted a drink of his own, creases of discomfort appearing at the corners of his eyes. Then he moved to Baz who dug his fingers into my side. As if he were holding on for dear life because he felt it slipping away.
Felt me slipping away.
Ash lifted his shot glass a little higher. “To a future that’s looking bright.”
And I should have found comfort in it, because Ash was pure smiles and uncontained satisfaction.
But I didn’t, because those fingers at my side tightened.
Almost painfully.
Regret.
Regret.
Regret.
It stormed around us.
The group of girls lifted their glasses, having no idea what they were toasting, but eager to play along. “To the future.”
As if any of them would be a part of it.
And the unease in Sebastian left me wondering if I would be, either.
I did my best to focus on work and not pay attention to the way Sebastian watched me throughout the night. It was virtually impossible.
That piercing gaze followed me, seeking and searching me out, the constant flickering and changing emotion almost too much for me to bear.
I wanted to beg him for reassurance, for the night to pass quickly so he could take me and wrap me in his arms, provide encouragement that whatever I was feeling was unwarranted.
The second band was still on stage, working through their final set. A haze of indistinct faces filtered through my sight as I went through the motions, my concentration focused on the single table that stood out in the limelight. Prominent above all others.
When I emerged from the kitchen through the swinging doors and back into the bar, it was again immediate. I executed my own hunt, seeking him out.
Only this time, he was no longer there. The same five girls surrounded the table, Lyrik and Ash more than pleased to entertain them, Zee straddling the sidelines, as if he didn’t want to be a part of their games.
Sebastian’s chair was empty.
Blood pumped heavily through my veins. On edge, I moved through the crowd, taking care of my customers up close to the dance floor in front of the stage, faking smiles and tossing out counterfeit pleasantries.
I delivered appetizers to a table and began to back away.
An erotic shock burned through me with the arm that wrapped around to my front from behind.
Sebastian had surfaced from within the mass, and he was quick to pull me back into the center of the clash of bodies that surged and swayed on the dance floor, an agitated crush that rolled with the beat.
Sebastian’s movements were completely at odds with the frenzy, each action purposed, steady and strong as he slowly turned me in his arms.
“Dance with me,” he whispered so close to my ear I could hear him above the clamor.
And it was so sweet, the constant contradiction to all his hard and brash and scarred. This beautiful, torrid man proceeded to secure me in the strength of his arms. His heart beat hard, a boom, boom, boom supplied by his own unrest.
Completely enfolded in him, I pressed my face into his collarbone. Breathed him in. Desperately, my fingers fisted in his shirt. “Tell me what’s happening.”
The resigned breath he released filtered across the top of my head, stirring my hair. He drew me closer. “They want us back in California on Thursday.”
Sorrow flamed from the pit of my stomach, licking up to touch me everywhere.
I clung to him tighter, my arms bound between us, fists in his shirt, powerful arms hugging and hugging and hugging.
I couldn’t breathe.
Sebastian spoke at the top of my head, the words vibrating my bones, unheard yet understood. “Kenny pled down the assault charges.”
Relief blasted through every cell of my body.
“No jail time,” Sebastian explained. “Community service and a fucking fortune in fines, but that’s it. I have to appear in front of a judge to finalize it all, but the criminal shit is done. Martin can still come after me with the civil suit, but he’s not taking me from you.”
Then why did it still feel like he was?
The overpowering relief I felt in his freedom was a strange sensation. Yes, Martin may still try to exert control over me, but he no longer held that control over Sebastian—the threat of jail time for standing up for his brother. For protecting and preserving. It clashed with the realization that the call on Sebastian’s life was finally calling him away.
Even though I knew it would come to this, it didn’t make Sebastian leaving me any less difficult.
Strobes flashed from above the stage, and a chaotic ring of bodies circled us while Sebastian slowly swayed, moving us at half the pace of the strident beat.
Clearing his throat, he continued, “With the news, our label wants us back on the road immediately after my court appearance. They’re putting together a short tour, mostly western states, getting us out to a few cities to build a buzz, before we’re back in the studio to record the new album. Guys are fuckin’ relieved, baby. This is what we’ve been waiting for.”
He pulled back, hands framing my face. Sadness crawled across his defined features. His jaw clenched as he dealt with the jumble of emotions. Thumbs stroked beneath my eyes, fingers firm as they dug into the back of my neck. “Fuck…just looking at you breaks my goddamned heart. Everything I’m feeling right now is written all over your face.”
He squeezed in emphasis, searching me, slipping inside, under, and all around. Stealing more.
“Is…is moving there…permanent?” I stammered over the question, because this…this is what we’d avoided. We’d evaded talk of the inevitable and instead jumped right on that speeding train.
He gave a quick, uncertain shake of his head. A steely frown tipped down the crooked side of his mouth. “I don’t know.”
Taking my hand trapped between us, he wove our fingers together. He lifted them and gently brushed his lips across my knuckles. The promise was muttered on fierce words. “All I know is that this…this is what is permanent. The rest of my life…I don’t know. What the hell I’m gonna do with my baby brother…the guys…how long I can keep living this kind of life. The only thing I’m certain about is you. But I also know for now I can’t change this, Shea.”
“I told you I would never ask you to give it up. It’s a part of who you are. What makes you wonderful and a piece of what truly makes you happy.”
He dropped his face into the side of my head and nodded, because he knew it, too.
An impossible silence enveloped us in a cocoon of unknowns and apprehension and insecurities.
“What does it mean for us?” I finally managed to ask. His heart pounded beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.
Pulling back, he pinned me with an unflinching stare. “When we finish up touring the west coast, I want you to come to California.”
My spirit danced with the idea, before reality came crashing down. Because just like Sebastian, I had my own responsibilities. “I can’t just leave here, Sebastian. Uproot Kallie. This is our home.”
“I’m not asking you to pack up all your stuff and move right now. I’m asking you to come out for a while. Check out L.A. See where I live and what I do. We’ll figure out the rest of it from there. One day at time, as long as each of those days lead to you always being at my side.”
Still clutching him, I almost laughed. “I hate L.A., remember?”
Face turned toward the ceiling, he chuckled, before he leveled me with the most brilliant kind of smile. “Not a big city kind of girl, huh?”
This time my soggy laughter bled free as we both went back to that first night when he’d coaxed me onto the back of his bike, when he’d teased and played and taunted me against the outside wall of my house, tempting me in all the ways a man had never had the power to do before.
When I’d fought, refusing to give in, a fool to think this was escapable.
“Savannah is just fine.” With lightness woven into my tone, I parroted the answer I’d given him then. My voice went quiet with sincerity. “But only when you’re in it.”
Now…now I wasn’t so sure I could ever see this place the same after he was gone.
Because I wasn’t the same.
And when you change, it’s impossible to stay in the same place.