MY HEART SLAMMED AROUND in my chest and my sight narrowed on one singular goal.
Her.
It felt like a lifetime to get to her house, and there was nothing stopping me now. Unlocking her front door, I charged up the stairs. I didn’t pause at her bedroom door. I threw it open. I needed to get to her.
With her back to me, Shea was curled around a pillow on the center of her bed. She startled with the sudden intrusion and jerked up to sitting. Caramel eyes blinked at me through the dim light, confusion and hurt and sorrow.
Motionless, I stood in the doorway as the silence hovered over all our uncertainties.
On all the questions.
But Shea was right.
None of that mattered.
And this was enough.
“Shea.” My voice broke on her name.
I took a step inside and latched the door shut behind me.
Shea’s chin quivered, and she lifted it because I knew this girl wanted to be brave. I knew she was playing through a million scenarios. Mentally going through all the ways I was going to let her go. How I was going to let her down. I knew the words she expected to spill from my mouth because for too long I’d been a coward and a fool, thinking sacrifice was the only way to make this right.
Because every time I turned around, I lost someone I loved.
Not this time.
I swallowed hard. “You want to know what I see when I look at you?”
When the intensity in my voice hit her, Shea choked out a tiny sob.
I took one step closer as I began to speak. “I see someone who’s so fucking sweet and kind that every time I look at her it just about knocks me from my feet, because I’ve had so much bad in my life I don’t know how to stand in her presence. I see someone who I know I don’t deserve, so every time I turn around, I’m runnin’ scared because I’m terrified of ruining everything she is.”
Slowly, I approached her, and she watched me in the shadows. Her hands trembled in her lap as I neared.
“I see someone who deserves the greatest kind of joy.”
Another step closer, and Shea crept toward the side of the bed. She drew a single leg up to her chest. Clinging to it as if it could protect her from any more pain. Everything she felt and wanted and feared was exposed in the expression on her face.
I stopped at the edge of the bed and dropped to my knees.
A small cry escaped her mouth.
Reaching out, I gripped her face in my hands, my fingers burrowing in soft, soft hair.
“I see someone, who even though there’s not a chance in this world I could ever be good enough to have her…good enough to hold her…that’s all I want to do. I see someone I want to protect and love and fight for.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks. She edged even closer and let her legs slip over the side.
I settled myself between her knees and met the storm in her eyes.
“I see beauty and light.”
Those eyes flashed, and emotion crushed my ribs. This girl had me twisted up in every way possible.
Shea gasped when I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her to me. I shifted so I sat on the floor with my back propped against the bed.
Shea was straddling my lap.
Warmth enveloped me. Her heart was pounding, all tucked up against me, right where she belonged.
Her skin felt so soft. Mine lit on fire.
She searched my face and I kept on.
“I see the most fucking gorgeous girl I’ve ever had the pleasure to lay my eyes on.” My voice dropped as I leaned up so I could brush my mouth across her ear. “The pleasure to touch.”
A shiver rolled through her, and I gathered one of her hands between us, threading our fingers. I studied them as I struggled to form the words.
I lifted my gaze and spoke with the most honesty I’d ever allowed myself.
“When I look at you, I see a future I never thought existed, Shea.”
Everything went serious. My mind and my heart and my words. “I see my wife. I see the mother of my kids. I see all the shit I never wanted until I met you. I see everything I thought impossible.”
The corner of that perfect mouth trembled, and she watched me with hope. Hope that up until this moment, I’d continually tried to crush.
But this girl just kept bringing it back to life.
Refusing to let it go.
Her fingers were still woven with mine, and I brought the back of her hand to my mouth, as if I could seal my declaration with a kiss.
A promise.
She put her weight on her knees on either side of me. She rose up.
Hovering.
Her hands found their way into my hair. Gently she sifted her fingers through it.
It felt so damned good I wanted to moan.
I rolled my head back, getting lost in that face, my hands roaming up and down her sides. “You changed me, Shea.”
Soft, sad laughter tumbled from her, and cautiously she peeked at me. “You changed everything about me, Baz. You changed everything I wanted because what I ended up wanting was you. You and Kallie. That’s all I need.”
I sat up higher and took her mouth. My hands bunched in her hair. Forcing her closer. She opened to me as if she’d just found her lost supply of oxygen and was taking in a saving breath.
That’s what I wanted.
To be her breath.
She pressed up higher, rocking over me as her hold tightened in my hair. She muttered between kisses, “Don’t leave me, Sebastian. Don’t leave me.”
Words poured out against my lips, each one uttered between scrapes of her teeth as her kisses became more and more frantic.
“I just got you back and I won’t survive losing you again. Promise you’ll fight him with me…because you love me and this is where you always want to be.”
My fingers dug into her thighs. Squeezing. The promise came on a breath. “Yes.”
Palming her ass, I couldn’t do anything but rock her against my cock that was straining inside my jeans.
I shouldn’t have been hard. Our baby girl was gone.
But curls of lust twisted in my stomach and greed took over my kiss.
When she whimpered into my mouth, I took it upon myself to devour her sweet little tongue.
Because, yes, I needed this.
Yes, Shea needed this.
Maybe it was indecent.
But neither of us could stop.
We were drowning in desperation.
Dying in need.
Dying to love.
Seeking reprieve from all the misery and pain.
I was desperate to show her I’d never leave her. Not ever again.
Shea was still wearing those satin pajamas, and I couldn’t get through the buttons of the long-sleeved blouse fast enough. I pushed the fabric off her slender shoulders, letting my hands explore the expanse of soft skin as I dragged it down her back.
Hair tangled and wild, wild, wild. Her expression was just as desperate as the heat of her hands that yanked at my shirt and tore it over my head.
Hot palms pressed to my bare chest.
“You’re beautiful, Sebastian.” She felt along my shoulders. “My beautiful, beautiful man.”
“Baby,” I whispered, kissing her more. My teeth tugged at her bottom lip, then I set it free with a little pop, before I kissed her hard at the corner of her mouth. I didn’t slow down, just dove down to her chin, forcing it up as I went to work on the delicate slope of her neck.
Her fingers dug into my shoulders as she leaned back, keeping herself from falling as I kissed a path down her chest that heaved with every erratic beat of her heart.
Those perfect tits begged, nipples pink and pebbled tight.
I flattened my tongue across one.
So fucking sweet.
I drew it into my mouth.
“Sebastian.”
I cupped the back of her neck, forcing her to look down at me.
“Sweet girl, I’m gonna take care of you.”
In every way.
“Stand up,” I commanded. She kept her hands braced on my shoulders as she slowly pushed to her feet. She was bent at the waist, her face hovering a foot above mine.
The tether that tied us together stretched taut.
Slowly, I dragged her pajama shorts and the lace hidden underneath down those long, long legs.
“Shit,” I hissed, watching the action as I revealed every delicious inch of this girl.
She was a vision.
Salvation.
A deliverance from my own personal hell.
Fire and light.
Shea stepped out of them, and I tossed them aside. Never letting go of my shoulders, she stared down at me, my head kicked back against the side of the bed.
I rushed through the buttons on my fly, toeing off my boots in the same second I pushed down my jeans and underwear.
My cock sprang free, and I shrugged my jeans the rest of the way off my legs.
That energy was glowing bright, this girl commanding every last one of my senses.
“Make me crazy, baby.”
Shea slowly dropped back down onto her knees, but those hands never let me go.
She swayed forward, and the inside of her thighs brushed my ribs.
I jerked.
“I need you,” she said.
And I totally fucking got it. Truth was, I needed her too.
“You have me.”
Her tongue swept along her bottom lip, and she sucked in a shaky breath as she eased back a fraction and wrapped her hand around my cock.
Our eyes locked as she slowly lowered herself on my length.
Fuck.
For the flash of a moment, I buried my face in her neck to cover my groan.
One touch.
One touch and my body was shaking like a teenager. But my soul had arrived somewhere far in the distance, in a future I’d never imagined.
Where this girl was always going to belong to me.
I took her by the hips.
Guiding her as she began to move.
Sliding sure up and down my dick.
A whimper fell from her when she edged back, our focus going to where we were connected.
My cock slick with her arousal.
Bare skin.
Perfect pussy.
She took me whole again and again.
“Shea.” I wound a fist in her hair. I tugged hard and nipped at her chin.
With both hands, she returned it with a fierce tug of her own. My scalp prickled with tiny spikes of exquisite pain. They skimmed down my spine, gathering low where a knot of pleasure built fast.
Quickly, I shifted, needing control. I held her around the waist as I shifted, crawling to my knees and taking Shea with me.
I laid her on the rug and I found myself wrapped up in miles of perfect legs as she locked herself around my waist. Fingertips dug into my back.
Pushing up on one hand, I looked down on the girl who’d shattered my world. Caramel eyes, dark and deep, and so fucking sweet.
“Don’t let go,” I warned, the demand gruff as I pulled out, the wide ridge of my head just barely hanging on. Then I slammed back home.
Shea cried out as her walls gripped me tight.
“Fuck…baby.”
I pulled in a breath, trying to keep my shit together. A furor of energy lifted high, dipping low, saturating our skin in sweat. Pulsing and pressing, a force neither of us stood a chance to resist.
And I knew if I ever lost her I’d no longer know how to survive.
I moved in her.
With her.
Neither of us gentle.
Every touch rough, every thrust and bow of our bodies sharp and severe.
I slipped a hand between us and began to work Shea’s clit.
And I could feel it, the way every inch of her tightened, how she started to glow.
Heat covered us, ripples of energy, this girl a summer storm.
Fierce and turbulent and beautiful.
“Come, sweet girl,” I whispered, when I felt her hanging on, like maybe she didn’t know how to let go. I increased the pressure, increased my pace.
She was staring at me when she came undone.
Splintering.
Her focus went hazy, as if she were floating with the stars.
She took me right along with her.
We stayed there for the longest time.
Elevated.
Absent.
Present only to each other.
Finally, I slumped down on top of her. I propped my weight on the bend of my knee and an elbow so I didn’t crush her. I pushed back the mounds of her mussed hair, just needing to see her.
This girl who was so gorgeous and broken and scared.
The woman who’d become my responsibility.
My future.
Because I’d be damned if I remained a prisoner to my past.
One I’d never walk away from again.
I loved Shea Bentley and she loved me.
It’s where it started and where it ended.
Nothing before or after or in between mattered.
“Do you think this is wrong?” Shea’s muted voice broke into the heavy silence.
Where we lay under the covers in her bed, I pulled her closer. She curled her back into the den of my chest. “What?” I asked.
The house was quiet and the hour was late. Darkness clung to most of her bedroom. Only slivers of moonlight slanted in from the window.
“Me being here, finding comfort in your arms, when Kallie is alone.”
My heavy exhale scattered the hair on her shoulder. I understood her guilt, but I didn’t want her feeling it. “Let me ask you something. If you could be doing absolutely anything right now that would get Kallie home sooner, would you be doing it?”
“Of course,” she answered without hesitation.
I pressed a tender kiss behind her ear. “Then I think you already know the answer to that.”
Shea pulled in a shaky breath. “I hate she’s with him and has no idea what’s happening.” The air hitched in her throat. “I hate I have no idea what she’s going through. What could be happening. Hate I’m lying here, useless to help her. Unable to protect her like I always promised I would.”
She shuddered and I held her closer.
“She has no clue who he is, Sebastian. She doesn’t even know about him. The only thing I’ve ever told her was she didn’t have a daddy. I told her it was just her and me and that was all there was ever going to be.” Her voice trembled and rolled. “She has to be so scared.”
“I know,” I murmured back.
I let myself imagine what Kallie was going through right then. The quiet terror she must be feeling. Let it wreck me a little more, knowing Shea was imagining the same thing.
I played with a long strand of her hair. “I trust in my team, Shea. Anthony and Kenny have always been there for me, and they’re going to find a way to set this straight. They’ve never let me down before and I know they’re gonna do everything in their power to fix this. And I’m going to be there every step of the way. Fighting. Giving it my all until that little girl is in your arms. You understand what I’m telling you?”
It meant I wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat until Kallie was safe.
She choked. “What if he hurts her? What if we’re too late?”
“No…he won’t. He’s not that stupid.”
Even with my promise, rage boiled beneath the surface. Ready to be unleashed. Because if he did? That rage would come like a destroyer.
She snuggled a little closer, and her voice clogged with a restrained sob. “It’s an awful feeling being so thankful I don’t have to go through this alone and knowing Kallie has to.”
“No, she’s not alone, baby. She feels you right here.” I placed my hand over Shea’s heart.
Slowly, she rolled over to face me. “Earlier…you said you wanted to claim Kallie as your own.” The words became almost urgent. “What did you mean?”
A pensive smile tugged at my mouth. I pulled my head back far enough to allow the subdued moonlight to illuminate Shea’s face. “I told you what I see when I look at you. I see a family. Always thought family to me would construe something fucked up and broken…just me and the boys and Austin. But I want it to include you. I want it to include Kallie. When she’s sad or scared or just needs someone to tell her she’s loved, I want to be that guy.”
Something both brilliant and fractured passed through Shea’s expression. And I knew she was seeing it. The same thing I saw. And somehow I’d gotten lucky enough that this girl wanted it, too.
Hard thing was, both of us were wondering how the fuck we were gonna get there.
“You know…” My voice was rough. “Earlier tonight I took you bare.” I frowned. “Twice now, actually. You want to know the truth of what hit me? I was hoping that maybe…just maybe together you and I were making something beautiful.”
Shea jerked back an inch. Bewilderment lit on her face. “You’d want that?”
“I don’t know…probably would be a bad fucking idea right about now, but sometime, yeah.”
Intense emotion held fast in her eyes. “Since the first night you took me out, I couldn’t help but think about experiencing those things with you, Sebastian. A life and a home. A family for Kallie.” A somber smile fluttered around her mouth. “You surprise me in really wonderful ways.”
“Guess I’ve been surprising myself a lot lately.” Smiling softly, I brushed my thumb along her jaw. “Might have something to do with this amazing girl I met. After she came into my life? Don’t recognize myself anymore.”
Shea cupped my cheek. Tenderly. Everything written on her face adoring and filled with all the love I didn’t think I’d ever deserve. She looked at me that way for the longest time, like I meant something, this girl seeing me in a way only she could.
“I’m on the pill,” she finally said, obviously needing to set that straight.
I gave a slight nod. “I figured as much. But it doesn’t mean the thought wasn’t there.”
The desire.
“I should’ve asked you though.” Regretfully, I shook my head. “That’s something I should have talked with you about first, and I’m sorry I let myself get lost in the moment.”
I caught her around the wrist of the hand she had on my face, shifted forward, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her elbow.
“You know I’d never purposefully put you at risk,” I murmured into the soft skin, and I wrapped her arm around my neck so I could get closer.
All the possible consequences and scenarios I’d allowed my own needs and wants to obscure. But I guess I wasn’t coming close to thinking of it as a consequence. But instead something good and pure—a kind of gift I never thought I wanted until all of a sudden it was there—something profound inside me aching to be filled with every part of Shea.
“I would have stopped you if I was worried. If I didn’t trust you,” she whispered. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You put so much faith in me.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
Affection tightened my chest.
“We’re going to figure this out,” I promised. “We’re going to send Jennings straight to hell and then I’m gonna pack you and Kallie up and take you around the world. We’re going to show Kallie all of it, and you and I are gonna make love in every country we step foot in. And at night? I’m going to be singing about it…about what you do to me and how you make me feel.”
I knew I was dreaming, doing what I could to fill Shea with hope for an escape from this hell.
Eyes shimmering, she choked over the emotion in her throat. Still, she played right along. “It seems like Kallie and I might cramp your style.”
I grinned at her, needing to lift her spirit. Our chins touched as I smiled at my girl. “Got a new style, baby.”
Shea tightened her hold. “Is that so? And what is this world you’re going to be singing about me to going to say?”
“I’m sure they’re going to be saying all kinds of things. But I don’t give a shit, Shea.” My tone grew serious. “Tomorrow they’re gonna know what you and Kallie mean to me. They’re going to know I will be fighting for you both, and I won’t be backing down.”
“I’m so scared, Baz,” Shea quietly admitted as her mouth quivered with another round of sorrow.
“I know, baby. I’m scared, too.”
Yeah, I wanted to fill Shea with hope. But I figured honesty mattered, too.
“I can’t believe he has her.” She said it so softly, I barely heard her. Misery seemed to steal her breath. “What kind of a monster would come in and rip a little girl from her home? I think somewhere inside me, I had hoped he had changed.”
All the questions I wanted to ask Shea about how she was tied to Martin Jennings bubbled to the surface, forced up by the seething anger burning in my veins at the thought of the two of them together.
I started slow, a little bit of awe weaving into my words. “You’re Delaney Rhoads.”
“No.” The word flew free with vehemence. “Martin Jennings made Delaney Rhoads. I never wanted to be her, Sebastian. Yes, I love to sing…love to play…but never at the cost of being her. I’ve spent so much time pretending she didn’t exist. Please believe me. I never meant it to hurt you. But I’ve never told anyone about it. Charlie and April are the only ones who know because they helped me through that time. All of us have pretended she didn’t exist…that Martin didn’t exist…since the moment I returned to Savannah.”
Shea hesitated, then continued, “You can imagine now why finding out who you were affected me so much. I’d had that lifestyle and I wanted as far away from it as possible. But in the end, what I really wanted was you.”
She gave me a wobbly smile. “Wanted you to love me and hold me, and all of a sudden none of that other stuff mattered. All that mattered was you. I was ready to let you in, the first person I’d ever told the truth to. The first person I trusted. I wanted you to know it…to share it with me…to understand, because I was pretty sure there was no other person in the world who would understand it better than you.”
Her face pinched. “But you ran…and…and you broke me. I’ve never hurt more than that night until…”
She trailed off. It was as if I could hear what she thought. Her daughter’s sweet voice echoing through my mind, mixing with the brutal agony of her cries as she’d begged for her mommy when Martin ripped her away so violently.
Begging for someone to save her when we’d been completely helpless. Hands tied. Knowing using them would only make it worse.
“Until tonight,” I finished for her.
“Until tonight,” she agreed. “I knew before we went public, you had to know, and I was ready. Tonight…what we shared…”
Meeting my eye, she reached out and brushed trembling fingertips down my jaw. My eyes dropped closed as I let myself lean into the promise of her touch.
Her voice was a soft rasp. “I knew you would forgive me for keeping this from you. I knew you would accept me because I knew you’d always seen me the same way I see you. We see this.”
Pulling back, she placed her hand over her heart, like she was begging me to understand our hearts were the only things that mattered.
I hooked a finger under her chin, lifting her face to me. The words grated from my throat. “How’s it possible to love someone so fucking much and not know the first thing about their past?”
No doubt it sounded like a concession.
Like surrender.
Because neither of us were immune to this, this strange connection that billowed between us. What tied us together when neither of us knew the paths that had brought us to this place.
This place where it was us.
“Remember when I told you I didn’t even know you but you felt like one of the most significant people to have ever come into my life?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe there was a reason neither of us could let this go.”
I moved to hold that sweet face between my hands. “I’d do anything for you, Shea. Give up anything…” My hold tightened in emphasis. “Give up everything if it means we get that little girl back.”
I finally let myself ask one question that’d been nagging me. “Why’d you quit?”
Shea paled, and she spoke softly. Sadly. “My entire childhood was spent priming me for one singular goal. I spent my days in endless lessons and chasing countless auditions. My momma was going to make me a star.”
Sarcasm dripped from the word.
“That’s the only thing she wanted. The only thing she could see. It got to the point where I knew she didn’t care how she made that happen, just as long as it did. All those years, my mother had worked her magic with manipulative words, getting me in front of anyone in the industry who would give me the time of day.”
She winced. “When Martin came into our lives, she allowed him to take over everything. Including me. He…he…”
If it were possible, her voice got rougher, dipped into fear. “He controlled everything.”
She wavered. Like she needed to decide how much she should say. How much I could tolerate.
“Let’s just say Kallie didn’t fit into that picture. So I ran.”
Guess the girl knew I couldn’t tolerate much. Just that bit of history hit me with yet another urge to jump from this bed and hunt the fucker down. That urge was almost irresistible.
She shook her head like she was shaking off the memories then tipped her chin back up to focus on me. “How did you get messed up with him?”
I almost laughed. It was definitely a mess.
I played with a few strands of her hair. “I knew the second I met Martin Jennings he was nothin’ but a snake, but at the time, none of us cared. The only thing that mattered to the guys and me was Sunder making it big. We didn’t give a shit about how we made that happen. Anthony had hooked us up, asked him to come check us out at a bar we were playing at. Jennings made us big promises we were quick to jump on. It became clear real fast the guy had his fingers dipped in all kinds of illegal shit—”
With that tidbit of information, her bottom lip trembled. More fucking worry added to this unbearable torment. With my thumb, I smoothed it out, hating dragging all this out into the open. Ripping Shea’s wounds open wider. But we didn’t have a whole lot of options.
Not if we were going to start being honest with each other.
No more secrets and lies.
“But it wasn’t so far off base from what my crew had going down, so I didn’t exactly think we had any right to judge. Even though I’d gotten clean, it didn’t mean the rest of the guys had. You know what I mean?”
Shea nodded like it hurt.
“It all came to a head a few months ago when Austin overdosed. There was no question in my mind Jennings somehow had a hand in it. I saw him coming out of our tour bus that night. But Austin wouldn’t fess up, so I’d gone to Jennings’s place and confronted him. While he never admitted involvement, he basically told me my brother was nothing but a punk and the world would be a better place without him in it. I lost it, Shea. Fucking lost it and now he looks like the good guy who was attacked by some deranged delinquent out for blood.”
I pressed on with my explanation, doing all I could not to spit the words. “We were supposed to come to some kind of bullshit terms. My attorneys thought I could pay off the asshole, he would dismiss the charges, and I’d get a lesser sentence…fines and community service or some shit like that. But the bastard hates me as much as I hate him. Things escalated at the mediation we had last week and there was no keeping my hands off him. He warned me I’d regret fucking with him.”
At the time, I’d wanted to laugh in his face and just beg him to bring it on, that any consequence I had to pay would be well worth it.
Now I knew that debt was too steep.
Not if Kallie was the cost.
Guess I’d thought I couldn’t hate him more until I saw that pompous ass driving off with her. Stealing that baby girl from her mother.
From her home.
From me.
“He was after revenge tonight,” I confessed. The words were so choppy they vibrated in my chest.
“On both of us,” Shea said.
“That douchebag is nothing but a narcissist. Can’t believe he’d use a little girl as retaliation. Fuck him,” I gritted out, my rage threatening to boil.
Shea blinked slowly, like she didn’t want to hear her own words. “He’s a sociopath.” Her voice grew desperately quiet. “A psychopath.”
I pushed up onto my elbow so I could see her better, and Shea rolled onto her back. Her face pinched up in pain as if fighting whatever she was feeling inside.
“Tell me.” I couldn’t stop the same earlier demand from leaving my mouth.
“I’m not ready.”
This was what was haunting me most. What was written all over Shea. Her outright fear of the man I hated most and the possibilities of what had put it there.
“Know you told me you weren’t ready to give me details, but, baby…just…just tell me one thing. Did he hurt you?”
Everything shook—my spirit and my body and my words.
She squeezed her eyes closed. A thousand shadows played across her features. A horror of memories. A nightmare that had been her past.
I saw all of it there, marring that gorgeous face.
The rage I’d been fighting took hold.
My hands curled into fists as I watched tears seep free at the corners of her eyes. They raced into her hair.
Shea nodded tight, as if it could block what should never have to be remembered.
Or maybe she was just passing them on to me. Because my mind seethed with them. With the idea of Jennings hurting my girl.
I’d seen it.
Witnessed it.
The malice in his eyes.
The greed fed by something vile.
An unknown fury slammed me.
I’d kill him. If he hurt either one of them again, I’d kill him. This time there’d be no one there to stop me.
Slowly, Shea opened to me, staring up at me while I stared down at her. I felt as if I were coming unhinged, coming apart, torn between bolting from this bed and tracking Jennings down and forcing myself to stay here with her wrapped in my arms.
I knew if I succumbed to the first, it would be the end of me and Shea. I’d lose her forever because there wasn’t enough money in the world to keep them from locking me up and throwing away the goddamned key.
Every part of me rejected that idea while all of those same pieces knew any sacrifice would be worth keeping them safe.
Shea fluttered her fingertips over the scar cut deep into my ribs.
Another battle I’d fought for my family.
A lash I’d been happy to take.
In her touch, I felt as if she were tying herself to me. Telling me to stay. The girl saw right through me to that place where the truth of who I really was reigned. She knew what I’d be willing to do.
What I was capable of.
She was keeping something from me not because she wanted to hide it. But because she wanted to protect me.
Observant eyes searched mine with both hope and dread, as they trailed down to where the memory of Julian had been permanently etched onto my side.
“We’re so much alike, Sebastian. You just wear all your scars here. On the outside.”
I shivered, so fucking transparent beneath the weight of her gaze.
She tugged at my hand and placed my palm flat over the quickened beat of her heart. “While I keep all of mine here.”
My spirit thrashed, and I sank down lower, whispering a hair’s breadth from that soft, soft mouth. “One day, I need you to show me. All of it.”
“I know,” she breathed.
Slowly, she rolled to her side, and I curled around her back. Shea nestled her head into the crook of my shoulder and I wrapped my arms around her. Covering her. Protecting her.
“Hold onto me,” I demanded.
“Don’t let me go.”
“Never.”
Silence enveloped us, the darkness alive with our turmoil.
There’d be no sleep tonight.
When Shea began to quietly sing, I clutched her to me.
I strained to make out the words that passed languidly between her lips, a tickle to my ears, something like heaven and honey and all things sweet.
So, so sweet.
My heart clenched as I swam in the power of the words.
She was singing Lullaby by The Dixie Chicks.
I only knew it because my mom had loved the record it was on. She had listened to it constantly before everything had gone to shit—before my family had lost it all.
As I held on to Shea and listened to her pour the words out into the night—like mourning, like praise—I had the intense urge to weep.
Instead, I buried that feeling with my rage, made it count, added it to the debt Martin Jennings was going to pay.
But Shea?
Shea wept.
Wept unlike anything I’d heard since my mother had wept when the sea stole Julian.
A mother’s pain.
A torment I’d prayed I’d never hear again.
And I just held her. Held her and held her and made a million silent promises that I’d never let her go.
“I sang that to Kallie every single night. I don’t ever want to stop,” she finally managed to whisper before she slipped back into silence.
Long moments passed with just the sound of our breaths, before I pressed a soothing kiss to the top of her head. “Tell me a story, Shea from Savannah.”
She stumbled over a soggy laugh, and pulled my arms tighter around her. “What kind of story do you want to hear, Sebastian from California?”
“I want to know who taught you to sing.”