A Stone in the Sea

by A. L. Jackson

  A simple girl who wanted a simple boy.

  But I knew in my gut Sebastian Stone was anything but simple.

  I kind of wanted to panic when he finally turned around and headed back into town. At a stoplight, he turned his face toward me, his nose a fraction from mine, his hand back on my thigh. “Where do you live?”

  I gave him a quick rundown on how to get there, back near the bar but a few streets in. I hugged him even tighter as he took the few turns that brought us into my neighborhood, knowing this magical night was coming to an end.

  He pulled to a stop in front of the blue two-story historic, white shutters around the windows, the sight of the cute little porch swing hanging from the wooden beams enough to swell my heart in a rush of wistfulness.

  “This is you?” he asked as he kicked the stand and cut the engine, and an expectant silence filled the air.

  “This is me.”

  He helped me off then climbed from the bike. His adept fingers worked to remove the helmet and he hooked it on the handlebars.

  “There,” he said softly, eyes intense as he brushed back some of the hair that could only be a disaster. He let his fingertips trail down my neck. A tremor spread beneath my skin. “Thought I’d take the scenic route to your house. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “I didn’t mind,” I whispered, hating how much I wanted him to stay when I knew he needed to go.

  A few stars clung to the sky as a dim hue of light tugged at the brink of the horizon, a vague threat of the approaching day. The high-pitched drone of bugs hummed from the trees, and the air held still, bottled up, waiting to be breathed across morning’s awakening.

  Baz and I seemed lost in it. Hovering at the edge.

  Releasing me, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, the way he always seemed to do when he didn’t know what to do with himself, rocked back on his heels, and squinted at the emerging silhouette of my house.

  “You own this place?”

  I began to walk toward it, somehow knowing he would follow.

  “Yeah.” Inhaling deeply, I looked up at my house that wasn’t exactly small or modest. “My grandmother left it to me when she passed. This house was always my favorite place in the world.” Side by side, we climbed the three steps onto the porch, and I turned to look at him when we stopped in front of the white door. “Every chance I got, this was where I came. It was always my sanctuary, mostly because I wanted to be around my grandma.” I gave a tiny, insecure shrug, revealing the most about myself that I ever had. “Now it’s my home.”

  Baz peered into one of the long, horizontal windows that flanked both sides of the door. There were no lights on inside, so it appeared blackened. Blank. Yet he stared at it as if he could see everything inside. “It’s perfect for you.”

  I gave him a soft smile. “I think it is, too.”

  I hesitated, stuck in the force of his presence that seemed to devour all my sensibilities. “I should go in,” I finally said.

  He looked to his feet, before he leveled me with all his potency. He gave me a tight nod. “It’s late.”

  I dug in my bag for my keys and slipped the front-door key into the lock, turned the knob, and cracked open the door.

  “Goodnight, Baz.” I turned away and went to cross the threshold.

  I felt him move before I felt the blazing heat of his hand on my neck, beneath my hair, his thumb at my jaw to force me to look back at him.

  Indecision swam through his eyes, voice rough. “You’re beautiful, Shea. Need you to know that.”

  Slowly, I shifted, turning to face him, his right hand gliding around to the side of my neck in the same second his left came up to the other side. Holding me. Thumbs ran along the contour of my jaw, strong fingers at my nape tipping back my head.

  I felt like I would drown under the intensity of him—my body coming alive—a rapid-fire of sensation licking through my body with the simple touch.

  I stopped breathing when he slowly leaned in. His mouth brushed over mine in a feather-light caress.

  Once. Twice. Three times.

  Testing.

  As if he were curious to see what it might feel like.

  Like he’d gotten the answer, he gripped my face. There was little movement, just the dizzying sweetness of his lips as they pressed earnestly against my mouth. Baz inhaled, breathing the moment in. I grabbed his wrists to hold him closer as my knees went weak, the man again having the power to evoke the most foolish kind of reaction from me.

  He fed from it, I could tell, the way every inch of him hardened and a rumble of pleasure vibrated from his chest.

  Spinning us, he pushed me up against the wall. My back hit it with a thud, and his hands were in my hair, yanking me forward in the same second his mouth closed fiercely over mine.

  He was no longer gentle, and he swept his tongue along the rim of my bottom lip, teasing at the corner, nipped me once before his tongue slipped inside.

  It was an all-out assault.

  I moaned with the contact, my body yielding. Welcoming. My hands were suddenly everywhere, touching him, searching him, those stupid little dreams of a simple girl wanting a simple boy tickling my senses, taunting me.

  Hard, defined muscles rippled and jerked beneath my greedy touch, and Baz groaned, quick to wedge his knee between my legs and force them apart. He pinned me to the wall, his huge body eclipsing mine, his thigh between my legs.

  Pressing.

  Pressing.

  Pressing.

  Pleasure knotted tight and fast.

  “Oh, God,” I whimpered.

  I could feel the plea of his heavy cock begging at my hip. He rubbed himself there, groaned again, and he slipped his hand down and palmed my breast. Through the fabric of my shirt, he dug his thumb into the cup of my bra, flicking at my nipple.

  I whimpered more and pulled from his mouth, my head rocking back on the wall as I searched for the air he’d stolen.

  He didn’t seem to mind, and instead took a path down the side of my neck with his mouth.

  “This is feeling a lot like a distraction,” I finally managed to say, my fingers sinking into his shoulders when he sucked behind my ear.

  “Doesn’t everyone deserve to forget?” he mumbled along my skin, his voice hoarse and almost desperate as he kissed his way back up to my mouth, taking more.

  But no. I didn’t want to forget. I wanted to live. To take in every memory. To make every single one of them count.

  “No, I want to remember,” I murmured at his mouth.

  An unintelligible sound rolled up his throat, something that sounded like pain, like hope. “Let me come inside.” He rubbed against me, a friction of jeans and heat and a desperate need to leg go.

  And God, I wanted to.

  But dawn was beginning to break.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I whispered.

  On a sigh, he dropped his forehead to mine, trying to catch his breath.

  He smiled in something that felt like resignation, then playfully nipped at my bottom lip.

  “I thought you said you didn’t bite?” I teased in an attempt to drag myself out of the moment, fingertips scratching through the thick coat of scruff covering his cheeks.

  He chuckled, the sound the thickest kind of molasses. “I think you and I both know that was a lie.”

  My gaze shifted away, suddenly shy because I was still pinned under this man that I didn’t even know. One who knew nothing about me. His body burning. Mine on fire.

  I swallowed hard and nudged him away, letting go of the little fantasy I’d allowed myself to live.

  Just for tonight.

  Because the sun was rising to reveal my reality.

  I pushed away from him and took a step toward the door, and Baz grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, almost as gentle as the expression on his face.

  Again, his understanding was entirely unexpected.

  Then he let me go and I shuffled
toward my house, feeling a little wobbly and a whole lot aroused.

  In the doorway, I turned back to look at him, this beautiful man that my heart ached to know. “Goodnight, Sebastian from California.”

  He smiled softly. “Goodnight, Shea from Savannah.”

  THE SHRILL RING FROM my bedside table jarred me from sleep.

  I groaned, clinging to the fringes of sleep, desperate to sink back into its murky depths.

  Because she was there. That fucking gorgeous girl, who with one look, swallowed me whole. The one who’d climbed on the back of my bike and held onto me as if her very life depended on it, and it seemed, just for one night, it had.

  For a little while, it was just the two of us who existed.

  Did it make me pathetic that night two nights ago had been the best time I’d had in as long as I could remember?

  Funny, because it didn’t come close to ending the way I’d been dying for it to—wrapped up in miles of long legs, buried deep in all her sweet where she just kept pulling me deeper, a few perfect hours to make me forget.

  Didn’t matter.

  Because she still had, and that fact scared me a little bit because I sure as hell didn’t need to go getting messed up on a girl that I was only going to have to leave behind. She was tied here. She had made that much clear.

  But that didn’t change the fact she made me feel different when I was with her, like maybe not every single thing in this world was bad. As if this girl saw me for who I really was and she actually liked him.

  She’d asked me what I wanted from her. The problem was I had no clue. All I knew was it was more. That I wanted more of her dark and her light and her heavy and her soft. I wanted more of her sweet breaths and more of her pounding heart.

  I wanted more of her kisses.

  Fuck.

  I wanted more of her kisses.

  The phone rang again, vibrating against the wooden tabletop.

  Facedown in my pillow, I blindly swatted around for my phone. When I caught hold of it, I flipped onto my back, rubbing at my eye as I answered with a groggy, “Hello?”

  “Sebastian.”

  The spiteful voice punched me in the gut. Anxiety climbed out from it, like ants marching across my skin.

  Sucking in a shaky breath, I sat up on the side of the bed. I ground my teeth when the years of resentment came flooding in, washing over all those stupid childhood scars marking up my insides, my heart and spirit and mind.

  “What do you want?” I gritted out, crushing the phone in my hand.

  He laughed the ugliest sound. “Ah, what, you’re not excited to hear from your dear old dad? Have some respect, boy.”

  I scoffed. He’d lost that a long time ago.

  “I think you know the answer to that, so get it over with and let me go back to my life.”

  “Your life?” he mocked, brutal sarcasm bleeding from his tone. “Glad you have a life to continue on with.”

  My insides squeezed and bile rose in my throat. “What do you want?” I asked through clenched teeth, refusing to take his bait. “I’m not gonna ask again.”

  “What do I want? What you owe me.”

  Fucking money. Always more money.

  Taking. Stripping me bare.

  Everyone wants a piece of Sebastian Stone.

  “Don’t owe you anything.”

  “Yet you take care of that worthless brother of yours.” The words sliced through me, a bitter blade. “You might protect him, but I sure as hell won’t.”

  “You mean your son?”

  “He stopped being my son the day he killed Julian.”

  A knot formed in the base of my throat, all sharp, crude edges. Heavy. Too heavy. “It wasn’t his fault,” I grated around it.

  “Then why did you lie? Why are we all still lying?”

  It was always what he held over my head. The threat to expose Austin and what he had done. To proliferate the lie of what he had not. Wouldn’t allow him to hurt my little brother any more than he already had.

  “How much?”

  “Ten.”

  Bastard.

  “Fine. I’ll wire the money to you this afternoon.”

  Satisfied laughter spread maliciously through the phone.

  And I hated.

  Hated.

  Hated.

  Hated.

  It hadn’t always been that way. Once I’d loved my father. Looked up to him and he’d trusted in me. But grief could do ugly things to people, especially ones who already had a propensity toward violence running through their veins. Pair that with bitterness and unrelenting pain? That was the kind of fuel with the power to create a monster.

  And a monster he’d become.

  Hesitating, I raked a hand through my hair, my head slouched between my shoulders, despising the fact this man held all the cards.

  “How’s Mom?” I finally asked, wishing I didn’t still give a fuck, because she’d stopped caring a long time ago. She’d become just another of his pawns, a hopeless, tormented woman who’d lost herself the day she lost Julian—the day Austin and I had lost everything.

  The only thing we had left was each other.

  “Don’t you worry about her. Just send the money. I expect to see it by the end of the day.”

  Rage coiled through me, and I threw my phone across the room, every part of me hungering for the satisfaction of him feeling its impact as it smashed against the wall.

  Because that same kind of violence ran through me.

  Pieces flew, and for the moment, his voice was silenced.

  But in my head, his voice was never silent.

  Bastard.

  My pulse raced, and I pushed to my feet, hands in my hair as I paced, trying to calm the breaths that wheezed in and out of my lungs. I crossed the floor and jerked open the top drawer on the chest against the wall, rummaged around to the bottom until my fingers brushed against the plush fabric.

  I wrapped my hand around it, the dingy, stuffed green monkey. I pressed it to my nose, closed my eyes, and saw his smile.

  God, I missed him.

  That image flickered, the face of the vibrant boy flashing with the silent blips of gray. Lips purple. His lifeless body in my arms as I dragged him to shore.

  Austin huddled behind the large rock, shivering and hiding.

  Hiding.

  Hiding.

  Hiding.

  I tucked it back inside, underneath all the shit that didn’t matter, remembering why it was just Austin and me. The way it always had to be.

  Four hours later, I swung my car into one of the parallel parking spots running alongside the quaint streets in the Historic District. Trees lined the sidewalks, branches covered in thick leaves strewing shade over everything, people ambling along the quiet sidewalks in front of the businesses set in old restored buildings.

  It was beautiful. Peaceful. And it made me think of Shea.

  After my call with my dad this morning, I was left feeling unsettled and itchy, and a part of me knew being with her would take it away. It sucked that Charlie’s was closed on Sundays and Mondays. I mean, I guess I knew where she lived now, but I wasn’t entirely sure of what my reception would be if I just showed up at her door.

  Had to admit, I was tempted.

  Clicking the lock to my Challenger, I jogged across the street and onto the sidewalk, anger twisting me just a little tighter when I flew into the tiny bank where I transferred ten grand into my father’s checking account. I made sure to send about twenty different mental curses with it.

  “Thank you, sir,” the poor girl behind the counter said with a forced smile, hand shaking as she passed me the receipt. I was sure I looked like a complete freak who’d walked in off the street—all pissy and surly and biting out instructions to her.

  Wasn’t her fault my dad was an asshole.

  “Thank you,” I managed with a tight smile as I headed back out into the heated day. The air here was always thick and soggy and like walking into a wall. Just as I was getting re
ady to cross the street back to my car, I glanced to the right and that was when I saw her.

  Or maybe it was the awareness that stopped me in my tracks and drew my gaze her direction.

  And God, I couldn’t look away as she walked toward me, floating down the sidewalk, insanely gorgeous waves of blonde bouncing around her as she smiled the brightest smile, lighting up the world in the seconds before she encroached on it and took it in the grips of her raging storm.

  An enigma.

  A hurricane.

  Emotion whipped around me, a frenzied stir of energy that crackled through the air.

  And for the second time today, I felt as if I’d been punched in the gut, this time my attention locked on who Shea was holding hands with.

  Mounds of tight blonde ringlet curls.

  Caramel eyes.

  A tiny smile big enough to shatter the Earth.

  My eyes traveled back to Shea’s and she fell to a stop just feet in front of me when she noticed me. I watched the movement of her throat as she slowly swallowed, then protectively squeezed the little girl’s hand.

  Holy shit.

  Shea had a kid.

  SEBASTIAN STOOD THREE FEET away from me with horror etched all over his striking face.

  This was the exact reason why I didn’t say anything, why I never bothered to try, because their reactions were always the same.

  But this time? This time it hurt.

  Because it was Sebastian.

  Because I wanted him.

  Ached for him.

  More and more every day.

  I gave my daughter’s hand a reassuring squeeze, my voice strained when I finally whispered, “Baz.”

  His Adam’s apple grew prominent, and I trailed it as he swallowed hard. I could tell the way he was fighting to continue to look at me, the way he didn’t want to look at her, but couldn’t resist. His eyes continuously flitted between us, guarded when it landed on her and confused when he turned back to me.

  Sadness billowed through me on gentle waves, soft nudges of reality prodding that I should have been more careful.

  That I didn’t have time for distractions.