A Stone in the Sea

by A. L. Jackson

  A big, callused hand came up to cup the side of my neck, to steal my breath, because it was sweet and completely unexpected. He tilted my chin back with his thumb, his fingernail scratching up and down the hollow of my neck as he stared at me, the brush of it stirring me up more.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  Falling.

  “Tried to stay away from you,” he murmured, the song of that velvety voice wrapping around me like a full-body embrace. “Tried. But there wasn’t one goddamned thing I could do to get you out of my head.”

  Remorse flashed through his eyes. “Don’t wanna hurt you.”

  We both knew it was already too late.

  My face was turned up to his, and he leaned in, slowly, his full, full lips parting just enough to catch my bottom lip between them, tugging softly, letting go.

  “Shea,” he whispered.

  The skin tingled, and a rash of chills skated down my spine. Keeping hold of my neck, Baz followed them with his opposite hand, his palm running flat as it pressed firm into the small of my back, all the way down to my ass where he gripped me tightly, pulled me up close against his cock where it urged against my belly.

  A short gasp escaped me.

  Like the sound was fuel, heavy hands found my hips, and he spun me fast and pushed me up against the wall next to my door. I hit it with a desirous grunt, and I clung to his shoulders as my knees went weak.

  He captured my mouth with a blinding assault of lips and tongue and teeth. His tongue was wet and warm. Demanding. Just as demanding as his fingers that kneaded into my hips, palms sliding down the back of my thighs, trailing back up. As he did, he dragged one of my legs up and then the other until I was tacked against the wall beneath his weight, my legs begging around his waist.

  And God, I begged.

  He smiled against my mouth as he threaded his fingers with mine and pinned my hands above my head. Rocking against me, he leveled me with darkened eyes. “Say it again.”

  “Please,” I whispered madly, my back arching from the wall, all coherent thoughts slipping away and every kind of irrational, foolish idea rushing in to take their place—all supplied by the euphoric feel of his cock rubbing at the denim between my thighs.

  It’d been too, too long. Yet somehow just the right amount of time. This moment for him. This moment for me. For us.

  Even though it would crush me, I knew it had to be.

  A groan rumbled deep in his chest, and he lifted me from the wall, hiking me farther up his chest. He began to carry me across the room. One hand was tangled in the mass of my hair, bunching it up, the other an iron band around my waist.

  He laid me in the center of my bed. My chest took a stuttered heave when he stepped back and looked down at me, my knees rocking with unsettled nerves, my booted feet propped flat on the bed.

  Staring down over me, he just stood there, an impenetrable expression hardening his face. Unreadable, yet anything but blank. Like he was processing a million thoughts, while I didn’t know much of anything except how I was aching, how each second he wasn’t touching me he was driving me closer to going mad.

  How it was only one more second I didn’t get to be with him. One second lost. One second closer to when he would leave.

  He kissed the inside crease of my knee and fire rocketed straight to my core.

  I exhaled toward the ceiling. My hands twisted in the sheets and my hips jerked in anticipation. “Please,” I said again, because I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.

  He placed another midway at the inside of my thigh, letting a hand glide down the opposite leg, all the way down to brush his fingers along the seam of my shorts.

  A little show of fireworks. The promise of more.

  His movements were slow and sure when he pulled back to tug the boots from my feet, one by one, peeling off the cushy socks I wore with them. I stretched my toes and dug them into the bed, and he smiled softly as if he liked it, just as he was pressing my knees apart and setting a single knee on the bed. He leaned in far enough to jerk at the button of my shorts, and a trembled breath escaped me when he angled back and dragged them down my legs.

  “Goddamn.” Baz wet his lips, and he shot me an unfettered glance before looking back at me lying there in my panties and tee. “Got the best legs, baby.”

  Hot hands splayed wide, riding up the outside of my thighs, scraping over my hips and sides, gathering up the material of my shirt as he went. He slowed as he pulled it over my injured head and tossed it to the floor.

  My hair fell around me and my heart beat so hard I could feel it in my ears.

  He yanked me closer to him, close enough to the edge that he could snake his hands under my back and unclasp my bra. He slid it off, leaning back to take me in with that covetous hunger he’d been watching me with for weeks. Beneath his severe gaze, my breasts became heavy and tingly. God, I couldn’t breathe. His voice dropped low as he reached up to cup them. The brush of his thumbs were like flames as he swept them back and forth across my nipples. “Best tits.”

  Oh my hell.

  He was unraveling me.

  He touched the tip of his index finger to the center of my chest.

  A palpitation.

  He traced it down my belly where he dipped it into my navel, before he inched it low, low, low to snag in the front of the band of my lacy boy-cut underwear. He peeled those off too, leaving me a naked, quivering mess atop my bed, waiting for him, wondering just how deep those scars he’d leave me with were going to go.

  “Got the best everything.”

  I could feel the heat blazing from my skin, increasing with every erotic compliment he cast my way. Beneath them, I’d never felt so beautiful in all my life.

  His attention jumped to the scatter of small butterflies that began in a cluster and spread out across my left hip. He darted his eyes to mine.

  “Kallie,” I whispered, and confusion crowded the creases of his eyes, and a little of that guilt fluttered up. He didn’t even know her name. My throat grew thick as I forced it out, both defensive and nervous of his reaction to giving her a name when I knew in mere seconds this man was going to be buried inside of me. “My daughter.”

  He took me by all kinds of sweet surprise when instead, he drummed his fingers over the tattoo. Soft and slow and reverent, and all those simple dreams tried to crawl up and find safety in my chest. More regret flashed in his eyes when they met with mine, hitting me with some kind of faraway understanding.

  Then he seemed to snap and let loose of whatever thread of control he’d been holding onto.

  He dragged the tips of his fingers through my wet center.

  I jerked. Oh, that felt good.

  He hissed a groaned, “Fuck.”

  He climbed over me, nudging me farther up into the middle of the bed, and twisted out of his underwear all at the same time.

  Hit with an overload of sensation, I was suddenly drowning beneath the stunning bulk of this magnificent man.

  Because all at once he was everywhere, kissing me on the mouth, the neck, delving down to my chest, soft sucks across the buds of my breasts, harsh lashes at my tongue. Fingers plunged deep inside me, and I panted a strangled, “Yes,” because I hadn’t been touched in so, so long, and never in a way that made me feel intoxicated like this.

  Fingers coated with my wet went sliding back to swirl around the sensitive skin of my ass, and a shocked gasp shot from my mouth. I jumped, before he slipped his fingers back through my sex, dragging up to circle my clit.

  Pleasure wound up fast, my head pressed back into the bed and my mouth gaped open, unable to process that he would touch me this way. Everywhere all at once. In places no one else ever had.

  How could he know exactly what I needed?

  Terror nicked at my belly when I realized I was ready to submit every last one of those places to him.

  Baz licked a path up under my jaw, before he edged up onto his knees. All his attention was focused on his fingers that we
re still sliding deep in my pussy, while he grabbed the pack of condoms with the other hand. He ripped one free with his teeth.

  My entire body was alive with energy. With this energy, with whatever it was that connected me to this man, whatever it was that made me feel tied to him in an essential way, like nothing in heaven or hell could have stopped this moment from coming to pass.

  Staring up at him, he stared down at me. Those eyes brimmed dark and bold. Because maybe we’d been purposed this way, that for tonight I got to touch on heaven before he left me in hell.

  He pulled his fingers free, and I couldn’t help the cry of frustration that jetted from my mouth at the loss.

  A smirk that was pure sex kicked up at the corner of his mouth, his jaw tight with his own anticipation. My legs were shaking, the knot in my throat growing thicker by the second as he grabbed his cock at the base and rolled the condom down his shaft that was every bit as impressive as the rest of him.

  Tremors rolled through my limbs. I searched for a breath as he climbed back over me, hands planted on either side of my head. Hovering. Nose to nose. And I could hear the chaotic jaunt of his heart, the pound, pound, pound as he drew closer.

  I braced myself on his shoulders, fingers digging in, trying to find purchase on this man I wasn’t sure I knew how to reach.

  He nudged the thick head of his penis into my opening, just an inch, his breaths going ragged with restraint as his eyes sought mine. “You ready?”

  Another threat.

  “Yes.” The word cracked and I held on.

  He filled me with one solid thrust.

  I cried out and my legs shook against the outside of his strong thighs. I squirmed and panted, my body struggling to adjust to his size, as he pulled all the way out then plunged back in to the hilt.

  A shattered breath.

  His name.

  Sebastian

  Sebastian.

  Sebastian.

  “Shea,” he murmured back. “Feel so good. God, you feel so good.”

  He picked up a grueling rhythm, like he needed to catch up to the pounding of my hammering heart. His hips slammed into mine.

  Again and again.

  He wasn’t gentle.

  Not that I’d expected him to be.

  He fucked me. Fucked me and fucked me until we were both drenched with sweat and I was climbing swiftly toward that ledge, sparks of pleasure lighting up, shimmering at the edges of my sight.

  The corded muscles on his back twisted in rigid bows as he worked over me, skin bunching beneath my hands as I fought to touch him everywhere. The harsh line of his jaw. Collarbone. The perfect curve of his ass. Skimming back up his sides.

  Memorizing.

  He dropped to his elbows, holding my head in his hands, fingers twisted up in my hair. Something like anguish passed through his expression, and he forced me to look at him, like he wanted to communicate the words he didn’t have the power to say.

  Like I could ever look away.

  Because I knew.

  I knew. I knew. I knew.

  He felt it too.

  I felt him slipping in, burrowing beneath my skin, sinking into my spirit.

  And I couldn’t block it or shield it. He was already there.

  Energy spiked, tingling in those pleasured places. My clit burned with the threat of bliss and my walls tightened around the full intrusion of him.

  “Sebastian,” I rasped, pushed right up to the edge.

  A precipice.

  His mouth came to my ear. “Do you see me?”

  Yes. Maybe not all of him. But every piece that was important.

  And I fell.

  Plunged into his abyss.

  Heart first.

  Through waves of ecstasy. Deeper. Deeper. To where I touched a sea of stars that blinded my eyes, where I floated in that place that belonged only to us, a place that didn’t belong to this world. Where darkness and light reigned and wrong or right had no bearing.

  A brutal ecstasy.

  I never wanted it to end.

  Dropping his forehead to mine, he picked up his pace, hips snapping as his movements became frenzied and uncontrolled.

  That intensity billowed between us, wrapping us up, making us one. And I knew he was caught in it too. He pressed his chest to mine, and I could feel the crash of his erratic heart.

  He burrowed his face in my neck. “Never,” he whispered in what sounded like confusion. On a strangled grunt, he clutched me by the shoulders as he took me whole, the most connected we’d been yet, his body going rigid as he jerked and shook.

  Gulping for air, he collapsed on me.

  We lay there for the longest time. I didn’t think either of us wanted to move. The urge to weep pricked behind my eyes when he finally peeled himself from me and rolled off the edge of the bed.

  I tugged the sheet straight up my middle, my legs exposed on both sides, covering up all the important parts. Like he hadn’t just ravaged the entirety of them.

  My gaze trailed him as he walked to the adjoining bathroom. He didn’t bother to shut the door. He stood facing away, all the sublime, imposing curves of his back and bare ass striking up in a golden glow beneath the lights blazing in the bathroom as he dealt with the condom.

  My breath went shallow again when he turned to reveal his profile, when he shifted toward the sink, washed his hands, and splashed some water on his face.

  He ambled back out, not a lick of self-consciousness slowing him, the man parading all that God had given him. With both hands, he raked back the hair from his forehead, his face going coy with a grin at catching me in all my sly, covert gawking.

  Right.

  Redness flushed up my neck, and I chewed at my lip, dragging the sheet up tighter the closer he came, head tipping farther and farther back into my pillow as he came to stand right over me.

  “Hey,” Sebastian whispered, sitting down at the edge of the bed.

  “Hey.”

  He splayed his hand across my belly. Through the thinness of the soft, satiny sheet, the heat of him burned me to the core. “You okay?” he asked.

  Not even close.

  “Yes.”

  A doubtful, affectionate breath escaped his nose, and he played with a lock of my hair. “You’re a terrible liar, you know.”

  His hand left my stomach, floated toward my face, knuckles tracing down the angle of my jaw.

  Contentment left me on a sigh, and my eyes fell closed as I lifted to his touch.

  Those knuckles trailed over my chin and down my neck, drifting down the center of my body over the sheet. “This sweet little body of yours tells it all.”

  I opened my eyes to him where he watched me with concern.

  “I’m trying to be okay,” I admitted honestly, hopefully. “Not sure I’m ever going to be the same after that.”

  Okay, definitely sure. Maybe he didn’t need to know how vulnerable I was feeling, wondering if it was even possible that it had felt as good to him as it had for me.

  An indulgent chuckle spilled from between the full lips of that pretty, pretty mouth. “Amazing, yeah? Haven’t felt anything like that in…well…forever. Love your pussy, baby.”

  Um wow.

  Okay.

  I was pretty sure I could return the sentiment, of which Sebastian still had proudly on display, but there was no chance I could force something like that from my mouth.

  I squirmed under the sheet, and he grabbed hold of the satiny material and tugged it free of my hands. Slowly he pulled it down, inch by excruciating inch, exposing my breasts, then my belly, the erotic tickle mixed with my full-body afterglow making me shiver.

  Oh sweet lord. I was in so much trouble.

  His voice turned gravelly as he climbed onto all fours, both his knees at my left side, and arms caging at either side of my head. From above, he drenched me in the penetrating intensity of those strange grey eyes. The second’s lightness that had seeped into the mood vanished. “You don’t need to hide yourself, Shea. Not from
me.”

  Slowly, he shifted to lie down at my side, pulling me to face him. He palmed the curve of my hip. “You are so beautiful. Do you have any idea? The first time I saw you? Thought you had to be the most gorgeous girl I’d ever seen. Now that I’ve seen all of you, I’m sure of it.”

  Another flush, and I bit at my lip. “You…you literally stopped me in my tracks.” A small, self-conscious laugh tripped from me, and I tickled my fingertips across his strong chest and dared to peek up at him. “I’ve never been affected by anyone the way I am you.”

  I tried to clear all the wispy emotion from my throat. It did no good, because it was still there in my voice. “I don’t do this,” I admitted.

  Brows bunched up, Sebastian was touching my face again, trailing fingertips in the hollows under my wide, bewildered eyes, down my nose, a soft caress across my lips. The effect was always the same—a trembling mess of want balling in the pit of my stomach, my heart shooting into a fumbled sprint.

  “You think I don’t get that?” he asked. His hand brushed at my cheek, and he leaned in, his mouth just below my ear. “I see you, too.”

  Hope fluttered in the center of my chest—simple, simple dreams.

  My thumb sketched along the ridges of the puckered, lifted scar that slanted sideways across his chest.

  Caution filled his expression when he looked down at me, eyes narrowed. “Crash.”

  Shakily I nodded, fingers trailing down to the deep scar over the ribs at his side. “Knife.” His voice became hard, like maybe he was sending me a challenge.

  Cold dread splintered through my insides.

  Sebastian lay there silently, staring at me like he was wondering when I was going to come to my senses and run.

  Any sane girl would have done it a long time ago.

  But here I was, submitting myself to him and his scars and the mystery hidden in his eyes. Asking for an exclusive invitation into it. Praying they were in his past. Hoping getting to know them would make a difference—that in the long run, it would mean something.

  Even if it didn’t, it didn’t matter.

  I wanted to know him in this moment. Every part he’d allow me into.

  God, here I’d been warning myself all these weeks that I didn’t need this kind of heartbreak.