Drowning to Breathe

by A. L. Jackson

  I could only assume most of them were willing women they’d raided from downstairs.

  “Dance with me.” Sebastian’s smooth words licked through me like flames. Unlike when he’d uttered them to me that night at Charlie’s. The night I’d worried this hope was slipping away. Now, none of the sadness or fear held me.

  I should have known better, then.

  Should have known this was real.

  Unstoppable.

  Unbreakable.

  Sebastian helped me off his lap, and pushed to his feet. That strange, intense energy brimmed to life as he gazed down at me. He said nothing as he wove his fingers through mine. He took me by all kinds of sweet surprise when he didn’t lead me into the mix of his friends in the private room. Instead, he led me slowly down the stairs to the main floor of the club.

  With each step, I could feel the rate of my pulse increase, the boom, boom, boom of my heart escalate as he led me into the manic fray that thrummed with the electric beat.

  Sebastian’s movements were slow. Intentional. Sensual and sexual, causing stuttered breaths to gasp from between my lips when he aligned us front to front. His heat, his heart, and his eyes upon me, shutting out the rest of the world, while he wrapped me up and lifted me out of it.

  His hands slid down my back, cupping my ass before he ran them down the outside of my thighs, our own thrumming beat swirling around us. Our bodies moved in sync. In the key we always struck. Rough and desperate and needy.

  He kissed me and kissed me and kissed me while one song transitioned from one to another and then another.

  Until I was breathless, hot and wet, and sure I couldn’t take a second more.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he finally murmured at my mouth.

  “God, yes.”

  A chuckle rolled from his tongue, and he was suddenly striding through the crowd, my hand in his as I struggled to keep up with a man who was most definitely on a mission.

  I giggled and clutched him a little tighter, more than ready to go along for the ride.

  He gave the valet the slip for the car, and went right back to kissing me while we waited, neither of us concerned about the cameras or gawking eyes.

  Because none of that mattered except for this incendiary moment.

  When the car came to a stop in front of us, Sebastian handed out another one of his outrageous tips, snatched the keys, and led me to the passenger side. He helped me in, leaning in to grab another kiss.

  Lust and love fought for dominance in his expression when he tore himself away, and he slammed my door shut and ran around to his side. I didn’t hesitate to shift in my seat, my hand going to the flat, rigid planes of his abdomen as he shifted hard, tires squealing as he took to the street. I kissed at his neck and teased at his ear, fingers toying with the waistband of his jeans, while he groaned and tried to focus on the road.

  “You tryin’ to kill me, Shea?”

  I gasped when the car jerked and Sebastian made a sudden, sharp turn, and then another. He screeched to a stop on a deserted side street.

  A fog of lust clouded my mind as I was yanked back onto his lap, my knees on either side of his legs, his needy cock grinding at the seam of my cut-off shorts as his mouth overtook mine.

  Oh. God.

  I moaned, fingers digging into his shoulders.

  I arched up and pressed my breasts to his chest. They ached with just a glimmer of the need throbbing between my thighs.

  Hot hands gripped the outside of my hips, forcing me back down on his dick that strained from his jeans.

  I might have been on top, but he was definitely in control.

  “Fuck, baby…what have you done to me…what have you done to me? Dying to be inside you. Have to feel you. Need you so bad.”

  “You have me.”

  He palmed my ass, hands running up my sides as he lifted me higher, his head rocking back as he moved and grasped the back of my head, forcing it down as he continued that frenzied assault of tongue, teeth, and mouth.

  “Need you forever. Need you wearing my name and showing off my ring.” It was all a slur of desperation.

  Shock sifted through me, and I froze as what he said penetrated.

  I edged back a fraction, still holding onto his shoulders.

  It felt as if the world were trembling around me when I took the chance to peer down at him.

  He met my gaze.

  Raw and severe and honest.

  “Marry me.”

  Hope flashed like wildfire, image after image of a fantasy life I’d never thought possible.

  Simple, simple dreams.

  They burned from within.

  I swallowed around the emotion lodged in my throat and forced out the words. “Are you serious?”

  “With all I got…with all I have to offer. Marry me, Shea Bentley.”

  I blinked frantically. “Right now?”

  “Right now. When things settle down, we’ll do the big ceremony thing. Have my guys stand up as my best men. Make April and Tamar wear the ugliest dresses you can find.”

  One cheek twitched as he said that. Breathing quickly, I tried to catch up to what he was asking me.

  The words just got rougher as he continued. “We’ll have our Kallie tossing petals down in front of you because she’ll be the cutest damned flower girl to ever walk an aisle. Have everyone we care about there to witness it. I want all of that, Shea,” he emphasized as he grasped me a little tighter. “I want to give it to you. But now? Celebrating my birthday? Want to make you my wife. Just you and me and a future that’s wide open in front of us.”

  Hopeful eyes searched my face. “Tell me you want that, too.”

  “Yes.” It rushed out from somewhere deep within.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes…yes…yes,” I whispered almost frantically. Or maybe it was just my frantic kisses I couldn’t stop. Kisses of joy, something whole and beautiful and absolute.

  I could feel him smile beneath my lips.

  Find love and bring it here. My grandmother’s voice echoed through my mind.

  I found it, Grandma.

  I found it.

  He pulled back. “I promise you, Shea, I’m gonna love you forever. I’m going to protect it and never let it go. Be the husband you deserve and the father Kallie needs.”

  “Sebastian,” I breathed, and he cupped my neck, thumb brushing under my jaw.

  “You are the one I’ve been waiting for.”

  My thoughts flashed to my Kallie.

  Without a shadow of a doubt, the wonderful things Sebastian wanted, the things I wanted, she’d want them, too.

  No questions lingered.

  This was right.

  He kissed me hard, then moved me to my seat, slanting me a lopsided grin as he threw the car back into drive, and made a quick U in the middle of the road. He pressed the voice recognition on the navigation for the Marriage Bureau.

  He drove quickly and purposefully while I flew, my spirit far and fast in front of us.

  Touching that future wide open ahead.

  We found a spot to park, and Sebastian jumped out and ran around to meet me. Again I found myself struggling to keep up with him as we ran into the building, filled out the form, and paid the fee for a marriage license.

  All of this seemed so insane, yet so entirely perfect.

  I was getting married.

  To Sebastian Stone.

  We raced back out to the car. Sebastian’s melodic laughter clashed with the night as he threw the convertible back into reverse, and there was nothing I could do. I was back on my knees in my seat, leaning across the console, kissing his face. His neck. Touching him everywhere.

  I bounced when he slanted the car into a lot. My smile that seemed unending somehow managed to grow.

  We didn’t even get out of the car. Sebastian just maneuvered around to the drive-through lane where we paid another fee and handed over our license. The officiant began to speak. We nodded our understanding as he asked a couple question
s to ensure we understood we were entering into a legal marriage.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  And yes.

  When he began with the vows, a peal of laughter erupted from me when I was abruptly drawn back onto Sebastian’s lap, straddling him again.

  The officiant’s words faded away when Sebastian gripped my face and spoke his own vows to me.

  “I’m gonna love you forever. Respect you. Protect you and hold you and always stay true to you.”

  My hands trembled where I cupped his jaw.

  “I will never give you up or let this love go. My forever is forever. My life yours to keep.”

  We were a flurry of “I dos” and kisses and husband and wife.

  Just as fast, we were back on the road, pulling into the hotel valet, hearts pounding and spirits dancing as we rushed through the lobby to the bank of elevators.

  We stumbled from the elevator. Sebastian’s hands were on my hips as he edged me backward toward the door. His mouth never left mine as he fumbled with the key to our suite.

  He swept me off my feet and into the cradle of his arms.

  A bride carried over the threshold by the man who promised to hold her.

  Protect her.

  Love her.

  Sebastian slammed the door shut with his foot. His heavy footsteps echoed across the marble tile. He didn’t waver or stop. He just went straight for the staircase, never breaking our connection as he wound us up the steps to the bedroom above.

  “This is real…this is real,” he mumbled between his bid to get me closer. His hold tightened as his mouth went roving down the column of my neck. “Baby, tell me this is real.”

  “Yes…it’s real. All of it…it’s real.”

  We were real.

  My heart crashed around in my chest.

  Free.

  Joy and light and life.

  Our touches were frantic as we tore at the other’s clothes, our mouths never far as we kissed across the skin we revealed. Our hands were desperate as we pared each other down until we were nothing but naked, heated flesh.

  He tossed me onto the center of the enormous bed. My gorgeous man stood at the side, staring down at me with a smile of utter amazement. The gleam in those steely eyes predatory.

  There had never been a time before, or would there be a time in my future, when I would feel quite like this.

  Desired.

  Absolutely adored.

  So deliriously happy I didn’t know inside from out or up from down, because he’d come in and painted a new beginning. Crushed my walls and altered my realities.

  Tonight I had become Sebastian Stone’s wife.

  “I can’t believe you’re really mine,” he said, like an echo of my own thoughts.

  “I’m yours…husband.” I felt the catch at the corner of my lips, a tremble that wavered somewhere between playful and wonder.

  The sound he made was something akin to a growl.

  “Husband.”

  He said it as if he were testing out how it sounded on his tongue, before he suddenly pounced on me. “Come here, wife. I’m about to take what’s mine. You ready for me?”

  Laughter tickled from between my lips, and I arched my back as my need swelled, coalescing as a sweet, exquisite ache low in my belly. “Always.”

  Sebastian ran a hand down the outside of my thigh. “Do you have any idea the fantasies I’ve been having about being wrapped up in these legs, Shea? All the nights I’ve spent alone, dreaming about them? About how fuckin’ amazing they feel every time I have them wrapped around my waist? Wondering how someone like me got lucky enough to be with someone like you? Now I’m gonna be wrapped up in them for the rest of my life.”

  He ran his nose along my jaw, arms wrapped around me tight.

  “You’ve made me the happiest man alive.”

  Energy zinged like a live wire. A billow of joy and a bolt of desire.

  I looked up to meet the promise in his gaze, fingers grazing over his pouty bottom lip. “I never knew there was happiness like this. And then there was you.”

  And then there was you.

  The smallest smile played at that pretty, pretty mouth. Words I’d whispered months ago that had finally sent us burning down this collision course of passion and need, leading us to this unending devotion neither of us could have imagined we’d ever see.

  Then his smile turned sly, eyes glinting in joy and churning with the dirty, delicious deeds he was getting ready to enact on my body.

  A ripple of pure desire trembled through me, and he chuckled as I released the well of giggles trickling up my throat, because there was no suppressing my elation.

  He pressed his mouth all over my chest and I clung to his shoulders, my head rocking back as he captured one nipple in his hot, hot mouth. He sucked and played and toyed, while his hand wandered down my stomach, a stir of anxious butterflies quivering within.

  Anticipation screamed through my veins.

  He dragged a knuckle over my clit, and I laughed through a moan when he chuckled, loving the look of infectious delight on his face. His expression danced in the shadows. Greed and pride and lust, awe and devotion and love. It all merged into this euphoric moment created just for us.

  He pushed his weight to one hand, and with the other, he drove two fingers inside me.

  Sparks flew, little glimmers of pleasure lighting up at the outside of my eyes.

  He slid them in and out of my sex, his body a live wire as he shifted over me. “So wet,” he said as he climbed onto his knees. He kept himself low as he crawled forward and nudged my legs up as he went, spreading me wide as his fingers touched me even deeper. “Someone’s anxious, isn’t she? Want me just as bad as I want you, don’t you, Mrs. Stone?”

  A rush of blissed-out joy rolled through me when he used that name. His name. The name he’d given to me. I dragged my nails down the defined ridges of his strong back. “You have no idea, Mr. Stone, just how desperately I want you.” I lifted up, brushing my mouth along his ear. “How much I need you.”

  Sebastian grabbed his cock and aligned himself, smirking as he raked his teeth over his bottom lip and stared me down.

  I groaned when hit with the errant thought. I grinned at my husband, basking in all the light he was shining my way, while I gave a gentle shove to his shoulders and whispered like my life depended on it, “Hurry…find a condom. I forgot my pills, remember?”

  Missing them for a couple days probably wasn’t a big deal, but the risk was always there.

  Sebastian chuckled a little more, running the thick head of his dick between my folds. “No. And why the hell would I have condoms?”

  Oh. Right.

  I giggled, still riding that dizzying wave, my head rocking back and forth on the sheets while he drove me mad with temptation. “Sebastian, you’re going to get me pregnant.”

  It came out with the raspy rumble of a laugh.

  It was swallowed by the sudden intensity that choked all levity from the room.

  Thick and silent and heavy.

  His severity consuming.

  As if the idea of the words from my mouth had knocked him from his foundation.

  My heart thudded in my chest, raced and sped as I tried to catch up to the erratic acceleration of his.

  Eyes went dark as they locked on me, and he moved to run shaky fingers through the length of my hair, expression going soft, soft, soft as his head tilted to the side.

  “Let’s make a baby.”

  A silent, shocked gasp parted my lips. Again, I felt as if I were in that tunnel of flashing light, on a speeding train propelling us toward a future coming faster and faster and faster.

  “That’s a lot of big decisions for one night,” I finally managed to say.

  His hold tightened. “When it comes to you, all my decisions have already been made.”

  He gave a slight, unsure shake of his head. “I never thought I’d get this, Shea. Never thought I’d find someone who touches me the way you do.
Believes in me the way you do. Thought being alone was going to be the cost of the band making it. But, no. Here you are, filling up all the hollow spaces in my life.”

  I blinked back tears as this amazing man mirrored my thoughts from just hours ago.

  An old sorrow passed through his eyes. “Time doesn’t sit still and I want to make every second I get to spend with you count. Don’t want to wait for the right time when all of time is right with you.”

  Emotion spread through my chest, warmth stretching out to touch every place inside me, and euphoria spilled over, the same as the tears in my eyes. “All of time. Every minute. Every second.”

  A gush of air rushed from his lungs and he pushed up on both hands, this stunning man hovering over me. “Do you see me, Shea?”

  I took his face in my hands. “I will never look away.”

  And neither of us did as Sebastian slowly filled me, the man always so rough and desperate and raw, handling me as if I were glass.

  Time given to cherish this moment.

  For all of time.

  My body took his as he stretched me in the most exquisite way.

  Deeply.

  Completely.

  So full he stole my breath.

  Just the same as this man had stolen my heart.

  I blinked against the dark, just shimmers of light breaking through the satiny drapes that hung across the glass doors leading to the balcony. Faint sounds of the bustling city echoed from far below.

  I awoke to an empty bed. Though I wasn’t alone. I could feel his presence surrounding me. Sitting up, I heard the distant strains of an acoustic guitar rising from downstairs, that beautiful, beautiful voice for a beautiful, beautiful man quieted.

  Yet it was the only thing I could hear.

  I climbed from the bed and wrapped myself in a sheet, padded quietly out the door. I paused at the top of the stairs.

  Sebastian sat on the floor with his back propped against the couch, facing away, shoulders bare, guitar cradled in his lap.

  Words floated up. The soft pluck of the strings and a mellow melody stretched out to touch my soul.

  Slowly I edged down the winding staircase, one hand on the smooth rail as I clutched the sheet to my chest with the other.