Drowning to Breathe (41 page)

Then she turned and walked away.

Night echoed back from where I stood on the balcony off Sebastian’s bedroom. City lights gleamed and glinted where they stretched across the valley, the pool below in a slow roll from one color to another, the high-pitched drone of bugs floating in the cool night air.

A chill blew across my skin. Thick strands of my hair and the silky material of my short nightgown billowed in the gentle breeze. The same as the billow of the shimmery drapes whipping out from where they hung just inside the room, the large French doors open and bleeding the darkness from within.

My spirit stirred and I grasped the cool railing as I lifted my face to the sky and sent up a silent prayer.

A thank you.

My daughter was safe and sleeping down the opposite hall.

Protected.

Permanently.

Thanks to my mother, the one who’d done so much damage and caused so much pain, Martin Jennings would no longer stand as a threat against my daughter.

Would no longer stand as a threat against me.

Yesterday, a warrant had been issued. DEA had swept in to search every pretentious inch of his home.

Three hours later he’d been arrested.

Fraud and theft and trafficking.

It was all there, hidden in safes and files and computers.

Arrogant, stupid man.

Kallie and I were free.

But my heart…my heart was bound. Tied to the only future I could see.

Wind gusted—howled and thrashed.

Chills skated across the surface of my skin as a swell of that energy crested.

Pressing full.

Consuming.

My hands clamped down on the railing and my body swayed. My ear inclined to the muted click of a door, and my pulse spiked as footsteps moved across the bedroom floor.

Slow yet filled with severity.

And I could feel it. Everything he was. Everything I wanted us to be. Standing right behind me.

I gasped over a breath when I looked over my shoulder to catch sight of this magnificent man.

My magnificent man.

The weight of his stare was overpowering, those strange grey eyes trained on me.

Darkness clung to the defined curves of his face.

All harsh lines and broken beauty and mystery.

My eyes caressed, taking all of him in, the stunning bulk of his imposing body, gaze trailing across his full, full lips that were a little crooked on one side, on to the old scar that split through his right eyebrow, and the trace of another at the bottom of his chin. There was a new scar high up on his left cheekbone, a row of stitches standing as evidence of his stand for me.

No, this man was not perfect.

Just beautiful and dark and a little bit frightening.

The one who’d led the chain of events that had finally set us free.

“You see me, Shea?” The grating question slammed me like a full body blow.

Powerful.

Unyielding.

A force I could never resist.

I’d thought I’d had no time for distractions. No place for interference or disturbance in Kallie’s and my secluded, lonely life.

But he was the one I didn’t know I’d been waiting for.

Slowly I turned. My body was basked in moonlight while Sebastian remained obscured in the fluttering shadows that flitted like strobes across that gorgeous face.

“Yes,” I whispered, swallowing around the emotion that rushed.

I’d never seen anyone so clearly.

The one who was willing to give it all.

“Won’t apologize.” His voice was a hard rasp, and his eyes flashed. “Did it for you. Would’ve died for you. Killed for you. Rotted in that cell if I had to. As long as it meant you and that little girl are safe.”

He had been willing to give up everything for Kallie and me so we could live in peace.

Just like my mother had done.

After everything, she’d offered herself up and knowingly taken Sebastian’s place. The state had dropped all charges against him late this afternoon when the evidence my mother provided had steadily mounted against Martin.

Kenny Lane had scrambled to find favor on our side and pushed the legal envelope, citing a convoluted trail of self-defense. To keep Kallie away from the media frenzy, Anthony had picked him up and taken him to his place to shower and change out of his bloodied clothes.

And now Sebastian was here.

Some would say it might be too little too late.

That the acts she’d committed were unforgiveable.

But I’d make a case there was no such thing.

Where there is repentance, there is always room for mercy.

No.

I wouldn’t visit or forge bonds broken long ago.

But I would no longer cling to bitterness and sorrow.

I was giving thanks and letting it go.

Sebastian took one step from the shadows into the light.

God.

I’d thought there’d never been a more brutally beautiful man.

And it was true. But that savage beauty was so much greater than the surface. And I didn’t just
see
it. I experienced it.

Selfless loyalty.

Flawless faithfulness.

This powerful man willingly becoming vulnerable for us.

My heart beat frantically. Wildly.

A stampede of desire and an onslaught of lust.

Devotion and passion.

Absolution.

“Come here,” he commanded, voice low and seductive.

As if I could ever say no.

Slowly, I approached. Inhale. Exhale. Breathing him. Breathing me.

He cupped my face, thumb caressing the pulse point on my neck. “Shea.”

I watched the thick bob of his throat as he stepped back and stared down at me, hands gathering the silky material of the nightgown at my hips. Slowly, he peeled it away. Cool air skimmed my naked flesh. My hair fell in waves around my shoulders and tumbled down to brush over my breasts.

Goosebumps scattered, the man managing to touch me everywhere when he wasn’t touching me at all.

A sharp gasp fell from me when he picked me up, one arm around my bottom and the other sliding up my back to grasp onto my neck.

I wrapped my legs around his waist.

“Shea.”

That pretty, pretty mouth slanted over mine.

Savage.

Raw.

Unrelenting.

Demanding tongue and nipping teeth.

He poured his desperation into me, relief and salvation and deliverance.

His kisses never ceased as he carried me across the room, careful when he laid me on the center of his bed.

My hands fisted in the blankets and I arched.

Slowly, Sebastian began to undress.

He toed off his shoes and pulled off his shirt. Muscle and strength bristled across all that glorious skin while he looked me up and down.

The words falling from his mouth dripped with sex. “Every fantasy I’ve ever had is right there. My wife naked and writhing on my bed. Wet for me. Dyin’ for me.”

I absolutely burned.

He unfastened his jeans, took his underwear with him when he shrugged them off. Need twisted through my belly at the sight of him.

Sebastian crawled on the bed and situated himself between my thighs. He gathered my hands and pressed them into the bed over my head.

He stared down at me.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

I’d been so scared of where I would land.

Little did I know I’d be falling forever into the safety of his arms.

Held and adored and never touching ground.

Swimming in a sea of darkness and light.

The bliss of eternity.

He gathered my wrists in one hand. With the other, fingertips trailed across my face, gliding down my neck and brushing my breasts that tightened and tingled with need.

That hand fluttered lower, pressing between my thighs, fingers sliding through my slick sex.

I trembled, and a tiny moan rumbled up my throat, the intensity of those knowing eyes searing me.

He gripped himself, aligning himself at my center, the nudge of the thick head of his cock filling me with fire.

Every nerve came alive.

Sebastian never looked away as he slowly pushed into me. So full he stole my breath.

My lips parted on the force of it.

Sebastian stilled, body rigid as he held himself in restraint.

Silently screaming the promise.

Forever.

Forever.

Forever.

And I felt it.

Sheer and utter completion.

“Shea,” he said again, before he began to move.

Unbridled and impassioned.

Sweat slicked our skin. Pants and grunts fed the crackling air.

And I knew. And I knew. And I knew.

Sebastian had scarred me in the most beautiful ways.

Pinpricks of pleasure lit up my body and Sebastian tipped me into ecstasy.

I chanted his name while he chanted mine as we both fell into that blinding bliss.

Struggling for air, he dropped his forehead to mine.

My arms encircled his neck, hugging him tight. “We made it,” I whispered.

Sebastian pulled back with the hint of a smile, shifting his weight off to the side.

His big hand spread across my belly. “We made it.”

I PUSHED MYSELF UP
the steep hill, wiping the sweat from my brow as I rounded into the drive of the house. All too eager to get back to my girls after my run.

Overhead, birds chirped in the still of the trees, branches outstretched and even though it was nearing winter, still shading everything in their spindly path, little darts of sunlight breaking through.

I inhaled the calm.

For once in my life, I finally felt at total peace.

Three days had passed since I’d been cut loose and we’d finally sent Martin straight to hell.

Exactly where he was always supposed to be.

Taking the walkway on long strides, I burst through the front door to the silence ringing back.

Afternoon light bled in through the windows, the large living space lit up like a torch, casting the corners and niches and halls in shadows.

I rounded the corner to hit the stairs.

I stumbled to a stop when I saw the lone figure sitting on the bottom step of the staircase.

Hoodie pulled up over his head, arms hugging his knees where they were tucked to his chest, feet planted on the floor as he slowly rocked.

Austin.

A huge duffle bag sat on the floor in front of him.

When he noticed me there, he jerked his head up.

His sorrow hit me head on.

Crazy that even in all that peace, with the purpose I now had in my life, the thought of my baby brother still provoked a feeling of devastation.

He slowly stood as I inched closer.

“Austin,” I muttered quietly, feeling the question that came off with his name. Unease whittled its way through me. Stoked something fierce and protective in my gut.

He swallowed hard as those grey eyes met with mine.

Remorse.

Shame.

Sadness.

My heart stuttered and clenched. Uneasily, my gaze dropped to the tattered stuffed monkey he fisted in his hand at his side.

Shit.

This kid…this fucking awesome kid.

“Austin,” I said again. This time with caution.

His mouth trembled as he choked through anguished laughter. “Knew you had this hidden somewhere.”

A tear slipped free from the corner of his eye. In anger, he swiped it away. “My whole life I’ve lived in guilt. It’s the only thing I’ve felt for so long, I hardly recognize anything else.”

“Aust—”

“Let me finish, Baz. You need to hear this. Maybe as much as I do.”

His mouth worked, hesitation thick, before he set the words free. “Losing Julian killed something inside me, Baz.”

Steadily, he met my eye. “And I know you loved him. I’m not about to belittle that. I know you loved him the same way you love me. But I don’t think you can understand the kind of bond I severed that day. The piece of me that died with him, because
he
was a living part of
me
. All these years I’ve searched for something…anything to fill the void he left. Then I moved on to doing anything to mask it when I realized that void was never gonna go away.”