My heart stopped dead before it took off at a sprint.
Another light strum of guitar followed by the same voice that’d held me hostage in my living room weeks ago. The same voice that held me hostage in my dreams. The same voice that haunted and comforted and dwelled like a ghost in my mind.
That beautiful, beautiful voice for a beautiful, beautiful man.
Rich and soft, hard as steel, a velvet blade cutting me straight through.
Life… Life passes by. Set in stone, but without direction.
I… I close my eyes. Get lost in a storm, that I never saw coming.
This…this wasn’t angry and aggressive like all the songs I’d listened to again and again when I’d been hidden away in my room with buds pressed into my ears, lost to his voice until I’d deciphered every violent word.
No.
Tonight it was sorrowful and filled with the same kind of hurt that had plagued me for days. These words fell over me like a dark cloak of regret, blinding my eyes and trapping me to the spot.
Emotion fisted me everywhere—heart and lungs and soul—and a wave of dizziness rushed me as my legs shook.
Slowly, I turned toward the source of the voice, carefully, worried if I moved too fast it might fracture this fantasy.
My throat throbbed with the sight in front of me.
Sebastian was on stage.
Here.
In Savannah.
At Charlie’s.
He’d dragged a stool up to the mic and had an acoustic guitar propped on his thigh, one boot hooked on a stool rung and the other bracing himself on the ground.
A single spotlight lit him up, everything else darkened to a near black, because this man was the only thing I could see. His invasive presence struck me with all his severity. His arms corded and taut, the color imprinted on his skin twitching with tension.
My gaze took in his face as if I’d glimpsed beauty for the first time, all sharp angles and defined lines and warped, harsh perfection. And that mouth…that pretty, pretty mouth just kept pouring out words that slammed into me, one after the other.
Regret.
Shame.
Confusion.
Lust.
Those strange grey eyes roved the darkened crowd that couldn’t appear to be anything more than silhouettes, but it was as if he felt me, was seeking me out. I whimpered when they locked on me, finding me, and the tether that tied us together stretched thin, awareness erupting between us.
Pulling.
Pulling.
Pulling.
A tremor rumbled all the way to my bones, and I pressed my hand to my mouth as he told me things in a song that he’d never had the courage to say before. And they were honest and bold and packed with turmoil.
Please… Please lift me up. Don’t have the heart to let you go.
Don’t… Don’t make me say it. ’Cause I don’t know what these feelings mean.
I was in so deep. Drowning in the turbulent waters that were Sebastian Stone.
My face no longer breaking the surface.
And I had no idea if I would make it out alive.
As if he felt my torment, the song broke off in an awkward fumble and his face twisted in regret, sharp and defined.
“Shea.” It sounded as a prayer. A petition.
Curiosity rolled through the bar, shoulders swiveling and eyes searching as they tried to interpret what was happening.
Sebastian never looked away when he slowly stood, setting the guitar in a stand, his movements determined as he slid off the front of the riser and dropped to the ground. The sea of bodies parted, his stride long and purposeful—and somehow cautious—as he made his way to me.
And I stood there shaking, moisture gathering in my eyes.
My heart beating wildly.
Madly.
He stopped a foot away.
Swallowing hard, I turned and began to walk, knowing he would follow. I passed by the end of the bar and rounded the corner into the faintly-lit hall. I stopped midway, still facing away. The walls were narrow and the ceiling low, the heat of his presence torrid and red, and if it was possible, that intensity only grew as he slowly advanced from behind.