A Stone in the Sea

As if she hadn’t climbed on the back of my bike and I hadn’t had her pinned against her outside wall.

Of course Zee and Lyrik sensed her discomfort. Lyrik just razzed me with a satisfied grin because the asshole seriously thought he was doing me a favor, while Zee frowned. Concern tipped his head as he studied her, eyes narrowed as he sat back in the booth. Mark had never been like that. Concerned. He didn’t give a whole lot of concern about anything but his brother and the band. Didn’t even care about himself. Maybe that’s why Zee was the complete opposite, making up for his brother’s many inadequacies.

Caring.

Caring.

Caring.

“Why don’t you just bring us all what we had last week?” Zee offered, and Shea sucked the edge of that plush, pink bottom lip between her teeth, chewed at it as she gave him a tight nod and took a step back, her glance tentative and swift as it passed over me, before she whirled around and went straight for the bar. She returned just a few minutes later, delivered the drinks as if I didn’t exist and she wanted me to remain that way.

“Thanks, darlin’,” Ash said, laying it on thick because he always did. Dude didn’t know any other way.

“Anytime,” she whispered.

When she left, Lyrik sprawled his arms out over the back of the booth, his tone all kinds of casual and directed entirely at me. “Do you want to know what I think? I think what we all need is to get laid tonight.” He patted me on the back of the head like I was a little kid. “What do you think, Baz Boy?”

My dick was definitely on board, but that was not gonna happen because somehow Shea had become the only thing I wanted, this untouchable girl the only thing I craved. I was itching to get lost in caramel eyes and to swim in honey skin. To be blinded by her light while she drowned me in her sea of dark.

I wanted to fuck and taste and explore. To skim along the fringes of sanity. To slip over the edges of it. To fall and do it without a shred of control.

Somehow I knew it was something I could only experience with her. Getting lost in wide, guileless eyes that still held a million secrets. Feeding off that sweet naivety while she owned me with clever, cunning hands.

No. The simplicity of Shea could never be mistaken for ignorance.

Instead, it was a force I wanted to plug into.

Ash lifted his shot. “I’ll drink to that. Seems I’ve hit a dry spell since I stepped foot into Georgia. We’ve been cooped up at the beach house too much and it’s cramping my style.”

Lyrik gestured with his chin toward the mass of carved, ornate wood that seemed to float in the middle of the room. “I call the redhead behind the bar. She’s just beggin’ to be broken.”

Red took that opportune time to glower in our direction as she slid beers to two guys sitting with their backs to us at the bar, her painted red lips drawn in a sneer as she stared at us from between their shoulders.

“Look at her,” he said, chuckling under his breath. “All feisty and shit.”

Laughter rippled from Ash and he downed his shot, pointed at Lyrik with the small glass still clutched in his hand. “Missin’ home and looking for a little L.A., huh?” He waved an indulgent hand around the room. “Look at all this country we have to choose from. Figured we should be taking advantage of it while we have the chance.”

Ash’s gaze skated over the nameless faces, the girls who’d gathered to watch the band. And there was no doubt about it. There were a ton of girls who screamed country, wearing short shorts and even shorter skirts, pairing them with boots that I’d had no clue I had a thing for until they’d been emblazoned in my mind with the idea of them pressing into my ass while those legs were wrapped up tight around my waist.

Lyrik’s dark eyes glinted. “Nah. Only thing I’m looking for is something that looks like that. Doesn’t matter where she comes from.”

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