I’ve got you, baby.
It was the only thing I wanted—for Sebastian Stone to have me, even if it was just for a little while.
Without further words, I released my seatbelt and slipped out, quietly latched the door shut behind me, and didn’t look back as I headed up the walkway.
Leaving him with the decision.
Because mine had already been made.
A disconcerted thrill sped through me when he finally killed the engine, though I could feel it was done with reluctance and doubt. My nerves lit in a frenzy, with a desire that sang and a fear that stung as my ears tuned into the creak of a door being cranked open then discretely closed. The front running lights flashed and the horn blipped as the car was abandoned on the street. That thick, consuming presence spread over me from behind as I slowly made my way up the three steps onto the porch.
Unsteady and irregular, my heart hammered.
His boots thudded on the freshly stained boards.
I paused at the door and he stopped a fraction away, a heady heat burning into my back. Shakily I dug through my bag to find my key, slid it into the lock, and slowly turned the latch, letting the door drift open to reveal the darkness from within.
A heavy expulsion of air blew strands of my hair. Like a bull before it charged. Filled with lust. Maybe even anger.
“You sure you want me to step through that door?” The words sounded like a threat when he breathed them across my ear.
Because we both knew exactly what would happen if he followed me inside.
“Yes,” I promised, knowing it was true, knowing it was wrong, knowing it would ultimately wreck me.
Dropping my head, I stepped over the threshold, almost tiptoeing across the shiny dark hardwood floors.
Find love and bring it here.
My grandmother’s words echoed through my mind. Guilt squeezed my ribs. I wasn’t foolish enough to believe this man would bring any of it into this house.
Or maybe I was just that much of a fool, wanting him so badly I was willing to take the chance, to take a memory and tuck it away, a reminder of what could be.
Of what I could feel.
Something I’ve never felt before.
And I felt it now, as he followed me in, staying close behind, his footsteps keeping time with mine.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
My pulse beat frantically, and still I couldn’t look back as we began to ascend the stairs, my hand gliding up the smooth rail. I couldn’t turn to see the expression I knew would be carved on the beautiful, bold lines that amassed his stony expression. The same he’d watched me with all night. With desire and hunger and some kind of unfathomable hate, as if he were just as terrified of me as I was of him.
I mounted the top of the stairs to the second-floor landing.
Normally I would go left and steal into Kallie’s room. I’d press gentle kisses to the softness of her cheeks, to her forehead, and brush my fingers through her hair while I watched her sleep and wished for peaceful dreams to enter her mind. Normally I’d pause at April’s door and whisper, “I’m home,” before I collapsed into bed exhausted and alone.
But tonight. Tonight was anything but normal.
Normally I didn’t bring virtual strangers home.
Baz followed me into my shadowy room. The door to the bathroom rested partially ajar and the bright overhead lights bled a faint hue of light in a wedge across the floor. It was messy—clothes strewn across the floor, tossed onto the large chair sitting under the window, the bed unmade.
I stopped in the middle of it, trying to still the thunder pounding through my veins while I listened to the soft click of my bedroom door being closed.
Slowly I turned around. The air just leaving my lungs hitched when I took him in, the captivating force of this man magnified, grey eyes turned to pitch—the most brilliant kind of black.
Savage.
Feral.
I all-out shook beneath the severity, knowing after tonight, I was never going to be the same.
He was going to mark me.