We hit the sidewalk that ran along the riverfront. Goosebumps lifted on my skin as a breeze blew across the waters, the air cool and heavy. I pulled in a deep breath, hoping it would push out some of the fear that kept trying to gather in my chest.
We passed by Charlie’s that was closed down for Sunday night and toward my neighborhood. Kallie began to drag her feet.
Sebastian looked down at her, his voice light. “Are you tired?”
She nodded with a yawn.
“Come here, Little Bug,” Sebastian offered quietly into the deepening night, and that murmured sentiment ripped at my spirit, words he’d never called her, something all his own.
Releasing me, he scooped up my daughter and tucked her close to his chest.
Effortlessly.
Kallie clung to him, her head on his shoulder and her butterfly clutched in her arm.
Simple, simple dreams.
They grew bold and unsettled.
He didn’t hesitate to carry her up our walkway and through the door. His steps were subdued and quieted as I followed close behind, and he toted her upstairs and into her darkened room. Gently, he laid her down on her bed then stepped aside so I could remove her shoes and tuck her in, my child already drifting to sleep.
I peppered her sweet face with kisses, my precious girl, and she smiled a soft, comfortable smile, and my chest burned with the devotion and love I had for her. Shuffling out, I looked at her once more over my shoulder, before I flipped off her light and left her door open an inch, edging back out to the landing where Sebastian had retreated.
Waiting for me.
He stepped toward my room, his chin lifted like a threat while he held open my door.
My heart beat wildly as I approached him.
He was never gentle, his body always desperate, every touch filled with urgency.
I never minded.
I wanted him raw.
Unbridled.
Because it was the truth he could afford to give me.
Even though I also saw the truth in the gentle way he handled my daughter, in those moments when I was caught in his compassion, in the dedication that slipped from his mouth when he spoke of his brother and friends.
It was Sebastian who didn’t know it existed.
He shut the door behind us. Two fumbled moments passed before our clothes were forgotten. Tonight we didn’t even make it to the bed. Sebastian was covering himself with a condom as he took me down onto the floor. He hooked my legs up over his shoulders, my breath gone as I became his. My back chafed against the carpet while my spirit was seared by every inch of him.
“Shea,” he whispered urgently. Regretfully.
And I was falling.
Falling.
Falling.
Falling.
I could feel him at the ledge, earth crumbling beneath his feet, frantically trying to hold ground.
I clung to him, a selfish part of me wishing for a way to reach up and drag him over the edge with me.
Most of all, I wanted him to jump.
CONFUSION SQUEEZED MY CHEST as I neared the doors to Charlie’s, that constant conflict that raged inside me churning hard, one side pressing at me to keep returning, to go to her, to take her, while the rational side of me—the side that grasped my reality, the side that knew the kind of life I was going to be returning to—kept screaming at me that what I was doing was wrong.
Few things could be more appalling, more selfish, than using up a girl who deserved to be given the world. Not my kind of world. Shea didn’t deserve any of that. She didn’t need the drama or the depravity, the consequences of the fucked-up nights. Knew in my gut she didn’t give two shits about how much money I had in my bank account, either, that she wasn’t about sinking greedy claws into some unsuspecting guy, leeching off him until he was bled dry.
The girl could take care of herself.
She was all about good. About living right. About her daughter, who had to be the cutest thing I’d ever seen. About spreading her joy and light.
And if that didn’t make me want to take care of her.