Shea jerked back an inch. Bewilderment lit on her face. “You’d want that?”
“I don’t know…probably would be a bad fucking idea right about now, but sometime, yeah.”
Intense emotion held fast in her eyes. “Since the first night you took me out, I couldn’t help but think about experiencing those things with you, Sebastian. A life and a home. A family for Kallie.” A somber smile fluttered around her mouth. “You surprise me in really wonderful ways.”
“Guess I’ve been surprising myself a lot lately.” Smiling softly, I brushed my thumb along her jaw. “Might have something to do with this amazing girl I met. After she came into my life? Don’t recognize myself anymore.”
Shea cupped my cheek. Tenderly. Everything written on her face adoring and filled with all the love I didn’t think I’d ever deserve. She looked at me that way for the longest time, like I meant something, this girl seeing me in a way only she could.
“I’m on the pill,” she finally said, obviously needing to set that straight.
I gave a slight nod. “I figured as much. But it doesn’t mean the thought wasn’t there.”
The desire.
“I should’ve asked you though.” Regretfully, I shook my head. “That’s something I should have talked with you about first, and I’m sorry I let myself get lost in the moment.”
I caught her around the wrist of the hand she had on my face, shifted forward, and pressed a kiss to the inside of her elbow.
“You know I’d never purposefully put you at risk,” I murmured into the soft skin, and I wrapped her arm around my neck so I could get closer.
All the possible consequences and scenarios I’d allowed my own needs and wants to obscure. But I guess I wasn’t coming close to thinking of it as a consequence. But instead something good and pure—a kind of gift I never thought I wanted until all of a sudden it was there—something profound inside me aching to be filled with every part of Shea.
“I would have stopped you if I was worried. If I didn’t trust you,” she whispered. “I know you wouldn’t hurt me.”
“You put so much faith in me.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
Affection tightened my chest.
“We’re going to figure this out,” I promised. “We’re going to send Jennings straight to hell and then I’m gonna pack you and Kallie up and take you around the world. We’re going to show Kallie all of it, and you and I are gonna make love in every country we step foot in. And at night? I’m going to be singing about it…about what you do to me and how you make me feel.”
I knew I was dreaming, doing what I could to fill Shea with hope for an escape from this hell.
Eyes shimmering, she choked over the emotion in her throat. Still, she played right along. “It seems like Kallie and I might cramp your style.”
I grinned at her, needing to lift her spirit. Our chins touched as I smiled at my girl. “Got a new style, baby.”
Shea tightened her hold. “Is that so? And what is this world you’re going to be singing about me to going to say?”
“I’m sure they’re going to be saying all kinds of things. But I don’t give a shit, Shea.” My tone grew serious. “Tomorrow they’re gonna know what you and Kallie mean to me. They’re going to know I will be fighting for you both, and I won’t be backing down.”
“I’m so scared, Baz,” Shea quietly admitted as her mouth quivered with another round of sorrow.
“I know, baby. I’m scared, too.”
Yeah, I wanted to fill Shea with hope. But I figured honesty mattered, too.
“I can’t believe he has her.” She said it so softly, I barely heard her. Misery seemed to steal her breath. “What kind of a monster would come in and rip a little girl from her home? I think somewhere inside me, I had hoped he had changed.”