Let’s not forget I was always, always aroused.
Sebastian nuzzled his nose into my cheek, grazing up and over the seam of my ear. He inhaled, exhaled, his expelled energy spinning through me like a tempest. “Missed you, baby.”
“I missed you, too.”
It didn’t matter that little more than eight hours had passed since I’d last seen him, it was true.
That fact was a little terrifying, too.
I was in deep.
Somewhere bottomless.
Fathomless.
Lyrik bypassed us. He glanced back over his shoulder as he headed for the riot of bodies congregating in the bar. He lifted his voice so we could hear him over the noise. “We gonna drink or stand around like a pack of bitches watching Baz feel up his girl all night?”
He headed deeper into the fray, menacing strength striding through the crowd. He was so tall I could see the tilt of his head as he turned to consume Tamar in his fiery glare.
She basically snarled at him from her post behind the bar.
Tension ricocheted between them. Maybe Tamar had warmed to the idea of Sebastian and me, but it did not apply to the rest of the guys.
Especially Lyrik.
I couldn’t tell what she wanted more—to rip off his face or his clothes. I’d asked her point-blank if something had happened between them, and she’d just grunted a slur about cocky assholes think they can take whatever they want and something about how happy it’d make her to cut off his dick and cram it down his throat.
Whatever was going on? She was fighting it with teeth bared.
Sebastian didn’t let me go as we followed Lyrik, who apparently knew exactly where he was headed. He was already taking a seat on a stool at one of the high-top tables close to the stage.
“Make yourself at home,” I teased.
I forced myself to untangle my limbs from Sebastian and he slid onto his stool.
You have a job to do, I reminded myself, because the only thing I wanted to do right then was crawl onto his lap.
One cavalier brow arched, Lyrik all kinds of smug. I swear, these guys were too much, my hands full every single time they walked through the door. “Figured we had an in and all.”
Zee and Ash took the remaining stools.
Ash let out an exaggerated sigh, and he sat back, blue gaze probing the crowd. Calculating. Ready to make a move. It was clear what was on his mind.
As much as I hated it, I couldn’t stop the prick of jealousy that jabbed at my consciousness.
There was no missing the way the women seemed immediately drawn to them. Heads turning. Attention seeking. None immune to the aura that glimmered around the whole of them, a bristle of sex and dangerous beauty and lust.
It was this way night after night, and it became ever more obvious that Sebastian was wanted. That he was and would always be the target of many affections. I couldn’t help but wonder how many times he had been in a bar just like this, staging his own move.
Pain needled at my skin. Was it crazy the idea of him with anyone else hurt? But it felt as if I’d been waiting for him my entire life. I’d never been the jealous type, but Sebastian held the power to evoke the most foolish kinds of reactions in me. He made me feel things I’d never felt before. Experience the impossible and suffer the exquisite.
I shoved off the useless thoughts. “So what is everyone drinking tonight?”
Everything about Ash gleamed. “Bring us our usual, darlin’. But make them doubles. We have cause for celebration.”
Sebastian flinched. In my periphery, I caught the glower in his expression. One that warned he was about two seconds away from reaching across the table to rip Ash’s tongue out.
That feeling was back, the sense I was being propelled forward by a rushing tide of joy, while at the same time, was about to be ensnared in an unseen undertow.
Threatened to be washed out to sea.
Sinking.
Sebastian’s voice was soft. Almost afraid to, I slowly turned to look at him.
Grey eyes caressed me softly, almost as soft as his voice. “Just get us our regulars, baby.”