I could feel the plea of his heavy cock begging at my hip. He rubbed himself there, groaned again, and he slipped his hand down and palmed my breast. Through the fabric of my shirt, he dug his thumb into the cup of my bra, flicking at my nipple.
I whimpered more and pulled from his mouth, my head rocking back on the wall as I searched for the air he’d stolen.
He didn’t seem to mind, and instead took a path down the side of my neck with his mouth.
“This is feeling a lot like a distraction,” I finally managed to say, my fingers sinking into his shoulders when he sucked behind my ear.
“Doesn’t everyone deserve to forget?” he mumbled along my skin, his voice hoarse and almost desperate as he kissed his way back up to my mouth, taking more.
But no. I didn’t want to forget. I wanted to live. To take in every memory. To make every single one of them count.
“No, I want to remember,” I murmured at his mouth.
An unintelligible sound rolled up his throat, something that sounded like pain, like hope. “Let me come inside.” He rubbed against me, a friction of jeans and heat and a desperate need to leg go.
And God, I wanted to.
But dawn was beginning to break.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“You wouldn’t understand,” I whispered.
On a sigh, he dropped his forehead to mine, trying to catch his breath.
He smiled in something that felt like resignation, then playfully nipped at my bottom lip.
“I thought you said you didn’t bite?” I teased in an attempt to drag myself out of the moment, fingertips scratching through the thick coat of scruff covering his cheeks.
He chuckled, the sound the thickest kind of molasses. “I think you and I both know that was a lie.”
My gaze shifted away, suddenly shy because I was still pinned under this man that I didn’t even know. One who knew nothing about me. His body burning. Mine on fire.
I swallowed hard and nudged him away, letting go of the little fantasy I’d allowed myself to live.
Just for tonight.
Because the sun was rising to reveal my reality.
I pushed away from him and took a step toward the door, and Baz grabbed my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze, almost as gentle as the expression on his face.
Again, his understanding was entirely unexpected.
Then he let me go and I shuffled toward my house, feeling a little wobbly and a whole lot aroused.
In the doorway, I turned back to look at him, this beautiful man that my heart ached to know. “Goodnight, Sebastian from California.”
He smiled softly. “Goodnight, Shea from Savannah.”
THE SHRILL RING FROM my bedside table jarred me from sleep.
I groaned, clinging to the fringes of sleep, desperate to sink back into its murky depths.
Because she was there. That fucking gorgeous girl, who with one look, swallowed me whole. The one who’d climbed on the back of my bike and held onto me as if her very life depended on it, and it seemed, just for one night, it had.
For a little while, it was just the two of us who existed.
Did it make me pathetic that night two nights ago had been the best time I’d had in as long as I could remember?
Funny, because it didn’t come close to ending the way I’d been dying for it to—wrapped up in miles of long legs, buried deep in all her sweet where she just kept pulling me deeper, a few perfect hours to make me forget.
Didn’t matter.
Because she still had, and that fact scared me a little bit because I sure as hell didn’t need to go getting messed up on a girl that I was only going to have to leave behind. She was tied here. She had made that much clear.
But that didn’t change the fact she made me feel different when I was with her, like maybe not every single thing in this world was bad. As if this girl saw me for who I really was and she actually liked him.
She’d asked me what I wanted from her. The problem was I had no clue. All I knew was it was more. That I wanted more of her dark and her light and her heavy and her soft. I wanted more of her sweet breaths and more of her pounding heart.
I wanted more of her kisses.
Fuck.
I wanted more of her kisses.
The phone rang again, vibrating against the wooden tabletop.
Facedown in my pillow, I blindly swatted around for my phone. When I caught hold of it, I flipped onto my back, rubbing at my eye as I answered with a groggy, “Hello?”
“Sebastian.”
The spiteful voice punched me in the gut. Anxiety climbed out from it, like ants marching across my skin.
Sucking in a shaky breath, I sat up on the side of the bed. I ground my teeth when the years of resentment came flooding in, washing over all those stupid childhood scars marking up my insides, my heart and spirit and mind.
“What do you want?” I gritted out, crushing the phone in my hand.