“Okay.”
A smirk flitted all around my mouth. “Goodnight, Shea from Savannah.”
Her expression darkened with her storm, something severe and profound.
Her voice was rough. “Goodnight, Sebastian from California.”
At five minutes before ten, I pulled up in the Suburban in front of Shea’s house.
This morning I was up with the sun, too anxious to sleep.
I cut the engine and jumped out, running up her walk and onto her porch, something like joy taking over every cell in my body with each pounded step.
The second I rang the doorbell, the front door flew open. Kallie stood there, bouncing on her feet, excitement blazing from her like a full-body halo.
“Baz, you’re here! I missed you so, so much!”
She was wearing a blue and white checkered swimsuit and a pair of denim shorts over it, flip-flops on her insanely tiny but chubby feet. Of course she had that butterfly crooked in her elbow.
Jesus help me. I couldn’t do anything but pick her up, hug her, because fuck if I hadn’t missed her, too. I held her to me and murmured, “I missed you, too,” into all that wild hair, my head spinning because I was still having a hard time wrapping it around all of this.
She jerked back, eyes swimming with a thrill. “You’re gonna take me to the beach?”
“Yep. Does that sound okay to you?”
“I love the beach!”
“Good thing because we’re going to play on it all day.”
She formed a fist, her little arm pumping like she was giving me a cha-ching. “Yes!”
A chuckle rumbled from me and my attention drifted to Shea who was standing at the bottom of the staircase, one hand on the railing, tender smile trained on us.
Adrenaline spiked, a churn of it rushing through my veins, and I was itching to drive my fingers into all that blonde flowing down around her, that temptation brushing over her bare shoulders and swinging down her back.
She was dressed for a day outside in the sun. A long, printed flowy skirt hugged her waist, draping down to end at her calves. A tight, white tank barely concealed the black bikini top outlined beneath it, thin straps coming up to tie around her neck.
Fucking gorgeous.
Knock the wind right out of me kind of gorgeous.
Sing from the mountaintops kind of gorgeous.
Leave me begging on my knees kind of gorgeous.
Yeah. That kind of gorgeous.
Redness crawled up her neck, and I knew her mind had gone traipsing into thoughts the same, eyes sucking me down like she’d witnessed the sunrise for the first time.
How in the hell was this girl mine?
I strode toward her, Kallie still tucked in the crook of my arm. I didn’t hesitate, just drove a hand beneath the river of her hair and gripped her by the back of the neck. I kissed her hard and she kissed me back. Nothing salacious or obscene. But with purpose. Reluctantly, I pulled back, thumb caressing her cheek. “Good morning.”
Kallie started giggling and Shea was all smiles and blushes, and every kind of sexy when she swayed in my hold. “Good morning.”
“Are you ready to go?”
“Yes!” Kallie supplied.
Shea affectionately rolled her eyes and slung a big beach bag stuffed full of all the girlie shit women thought they needed whenever they went to the beach. Somehow I didn’t mind. “Apparently so,” she said.
She sidestepped me and headed toward the door. She went to grab the booster seat she’d left sitting just inside the door.
“Here, I’ve got that.” I swung down with Kallie still secured against me, picked it up with my opposite hand.
Laughing hysterically, Kallie hooted like she was on a rollercoaster, clinging to my neck like a safety net. “Don’t drop me, Baz! Don’t drop me!”
My pulse thudded some strange beat, volatile satisfaction.
“I’m not gonna drop you, silly girl.”
We followed her mom down the walk and to the Suburban. I set Kallie down while I fixed her seat in the back right behind Shea. My head spun a little more. Two months ago, had someone told me I’d be concerned with adjusting a car seat so it was level in the back of this Suburban—the one that’d been bought with the sole purpose of rolling around my crew—I would have sneered, told them they had me mistaken for a very different guy.
Leaning down, I picked Kallie up from under her arms. “In you go, Little Bug.”
I strapped her in, made sure she was secure, and ran around and hopped in the driver’s seat. I leaned over the console to grab a quick kiss from Shea.
Contentment swept through me when I threaded my fingers through hers, and she sighed and sank more comfortably into the leather seats like she felt it, too.
We drove the twenty minutes out of Savannah and into Tybee Island, and cruised around to the end where Anthony’s house butted up against the beach. The whole way, Shea and I chatted casually, Kallie all too willing to chime in and offer her opinion and excitement or confusion on just about everything.