He looked up and saw me standing in the doorway of the bar.
The look on his face in that moment made my legs shake and my core clench.
I was pretty sure Sebastian Badd was about to fuck me senseless.
12
Sebastian
I couldn’t deny how damn freeing it felt to get that shit out. I felt as if a burden had been lifted off my shoulders, as if a crushing weight had been ripped out of my chest. Yet it all still felt raw, like a ragged wound. Despite the fact that I felt relief, Dad was not coming back. The bar was still my problem. The guys would eventually leave again, and I’d be alone all over again.
Shit, man, I hadn’t cried since Mom died. But that had been by myself, in my room, door closed and locked, lights off, and I remember it had hurt like a motherfucker because I just couldn’t keep it in anymore no matter how hard I tried. I hated letting it out, hated crying, but I couldn’t physically stop it. Just like this moment on the docks with my brothers. I was powerless to stop it, and that was what they’d been after all along. The bastards had ganged up on me and physically forced me to confront my own emotions.
And they were right—I don’t think I’d ever really truly let it all out or sorted through my feelings at all. Not after Mom’s death, and not after Dad’s, and I certainly hadn’t confronted my deeply-rooted sense of abandonment. Irrational? Sure. I knew it was. But I couldn’t shake it. Mom left me. Dad left me. All the boys left me.
But now they were back—under duress and temporarily, but they were back. And it felt good. Now I just need the other four to get here, and it’d feel complete.
I wiped the blood off my face with my shirt and held it in a crumpled ball in my fist.
And then I felt her presence.
I hurt all over: the boys hadn’t taken it easy on me. They’d really gone in after me hard, and I was in a lot of pain. My emotions were still running on high octane, blasting through me hard and fast and merciless, and there she fuckin’ was. Just standing there in the doorway of the bar, one shoulder leaning against the frame, still wearing my drab green raincoat. The hood was halfway off her head, revealing a portion of her auburn hair loose around her shoulders and framing her lovely face. And her eyes, goddamn, those eyes. So blue they fucking stunned me breathless from twenty feet away.
And the compassion on her face…holy shit. For me? That look she was giving me cut straight through me, digging deep and sinking barbed hooks into me that I knew would never be released. It was a look that said I see you. And those three words don’t really do it justice. She saw me. Meaning, she saw past the front I put up. Past the tattoos, the muscles, the asshole player mentality, past all my bullshit emotional armor meant to keep everyone away…and to keep them from looking too closely.
But Dru? She saw. She didn’t have to look past those things, because she saw them as part of me.
And that right there was what flayed me to the bone.
The bruises, the break in my nose, the achy ribs, the split lips…it all faded into nothing as I stalked toward her. She held her ground as I approached.
I stood over her, staring down, tasting the blood on my lips from my still-trickling nose. “I need you, Dru.”
She just smiled up at me. “I know.”
She reached up with both hands and placed them alongside my nose, hesitated a split second, and then swiftly and deftly re-set my nose.
“You’ve done that before,” I said.
She grinned. “You don’t spar with third and fourth dans and not get your nose broken a time or three.”
“What you saw just now—” I started, even though I wasn’t sure what I was going to say by way of explanation, or even ask how she felt about it.
She took my shirt out of my hand, dabbed at my nose, wiped at my lips, her expression soft and affectionate. “Shhh...”
I frowned. “But I—”
She lifted up on her toes. “Hush, Sebastian. Shut up and kiss me.”
I shut up and kissed her. Wrapped my arm around her waist and yanked her flush against me, palmed her cheek with my other hand, and—gingerly—kissed her.
It’s hard to gingerly kiss the ever-loving fuck out of someone, though, so I had to settle for long and slow and deep and thorough, tasting her lips, the line of her teeth, the slippery strength of her tongue. And then her hands were on me, sliding across my chest, my skin slick from the rain and sweat, and her hands were cupping the back of my head and tilting me down to deepen the kiss, to demand more from me.
I heard a motorcycle rumbling behind us, heard the engine cut off, boots hit the pavement. “Well hell, looks like I missed all the fun.” The voice was muffled behind a helmet, but I knew who it was.