Total pages in book: 213
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 201920 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1010(@200wpm)___ 808(@250wpm)___ 673(@300wpm)
I didn’t know what he meant until he passed and there was no one here to pick up the pieces. No one but me.
My feet stumble and I come to a halt as I try desperately not to fall forward. The combination of rubble on the ground and the sight of someone’s shadow laying across the very porch swing I’d just been thinking about are what almost cause me to trip.
My chest aches with a sudden pounding of anxiety. No one comes to visit me. It’s one of the blessings I’ve been afforded by being the sad girl with her sob story. I keep my head down and I mind my own business. No one likes me, no one but Ang, and no one fucks with me either. Why would they? I have nothing.
But someone’s there. I can’t see their face, but the shadow is there and unmistakable.
The paint on the porch swing is weathered, and no one ever sits on it anymore, but I watch the empty seat move back and forth and then a man steps away from the shadows.
A man I see from time to time, but always in passing. Except for when I think of him late at night. Unfortunately, it happens more than I’ll ever admit.
He’s a man I used to want because he made me feel something I’d never felt before. A mixture of hope and desire. Like the silly dreams of getting away from this place, I used to want to be his. To be pinned down by his hands while his eyes held me in place.
I used to dream of him pressing his lips to mine and stealing my breath with a demanding kiss. I knew he could do it; I’d felt it once before.
His stubble-lined jaw looks sharper in the night with only the neighbor’s porch light and the pale moonlight casting shadows down his face. My heart beats slower, yet faster all at once. Knowing Sebastian is on my porch waiting for me, I can hardly breathe, let alone move.
His steely blue eyes are next to come into view, and they immediately capture me. Staring straight at me, they pierce through me and see more of me than anyone else can. He must. I can feel it deep in the pit of my gut. He’s always been able to do it. There was never a moment where Sebastian didn’t have that power over me.
With clammy palms, I try to move my hands, but my fingers are as paralyzed as my body. It’s not from fear, although I know that’s what this man should elicit from me. That’s the reaction he has on everyone else.
No, it’s not fear. As a gust of wind blows, I sway gently in the breeze and it seems to free me from the spell his sharp blue eyes have placed on me. I refuse to look back into his gaze.
Instead, I stare at the chips in the old cement stairs that lead to my porch and feel my heart squeeze harder and tighter than it has in a very long time.
“What do you want?” I ask Sebastian in a hoarse voice, barely louder than a murmur.
His shadow shifts in my periphery, but I don’t look up at him.
He’s a man I would let do whatever he wanted to me. I would let him do completely as he pleased. There’s no reasonable explanation for it. No justification. I’m fully aware that he’d chew me up and spit me out.
Maybe everyone has a person like that. That one person you know can destroy you, and you pine for it despite yourself. I crave what he’s capable of. I want the bad things that come with the promise of being his. That confession alone is enough proof I belong in this shit city.
I can feel the danger, the dominance, the overwhelming presence that never leaves with Sebastian Black. I can even smell his masculine woodsy scent that sometimes filters into my dreams. With my lungs full of it, I close my eyes, letting it intoxicate me, but doing my best not to show it. I won’t give him that satisfaction. Not when he chooses to give me nothing. Not when he pretends that I’m nothing to him. Although maybe I am. Why would I ever be more than nothing to a man like him?
“Why are you here?” I ask, hardening my voice, raising it, and daring to finally look at him. His shoulders fill the entrance to my front door. My open front door. It creaks and the sound echoes in the chilly night air as Sebastian looks me up and down, the hint of a smirk on his face until his gaze reaches mine again.
“I thought you were smarter than that, Chloe,” he says and his deep voice rumbles. It’s rough, and the way he says my name sounds dirty, even though he’s only said it in the same manner as always. With a wanton heat building in my core and my breathing picking up, I stare into his eyes as he adds, “I’m here for a little chat… with you.”