Текст книги "Shards of Us"

Автор книги: K Caverly

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Chapter Eight

The next few days go by slowly. Sebastian leaves to look for the men who are after us several times, which I'm beginning to realize may not be a lie after all, and I spend my time while he's away desperately searching for an escape. I haven't seen real sunlight in almost two weeks now, and I can feel myself slowly losing it. My head hurts all the time and my muscles feel so weak. It's like the darkness has sucked all of the life out of me.

One thing is for sure: I need out.

I. need. out.

Sometimes, when I get desperate, I just run at the door and try to hit it, pounding on it and screaming and screaming and pleading for someone to help me, someone to let me out, someone to free me, but no one comes. I desperately slam on the marble door with my fists, with my arm, with my foot, and still, there is no one to rescue me. I'm trapped here–trapped for good.

Other times, when I don't know what else to do, I just crumple up and cry. I let my legs go weak and close my eyes, and let the tears pour out of me. Crying is healthy, at least. Crying makes me feel like I'm still okay.

Other times, I can't even cry. I just sit there and stare at the empty wall and wait for the tears to fall, but they refuse to come. It's like they've been drained out of me. Like Sebastian took away not only my heart and my well-being, but my tears as well. He took everything from me, to protect me, to save me, or whatever it is he is doing to me, and I hate him for it. But I also want him so badly, so badly I can't even explain it.

Still, I haven't felt this desperate, this dark inside, since the days after my parents were killed. It feels like everything is crashing down again, like my whole life has been a downhill spiral and now that I've hit rock bottom, there's no climbing back up.

There is no escaping this safe house, I've realized, defeated. I'm trapped in here, possibly forever.

But on Wednesday night, marking two weeks since I first arrived here, that all changes. Or at least, it changes a little.

I'm sitting on my bed, thinking about what it would be like to dance in front of my parents again, to perform and let everything else melt away, when Sebastian comes over to me and says, "I want to show you something, my angel."

I sit up and turn around.

He'd just come out of the shower, and right now he's wearing nothing but a towel. He runs a hand through his wet dark hair, those blue eyes transfixed on me. Steam pours off of him as he closes the bathroom door behind him, and he looks so incredible that it makes my skin tingle.

"Nice shirt," I say to him, unable to stop staring at his perfectly chiseled abs. They're long and lean, and his biceps ripple with muscle, the kind of muscle you don't get from working out at the gym, but from pure, real-world fighting.

He gives me a crooked little smile. "I thought you might like that."

I watch him as he moves over to me, slipping on a shirt and then, unfortunately, pants. I love the way his body looks and moves, love how his muscles tense when he's nervous, love how looking at him makes my skin feel hot and tense and causes traces of a blush to creep across my cheeks. I am infatuated with his body, with every visible inch of him, and as much as I wish I weren't, as much as I want to hate him, I just can't.

"Where are you taking me?" I ask once he walks back over to me, the fear starting to creep in. I don't trust Sebastian. Not at all. I still think he is going to do something bad to me. But I can't deny the connection I feel for him, the irresistible draw he gives me.

He grabs my hand and leads me toward the door. "Just somewhere," he says, more to himself than me.

He stops once he reaches the door. My stomach tenses up as he puts his key into the lock, then swings it open as soon as it clicks. Sunlight pours into the dark room, and even though it's cloudy outside, it feels blinding.

I haven't seen sun in weeks.

I hesitate as soon as he motions for me to step through. "You… you're letting me go?" I say. My voice trembles, but I can't help myself. I know I should be rushing out, pushing past him and trying to get the hell out of here, but I'm too stunned to move. "After everything? You're letting me go? Just like that?"

Sebastian shakes his head. He has a perplexed look in his eyes, and his dimples grow like he's about to smile. "I'm not letting you go," he says, raising his voice, his eyes burning into mine. "I'm taking you somewhere, you'll see where. I trust you, angel, but I won't let you escape until I'm sure you're safe. You're still my prisoner, and don't ever forget that. I own you. I'm not your knight in shining armor. I'm trying to save you, from myself and from those men, but I'm not going to sweep you off your feet. I'm just going to protect you, and that means locking you up." His voice sounds is rough and urgent but oddly sincere, and I stare back at him, frozen, trying to read him. I can't tell if he really is just trying to save me, or if it's all part of some elaborate lie to gain my trust. It shouldn’t matter either way, because who the fuck locks up someone to save them? But it does matter. I hate that it does, but it does.

"Okay," I say slowly, watching him closely. I take a deep breath as I step outside and into his arms for the first time in weeks.

The sun is so blinding that I have to squeeze my eyes shut almost immediately. I can't see where I'm going, but Sebastian steers me forward, his hand placed gently on my back. His chin hovers right above my shoulder, and I can hear his steady breaths, can smell his masculine scent of mint and sweat. He feels good, holding me like this, as he steers me up a hill of some sort. He feels really, really good. And I realize I should be thinking about how to escape or something, or how much I hate him for locking me up, but I just… I can't.

It occurs to me then how easy it could be to run away right now. I could just push him aside and make a break for it, and he may or may not be able to catch up to me. I could do so many things to get away, and one week ago, I would've tried all of them. But there is something so sincere and innocent in the way Sebastian speaks to me, looks at me, something that tells me he really, truly does care about me. He does love me. He does want me. He's just a man in love above all else, a man who is broken and doesn't want to lose me.

And I guess, in a way, I don't want to lose him too.

I let Sebastian guide me all the way up the hill, past the sounds of wind whistling through the trees and the steady chirping of birds above me, until he finally stops before a house of some sort. I try to open my eyes, but I can't make out much. I see Sebastian walk up to it, open the door or something, and then he motions me inside. "C'mon. I have something important to show you."

My instincts tell me to turn and run away right now. Every part of me screams it, in fact. And I feel myself start to. I feel my legs go weak from the trembles, and I feel myself edge back, ready to sprint as far away from here as possible, but my legs are frozen in place, refusing to leave. I just stand there for a while, with Sebastian watching me with narrowed eyes, as if testing whether I trust him.

"Okay," I finally say, hating myself immediately for being so stupid. I stumble toward the door after him, and he catches me when I trip over a root and almost fall into the stairs.

"Careful there, angel," he whispers into my ear, pulling me up with his thick arms and smiling. "Wouldn't want you to get hurt, after all this."

I don't answer.

Sebastian leads me inside. The house is dark, and I'm relieved that I can open my eyes without squinting again. It's an old house, like something out of a horror movie, filled with broken windows and upturned furniture and a creaking door and moth-eaten carpets. The air inside here is thick and musty, and I have to bite back a gag as soon as I breathe it in.

Taking my hand, Sebastian leads me up the rickety stairs, down the old, crumbling hallway, and into a room at the end of the top floor. It's old and painted a peeling blue color, with dusty posters hanging over the wall and a desk full of pictures of a smiling boy and an older woman standing over him. The bed is empty and unmade, seemingly untouched for years, and the ceiling is filled with poorly-drawn stars, like sketches from a little kid.

"Welcome to paradise," Sebastian says without a trace of humor, gesturing to the room around him.

I frown at him for a minute, looking around. The room is too small to hold more than one person, and too old have been used in the last five years. Then my eyes drift to another picture of the little boy, this time of him holding a small saxophone, and when I look back at Sebastian, it hits me.

"This is your room," I say quietly, unable to believe he's really revealing this much of himself to me. If he were really trying to harm me, why would he show me his old room? Why is he… why is he opening up to me like this?

"Guilty as charged." Sebastian gives me a sad smile, and for a second, it's like he regrets bringing me here. But it's gone as quickly as it comes, before I even have time to frown. "Here." Sebastian motions me forward with his hand. "I have something to show you."

He reaches into the little dresser beside the bed, searches around a bit, and finally pulls out a picture of the same boy, this time playing his saxophone for the woman in the other photo. He takes a seat down on the bed, then pats the space beside him. "Sit," he says. I obey.

Sebastian sighs as soon as I sit beside him, like he already regrets what he's about to tell me. He hands me the picture. It's dusty and cool at the touch. As I look closer, I see that the boy is smiling. He looks happy, genuinely happy, so different than the Sebastian I know now.

"I was twelve in that picture," he says. He isn't looking at me. His eyes are focused on the window, that distant little look in them. "I was happy then. With Jodie, the woman who took me in after… what happened to my family. She was happy too. She loved me, made me her kid, because her husband left her when she couldn't produce one of her own. She taught me so much, about life and love… so much I ignored." He sighs. "I was a music prodigy then. I've always had a thing for music, playing or dancing. I didn't go to school, so I spent my time with music. And… well, I got into fights sometimes too. I was always an angry kid after what had happened to me. Music made me happy, but everything else seemed to infuriate. I fought a lot. Hated a lot. I learned a lot about toughening up and hurting people who deserve to be hurt in the times that I got in fights like that. I learned as many good lessons as I learned bad lessons, and when I was eighteen, I got a… job offer. I told Jodie it was a job as a music teacher but it was across the country, which means I'd have to leave, and she seemed disappointed but told me to follow my dreams anyway. And I did. I left her the next week because I knew I was bad for her, just like I'm bad for you. I lied to her, though. It wasn't a music teaching job I got offer. I didn't have any other way to get a job, not with my lack of education background and my broken past, so I took the one I could find… plus, I was stupid back then. I thought the job would make me happy. I was so angry, so hateful… I just needed a way to get it all out. I knew I couldn't live with myself if Jodie knew the truth, so I left her like I left my family." He drops his voice to a whisper then, and the hurt in his voice is so strong it catches me off guard. "I leave everyone. I don't get happiness. I only get abandonment."

I shift closer to Sebastian, curiosity peaked. "What was the job?" I ask quietly, touching my hand to his arm, loving the feel of his hard muscle.

"You don't want to know, angel." He turns to me, and his eyes are wild, filled with fury and grief and, I think, a pang of regret. "There's no way you could love me if you knew."

"That's not true."

"Is it, angel?" He looks angry now, hurt, even. "I'm not a good person. Hell, I lost my fucking mind a long time ago. But I guess that's part of the job. I guess that's what… they… wanted, though. You just don't understand what it's like. You don't understand what it means to spend your whole life full of anger and hate, doing a job that gives you nightmares all night and all the time just so you can pay for yourself and your aging adoptive mother who is too stubborn to ask for money even when you both know she needs it."

I move closer to him, staring back into his eyes. I really should hate him. But I find myself lost in our closeness, wanting to heal this broken soul beside me more than I can explain. "I understand, Sebastian. I understand more than most. That's the point, remember? We're both broken in different ways, but shattered enough that only we have the ability to help each other." I add, "You can trust me."

He's shaking his head like he already regrets what he's going to say. "Just know that I didn't have a choice, when I joined them. I needed a job, and without an education background no one would take me. I needed the money. I needed to care for myself and Jodie, to send her those monthly checks, so this was the only option. When the man, Marco, offered me the job, I didn’t know what else to do but say yes. I knew he was a drug dealer, but–"

"What was the job?" I say. My heart starts pounding. Drug dealer?This can't be good.

Sebastian's eyes lock on mine. He stares at me for a long while, just sitting there, so intense and so hurt, until finally he says, "A killer. A professional killer. A hitman, really." My heart skips a beat. Oh no. Oh shit shit shit shit. "It's for a drug cartel," he continues. "They also do human trafficking, among other things, which is why I didn't want them to take your friend. They… they have a lot of enemies. And when they want someone dead, they go to me. The work paid well and it kept me afloat for a while. Without it, I wouldn't have survived. Plus, it also made me less and less angry, at least at first. So I did it. I've worked the job for a few years now, since I was eighteen, and I learned a lot of… tricks of the trade, if you will." He leans into me, his breath on my lips. Electricity radiates through the air, pouring off his body and wrapping me up. "It hasn't been fun, angel. I'm not proud of what I did. But I needed to do it for the money. I needed to provide for Jodie and me. You have to understand that. You have to understand that it was my only choice."

I find my body shaking. My heart keeps pounding in my chest. I don't know what to do. I'm frozen in my spot, trembling, the fear racing in. Sebastian is a hitman. He kills people for a living.I fell for a murderer, and became one myself. Everything hurts at the thought. It feels like a betrayal, a punch in the gut, but I don't know what to say. I just keep shaking my head, denying it again and again in my head even though I know it's true. And then I think: if he's really a hitman, how do I know I won't end up the same way all of his previous hits have? "And you betrayed them?" I manage to croak out. "Is that why they're after you?"

Sebastian looks at me with obvious worry, as if he's afraid I'm about to crack. I'm afraid of that, too, honestly. I feel so sick all of a sudden. I just want to get out of here, away from him, away from all of this. I want to stop being a prisoner. I want to stop feeling like some sort of caged animal. "Yes," Sebastian says at last. "A couple years ago, they gave me a job, an important job, and I couldn't do it, so I covered it up. They found out a few weeks later, and they've been after me ever since."

My head just keeps racing in my chest. I'm falling for a killer. A professionalkiller. I wonder what my parents would say about this, what Ash would say, what anyone would say. I'm an idiot, that's what they'd say. That I'm a complete. fucking. idiot. "What about the scar?" My voice is weak.

He shakes his head. "You don't need to know about the scar."

"No," I say, maybe too demanding, still trembling. "I do."

This gets Sebastian. He stands up suddenly, his face hot, his eyes wild and angry. "No," he yells harshly. " You don't!"

I feel like I've just been punched in the face. I just keep staring at him, unable to process everything he is telling me. "Sebastian–" I start to say.

He glowers at me, then looks away. "I don't want to hear it."

"Sebastian–"

"What?" he roars, snapping back around at me. His face is red and angry, and his veins bulge out of his forehead. "What do you want? Can't you see my problem? I want you, angel," he yells. "I want you everywhere! But I can't have you. I can't corrupt you. I wouldn't do that to you. I'm not a good person, and falling for me is only going to get you hurt, so I won't. fucking. let you. So I ask again, what do you fucking want?"

I stand up now too. I won't be weak. I won't be weak. My eyes are level with his, his smoldering and angry and mine, well… sad. Distant. I feel distant. But this close to Sebastian, with his lips right next to mine, I know this is right. I know this is what I need. "I want you," I say simply, searching his eyes for a response. "I want you," I say again, like it'll make him understand, my voice stronger, more certain. "I want you everywhere, Sebastian. Can't yousee? I need you. I need you like I need to breathe."

"And that's the problem," Sebastian says. "You can't need me. You shouldn't fucking need me! I'm not the kind of person you rely on. I do terrible things to survive. I'm not relationship material, angel. I'm built for ditching and fucking. I'm trying to save you from those men, but I also need to save you for myself. Because if I let you fall for me, then I'm letting you throw your whole life away. And please don't throw your life away. I know we care about each other, but please don't ruin it all for just a little desire."

I step closer to him, feeling his heat wrap around my body. Everything about Sebastian is intense. Everything about him leaves me drained, but in the best way possible. "Who says it's just a little desire? I need you, Sebastian. It's worse for me not to be with you. So just have me," I whisper, my voice low. "All of me. I need you to take me," I say, eyes locked on his.

He shakes his head, not convinced.

"How can I prove it?" I ask.

"You can't," Sebastian says quickly, and he looks ready to end this, to bring me back to my cellar and shut me there for eternity. But then he stops. Gets an idea. And he looks at me–really looks at me. "Kiss me, angel," he says suddenly. "Prove to me you know what you're getting into. Kiss me like you mean it."

I look at him, at his deep blue eyes, at the intense concentration in his features, and I can see he means it. I can see he needs me too. I can see, as twisted as it sounds, that even though I'm his prisoner, we were built for each other. And before I know what I'm doing, my lips are shoved against his. Everything feels so hot in that moment. Everything goes quiet, fades away. Everything is gone but the feeling of Sebastian kissing me. His lips are flames refusing to be doused as he kisses back harder and harder, and it feels real and edgy and thrilling and dangerous and so wrong, and yet so… not. Kissing Sebastian is the most exhilarating thing in the world, and his loves move with mine effortlessly. We kiss harder, faster, hotter, until the world melts away and there is nothing but the heat in my stomach and my sweaty, tingling skin against his.

Suddenly, his lips are no longer mine, and he's panting, gasping for breath, his eyes full of hunger as he moves his gaze down to my breasts and pulls his shirt over his head. I pull mine off at the same time, and then we meet again, kissing harder, more fiercely. His hands move down to my bra, slipping inside, teasing me. I feel my nipples go hard as he traces a finger around them, and a familiar urgent ache rises deep within my body.

He slips off his pants next, then pulls off mine with his expert hands. We both keep gasping for air, and I swear the heater just cranked up. There is nothing but us in this room, in this world. There is nothing but us and our bodies and our desire.

Our lips are locked again before I know what's happening, and I feel the sparks flying, the burning need his lips give me.

"Are you ready?" he whispers. I'm still gasping for air once we pull away, but he doesn't even seem fazed by it all. He's ready for the next part. The real part.

"Always," I gasp, and then his boxers are off. And I see him again, full and broad and glorious, and the deep ache in my body grows, the pressure building up deep inside of me with primal need, because I know I want him. So, so badly.

Before I realize what's happening, he grabs me by the legs and thrusts me against the wall, bringing me to eye-level with him. My heart is pounding and my whole body feels alive, more alive than ever, as Sebastian's erection touches my inner thighs. I don't take my eyes off of him, don't stop panting and gasping as he slips off my panties slowly, cautiously, lingering his finger around the space between my legs. Teasing me. I feel myself moan, wanting him to touch me there, but he has other plans.

"Will you let me have you just for tonight, angel?" he asks, his blue eyes so strong, boring into mine. "You're sure?"

"I'm all yours," I whisper, tilting my head back. My back arches as I feel his erection touching my inner thigh. The pressure keeps building up inside of me. I feel the heat and the tingling and the sweat on my skin, and he goes inside of me gently, slowly, and then he's there, and I feel the pressure in my body building and building until all of it is let out in one beautiful, climatic instant. My head goes weak, and I feel the tremors rack through me as Sebastian moves around inside of me and I gasp, I moan, but I don’t let him stop even as my eyes roll back in my head.