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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. Myopenfront 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.”
SEBASTIAN
Chloe looks so damn tired. It’s obvious that her hair must have been up all day; I can still see the impression of where a band was wrapped around her wavy brunette locks. She swallows thickly, and I swear I can hear the faint sound even from where I am feet away from her. Even with the clamoring from the Higgins kids yelling down the block. With a heavy breath she looks up at me, and I can see she’s biting her tongue in reaction to me telling her I came to chat. She’s done it for years. The questions shine in her doe eyes though. They stare back at me with the well of emotion that runs deep between us.
The bags under her pale blue eyes only make her look that much more beautiful. I don’t know how that’s possible.
Every time she comes to mind, I tell myself I’m picturing her differently than she is. That whatever it is that attracts me to her, plays tricks on my memory and makes me think she’s more gorgeous than she really is.
And every time I’m proven wrong when I see her.
“You going to let me in?” I ask her with a smirk on my lips. One that makes her eyes narrow.
“Seeing as how my door’s already open,” she starts off strong but has to take a heavy breath before she finishes, “why don’t you be my guest?” She gestures and the purse on her shoulder slips down her arm. Although she struggles to grab on to it, she doesn’t take her eyes off mine.
The tension between us is thick, but it’s always been that way. From the second I saw her in tenth grade, until this very moment, there’s something about her that draws me in like a moth to a flame. I know I get to her too, but only one of us can be the fire.
“After you.” I push open her door a little wider and wait for her to pass me. She takes the stairs slowly and then quickly walks by me as if she’s trying to get away from me as fast as she can. It’s not the first time she’s done that and the reaction it sparks in me is the same.
The desire to chase her.
The first time it happened, it didn’t come over me until the school year was almost over, and I knew I wouldn’t get my weekly dose of fantasizing about Chloe Rose from across the lunchroom anymore.
I gave in and went after her, and it only made the sweet, sad girl who stared back at me that much more desirable.
Kicking her front door shut and locking it, I keep my back to her until the light flicks on. I can hear her drop her purse and then continue walking to the back of the hall. She leaves me at the front door in silence, so I have to turn around and face her.
Her house is just like the rest in this area. All the townhouses here are original and were built by the same company that ran the steel mill. They were made for the workers employed by the mill.
Until it shut down, just like the coal mines did, leaving everyone in houses they couldn’t afford, with jobs they didn’t have anymore.
The slate floors have gouges in the corner; my guess is something heavy hit them, and then I remember what happened two years before. The tension I’m feeling evaporates and anger comes flooding back at the reminder. I take a quick look over my shoulder toward the door, but even through the somewhat recent coat of paint, I can see where the wood broke when it was kicked in. The main lock’s been replaced, and there’s an additional one above it.
I wonder if she thinks of that night every time she locks the door. I thought about telling her who did it. Marley was an addict who picked houses at random for items to fence to support his habit. Stealing anything and everything he could was his method. He got his last hit the night he stole from Chloe, leaving fear behind that didn’t stray from her eyes for months.
He got his high and then fell to the bottom of the river where I dumped him.
