Chapter 14 #3
Adrenaline zipped through me. I didn’t understand, not at first. Not until the hands gripping my arms loosened and slid over
my shoulders, where he cradled the back of my head. I was so shocked by the intimacy of his touch that I froze, and he stared
down at me with an intensity that felt electric.
“Don’t think,” he whispered again, his face inches from mine.
My heartbeat quickened inside my chest.
His gaze dropped to my lips, and I knew what was coming a second before it happened.
He kissed me.
My body was still frozen in place when his mouth came down on mine. It wasn’t an erotic kiss, or even a tender one. His lips
roughly pressed against my lips as if he were trying to take control or argue his point. And I . . . didn’t kiss back.
Maybe I was in a state of shock. Maybe I was doing the thing he asked me not to do—
Thinking.
Whatever it was, he stopped kissing me and pulled back. Just a little. Centimeters. Our noses grazed. Breath intermingled.
His fingers were in my hair, and it was hard to tell because of all the adrenaline racing through me, but I was almost positive
his hands were shaking a little.
Shaking for me.
Unable to stop myself, I lifted my head and kissed his mouth. Once. Then again. I felt all the rigidity in his hands soften,
and we met in the middle.
Soft lips opened to mine, and a thousand warm tingles rushed over my arms. For a moment, we were out of sync, testing each
other. Then the kiss deepened, open-mouthed and hungry, and his hands slid down my back, pulling me closer. But it wasn’t
enough. I wrapped my arms around him like I had a hundred times, but now my breasts were pressed against his chest, and I
could feel all of him pressing back against me.
All the boundaries we’d maintained over the years crumbled at once.
His tongue stroked inside my mouth, rolling with mine, and his hands were everywhere, running up my back, caressing my hips, leaving a trail of fire.
Warmth flooded the center of me as a joyous vertigo spread.
And before I realized what was happening, my knees buckled and bent like they were wet noodles.
For one dizzy moment, I felt like I was slipping off the side of the building again.
This . . . was a real thing? The kiss so good that it buckles your knees?
This was actually happening to me?
My God.
“Whoa,” Seb murmured as I broke the kiss with my wobbling. He tightened an arm around my back and held me up.
“S-shit,” I slurred, sounding like an old-timey TV drunkard. “My ankle?”
It was not my bad ankle. It was all my hormones conspiring against me to get me horizonal so that Seb could have his way with me. Or
maybe so that I could have my way with him. Either way, my body wanted Seb’s.
Quite a bit, actually.
But Seb clearly knew this, indicated by the low chuckle that reverberated through his chest into mine. That chuckle sounded
like power—like he knew every last thing my body wanted, even if I didn’t. Like he’d won some kind of victory.
Stupid, stupid body.
His shorts buzzed, and we both took a rapid step back, putting distance between us. Seb finally let me go when he fished out
his phone, cussing the flashlight function, which was still on. When he managed to shut it off, I saw the text that had come
through, from Benny:
Get outside now bad news
“Bad news,” I said, still extremely turned on and not precisely stable on my feet. I didn’t want to deal with any news, good
or bad. I’d just had one of the best kisses in my life with someone I probably shouldn’t be kissing but was not sorry about
it whatsoever.
I mean, come on, universe. Could I not relish one single moment of euphoria?
But the moment Seb clicked off his phone, we both heard it.
A shouting match, outside the brewery. Seb hesitantly leaned over the wall where I’d nearly slipped earlier, and whatever
he spotted on the sidewalk below, it wasn’t good.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “He came after Jaz again? I’ll fucking kill him.”
That sobered me up pretty fast. “What?”
“Come on!”
I wiped the wet kiss off my lips as we struggled to clear the hurdle of the machinery, as if we both had concussions and forgot
how to move right. Seb repeated “Jesus fucking Christ” over and over. But we finally managed it and raced toward the roof
hatch.
“What’s going on down there?” I asked.
“That’s a porch-swing conversation. No time to explain, just hurry.”
Ah, the sacred porch-swing conversation. That’s what Nana called a serious talk—you did it out on the porch swing, where the
lake air could keep your head clear. I chuckled internally at Seb’s reference as we descended the rickety ladder into Mabel’s
office, but any humor I felt was fleeting. I was too worried about Jazmine to hold anything else in my head.
When we raced down the main stairs, I realized that the taproom had closed—no customers, lights dimmed—and spotted a group of servers gawking through the front window, headed by the beer sommelier. His head turned when we jogged across the taproom floor, and I could tell he was pissed.
“Hey!” he called out. “Your buddies are causing a scene. If they don’t break it up, we’re calling the cops. I don’t want to,
for Benny’s sake, but I can tell you this much. Tonight was the last time I do anyone any favors.”
Seb snorted and pushed past the servers. “Well, there goes your Yelp review. I swear, no one cares about service these days
. . .”
He shouted for someone to unlock the door, and when they did, we rushed outside.
And stopped short.
A small crowd had gathered on the sidewalk in front of the brewery, near a black Jeep with a padded roll bar and a custom
paint job on the hood that depicted anguished skeletons crawling out of the ground. The DIY monster truck was crookedly parked
across a couple spaces, its natural height boosted by giant tires.
I knew that Jeep. The owner was none other than Pretty Paul Vanderburg.
He was in the middle of a shouting match that was occurring between Benny, a stranger in the crowd, and Jazmine.
Oddly enough, Lulu stood a few feet away, arms crossed, with a funny look on her face. “Shrewd” is what I would’ve called
that look on anyone else, but this was silly little Lulu. I wondered what that was all about.
“There he is,” Paul called out when he spotted Seb.
“My former brother-in-arms, come to rescue the damsel again. Looks to me like your eye has barely recovered from the last time we tangled. You sure you wanna come back for more? What, you and Benito going to gang up on me? Try to strengthen your odds?”
“No, Seb,” Jazmine warned.
Seb pointed at Paul. “Touch her and you’re dead, motherfucker.”
“No, Seb!” she pleaded again.
My pulse swished in my temples, adrenaline spiking. I absolutely didn’t want Seb fighting. It was juvenile and dumb, and even
though Seb was nothing but lean muscle, Paul was built like a brick shithouse. He’d fought boxing matches for money in Detroit.
He could very well put Seb in the hospital.
“Let her go, you piece of shit,” Benny warned, stepping up to Paul.
“STOP,” Jazmine shouted, pushing her way between them. “No one is fighting tonight.”
“Wrong,” Seb said, stalking toward them.
I tried to grab his arm but missed.
Jazmine physically pushed Benny away with her good arm. “I said, stop it! Did I ask for your help? No, I fucking didn’t!”
Benny stopped in his tracks, blinking at Jazmine with a stunned look on his face.
“See? The lady wants you to back the hell up,” Paul said. “No one’s holding anyone hostage, so stop yappin’ that bullshit.
I just want to talk with her, like I said.”
Jazmine held up a firm hand to Seb. “Stop. I mean it.”
“What the hell is going on?” I said, coming up behind Seb.
Paul’s attention flicked to me. “Oh look, it’s the Ivy League bitch, blessing us with her presence.”
Now Jazmine shoved Paul. “Say it again and there won’t be any more talks between us. Ever.”
He held up both hands in surrender.
“Jaz,” I begged.
Eyes filled with guilt and shame met mine, and that made me feel awful.
“I need everyone to back off,” Jazmine said. “Please. I’m going to leave with Paul now—just to talk. And I don’t want any
of you following me.”
“See?” Paul said. “The lady doesn’t need rescuing.”
“Shut the hell up,” she angrily told him. “I’ll go with you to talk, but only on my terms. I need a moment, Paul.”
“Fine by me,” he said, victory twinkling in his eyes. “I’ll be in the car.”
Paul strolled to the curb, speaking briefly to Benny and Seb as he passed. “Gentlemen. Nice to see you, as always.”
“Swear to God,” Seb started, but Jazmine grunted at him, and he shut his mouth.
She pushed past the boys and pulled me to the side. “I’m just going to talk, okay?”
I didn’t want to judge her, not after everything she’d already told me, so I ignored the feeling of betrayal that was pricking
at my heart and tried to remain neutral. “You’re really going somewhere with him? Is it safe?” I whispered hotly, afraid that
she might be in danger.
“It’s safe, I promise,” she whispered back. “We’re going to park at the marina and talk. That’s it. When we’re done, I’ll
text you to let you know I’m okay, like we did in the old days. We’ll talk later. I swear, okay?”
She quickly gave me a one-armed hug and kissed the side of my head, then, just like that, she was jogging off to jump in the passenger seat of Paul’s ugly Jeep.
Seb jogged over to Paul, and as anxiety swelled inside me, the two of them exchanged sharp words through Paul’s open window.
I heard Jazmine’s voice join in, but I couldn’t make out any of it.
Seb finally held up his hands, surrendering to whatever she’d said, and backed away from them.
We all watched in various states of horror as the engine roared, and Jazmine rode away into the night with the devil of Haven
Beach.
“What the actual fuck . . . ?” I said while the crowd dispersed.
Seb looked utterly defeated as he returned to me, but I needed to know.
“Is she safe, Seb? Or do we need to rescue her?”
Sad blue eyes looked at me. Then he nodded and dropped his gaze. “She’s safe.”
I let out a breath. His assurance didn’t stop me worrying, but it did stop me from outright panicking.
Benny clasped his hands atop his head, pacing in a circle briefly before glancing at us. “Tell me you guys at least found
something back in there?”
I shook my head. And if he was asking, that meant they hadn’t found anything, either.
“Dammit!” Benny kicked the curb in frustration, shaking off Lulu’s hand from his arm.
I didn’t know what to say. The night was a bust. No new treasure clue. And Jazmine was off “talking” with the worst human
being to set foot in our town.
Then there was just the small matter of me kissing Seb on the roof.
Minutes ago, confetti was exploding inside my chest, but now everything felt like a terrible mistake.
Seb said something to Benny in a low voice, and the two of them talked for a moment, but I didn’t hear any of it. Benny just
nodded, and they exchanged low-energy shoulder claps before Seb glanced at the brewery window on his way back to me.
“Let’s go before the brewery calls the cops,” he said. “And maybe you and I should talk about Jazmine. Porch-swing time.”