30. Stevie
CHAPTER THIRTY
STEVIE
Iwhip my head around to scan the trees from where the sound came. I tell myself it’s most likely an animal moving through the forest. The cemetery and Nevermore are both in a secluded part of the city, but I’ve never felt unsafe out here.
Keeping one finger on the pepper spray that’s become part of my typical art supplies, I return my focus to setting up to take the rubbing.
Another loud crack vibrates through the open woods.
My head jerks backward, and I see it.
The figure of a man dressed in all black standing at the entrance to the cemetery. He’s wearing a balaclava over his face, only exposing his eyes, which I can’t see from this distance.
My blood runs cold.
Oh my god. Is it one of the Society’s members? Has he discovered my true identity?
My shaky hands scramble for my phone, but it isn’t in my pocket.
Then the man takes a couple of slow steps toward me.
And without a second thought, I drop everything and run in the opposite direction.
He’s blocking the entrance where my car is parked, but I know these woods well, and if I run in a large circle around the perimeter, I can loop back to the parking lot from the other side.
In a full sprint, I pant with panic and fear. The force of his rapid footsteps hits the ground behind me. The tree branches whip at my arms as I slice through the dense foliage. But it’s no use.
I hear him coming. His steps get louder and louder as he eats the distance between us.
Maintaining my speed, I fear he’ll catch me before I can make it to the parking lot.
Fuck!
I have to decide whether to give up and fight this guy using the self-defense skills I’ve learned since childhood or try to make it to my car.
Too frightened to glance behind me to see how close he is, I try to keep my eyes focused on the small clearing up ahead. If I have to defend myself, I don’t know what type of weapon he’ll have—and the thought chills my blood.
Where the hell is Sebastian? It’s not his job to save me from a situation I put myself in, but he promised he’d always be there to protect me.
Tears sting the backs of my eyelids as the first drops of rain hit my face. The clouds have moved in, settling a dark blanket over the forest.
The man’s boots slam into the ground, crushing the leaves beneath them.
And at this moment, I realize he’s caught up to me.
Two muscular arms wrap around me from both sides, forcing me to fall backward into a hard chest. I open my mouth to scream, but a hand quickly covers it, muffling my only way to cry for help.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins. Fear is replaced with sheer survival. I’m not going down without a fight.
I kick my feet frantically into the air as he pulls me to the unforgiving ground. A broken stick pokes through the fabric of my sweater, puncturing my skin.
The man climbs on top of me, straddling my legs and holding them together. He keeps one arm above my head and a hand over my mouth. I thrash around in the dirt, my body wriggling wildly.
But then I catch sight of his eyes between the drops of water falling from above. I blink a few times before the realization bowls me over like a wave.
And then the world stops spinning.
Sebastian?
“Sebastian!” I scream into the palm of his hand. He must have heard my mumbles because he releases his hand.
“Sebastian!” My shouts echo through the forest.
With his free hand, he peels off his mask from the bottom and tosses it aside. “I told you not to come out here alone so close to nightfall.”
“What the hell!” I suck in a deep breath, relieved that it’s him. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why did you have to frighten me like that?”
“I told you dangerous people come out at night, Stevie,” he warns, slipping his hand inside my panties, his fingers find the heat between my legs.
“You’re pretty fucking wet, Stevie. Getting chased turns you on, doesn’t it?”
“Fuck off!” I move my body to get away from him, but his weight presses me into the ground, and my heart picks up speed from being called out.
His head dips down to my neck. His lips are soft and wet from the rain, bringing an outbreak of chills through my body.
“I told you not to come out here alone.” Then he bites down, sending a bolt of pain and pleasure up and down my spine.
“I could have outrun you.” I move my free hand under his shirt, gliding it across his warm skin. My body begs to be closer to him, to escape the coolness of nightfall and the nippy rainfall.
“No.” Sebastian’s mouth moves along my jawline. “You couldn’t have.”
We’re both soaked, lying on the ground, but I don’t care.
I let my hand roam downward until I’m able to slip under the front of his waistband and grip his hard length. “Now that you’ve caught me, what are you going to do with me?”
“I’m going to teach you a lesson for leaving my sight. Take off my belt,” he commands.
Wasting no time, I unbuckle his belt and unbutton his pants while he lowers my pants.
“Where were you?” I ask.
He ignores my question, lifts my leg, and shoves himself inside me.
“Fuck, Stevie,” he moans.
The bottom half of my body trembles with the desire to have him deeper.
“Where were you, Sebastian?” My words come out breathy, but I need to know. “You weren’t at the mortuary.”
“I stepped away to check out the area around the mortuary,” he says into my lips. His kiss is rough and desperate. “When I came back and saw your car gone, I lost my shit.”
Sebastian’s hips roll into me faster.
I nip at his lower lip. “You were scared?”
His dark eyes capture mine, sending a flutter from my stomach to my pussy while drops of water fall from the loose piece of hair that’s fallen over his eyebrow. Damn, he’s hot.
“Yes.” His voice strains as if in pain.
My hands come to the sides of his face. “I won’t come here again without telling you.”
“No.”
Thrust.
“You.”
Thrust.
My stomach clenches as my climax peaks.
Thrust.
“Won’t.”
The bottom half of his body stiffens, and his hips roll deeper, becoming erratic.
The trees sway in the wind, and the rain picks up speed.
Shivering from both the cold and increased pleasure, I squeeze my eyelids shut while Sebastian buries himself in my neck.
My arms wrap tightly around him as we ride out our orgasms together.
“Oh god,” I groan, digging my nails into the back of his leather jacket.
“Stevie…” Sebastian’s growl is barely audible over the downpour.
His body stills, but he remains tucked inside me, warm. A puddle is forming on the ground around us, and all I can think about is going back to Thompson Manor and crawling into the safety of his bed.
“Take me home,” I whisper into his ear.
Sebastian’s lips cover my face with kisses. They linger on my skin, as if he’s breathing me in, desperate to consume all of me. “Do not ever come to a place like this alone again. Especially with the Society still out there. Any one of them could recognize us, risking our lives even more.”
“I’m sorry.” My heart is in a vise. “I wasn’t thinking.”
Sebastian gets off me and stands up. He fixes his pants and buckles his belt. The rain is now pouring down. “We’ll drive back in my car. I’ll send one of the guys to pick yours up.”
“Okay.”
He helps me off the ground, then removes his jacket and puts it around me, followed by his arm.
I curl into his chest as we walk the short distance to the parking lot.
His car is parked off to the side. I should have been able to see it when I saw him standing at the entrance, but I was blinded by terror.
“Get in.” He opens the passenger door.
We fucked, and it was sweet yet rough, but I can tell by his demeanor that he’s still pissed off.
As soon as we’re on the road, he calls Hayden to send one of the guys to come get my car. When he ends the call, I take it as an opportunity to find out why he scared me the way he did.
“Are you upset with me for leaving?” I ask.
He’s silent, keeping his eyes trained on the highway.
“Sebastian?”
“Yes, Stevie. I am.” His tone is sharp, making me feel like a scolded child.
“I needed to clear my head, okay?” I cross my arms over my chest. “And I should be upset with you for scaring the shit out of me!”
“Fine. I’m sorry for scaring you, but you had to clear your head there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “This weekend was a lot for me. I wanted to feel…normal for a minute.”
“Normal?”
“Yeah, Sebastian.” I turn toward the window. Drops of water race down the glass. “Everything with you and me…and Larry and Pete.”
His forearms flex as he grips the steering wheel. “I get it about the killings, but what do you mean about us?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stevie.”
I run a hand down my wet face, pushing the strands of sticky hair to the side. “I’m having feelings, and I don’t know what they mean or if they’re real. Or if we’re simply trauma-bonded now?”
Sebastian makes me feel things that are uncomfortable, and I don’t know how to handle it. A level of vulnerability that’s foreign to me. He pushes my boundaries while simultaneously forcing the release of sides of myself I’ve never known before. It’s overpowering.
“Look, Stevie.” His expression slowly turns from confusion to confidence.
“What I…we are doing right now is all I want. Sure, I’m known to be impulsive and act on instinct, but my gut has never steered me wrong before.
” His eyes dart to me, then back to the darkness of the highway.
“I am utterly infatuated with you, Stevie Levinson, and I have no plans on slowing us down anytime soon.”
He pulls into the underground driveway and then puts the car into park. His body turns toward me, and he brings two fingers to my chin, lifting it up to get me to look at him.
“Now I’m going to put you in the shower so you can get warm. Do you understand?”
“Okay,” I say softly.
Sebastian leans over the center console, his lips meeting mine with a soft but deep kiss. My eyes close, enjoying the way he tastes.
He pulls away. “Let’s go.”
We both exit the car, and a few minutes later we walk into his bedroom, his heady scent everywhere. But my mind is still stuck on the X carved into Mr. Hoover’s leg.
“Sebastian?” I say his name before he walks into the bathroom.
He turns around to face me. “Yeah?”
“When I was at the mortuary earlier, Noah, my other mortician, showed me an X carved into a new victim.”
His jaw flexes. “A new victim?”
“Yeah, and he died of an apparent heart attack.”
He runs a hand through his hair, then steps closer to me. “Did the markings look the same as the others?”
“Yes.” I pace for a moment, thinking about which one could have been connected to something that would have been associated with a heart attack, and my mind only goes to the murderous surgeon.
Then Sebastian says exactly what I was thinking. “Could it have been Silas?”
“It had to have happened before wine country because we just got back,” I add.
“Yeah,” he agrees, his voice is distant. Then he collapses his hands behind his neck. “There’s nothing we can do about it now. We’re already working on taking them out.”
He’s right.
“I know,” I say with a heavy heart.
Sebastian senses my sadness and steps into me, gripping my chin with his two fingers.
Tilting my face to his, my eyes meet his dark brown retinas.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now.
So, let’s focus on moving forward and keeping our heads focused on the goal—which is to rid the world of these monsters. ”
I nod slowly. “You’re right. It’s just frustrating.”
“I know.” His empathetic tone is welcoming. “Now, let’s get you into the shower and cleaned off.”
Sebastian releases me gently and walks directly into the bathroom. I immediately hear the shower turn on.
A couple of minutes later, he emerges wearing nothing. “The shower is ready.”
I choke on my own spit. “Thanks.” The sight of his enormous length, semi-hard, and ripped chest full of black ink makes my mouth water.
He smiles when he catches me taking in the sight of him, then saunters toward me with a devilish grin on his face.
He takes both his hands and slips his leather jacket from my shoulders.
His palms drift along the curves of my sides, pulling my sweater up with them.
I shake my hair out while he tosses my top off to the side.
Sebastian’s fingertips move to my collarbone, gliding over the sore bite marks on my neck, then onto my back where they meet at the hooks of my bra.
His touch feels safe. With a single snap, my bra pops off, hitting the floor at our feet.
My breasts hang free. His lips part as his eyes trace both my breasts in wonder before meeting my gaze.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he says reverently.
I fight the emotions building in my throat because I’ve never been looked at like this before.
I pull my lower lip between my teeth, flushed under his adoring gaze.
“Sebastian?” A deep voice comes through the intercom in the corner of the room.
It startles us, cutting the thick tension in the room.
“Sounds like Christian,” he tells me, then steps away, leaving me standing alone and flushed.
Sebastian clears his throat before answering the call. “What’s up?”
“You know how you asked the guys to monitor a few of the Society members for the next couple of days?”
My ears perk up. This must be important. I swiftly grab a robe, then make my way toward where Sebastian’s standing so I don’t miss anything.
“Yeah?”
“They spotted Wendy.”
Sebastian glances back to me, his eyebrows raised at an opportunity falling into our laps. “Where?”
“At a hotel lounge downtown. She’s just got there, but men are coming up to her left and right,” Christian says.
“She’s on the prowl,” I mumble, understanding the way this woman’s mind works.
“We could take her out tonight,” Sebastian tells us.
“Exactly what I was thinking.” Christian clears his throat. “How soon can you guys get downtown?”
“Twenty minutes.” Sebastian runs a hand through my hair, pushing the stray pieces aside. “Text me the address.”
“You got it. I’ll keep the guys on her and let you know if anything changes,” Christian says.
Sebastian flicks off the intercom. “Bad timing.”
I smile. “We have work to do.”
He leans in, kissing my forehead. “We need to get dressed.”
“My clothes are soaked, and the rest of them are still in the East Wing,” I tell him. “I’m going to head back to grab them, then I’ll meet you by the garage elevators.”
He slides on a pair of pants and a T-shirt. Then he grabs a black baseball cap from the closet and puts it on backward.
Fuck. The white shirt and backward hat?
Wait.
I pause at the door. “How are we going to get her alone?”
Sebastian flashes me an uncomfortable look. “I’ll have to make her think I’m interested in her again.”