Chapter 1
Sebastian
“Are you going to be my New Year’s kiss, little wild?”
Lydia Wilder’s glares could cut through glass, but that didn’t stop me from baiting her.
She was here, within ten feet of me, for the first time in forever, making my heart trip over itself to get to her.
Even on her rare visits home, she did her damnedest to avoid me.
It was impossible to avoid me altogether with how close Luke and I were, but her ignoring game was just as strong.
God. She was as beautiful as always, her silvery hair framing her face, dark makeup making her green eyes shine. I didn’t know what to do with her contempt back in the day, but I’d gotten used to it over the years, even if I never did understand it.
“In your dreams, Devereux,” she shot back.
She wasn’t ignoring me tonight though.
Maybe it was the lively atmosphere of New Year’s Eve or the happiness that permeated the air being at the youngest Wilder’s pop-up wedding with his new wife. But whatever the reason, Lydia had spoken more words to me tonight than she had in the past ten and a half years, and I was here for it.
I shot her my most charming smirk, the one that made my dimple pop and the corners of my eyes crinkle, and stepped toward her.
The clock struck midnight, cheers and shouts ringing out throughout the house in a cacophony of noise.
Everyone around us was coupled up. Reid had his eyes on his bride, Claire.
Wyatt was wrapped up in his fiancée, Maeve.
Luke was trying to suck the face off his soon-to-be baby mama, Scarlett, and wasn’t paying a lick of attention to anything else.
“Just a little peck. Right here.” I tapped my cheek, slowly moving closer and closer into her space. “For old times’ sake.”
Her pearl-gray hair fell into her face. The silky strands slid through my fingers as I pushed them out of the way, tucking them behind her ear.
Shit. The copious amount of alcohol I drank tonight was clearly affecting my ability to think straight or maintain any measure of self-preservation. I had barely gathered enough brainpower to wonder why she was letting me touch her when she wrapped her delicate fingers around my wrist.
Dark green eyes stared unblinking into mine, and I wasn’t smirking anymore. She lowered my hand from her face, and I tried to pull away. I think I did anyway. But maybe not. Maybe the feeling of Lydia Wilder’s skin on mine, even in the smallest way, was too appealing for me to break it.
“I don’t remember any peck on the cheek from our old times.
I guess I just remember it differently,” she said.
Her eyes danced with danger. Warning bells blared through my skull, but when Lydia turned and walked away, tugging me along with her, I silenced those annoying fuckers and went willingly to whatever awaited me.
“You’re about five months too late,” I told her as she swayed her perfect ass in front of me out of the house and across the dirt lawn.
“What?”
“To bury a body at a construction site. That’s what this is, right? But you want to get the body under the concrete. It’s too late now. Everything is already finished.”
She stopped short and turned around to face me. My momentum took a step or two too long to catch up. I swung my arm around Lydia, supporting her as I came crashing into her. I stumbled forward another step but managed to keep us both upright, pressing her tight body into mine.
“You’re about twenty minutes too early, Seb,” she said, righting her feet and pulling away from me. “We still need to get to your place first.”
What. The. Hell. Was. Happening?
Was this some drunk fever dream? Did I have so much that I was currently passed out in Reid’s newly built house somewhere, dreaming of my best friend’s little sister?
It vaguely registered that she’d unlocked a car, moving to get behind the wheel.
“Get in,” she said.
“Are you good to drive?” I knew I sure as fuck wasn’t.
Reid had built a nice, big house for him and his wife.
There were plenty of spare rooms inside that we could hide away in.
That also wouldn’t have me moving to a second undisclosed location with a woman who had barely spoken to me until five minutes ago.
“Would I get behind the wheel if I wasn’t?” she snapped.
There she was. At least I knew the real Lydia was still in there somewhere.
This was far too intriguing to pass up. Or maybe I was just far too turned on. Either way, I got in the car beside her.
The light from the streetlamps shined on her periodically, changing the car’s cabin from dark to light momentarily, before pitching us back into the shadows. Lydia turned left, then right, pulling into the driveway of my two-bedroom bungalow.
“You know where I live?” I raised my brow pointedly, my dimple making its trademark reappearance.
“It’s Calla Bay, Seb. Of course I know where you live.” She got out of the car, and I scrambled to follow her lead as she made her way to the front door. “It’s always important to know where your enemies reside. Keys?”
I shoved the key in the lock, only swaying on my feet a little, and opened the door, gesturing for Lydia to go first. I took my shoes off by habit, fumbling around for the light switch.
“Don’t worry about the lights. We’re not going to need it.” She tugged on my shirt, leading me through my own house.
I was already hard as stone. Afraid to talk. Afraid to ruin whatever this was that was happening. I gripped her by the hips and walked her backward toward my bedroom.
“Should we talk about this?” I asked tentatively. Lydia pushed me down onto the bed, the fire in her eyes borderline concerning. I still wasn’t convinced she wasn’t here to bury me under the floorboards.
“No. Take off your shirt.”
I tried to calm myself down, not flail around like a hormonal teenager—I really did—but I tore my shirt over my head, grabbing from the back of my collar with lightning-fast moves.
Lydia looked me up and down shamelessly.
I knew I was in good shape, and women tended to like the tats that covered most of my skin.
The scrutiny in Lydia’s gaze was harder to decipher.
I reached out and put my hands on her hips.
Her gaze moved to where I was touching her. “Hands on the bed, Sebastian.”
I did as I was told, not liking not touching her but also way too curious to see where this was going to be too broken up about it.
“What about you?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“Lose the shirt, little wild,” I told her, using the nickname I had given her back in the day.
She played with the hem of her shirt for a moment before slowly lifting it up and over her perfect tits. A black utilitarian bra matched the rest of her all-black outfit. She sashayed toward me, and I reached out for her again.
“Uh-uh. Hands on the bed, remember.”
Shit. Her milky skin was so close, but I planted my palms securely on the mattress, leaning back a little to enjoy the view.
She took a step back and then slammed her booted foot onto the mattress right between my legs.
My stomach dropped, and I scooted back on instinct, trying to put more than an inch of space between her boot and my jewels.
She pushed her ass out and leaned in deeply, giving me a close-up view of her perky tits, while she unzipped her boot. She pulled it off and threw it to the floor, moving on to the second one with slightly less aggression.
Without giving a guy any warning, she brushed against my hard-on through my jeans and deftly unbuttoned them one-handed.
A groan pulled from my lungs. I helped her with the zipper until she threw her hands wide and stepped back.
Her face said I was a dumb fucking idiot for not knowing how to follow instructions.
My hands met the mattress again with a growl of frustration.
I lifted off my ass, meeting her eyes in a challenge.
This felt like a power play, and I was certainly not the one in charge. But I also found that I didn’t care.
Lydia shucked off my jeans, leaving me in my briefs.
Her eyes widened at the sight of my cock, still covered but desperately trying to break free.
She schooled her features quickly, back into this sultry indifference that she seemed to have perfected during her time away.
Her black ripped jeans were the next thing to go.
She had a tattoo on her upper inner thigh that I couldn’t make out through my hazy eyes, but it was the nasty bruise on her hip that caught my attention.
It looked new. Now that I had noticed it, I caught another one, faint and yellow, across the left side of her ribs.
When she straddled my lap, sitting just at my knees instead of where I wanted her, I wasn’t thinking about any blemishes on her skin, that was for damn sure. I flexed my hands, gripping the comforter for just a second before forcing myself to relax. Or at least look relaxed.
“You can come closer, you know,” I told her, my voice husky and strained.
“I can do whatever I want. I don’t need your permission.” There was anger, determination, and challenge in her eyes. Was she talking to me? Or was that a message to herself?
“You’re a brat, you know that?”
She leaned in close to my ear, still not scooting that bouncy ass further up my legs so she could sit on my dick. “Oh, I know,” she whispered, the telltale sounds of a smirk on her lips.
Her finger trailed down my chest, circling one nipple before continuing its path lower. My head was foggy with alcohol, with lust, with Lydia. My hips bucked like they wanted my dick to meet her finger partway.
“I want to touch you, Lydia. Let me touch you,” I groaned.
She lifted her gaze to mine. “Well, we don’t always get what we want, do we?”
My brow quirked.
A hurt look crossed her face but was gone so fast I couldn’t be sure. My stomach knotted, the pain in her eyes, even if only for a second, caused a physical ache in me.
She pulled herself along my legs until her pussy was pressing against my painfully swollen cock.
Fuck. Thoughts scattered in my brain. The thin fabric separating us was pure fucking torture.
My mouth sought hers, my hands still firmly planted on the bed behind me.
She ducked her head away from me before I could land a kiss to her sweet lips.
Her hips ground into me, and I had to fist the comforter in my grasp, so I didn’t risk putting my hands on her body.
“I wanted it to mean something to you. Something more than a six-pack of cheap beers and a round of back slaps from your buddies. But no. Sometimes what we want isn’t what we get at all,” she said.
Her soft fingers danced over my abs as she spoke. A weird cocktail of emotions flooded my senses—arousal, confusion, shame.
Lydia lifted herself off me and grabbed her clothes.
“Wait. Lydia,” I called. I tried to reach out to her, but she was just out of reach. “Is this about…” I couldn’t bring myself to finish that sentence. My neurons weren’t firing properly. It was taking me too long to process thoughts. Lydia was already redressed, turning to leave.
“Wait,” I yelled, getting to my feet.
“No,” she said succinctly. She raked her eyes over the bulge in my briefs. “Enjoy… that.” She waved her black-painted nails at my raging hard-on.
I moved to stop her from leaving, blocking the doorway. Fear rounded her eyes, and she sucked in a quick breath, like she thought I was going to hurt her. My heart cracked, and I stepped back to let her pass. She was out the door a minute later without so much as a backward glance.
Fuck.
Was she talking about that night together? Our night together?
I collapsed on the bed, sexually and emotionally frustrated.
Wrapping my hand around my dick could help solve one of those problems, but it wasn’t going to give me any insight into what the fuck Lydia was on about. Honestly, it wasn’t even going to satisfy the basest desire making my blood run hot.
Only sinking myself into Lydia Wilder would solve that particular urge, and she was long fucking gone, leaving me with the worst case of blue balls in my entire life.
I made myself stew in my discomfort. I had a feeling I earned it, but I couldn’t put the pieces together in my inebriated state. I needed to pass the fuck out and hope that I didn’t even remember this in the morning.
Happy fucking New Year to me.