Smolder (Georgia Smoke #6)

• Twenty-Six •

Leave it to me to go and catch feelings for a man in the freaking Mafia.

Royal

How long had he planned this? It couldn’t have been a last-minute decision.

The pale pink satin pajama shorts and matching camisole, along with a pair of lacy white panties, which I had found folded up on the bed when I came upstairs, told me he had been prepared. Unless he’d brought other women here and they were my exact same size. Even knowing he’d lied to me about who he was and that he’d basically abducted me, I didn’t like the idea of him buying this for some other female.

What did that say about me or my mental health?

The bedroom with a connected bathroom were the only rooms in the loft area. In the bathroom, fluffy, large white towels had been rolled up neatly and placed in a tall basket near the shower and bathtub. Expensive-smelling body wash, shampoo, and conditioner were already in the shower when I took one. The lock on the bathroom door gave me a little peace so I could attempt to relax while standing under the hot spray.

I doubted he’d allow me to sleep on the sofa. He’d do it instead and give me the bed. But if I was going to escape this house and find a way back to Athens and Grams, he couldn’t be so close to the door. If he would just tell me where we were, that would help.

Not having a phone was an even bigger obstacle. I could get lost out there. Starve to death. Staying here while knowing nothing about my Grams or dad wasn’t an option.

My dad had decided to leave us. Fine. Maybe I wouldn’t check on him. But Grams needed me. There were bills to pay. Our house couldn’t just sit there, empty.

There were papers I owed people. They’d realize I was missing.

Anya would start getting concerned when I didn’t answer my phone. In fact, by this time tomorrow, she would go to the police. Rodney would wonder why I hadn’t come into the pool hall. Milo would notice when I didn’t respond to his texts about games. If I found some civilization, then I could ask for a police station. They’d have been alerted that I was a missing person.

When I stepped out of the bathroom, dressed in the satin pajamas, the smell of food met me. He was cooking. The kitchen was stocked then. Just like the bathroom had been. Maybe there were protein bars or nuts I could put in a bag and take with me. Or maybe I could find where he’d put the keys to the Hummer. It would wake him when I started it up, but he would be on foot, and I could get ahead of him easily enough.

Leaving him stranded out here bothered me though. I knew it shouldn’t. He’d done this to me. This had been his decision. He’d find a way to get out. It wasn’t as if I’d be leaving him here to die. Besides, from the smell of basil, oregano, and garlic, it seemed he had plenty of supplies to keep himself fed.

With my mind made up, I headed down the spiral staircase. Sharing a bed with him, even for a little while, would be a struggle. It wasn’t that I couldn’t control myself because, after today’s truths, having sex with him again wasn’t happening.

Now, would I be taunted by the memory of it? Yes. That had been a level of nirvana—

NO! Not thinking about it.

What I’d experienced was with Amory. The guy who didn’t exist. The one I’d trusted.

Sebastian Shephard was someone else.

His back was to me as he opened the oven and pulled out a pan of sliced French bread with melted butter. A pan of lasagna sat on the counter, and a glass bowl, filled with a salad, was beside it. My stomach rumbled. It seemed I was hungry. Eating had been the last thing on my mind until I walked down here to see this.

When I reached the bottom, Sebastian set the bread beside the other two items and lifted his eyes to meet mine. His gaze slowly made its way down my body, and I wished I could stop the tingle that spread through me and the flutter in my stomach. But he was beautiful and sexy, and he’d given me the best sex I’d ever had in my life.

He was also my abductor, and he did other things. I wasn’t sure what exactly. Drugs didn’t seem like something he was involved in, but he had no issue with killing a person. Organized crime was still crime.

What did the Mafia in Georgia actually do? And why hadn’t I known there was a Mafia in Georgia?

“Did you enjoy your shower? Find everything you need?” he asked, turning around to take plates from the cabinet. He seemed to know where everything was located.

“Yes. It’s well stocked. Do you kidnap girls and bring them here often?” I asked airily, as if making idle conversation.

Sebastian’s mouth did that cocky grin that also caused his eyes to twinkle. “No. You’re the first female I wanted to kidnap.”

That look and the sound of his voice when he said it made my nipples harden. Dammit. I should have worn a bra with this. I’d been thinking about escaping, not what I was wearing.

“I suppose you don’t have to kidnap your females. They all just run to you. Throwing themselves at your feet.”

Although I was being sarcastic, the image irked me. How often did women throw themselves at him? How many had he given an orgasm to, like he had with me?

“I don’t know about women throwing themselves at my feet, but, no, I can’t say I’ve ever struggled to get a female’s attention if I wanted it.”

Including me , I thought sourly.

“Hungry? I didn’t make the lasagna, but I did cook it. Hopefully, it tastes as good as it smells.”

Not anymore. Talking about other women had taken my appetite. I was annoyed with myself. I wanted to just shut it off. Feel nothing for him. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. I’d had sex with him, but I couldn’t even blame it on that. He’d gotten to me before. Then, he’d snatched the rug out from under me.

“Are you hiding a chef in the basement?” I asked.

He chuckled. “I had several meals prepared and delivered with the other things.”

“Seems very thorough and thought out,” I replied, walking over to the table made for only two people.

“I wanted you to be comfortable.”

It had been a waste of time and resources because I was leaving tonight. He’d have all the comfortable necessities to himself.

There was a pang in my chest. Part of me didn’t want to leave him. I wanted to stay. See if the man I thought he was actually existed. But I’d already been stupid and naive with him. I couldn’t do that again.

“Are you going to tell me where we are? That would help. It’s not comforting to have no idea what state you’re even in.” If I had that information, it would help.

Sebastian took a plate that he’d filled and walked around the counter toward me. I tore my gaze off him, not wanting to admire the way he moved or how his jeans fit him. How the muscles in his arms flexed. Nope. Not thinking about it.

He stopped close to me. Too close. “Have a seat,” he said gently as he put the plate on the table and pulled out a chair.

God, why did he have to smell so good?

I kept my eyes averted as I took the chair from him and sat down. The food once again made my stomach rumble. It had been a while since I’d had anything to eat, and this did look good.

Sebastian’s fingers brushed my shoulder as he pulled back my still-slightly-damp locks back. I tensed and held my breath as he traced the neckline of my camisole.

“I know you’re angry. But don’t hate me. I couldn’t take it if you hated me.”

The pained sound in his tone was difficult to hear. I wanted to believe he was sincere. I wanted to believe a lot of things. But I’d trusted him too easily once already.

“I don’t hate you,” I replied. That was the truth. I didn’t, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to. What I felt for him was in the opposite direction and not at all safe or healthy for me.

His touch left me, and I sucked in some much-needed oxygen as he walked back to the bar. Closing my eyes, I gave myself a mental lecture about letting my silly emotions get the best of me. Grams needed me. I wasn’t going to just leave her there, no matter how nice that place was. She’d think I’d abandoned her.

Then, of course, I had to remember Sebastian was dangerous. Beautiful but dark. Those brief glimpses of that sinister side of him lurking just under the surface, I’d seen. It wasn’t in my imagination. He was trying to hide it from me, but when we’d had sex, it had been there staring at me through those eyes of his. He’d been unable to mask the marks on his soul. The things he’d seen and done hadn’t left him unscathed. They’d become a part of him. I could never trust that.

But he stopped hurting your dad when you begged him to.

I closed my eyes and pushed that away. Even my subconscious was trying to make excuses for him.

I heard his footsteps and opened my eyes back up to pick up my fork. He put his plate down, then took the seat across from me. It was an odd thing—to have so many different emotions clamoring for the top spot. Especially when I seemed to have no control over any of them.

Fear, anxiety, arousal, regret … so many that to name them would take a focus I didn’t have.

“You have to put it in your mouth to eat it,” he said. “Staring at it does nothing.”

He was teasing me. Trying to lighten the mood. Nothing could do that, but I used my fork to cut a piece of the lasagna, then lifted it to my mouth. I knew he was watching me, but I didn’t look at him. If I let myself think too hard about what I was going to do, I’d find a reason not to. Simply because the part of me that wanted this man was fighting for its choice to be heard.

The decision wasn’t up for debate.

Since he’d cooked, I insisted that he let me clean and suggested he go take a shower. With him in the shower, I could find his keys so I wasn’t searching for them in the middle of the night. The faster I got out the door, the more likely I’d successfully escape.

The moment I heard the water running, I left the task of loading the dishwasher to start looking. I went to the sofa and lifted the cushions, then in and around the table beside the front door.

The coat he’d put on me when I stepped off the plane was my third place to search. The right-side pocket held the key fob. Sighing in relief, I left it there and went back to the kitchen. I knew where it was. All that was left was for me to wait. When he was sound asleep, I’d make my move.

By the time I was wiping down the counter, the water upstairs shut off. He was done. We hadn’t discussed sleeping arrangements. It would be easier if I could sleep down here, but that wasn’t going to happen. Sebastian wouldn’t allow it.

I wouldn’t be in bed with him for long. Besides, with him on one side and me on the other, I doubted we’d even touch. No contact would make it easier. When I reached the top step, I glanced over to see he’d left the bathroom door open.

He stood in front of the sink with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. The loose curls that gave him that sexy, messy look were wet, leaving a few ringlets near his neckline. A tattoo was on his back left shoulder that I’d not seen before, but then I had always seen his front when he was shirtless. I tried to make it out, but from here, I couldn’t tell what it was exactly.

Just as I narrowed my eyes to study it closer, he turned around, and I snapped my gaze up to his face, feeling as if I’d been caught doing something naughty. Perhaps I had been. The sight of that man, damp and bare, was impossible to look away from.

“Please, don’t let me stop you. Look all you want.”

Cocky jerk . I rolled my eyes. “I was simply trying to make out what your tattoo was. I hadn’t noticed it before.”

He walked out of the bathroom, still only wearing the towel. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go tug at it so that it fell to the ground or back away and put distance between us. I stayed where I was, not taking my eyes off him. He didn’t come toward me, but rather over to a chest with three drawers. Opening the top one, he took out a pair of navy-blue pajama pants and then swung his gaze back to me.

The towel dropped to the floor, and I sucked in a breath. Yes, his body was even more magnificent than I remembered. Snapping my eyes closed, I spun around as my face grew warm.

“You could have warned me,” I said with annoyance that was mostly aimed at me for wanting to keep looking.

“You’ve had my cock in your mouth. You can’t get any closer view than that.”

“That was before!” I shot back at him.

“Before …” He said the word as if he needed me to elaborate when he knew good and well what I meant.

“Before you kidnapped me, and I knew you were a liar.”

His hand touched my waist, and I jumped, startled.

“Come on, Ace. I’ve admitted all my lies.” His voice was husky and entirely too close to my ear.

“That doesn’t matter. I didn’t come here of my own free will, and you’re keeping me here.”

He moved his hand up my side and under the hem of my top. I reached up and grabbed his wrist, pulling it back down just before he reached my breast. I was struggling to breathe, and my heart was racing, but I still had my wits.

“Don’t. We can share a bed, but don’t,” I told him.

I expected him to argue, but he didn’t. Instead, he dropped his hand. I should be feeling relief, not disappointment.

“Whatever you want,” he replied. The gentleness in his tone didn’t make this easier. If he’d acted angry or demanding, perhaps I could fight off my attraction to him.

I turned to see him walking over to the bed.

“Do you have a preference on the side you sleep on?” he asked me as he pulled back the covers on the left side.

My gaze was back on his tattoo as it shifted with his movement. From here, it looked like a shattered clock. The shadows made it appear sinister, which seemed strange for what it was. There were pieces of glass scattered around it.

“If you want to see it up close, I won’t bite,” he said.

I swung my eyes back up to meet his. He wasn’t mocking me, nor was he smirking at having caught me ogling him again.

“Is it a broken clock?” I asked, still unsure if that was what I was seeing.

He nodded. “It is.”

I was intrigued.

“What does it mean?”

It had to symbolize something. One didn’t randomly choose a shattered clock with broken glass for a tattoo.

“It was a reminder at the time that I got it, but over the years, it changed. Became something else. I’m not the same man I was when I had it done.”

That didn’t answer my question, and while I should be mentally planning my escape, I was fascinated with his tattoo.

“So, what did it mean then, and what does it mean now?” I prodded, wanting to understand him. The part of me that wanted to strip naked and crawl in that bed with him needed some validation, although the answer to my questions could be another reason for me to run out that door the moment I had a chance.

“When I got it, I thought I was in love. I’d proposed to her, and she said no. This was my reminder that time didn’t change our fate, and I had no control over it.”

He’d been in love once. I wished I hadn’t known that. Why had I asked? It felt like someone had reached into my chest and was squeezing my lungs. That shouldn’t hurt so much. This man was not for me.

“And now?” My voice cracked slightly, and I winced.

“That you can achieve too much and not really achieve anything of worth. Not to be a fool and an overachiever.”

Did that mean he didn’t love her now? Was it someone in his youth? He’d proposed, it was unlikely she was his first love or a teenage romance. He was only twenty-nine now. How long ago could it have been? Not long enough. Was he waiting on her still?

I cleared my throat and stood straighter. I would not let him see that I cared about this woman he’d loved so much that he wanted to marry her and got a shattered clock on his body permanently because of her rejection.

“Seems an odd thing to put on yourself. I don’t see how a shattered clock represents either of those things.” My tone was snarky, and I knew it.

I was jealous. Plain and simple.

I was running away from this man, but clearly, I cared about who his heart had belonged to.

“You’ve never read The Great Gatsby , I take it?” he replied as I reached the right side of the bed to jerk back the covers with more force than necessary.

“Of course I’ve read The Great Gatsby ,” I replied sharply.

Then, I paused and let that sink in. The broken clock. My heart felt heavy now, and my throat tightened. Did he mean to tell me that he had loved some woman the way Jay Gatsby did Daisy? That was hard to hear. I should have kept my mouth shut.

“I see,” I said tightly, climbing into the bed with my back to him.

I pulled the covers up to my chin and stared at the wall. Sebastian had a Daisy in his life. I’d never stood a chance. No woman could replace a Daisy. God, what was wrong with me? I was about to freaking cry over someone I had already decided I had to get away from. Someone I couldn’t trust.

I felt the weight of the bed shift as he sat down on the other side.

What kind of woman had had his love and not wanted it? Had she known about his life and not been able to accept it either? Had he lost her because he was in the Mafia? It was the only thing I could think of that would make any female tell him no. Had he gotten down on one knee? Told her he loved her? That he couldn’t live without her?

I placed a hand on my chest and took a steady breath. Whew, this was not pleasant at all. I didn’t like it or how it felt. Jealousy had never been an emotion I was familiar with, but I realized it was a powerful one. Sheer envy for some woman I had never met was eating at me.

“Is she married?” I blurted out when I thought about Daisy Buchanan.

For him to have paralleled their story so much that he tattooed the clock on his body, then how similar were they?

“Who?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes, still looking at the wall. “The woman you are in love with. Daisy was married.”

He chuckled. “You’re taking that too literally, and, yes, she is married now. She wasn’t at the time. If I were still in love with Wilder’s wife, he’d put a bullet between my eyes. Family or no family, he’d not think twice.”

Who was Wilder? Had she married his brother?

Unable to help myself, I turned over and looked at him. “She married your family? Is Wilder your brother?” I asked, horrified.

Sebastian appeared amused for someone whose family had married the woman he’d loved. Why I suddenly went from envying her to hating her, I had no explanation for, but honestly, she sounded like a bitch.

“No, Wilder is not my brother. He is in the family though. The Mafia in the South is also called the family. His grandfather joined the family in the ’50s. Mine, however, goes back to the beginning, over a hundred years ago.”

So, she’d married another Mafia member. Then that wasn’t the reason she’d rejected his proposal.

“How do you handle that?” I asked, finding myself worried about his feelings. “Seeing her with him. Do you even speak to him?”

Sebastian chuckled, but I didn’t understand why he was finding humor in this.

“Ace,” he said, reaching out and tucking some loose hair behind my ear, “it was years ago, and in Wilder’s defense, he loved her first. She loved him, and she never stopped. What I felt for Oakley wasn’t love. It was respect and affection, but not love. When she turned me down, I didn’t fall apart. I moved on rather quickly, not once looking back. This tattoo isn’t me mirroring Jay Gatsby. I love books, significant words that I read on paper. That clock he broke meant something different to me back then than it does now. Everyone has their own interpretation of a story. It’s not literal. I don’t have a Daisy. I never did.”

He loved books. Why did that reminder make it even harder for me to paint him in a villainous light? It shouldn’t. He had lied to me and abducted me. His reasons why didn’t matter. He’d still done it.

I turned back over to face the wall. “Good night,” I told him, wanting to get on with my plan.

The longer I had to think about it, the more I feared I would change my mind. I had to be smarter than that. Even if it was now clear to me that my feelings for Sebastian were much stronger than I’d realized.

Leave it to me to go and catch feelings for a man in the freaking Mafia.