Just a Heartbeat Away

by Cara Bastone

  She pushed herself back, one hand on either side of his head, and saw the bite mark that she’d left. It was small but deep, feral and territorial. This was her man who was fucking her brains out on his living room floor.

  “No one else,” she told him. She was shocked at the words that she would never have said to anyone else in a million years. But if he was shocked, he didn’t show it.

  He merely locked eyes with her and nodded, his lips pulled back to show his teeth. Via pressed her palm to the bite mark, and Seb pressed his hand over hers. Together they sealed in her claim on him.

  His other hand dropped to her clit, and Seb made sweet, lazy, little circles that completely belied the possessive, vicious strokes of him inside of her.

  She said it again. “This is it for me. No one else.”

  With that, he was rearing up and pulling out of her. Via gasped at the loss of him but it didn’t last long. He set her on her hands and knees and was suddenly behind her. She’d never loved this position before, but with Sebastian, she was leaning back into him, spreading herself as wide as she could. She wanted him to have everything.

  He stroked into her, solid and confident, before he fell over her, bracing his hands over hers and placing his mouth at her ear. “Ever,” he told her. “No one else, ever.”

  A sound left her, wild and weak and as bright as the light of a sparkler. “Yes.”

  He humped into her from behind, every stroke sending them a few inches forward. The carpet burned her knees and the heels of her hands, but she loved it. Everything, even the air against her breasts, was filled with charge. Hot and delicious. When his fingers found her clit again, Via flexed every muscle. She didn’t care about what looked cute or being ladylike. She simply made her hands into fists, threw her head back and bore down on him fully. She was dimly aware of his teeth at her neck for just a second.

  But then the entire world was ash white and full sensation, there was nothing but bright, high-speed cloud rushing into her from every angle. She was disintegrating and shrinking at the same second. Her body wanted to contract into nothing but was stopped by the heavy, pulsing intruder between her legs. All she could do was contract around him, so hard she felt dizzy.

  She could hear Sebastian’s voice in her ear but couldn’t tell one word from the next. All she could feel was the pounding of his heart at her back, the relentless pump of him inside her. The orgasm finally released its delicious claws from her, and her elbows wobbled, her vision going fuzzy as he pulled out of her. She heard him grunt, felt him at the small of her back. She felt his hand press his wet hardness against her, and he gave one, two more pumps before hot silk spread over her back. She clenched once more, this time around nothing, and let his weight push both of them to the ground.

  His stickiness was between them, his chest to her back and suddenly, they were both laughing their fool heads off.

  “Sorry. Probably should have asked before I did that. You all right?”

  “Are you kidding?” she asked, her cheek against the carpet and the whole of her body just sandwiched under his weight. “That was the hottest moment of my life. But now I need a shower, and I definitely need those pancakes.”

  Seb pulled them up off the ground. “I manhandle you a lot,” he noted as he tugged her toward the bathroom.

  “I wish I could return the favor. Pick you up and toss you around and show you how fun it is.”

  “Maybe in a pool or the ocean.”

  “Coney Island this summer.”

  He stopped halfway through turning the shower on. “Yeah. Wow. We’re gonna do summer stuff together. The three of us.”

  “Hell yeah.” She stepped into the spray and winced when it was too hot; she leaned down to adjust the handles. “We’re gonna do all the stuff.”

  * * *

  THEY ATE PANCAKES that night, smelling like Sebastian’s soap and sitting on the kitchen floor. The next morning, they woke up in a tight knot of each other’s limbs and stayed in bed until they absolutely had to get up. He drove her home, watched from her bed while she changed her clothes, and then took her to school for professional development.

  He picked her up from work, too. They spent the night at her house, and Seb was so wildly taken with her bedroom. He just loved it. Her full-size bed that was way too small for him, her delicate white comforter and the fussy, colorful lamps. He loved the artwork she’d chosen—bright watercolor portraits—and the scent of her everywhere.

  He took her to school and back the next day, too. When they woke up in his bed on Thanksgiving, it was with just the slightest air of melancholy. He’d go back to White Plains that day. Sebastian couldn’t wait until he got Matty and Via in the same place again. Because even now, with Via laid across his chest, his heart was in two places at once. Even with all the FaceTime calls, it had been too many days since he’d seen his son. But that didn’t make leaving Via any easier.

  “We’ll be back tomorrow,” he decided on the spot, cruising a hand up and down her smooth back.

  “But you’re supposed to stay until Sunday!”

  “Doesn’t matter. Matty and Crabby and I will be back tomorrow. I wish you could come with me today.”

  They’d talked about it, spending Thanksgiving together. But in the end, decided that Matty and Cora’s parents probably needed a bit more time to adjust to a new reality with Via in it. A holiday was too high pressure. And besides, she had traditions with Fin to uphold.

  “Me, too. But this way is good, too.” A sudden shyness crept into her expression. “Do you wanna get together tomorrow?”

  He laughed at her question. “Violetta, yes. Why do you think I’m coming home early?” A thought occurred to him. “Can we come see you right when we get home? I think I’ll explain everything to Matty on the way home and then he’s probably gonna wanna talk to you about it.”

  “Of course.” She snuggled into him. “I’ll be free all day. And I’ll have Thanksgiving leftovers.”

  She played with his chest hair for a minute. Enough to make him squirm a little. Gathering her courage, she finally asked, “Maybe this weekend you could bring my furniture over?”

  “Your furniture?” he asked, leaning back to look in her eyes. “I thought you weren’t accepting it?”

  “Well, if you’re still offering it, I really want it.”

  “I’m still offering.”

  * * *

  SEBASTIAN CALLED TYLER from the road on his way back to White Plains.

  “Lemme guess,” Ty said, without even the courtesy of a salutation. “You’re calling from some tacky chapel in Vegas.”

  Seb rolled his eyes and laughed as he merged onto the highway, talking through speakerphone. “And rob you of the joy of wearing a tux and making a best man speech? Never.”

  There was a weighted pause. “Wait. You didn’t actually propose, did you?”

  Seb laughed harder. “Jesus, Tyler, we’ve only been dating for like two weeks. No. I haven’t proposed.”

  “I mean, don’t get me wrong. I like Via, a lot. But damn, you almost stopped my heart.”

  “I rushed things my first time around,” Seb said carefully. “And I’m not beating myself up over it or anything. But yeah. No. Slow and steady, that’s more my and Via’s style. Gotta make sure Via has her feet under her before we move forward too much. Gotta make sure Matty has his footing, too, you know?”

  “You sound different, dude,” Tyler said. “Younger. Kinda like the old you.”

  “Hmm.” It would be ironic, he supposed, if after all that worrying about their age difference, actually being in a relationship with Via was what helped strip away some of the worn-out weariness from Seb’s shoulders. “I feel good.”

  “A sex marathon with a pretty girl will do that for ya.”

  “Apparently.”

  Seb waited for another joke from his friend. But there wa
s just a long pause, heavy with some emotion he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “I’m happy for you, Sebastian. This whole thing, you deserve it. You really do.”

  “Ty—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. Gimme a call when you’re back in town. I’ll come over. Your girlfriend can make us brunch.”

  When they hung up a few moments later, Sebastian couldn’t quite decide exactly which aspect of his life was filling his gut with champagne, making him want to laugh like a maniac, put the windows down in the flurrying snow. He also decided it didn’t matter.

  This was his life. His. He wasn’t acting a part. He wasn’t pretending. He wasn’t watching the world move on all around him. He was living.

  The next day, Via opened her door to Seb, Matty and Crabby. Matty’s fingers were a brilliant red from his refusal to wear mittens, and she couldn’t help but kneel down and squash them between her warm hands. “You look like a popsicle,” she told him.

  Matty laughed. “There’s snow outside!”

  “I saw. It’s been snowing all morning. I was worried about you guys driving in it.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Seb said, kicking his shoes off and making eyes at Matty to do the same. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

  “Excellent. And yours?”

  Via rose up, and he bent down and gave her a perfect kiss. Fresh from the cold weather and warm with affection. After helping towel the snow off of Crabby’s feet, she led the Dorners into her kitchen, where she had some snacks laid out. It was a few minutes later that Matty leaned across the table and started playing with the gold thumb ring she wore.

  “Via,” Matty asked, twirling the ring, “Dad says that you’re in love with each other.”

  Her eyes snapped up to Seb’s. He froze for a second. He’d referred to love between them a few times. But the phrase in love fell between them like a sack of potatoes.

  Seb broke the tension by shrugging his shoulders like, duh. Via couldn’t help but smile.

  “Yup,” she told Matty, but her eyes were on Seb. She watched him absorb the impact of her words. I love you.

  “Okay.”

  He was quiet for a minute, still fiddling with her ring. “Matty, do you have more questions? Seems like you do?”

  “Well...” He shrugged. “Are you in love with me, too?”

  Her breath caught as her entire world zoomed in on the little person in front of her, a blush on his cheeks and that mercurial brown hair looking almost blond in the sunlight. She could feel his legs kicking under the table like he was super nervous. There was nothing else except for Matty in that moment. Even Seb was blurred away. “Matty, I love you very much. You’re very easy to love.”

  His eyes slipped up to hers for a second and then drifted away. “Okay.” Then he turned to his dad, a small smile on his face and his little fist in the air. “Knuckles, Daddy.”

  * * *

  IT WAS A few weeks before he said it back to her. The three of them were watching a movie a few days before Christmas. Matty was stretched out across them, his cheek on Via’s leg. Almost asleep toward the end of the boring Christmas movie, Matty rolled over and reached up to touch the ends of Via’s hair.

  “Love you,” he mumbled right before he buried his face in her stomach and fluttered off to sleep.

  Seb had tears in his eyes when she turned to him, joy rising within her like a geyser. It was a feeling she’d become very familiar with in the weeks since Thanksgiving. Maybe she wasn’t the most thrilling twenty-eight-year-old in the world, but her preferred lifestyle fit with Seb and Matty’s almost flawlessly. Lots of home-cooking and chilly afternoons at the playground. She’d introduced them to the rustic joys of the Cobble Hill theater over the big movieplex down the street and the three of them had been back to see three movies together, Matty and Via hogging all the popcorn between them.

  There’d been strangenesses as well. The first night that Via had slept over had felt odd for all three of them and had required quite a bit of conversation between every person involved. Although, in the end, Matty seemed to have adapted to Via’s presence in their lives even faster than Sebastian had. For a while, it seemed he couldn’t help asking her if she wanted him to get a babysitter so that they could go to the bar or—gulp—a club. She’d laughed at that last suggestion and firmly persuaded him out of the first. When she wanted to go to happy hours with their school friends, she did. When she wanted to see Fin, she did. She’d even started spending more time with Mary, which was a very happy side effect to becoming part of the Dorners’ lives.

  That night, still over the moon about Matty’s confession to Via, they put him to bed and went to Seb’s bedroom themselves. They snuggled in close, only using up approximately a quarter of the bed, the way they always did.

  Via pulled the covers up over Sebastian’s shoulder, because he refused to sleep in anything more than underwear but he always ended up a little cold in the middle of the night. She rolled onto her back and closed her eyes as he absently drew patterns on her belly.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered, apparently sensing her tension.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I guess I’m keyed up from Matty. But, also, there’s something that’s tugging at me. It’s like something is missing, but I don’t know what?”

  “Missing...” Seb asked, drifting toward sleep himself but at least making an attempt at being helpful.

  Via cocked her head up and looked around the room. She hadn’t moved in, but there were marks of her everywhere. A picture of the three of them on the nightstand. A small jar of multicolored flowers. Her clothes spilling from one of the drawers.

  It hit her, all at once, what was missing.

  “Seb,” she whispered to him excitedly, her face pressing close enough to touch noses.

  “Hmm?”

  “I figured out what’s missing.”

  His eyes came open. Realizing how close she was, he rubbed his nose on hers. “What’s that?”

  She kissed him, snuggling even closer. “I’m not lonely. There’s no loneliness here.”

  He stared at her for a moment, coming completely awake. His hand slicked up her back and he drew her mouth to his. “I know, baby. I know.”

  * * *

  If you loved the charm and romance of Just a Heartbeat Away, don’t miss Tyler and Fin’s story, Can’t Help Falling.

  Read on for a sneak peek...

  Can’t Help Falling

  by Cara Bastone

  WHEN TYLER EMERGED from the bathroom, he walked up to the nearest concession stand. Taller than most of the other patrons at the game, he had a bird’s-eye view of the crowd. The first thing he noticed was that every single male head—and some of the female heads—within twenty feet were all surreptitiously glancing in one direction. He sighed, already knowing the reason for it, and looked around until he spotted Serafine.

  “What’s up?” he asked as he sidled up next to her.

  She immediately stopped turning in a circle, peering through the crowd. “I was looking for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Three beers and a popcorn is a lot to carry. Besides, Joy decided she wanted a water and I started feeling hungry myself.”

  He cleared his throat. “Okay.”

  They filed into the concession line and stood side by side, a good sixteen inches of distance between them. He was conscious of the looks he was receiving simply for daring to stand next to this exquisite creature.

  In a different world, he would have already dated and broken up with Serafine St. Romain. If she’d been just a skosh less attractive, or less spooky. If she’d made his palms sweat just a bit less. If there had been just a tiny bit less smoke in her voice, he’d have had no problem asking her on a date, texting her, sexting her, charming her, hopping into bed if and when she was into it.

  The problem was, he happened to live in this pa
rticular world, where she was simply a perfectly beautiful, spooky, smoky-voiced vixen who gave him heart palpitations and made him feel like a preteen who’d never even check-yes-or-no-ed a girl before.

  He shifted on his feet as they shuffled up the line, trying to ignore her and also memorize every second of standing next to her. He frowned at himself, wishing he could pour a gallon of ice water over his head. Snap out of it, Ty!

  Tyler Leshuski was no inexperienced lad when it came to women, he reminded himself. When he wanted company, thanks to his extensive contacts list and the internet, it was the rare occasion that he couldn’t find it. He was good-looking and smart and funny.

  He watched a man bobble his beers as he double-taked on Serafine, almost breaking his own neck like a chicken.

  Tyler shook his head at the poor fool, knowing exactly how he felt. There was just something about Serafine St. Romain that made Tyler feel like his heart was wearing clown shoes.

  They finally made it to the front of the line.

  “What’ll you have?” asked the bored sixteen-year-old girl with a hairnet on. She was the only person in a twenty-foot radius who didn’t look entranced by Serafine or mystified by Tyler’s place in her life.

  “Ah, three Buds, two bottles of water, a large popcorn, a hot pretzel, no salt. And whatever she wants.” He pointed one thumb at Serafine and didn’t chance a glance over at her.

  “Mmm, chili cheese fries, please, and is there any hot sauce back there?”

  The girl pointed listlessly at the condiments stand and plugged the rest of the order into the register. She held her hand out for cash. Tyler wordlessly handed over a fifty, knowing he’d be lucky to get more than pennies back in change.

  They went to stand at the side and wait for their food.