Scarlett Red: A Billionaire SEAL Story, Part 2 (In the Shadows)

by Michelle, P. T.

  My heart pounds against my chest as he sits down on the edge of the bed with the condom he’s pulled from his pants’ pocket.

  It doesn’t seem fair that he shouldn’t experience some of what I just felt, and before I give it a second thought, I scoop up my necklace and rise on my knees. Leaning over his hard, muscular back, I kiss his throat as I lower the strand over his hard erection. “It seems only right to return the favor.”

  When Sebastian exhales harshly, his back muscles tensing against my chest, I take the condom from his fingers and set it on the nightstand. Winding the beads around his cock several times, I circle my fingers fully around the strands and roll the pearls up his erection and then back down, whispering in his ear, “Help me forget.”

  His breathing amps with my movements. “Are you sure?” His voice is hoarse as he trails his fingers along my wrist.

  I slide my body around his until one leg is behind his back and my other is dangling between his hard thighs. Looking up into his hooded gaze, I give him a trembling smile. “Show me what you like.”

  Sebastian cups the back of my neck, his thumb sliding along the column of my throat. Just as he pulls me into him for a kiss, his hand covers mine around his cock.

  “Easy,” he says against my mouth, then traces my lips with his. I’m so drawn in by his distracting ‘almost kiss’ that the sensation of his fingers around mine don’t freak me out. I let him set the pace and tightness as he moves my hand along his erection. Clamping my leg around his lower back, I enjoy the feeling of power that rushes through me when his tongue finally slides against mine in a hot, searing kiss.

  “Keep doing that,” he groans against my mouth as he releases my hand to clasp my face for a harder, even more arousing kiss.

  Every part of me centers on Sebastian’s masculine scent and heat, the feel of my body wrapped around his hard one. I slow the pace of my hand and then speed it up, listening to his breathing to tell me what turns him on. Every harsh breath he expels into our kiss hikes my own arousal, making me wetter by the second.

  Suddenly Sebastian presses his forehead to mine, his words barely coherent. “You need to stop.”

  I pause for a second, but then I can’t help but move my hand up and then back down just one more time.

  A low growl erupts from his mouth, and before I can blink I’m on my back and he’s above me, the necklace gone as his hard body pins me to the bed.

  With his cock teasing my sex and his hands holding mine over my head, Sebastian’s breath saws in and out. “What the fuck, Talia? You can’t push me like this.”

  I lift my hips up and slide him just inside my entrance. “And now I know what you like,” I say, my own breathing coming in short bursts of air.

  “This is what I want,” Sebastian grates out, surging deep inside me.

  I scream with the stinging sensation of my body stretching to accept his impressive size, and I’m shocked to feel my walls already contracting around him in another orgasm.

  Sebastian’s a hard rock, holding himself perfectly still as my orgasm rips through me. “God, you feel like heaven. My heaven,” he says right before he pulls out and then slams into me.

  He’s so powerful, all I can do is hold on, and when he finally releases my hands, I dig my nails into his back and roll my hips, meeting each of his thrusts with my own.

  Just when I feel the euphoric tightness building in my sex once more, Sebastian clasps my hair, his sexy-rough voice a hot rush in my ear as he angles his next hip movement just right, sending me over the edge. Once my orgasm slows, he stops moving, his weight holding me locked in place. “Feel me keeping you, Talia,” he says in a tight, guttural groan. As Sebastian comes long and hard, his thick cock pulsing warmth deep inside me, I grip onto his sculpted shoulders and back, feeling taken, owned, and thoroughly enthralled by his savage primalness.

  We don’t move for several minutes, our heavy breathing the only sound in the room. Still buried inside me, Sebastian lifts his head, stunned disbelief in his eyes. “What are you doing to me?”

  I trace a finger along his jaw. “I imagine the same thing you do to me.”

  He shakes his head. “I always wear a condom.”

  I smooth his furrowed brow. “Don’t worry. I’m on the pill. Everything is fine.”

  The relief that flashes across his face stabs me briefly in the gut. I don’t like that it bothers me. I start to slide out from underneath him, but he puts his hands on either side of me, locking me in place. “Where are you going?”

  “To the bathroom.”

  He frowns. “Do you have to go?”

  I shake my head. “I should clean up.”

  A ravenous smile tilts his lips “You’re staying right here.” He moves his hips and I’m surprised he’s swelling to full hardness inside me already. When my eyes widen, he releases a low arrogant chuckle, then kisses me, his tongue slipping past my lips to tangle with mine. “Three years is a hell of a long time to want,” he rumbles against my mouth. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  Sebastian leaning around my shoulder to push a button on his watch wakes me. He’d left it turned on its side on the nightstand, and the backlight is still lit while he settles back into place behind me. My focus stays locked on the watch until the light goes out. One-eleven. Wasn’t that the same time his watch had been set to light up three years ago too?

  Kissing my shoulder, Sebastian slides out of bed to use the bathroom. As soon as he closes the door, I pick up the watch and push a couple of buttons. He’s set it to go off everyday at the exact same time, one-eleven a.m. Why?

  When the toilet flushes, I quickly push the buttons to put it back in the mode it was in before and then set the watch back down on his nightstand. He slips back into bed behind me thirty seconds later and hooks his arm around my waist. Hauling me close to his hard body, he runs his nose along my throat and into my hair, his voice a sexy vibration against my back. “I know you’re awake.”

  I roll in his arms and face him, my hand sliding along his hard chest. “Your watch went off at that same time three years ago. What is the significance of one-eleven?”

  He doesn’t say anything for a second or two, then pulls me close and kisses my forehead. Setting his chin on top of my head, he says in a quiet tone, “It’s a reminder.”

  He cups the back of my head as he speaks, pressing me close, and I can’t help but inhale along his skin. I love the combination of deodorant and pure masculine musk. “A reminder of what?” I mumble into his chest.

  His arms tighten around me. “To be diligent. Aware. Ready.”

  I wrap my arm around his body and run my hand up his back. “Ready for what?”

  He exhales. “Just…ready.”

  He doesn’t say anything more. I start to press a kiss to his chest, when I suddenly realize that the back of his watch felt smooth against my fingers. What happened to the inscription on it? I pull back and look up at him, my heart racing with concern. “When did you get that watch?”

  He stares down at me. “Last week. My uncle had set it up so that as soon as I filed the legal paperwork to change my name, his lawyer gave me the watch.” Expelling a laugh, he smiles fondly. “Even three years after his death, Jack continues to make me feel like a part of his family.”

  I blink up at him, shock rolling through me. “Was the watch a family tradition?”

  He shakes his head slowly, bitterness creeping into his tone. “Not really. The watch was my uncle’s way of replacing the one I’d lost.”

  “Oh, I see,” I say as calmly as I can. Damn it! Sebastian never received the watch I left for him? What happened? Why didn’t his sister give him the box? And if he never got the watch, that means he still doesn’t know I’m Red. No wonder he didn’t ask me about that night eleven years ago. He still doesn’t freaking know. As relief and worry battle for dominance in my brain, I bite my lip. Most likely Sebastian never saw what the watch said on the back since he gave it to me the same night he got it.


  “I remember you saying your dad got mad when you lost your watch. Have you ever considered the possibility that he gave you that gift because he was proud of you, and not just because it was your birthday?”

  His mouth tightens briefly. “He gave it to me as a display of his wealth. Nothing more. Trust me.”

  “But—” Sebastian captures my mouth in a devastating kiss, cutting me off. “I don’t want to talk about watches or asshole parents. Right now I just want more of you, Miss Scarlett Red.”

  “What are you doing?”

  I jump at the sound of Sebastian’s deep voice overriding the morning news he just turned on in the other room and almost drop the pearl necklace. I lift the strand and gesture to the sink filling with cold water. “Cleaning these. I hope we didn’t ruin them.”

  Leaning against the doorjamb in nothing but a pair of black lounge pants, he frowns and unfolds his arms, defined abs flexing as he steps into the bathroom to turn the water off. “Leave them.”

  When I glance up at him and start to ask why, he tucks a wet strand of my hair behind my ear. “They represent us, Talia. Naturally raw and beautifully dirty. I don’t want to erase that.”

  As he turns me around, I set the necklace on the counter and giggle to cover how deeply his comment hits me in the gut. “I’d like to wear them again.”

  “Then I’ll buy you another set,” he says in a gruff rumble just before he grasps my waist and sets me on the counter in front of him. Stepping between my legs, he slides his hands up my thighs, his gaze following their movement. “Next shower, you’re all mine. Got it?”

  As his gorgeous blue eyes snap to my face, full of heated desire, I trail my hands up his muscular arms and shoulders. Hooking my fingers around his neck, I tease, “Next time don’t sleep in and you won’t miss out.”

  He tugs on the collar of the blue dress shirt I’m wearing, a dark, dominant smile curving his sexy mouth. “Seeing you in my shirt almost makes up for it.” He lowers his lips to mine, his voice a husky rasp of sheer sexiness. “I think my clothes should be a required uniform from now on.”

  I smile against his mouth. “And here I thought you preferred my birthday suit.”

  He grips the top of my thighs, tracing his thumbs slowly down the damp bit of hair between my legs. “I’ll always prefer you wearing me, Talia.” He smiles, his magnetic charisma pulling me in. I tangle my fingers in his dark hair as he moves closer until his mouth barely touches mine. “On you. In you. Branding you mine. Nothing else compares.”

  Sebastian thrusts his tongue deep into my mouth at the same time he groans and steps into me, pressing his erection against my body. I kiss him back, loving how his possessiveness makes me feel cherished and wanted.

  When a knock sounds at the door, he sighs and kisses my forehead. “That’s room service. Hold that thought.”

  I’m surprised when I hear him shut the main door behind him. Curious, I walk into the empty room and notice the TV’s sound seems louder. The investigator in me pushes my feet over to the door.

  “—thought I’d deliver it in person,” a woman’s voice floats through the thin wood.

  “You didn’t have to,” he says.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in, Sebastian?”

  “Now’s not a good time, Regan.”

  A quick feminine laugh sounds, full of smugness. “Really? I thought you were always up for a good time. If your quasi-cousin, or should I say your half-sister—yes, the rumors are flying all over the local news now—had any idea how kinky you are, I wonder if she’d put you on such a high pedestal.”

  “You enjoyed every second of it,” he says curtly, his tone turning cool.

  “Once I got used to you, yeah. Couldn’t sit for a week after you left though.” Her voice moves closer, dropping to a sexy purr. “I’ve never forgotten you. I still have that riding crop and collar you bought me. Just looking at them makes me wet.”

  “I don’t do relationships, Regan.”

  “What was that month then, hmmm?”

  “You, coming back for more.”

  She lets out an annoyed huff. “And here I thought the cocky bastard role was just an act. In light of recent news, you fit it to a T.”

  “Is that why you’re really here? I’ll let you in on a little something the tabloids don’t know. The moment I took my family name, I lost any claim to the Blake billions.”

  “That’s a shame…” she pouts, disappointment coming through loud and clear. “But regardless of your financial status, it doesn’t change how I feel about you. That tells me we had something.”

  “I was making up for two years of celibacy, Regan. Don’t make it more than it was.”

  “Fine,” she snaps, then her tone softens. “For you, I’m willing to let it be just that.”

  “I’m not interested in renewing our arrangement,” he says in a final tone.

  Arrangement? I tune out Regan’s response. He sounds so disconnected in his responses, I can’t help the knot starting in my stomach. Will that be me one day, begging him to keep me? Nausea roils in my stomach.

  As soon as the doorknob starts to turn, I bolt away, quickly returning to the bathroom. Shutting the door quietly behind me, I blink away the unshed tears and try to shrug off the suffocating ache in my chest. My gaze lands on the necklace, and I push the beads off the counter and into the basin of cold water. It represents us, my ass!

  Even though I know it’s unfair of me to think he wouldn’t have had other relationships the past three years, I can’t help but feel sick to my stomach that I read so much more into his bullshit lines about us. Should I count myself lucky that a pearl necklace is a step up from a riding crop and a collar? When Sebastian calls my name on the other side of the door, I swish the necklace around in the water and say in a light tone, “Be out in a minute,” at the same time I lean over and flush the toilet.

  Pulling the sink’s plunger to drain the water, I lay the necklace on a hand towel to dry before I walk out of the bathroom. “That wasn’t room service?” I glance around, eyebrows raised, my face perfectly composed.

  He lifts the shoebox-sized package in his hand. “Just a package from my sister. Room service should be here soon.”

  “Actually, I thought I’d head back to my room.”

  Sebastian frowns and starts toward me when the phone on the desk rings. Setting the box down, he grabs the handset, suddenly all business. “Bash.”

  His dark eyebrows pull down briefly. “Yeah, my new cell phone should be here today. Thanks for the info, Simon. I’ll be sure to convey it. There’s no need for that. Miss Lone is fine.”

  “What?” I mouth, but he holds his hand up.

  “She’s here with me,” he continues, his blue eyes holding mine. “Yes, all night. I’ll call you later.”

  My face is flaming hot by the time he hangs up. “What the hell, Sebastian? Why’d you tell the head of security where I was last night?”

  He scowls as he moves to tower over me. “Why is spending the night with me so embarrassing to you?”

  I stiffen. “I just don’t want to advertise my sex life to the whole world.”

  Sebastian cups the back of my neck, his expression shifting to a less intense one. “Simon is the only one who knows why I’m really here. I told him to keep me informed of any out-of-the-norm activity in relation to you. The fact that someone has been in your room definitely qualifies.”

  My eyes widen. “Did someone break into my room last night? Wait, and why are you really here?”

  He shakes his head. “No, the day before. The maid insists she made your bed yesterday, Talia.”

  I blink at him. “But nothing else in my room was touched. I have a laptop out on the desk. Is it possible she’s covering her own hide so she doesn’t get fired?”

  His mouth thins in a stubborn line as he clasps my hand. “Maybe it’s nothing, but in answer as to why I’m here, I’d like you to help me with something.” Leading me over to the table, he pulls a chair out. “
Have a seat.”

  I’m not sure where he’s going with this, but I do as he asks while he opens his briefcase and sets a stack of labeled beige folders in front of me.

  “A couple months ago, I was hired to help the NYPD with their investigation into a string of serial killings. Five redheaded females in and around the New York area have been killed over the course of three years. The murders stopped for two years, then started back up ten months ago when two more women were killed five months apart.”

  My heart pounds double-time at the disturbing news, but I try to remain calm. “Other than the fact I’m a redhead, what does this have to do with me? We’re in Massachusetts, not New York.”

  He points to the folders in front of me. “When the serial killer’s trail went cold, I did some investigating on my own. One thing the latest two victims had in common was that they’d spent time here at Hawthorne. So I asked Trevor to do some work for my business, while I took his place here to investigate employees who might fit the killer’s profile. Nothing told me for sure that the killer worked here. It was just a gut instinct. A lead I wanted to run down.”

  “For two months?” I ask as I quickly flip open each of the folders to see nine headshots of Hawthorne’s male employees: Two tennis instructors, three bartenders, a valet, a waiter, a masseuse, and a personal trainer. Each suspect’s picture is paper-clipped to an extensive three-page background check. The extra page of handwritten notes has to be Sebastian’s. “That’s a long investigation.”

  “It’s a thorough one. I planned to continue until I found the bastard, or if another murder happened elsewhere which would clear the suspects I’d come up with here.”

  “That’s why you didn’t want me going anywhere without you,” I mutter as I skim the folders.

  He runs his finger down my cheek, then hooks it under my chin, turning my face toward him. “Not the only reason, Talia.”

  I tell myself the warm look in his eyes doesn’t mean anything, but I can’t help the flutter in my stomach. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”