Rose of Thorne (20 page)

“You keep your damn hands off her! She’s taken!”
he screams at the downed man.

Taken? I most certainly
am NOT taken!

A very attractive dark haired guy pulls Sebastian
off the guy. He is young and seems to be near Sebastian’s age.

“S
ebastian! What the fuck, man?” he screams while he wrestles him off the guy.

The guy now rolls on the ground and security
has made their way to remove them from the crowded floor.

“Why the hell would you do that for
, Sebastian?” I scream at him the moment we were off the floor.

Sebastian just stands there looking
like some perfect god. If it weren’t for the blood on his hand, you’d never even know that he had just been in a fight. His dark jeans hug him perfectly, and his crisp, dark grey, button down shirt is rolled up and shows off his defined arm muscles. I glance back down at his hand that is now red with the other guy’s blood. Instantly, my anger returns, and I yank Kylie toward the exit.

“We’ve got to get out of here
. Please, Kylie!” I beg her. With concerned eyes, she grabs my trembling hand and pulls us through the sea of people and out the exit. I can feel the thick night air against my face, and I am relieved to be out in the open again. Maybe now I can catch my breath.

“What just happened in there? And why did you let him dance with you? Hav
e you lost your fucking mind?” She fires question after question at me.

“I don’t know,” I reply
, following her out to the parking lot across the street. It’s the best I can come up with right now and besides that, it is the complete truth. I REALLY don’t know what had just happened or why I had let him dance with me after everything that had happened between us.

“I lost my head in there and I think he must have too.
Can we just go home now? Please!” I beg her as I stand there in my still soaked dress. When she approaches her little white car, I hear Kylie begin to curse.

“SHIT
! I locked my damn keys in the car, Skylar!” she screams, slapping her hand against her driver’s side window.

“Damn it, Kylie!
It’s going to be HELL catching a cab all the way out here! Why did you have to pick a club all the way on this side of town, anyway?”

“Everyone
comes here, Skylar. And besides, it’s supposed to be my birthday night, remember?” she whines and I immediately feel guilty.

Kylie’s eyes suddenly widen
on something behind me and I see her take a deep intake of breath
.
I turn to see Sebastian and his dark haired friend quickly approaching.

Shit! They followed us out here.

“Lock your keys in your car?” Sebastian’s friend asks as he leans in to look in her car.

Kylie is too spellbound by his good looks and
barely manages a nod in response. I’ve never seen her this flustered over a guy before.

Oh g
ood grief, Kylie! Get a hold of yourself! Now is not the time!

Sebastian stand
s there staring at me intently while he bites on the inside of his jaw.

“Nikolas, will you make sure Kylie arrives home safely? I
would like to speak to Skylar before I take her home,” he says without taking his eyes off mine.

“Wait
, Kylie! You can’t leave. We haven’t finished celebrating your birthday, remember? We can go somewhere else if you want,” I say desperately trying to get her to catch my hint.

Sebastian’s friend keeps her from answering me.

“It’s your birthday?” Nikolas asks her in a charmingly seductive tone.
GREAT!
There is no way she can resist that look. Hell, I’ve seen her use it on guys herself… too many times in the past
.
She will definitely be in his bed later tonight.

Underneath his
spell, Kylie beams a smile back at him and nods. Nikolas’s eyes light up and he continues, “Well, we can’t go home just yet then. Come on back in and I’ll buy you a drink.”

My traitor best friend bats her eyes and nods following
him back across the street.
Great, she is worse than
some love sick puppy!
She has jumped ship and left me to sink! I am SO going to kill her when I get a chance!

I continue to stand there in the parking lot with my arms crossed.
The lightning flashing in the sky startles me and I jump.

“Let me take you home
, Skylar, please. It will take all night to catch a cab out here and it looks like it’s about to storm.”

Hesitantly I nod at his words, unsure
that I wouldn’t rather get electrocuted than be in the same car with him.

Sebastian patiently helps me inside his black car
before getting in the driver’s seat and pulling away from the curb.

As we are appr
oaching the interstate exit, he makes a right turn and instantly I know that he isn’t heading the right way. He is heading back uptown.

“This isn’t the way to my house
, Sebastian. I want you to take me home.”

“We need to talk
, Skylar. I’m taking you to my place,” he says sternly.

“Just take me home
, Sebastian, please. I don’t have anything left to say to you. I let myself get carried away back there on the dance floor. Besides, you are still obviously pissed at me right now. “

“Pissed?”
he grits out through his teeth and then slams on his brakes. We skid into the nearby abandoned parking lot. He sits there for a few minutes before he punches his bleeding first over and over into the steering wheel.

“Yes
, Skylar, I am pissed! Beyond pissed actually! I hated seeing that guy put his paws all over you, okay?”

“You have no rights to me, Sebastian! None!
That guy was nice! He didn’t do anything wrong, but you did!” I fire back at him. Sprinkles of rain hit the front of his windshield and the thunder now loudly rumbles around us. He won’t even respond to me. He just keeps staring ahead through the windshield at the falling rain.

I have had enough of this!

With tears flooding my eyes I grab the door handle and stumble out of his fancy black car. I don’t know where I am at or how I will manage to get home, but I am damn certain that I will not be staying in that car with him.

I slam the car door and mak
e my way across the huge abandoned parking lot. I look up at the sky and the rain begins falling harder upon my face. The air tonight is unusually warm and the rain feels cool against my flushed skin. The flashes of lightning are frightening me, but I lower my head and keep walking ahead. I can hear his heavy footsteps quickly approaching behind me indicating that he is running to catch up with me.

“SKYLAR
, WAIT!” Sebastian shouts and instead of stopping, I pick up my pace. The rain is falling even harder and is now mixing with the salty tears that are streaming down my face.

How dare he humiliate me like he did tonight!
I hate him for what he is doing to me and I hate myself even more for letting him!

“SKYLAR
, DAMNIT! WAIT!”

I didn’t see the hole in the
parking lot pavement and I fall to my knees, barely catching myself before my face hit the pavement. My hands and knees are now full of gravel and begin to sting. I then notice bright blood trickling down them both.

Can this night get any worse?

I just si
t there on the pavement sobbing and when he reaches me, he quickly kneels down in front of me.

Don’t look at him
, Skylar… Don’t!

“Shit, Skylar!
Are you okay?” I can’t look at him; so instead, I just keep my head down and allow the tears to flow freely. Sebastian begins examining the injuries on my hands and knees then lifts my chin up to face him. I close my eyes and choke back my tears.

“Skylar, ple
ase just look at me,” he pleads and I hesitantly open my eyes to meet his gaze. The rain is pouring down now. I imagine that I must look like a hot mess with my soaking wet hair and mascara running down my face, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything anymore.

He pulls
me in close to him and for a minute, I inhale his intoxicating smell in the crook of his neck. He cups my face and gently kisses the side of my mouth as I sit there crying. The lightning flashes and the thunder furiously roars around us. I can see in between the flashes of lightning that his amber eyes are full of something more… something that I have not seen before. He slams his mouth against mine and pulls me in to deepen the passionate kiss.

It
is in that moment that I am completely torn. Part of me melts into him and wants to never let go, and the other part of me wants to shove him away and run. I chose the latter. My heart simply can’t take any more of this insanity. I love him so much and I need him, but I have to protect myself from being hurt any further. Gathering all my strength, I push back hard on his chest breaking our breathless kiss. He looks at me in confusion and moves to pull me into him again, but I put my hand out to stop him.

“NO!
No, Sebastian! You can’t do this to me anymore! I am not one of your fucking women who will jump at your every command!” I scoot back and wince in pain as I stand. He stands up and meets my glance. It is then that I find the courage to release my anger at him.

“What the hell is the matter with you?
You don’t get to tell me who I can or can’t be around! You can’t dictate my every move, Sebastian, and I am done with taking orders from you! What more do you want from me? I gave up the damn internship so you wouldn’t have to worry about me making your life difficult. It’s because of you that I won’t graduate! All of this is some sort of sick joke to you, isn’t it? Rescue the poor stupid waitress and play with her head? Well, this is MY life, Sebastian, that you’re messing with and I’m DONE letting you!”

“Skylar, l
et me explain. I didn’t mea–” he starts to explain, but I interrupt him before he can continue.

“For your information, I came
here with Kylie tonight because she dragged me out for her birthday weekend. She is tired of watching me mope over you and the fact that I no longer have a job. Do you have any idea how hard it has been for me to put you out of my mind? Of course you don’t. Because you only ever think about yourself! If I wanted to dry hump against every guy in there, that’s MY business, NOT yours!” I scream in his face while I shove my finger into his hard chest.

You
can’t keep treating me like this, Sebastian! Just because I interrupted you from picking up your next fuck tonight doesn’t give you the right to humiliate me!”

“Skylar, I
–”

I interrupt him again. “Just leave me the HELL alone
, Sebastian!” I scream. I turn and begin running through the empty parking lot. I don’t know where I am going and the storm is now beginning to rage around us. I don’t stop and I don’t look back… I just keep running. I expected to hear footsteps, but they are not there. Suddenly, the heel of my shoe breaks off. Hobbling, I reach down, yank both of them off, and toss them across the parking lot.

Headlights illuminate me a
s a loud clap of thunder erupts in the sky. The storm is so loud that I can barely hear the car door open and close.

“SKYLAR! PLEASE STOP!”
he shouts over the hard rain and hurries over to me. I feel outraged and broken, but I can’t stop and face him. I refuse to let him see me this way. Suddenly, he grabs my arm and pulls me around.

“WHAT! What do you want from me Sebastian?
I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE! Why won’t you just let me be?” I take a deep breath before continuing. “You know, I would say I wished you had never come into the café that night because at least then I would be spared what I feel for you now. But as much as I want to wish that, I can’t. I made the stupid mistake of falling in love with that man. So how much of a fucking idiot does that make me? Since now I know that he obviously never felt the same way,” I throw my head back and laugh into the pouring rain like some sort of crazed lunatic. “Hell, how could he care about me? He never even existed!”

Within a blink of an
eye, he grabs my arms and moves to stand right in front of me. We are so close that I can feel his warm breath against my lips. My eyes fixate on the raindrops that slide down his face and lips.

“Are you done?” His voice is gentle and soft
as he moves closer to take my wet face in his hands. I blink up at him in confusion, and he smiles down at me. His warm amber eyes never leave mine as he pauses to take me in. It’s as if he is searching deep inside of me to pull the very soul from my body. Right now, I will gladly surrender it to him. He moves back the soaking wet curls from my face and I tremble at the warmth of his caress. The rain continues to pour down upon us, but we just keep standing there looking at each other.

“You are so
exquisite,” he says breathlessly as he caresses my cheek. “Skylar, walking into that café all those months ago is the best damn thing that ever happened to me in my entire life. From the first moment I laid eyes on you, I knew that there would never be anyone else for me. I couldn’t even bring myself to leave that night. I sat and watched you until you got off work and silently prayed that you’d accept my pathetic invitation for pie. I didn’t want that night to end, Skylar. I wanted to chase after you, but I didn’t want you to think I was some psycho. I couldn’t even sleep because all I could think about were your gorgeous eyes and that breathtaking smile of yours. You deserve someone better than me. I keep pushing you away because I am not a good man, Skylar,” I try to interrupt him, but he continues speaking.