Free Surviving Raine 02 Bastian's Storm by Shay Savage

point.
    “ He wouldn’t want you dating me,” I said.
    Raine flicked the tip of her tongue over her lips.
    “ I don’t know,” she said softly. “He wouldn’t like what you used to do, obviously, but neither do I. I think if he got to know you—really know you—I think he might have been okay with it.”
    I snorted through my nose at the ridiculousness of her statement.
    “ I mean it,” Raine said. “I don’t know if I can honestly say he would have liked you or wanted to hang out with you on the weekends, but I think if he saw how you are with me, I think he’d understand.”
    “ You’re crazy,” I muttered. “What exactly do you think he would see? Me snapping at you for no fucking reason? Running out on you when I get pissed off? What do you think he’d like more—the chain smoking or the bike?”
    I laughed dryly.
    Raine turned to look at me. She stared into my eyes, and I watched her expression go from annoyance at my harshness to something softer. She reached out and ran her finger from my elbow up to my shoulder.
    “ Sebastian,” Raine whispered, “when you look at me, I can feel how much you love me. Sometimes it’s a little overwhelming—like a tidal wave—and it can make me feel like I’ve been turned inside out. I can feel it in my skin and in the pit of my stomach. When you look at me like that, I can feel your love for me in my soul. When you wrap your arms around me at night, I can feel your desire for me, and I don’t think there is any woman alive who has ever felt more wanted than I do when you’re close to me.”
    She touched the side if my face.
    “ Dad would have seen that in you, too.”
    Her point was made. At least for now, I wouldn’t argue with her.

“ Lilliana,” John Paul said as he slid into the booth seat across from me. He had to duck his head a bit to keep from hitting the low-hanging lamp poised above the middle of the table.
    “ What the fuck does that mean?”
    “ It’s her name,” he said.
    “ Whose name?”
    “ The chick I was banging last night.”
    John Paul was my one and only true friend. We’d both fought for Landon in the tournaments, and when I had to go into hiding, John Paul came with me. Now that I was beached in the south of Florida, he’d taken up residence in North Miami Beach, which wasn’t too far from our condo, and we tried to meet up regularly.
    I rolled my eyes and sucked the straw in my glass of iced tea while John Paul ordered a beer and a pile of nachos.
    “ Since when do you eat that shit?” I asked.
    “ I worked it all off already,” he claimed. “She was fucking phenomenal. Luscious Lilliana . She’s got one of those nice, round asses you just want to squeeze and bite. I hate how skinny most of the chicks around here are. I need a woman with some meat on her bones.”
    “ Like that bro-hemoth you dated in Seattle?”
    “ Stacey?” John Paul leaned back in his seat. “She was a beast.”
    “ Yeah, exactly,” I replied as I remembered the dark-skinned woman who was all muscle and no tits. She wasn’t that tall, but you couldn’t tell it by her attitude. John Paul had dated her for a couple of months, which was probably a record for him. “She took more steroids than half the guys we worked out with.”
    “ Ah, you’re just pissed she could squat more than you could.”
    “ She fucking could not!”
    “ She did that one day.”
    “ Fluke,” I waved my hand dismissively. “I was off one day, and you started all that bullshit just to fuck with me.”
    John Paul laughed and adjusted his black cowboy hat as he leaned over the table and looked more closely at me. His eyes narrowed slightly as his lips smashed together.
    “ You look like shit, ya know.”
    “ Fuck you,” I replied.
    “ Just sayin’.” He leaned back again and started drumming his fingers on the table. He watched me for a minute as the server deposited a huge plate of nachos with all the extras in the center of the table. “So what’s up