The Sweet Spot (15 page)

“It doesn’t matter though does it?” Jordan replied hoarsely. “It doesn’t matte
r how hard I tried to save him if he died in the end.”

“It matters because of all the lives that you do save every day
,” Ani countered gently.

“
I can’t bear to have you here Ani,” Jordan confessed, staring at Ani miserably, his eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion and grief. “And after a day like today, to come home and find you cooking in the kitchen, knowing that you’re going to leave afterward, that you’re not mine anymore, I just can’t do it.” Jordan lowered his head down to the counter in defeat.

“I’m sorry,” Ani choked. “I was just trying to help.”

“We have to figure something else out, some other way of dealing with our situation,” Jordan murmured, raising wet eyes up to meet Ani’s white face.

“I understand,” Ani whispered back softly, her own eyes filling with tears.  “Just tell me wha
t you want me to do.”

“I just don’t think I can bear to have you here in our house
anymore. It’s just too soon; it’s too raw. When I see you here in our house my heart breaks into a thousand pieces. And after a day like today, all I want to do right now is bury myself inside you and feel your warm breath against my face,” Jordan confessed hoarsely.

“Oh Jordan,” Ani
wept, staring at her husband across the kitchen with tears streaming down her face.

“When I look at you standing in our kitchen cooking dinner for me,
I feel like I’ll never be able to let you go,” Jordan admitted helplessly. “I feel like I’ll never get over you and I know that I have to.”

“I won’t come over. We’ll figure it out,
” Ani choked, grabbing her keys and backing out of the kitchen and away from Jordan as she felt her own heart shatter inside her.

Chapter Fifteen

Ani drove to the loft
straight from the brownstone, knowing that she couldn’t face Sebastian or Sawyer after her encounter with Jordan. She’d barely been able to call out a good-bye to Raffi without completely falling apart. Bobby had given her and Sawyer the keys when they signed the lease earlier that day, and as Ani opened the door, she stepped into the quiet space in relief. She wandered around the wide- open room, running her hands over the deep windowsills, staring out into the dark street. 

Ani
had ached for Sebastian for so long, had let herself become consumed by their tragedy, that she hadn’t even considered how it would feel to give up Jordan, her husband and the father of her daughter. The sight of him staring at her grief-stricken in the kitchen was like a knife in her heart.

“Oh Jordan, I’m so sorry,” Ani murmured to herself, wrapping her arms around her shaking body and sinking down onto the floor of the loft.
  She sat huddled on the floor for over an hour when her phone rang and startled her out of her trance.

“Hey,”
Sebastian’s voice said quietly in her ear.

“Hey,” Ani murmured
back hoarsely.

“Ju
st checking in. How was your day?”

“Fine,” Ani replied in a whisper.

“You don’t sound too fine,” Sebastian replied mildly. “Is Raffi with you?”

“No, she’s with
Jordan tonight.” Ani rubbed a hand across her salty tear stained face.

“Oh,”
Sebastian replied, letting the unspoken question of why Ani hadn’t come over settle between them. “You with Sawyer?” He tried to pry a clue to Ani’s mood out of her.

“No,” Ani murmured
, leaning her head against the wall and closing her eyes.

“What happened A?”
Sebastian sighed softly.

“Everything,” Ani whispered
, hanging up the phone before Sebastian could reply and turning it off. 

Sometime later
, Ani heard footsteps at the door, and as it swung open and Sebastian stepped inside, she vaguely realized that she’d never locked the door behind her when she’d arrived.

“Nice place,” Sebastian
murmured, glancing down at Ani on the floor and swinging his gaze around the loft.

“Sawyer told you I’d be here,” Ani guessed, looking up at
Sebastian in the shadowy darkness. 

“No electricity yet?”
He flipped a light switch ineffectually.

“We just
signed the lease this afternoon.” Ani stared at Sebastian’s unreadable face in the light that streamed in from the windows.

“You know what the hardest part of being in prison really was
A?” Sebastian asked Ani, sinking down onto the floor beside her and resting his head against the wall next to hers.

“You told me it w
as time,” Ani murmured, turning her face to the side to stare at Sebastian beside her.

“Being powerless,”
Sebastian whispered back, reaching a finger out and trailing it across Ani’s face. “Having my fate in someone else’s hands every minute of the day.” He entwined a strand of Ani’s hair around his finger tenderly. “Don’t hang up on me A. Don’t disappear.”

“I’m sorry,” Ani apologized weakly.

“If you want to be alone, just tell me you’re okay so I don’t worry about you,” Sebastian whispered. “For fifteen years all that I did was worry about you. I worried about you out here all alone, knowing that I was powerless to protect you, to help you.”

“
Bast, I’m sorry,” Ani whispered, pressing her face against his. “I don’t know how to handle any of this.”

“Just don’t disappear into
yourself,” Sebastian replied softly, pulling Ani into his lap.

“What do you think of my n
ew apartment?” Ani hiccupped.

“It’s beautiful.” Sebastian gazed
around the shadowy space. “I bet the light is incredible during the day,” he murmured, taking in the windows and high ceilings of the loft.

“It is,” Ani confirmed. “We just need to put up some walls to make some bedrooms for Sawyer, Raffi, and I.”

“I’ll build your walls,” Sebastian murmured into Ani’s hair, trailing his fingers across her neck and over her collarbone.

“Will you paint a mural for R
affi’s room?” Ani leaned her head back against Sebastian’s neck, giving herself into his touch. 

“I’ll paint a sea
as blue as her eyes, a forest as green as the meadows in Ireland, and an Irish harp to make her heart sing,” Sebastian promised quietly, turning Ani around in his lap and trailing kisses down her neck.

“You smell like the sea,” Ani sighed in contentment as
Sebastian slipped her dress over her head and she buried her face in his chest.

“You smell like heaven,”
Sebastian whispered back, reaching between them and stroking Ani as he slid deep inside her. “When I’m inside you I feel like I’ve finally come home,” Sebastian murmured against Ani’s neck as he kissed his way down to her breasts.

“You have,” Ani replied with a gasp as
Sebastian sucked her taut nipple into his mouth. 

“Tell me what you want,”
Sebastian murmured, blowing on Ani’s nipples and lifting her legs up around his shoulders. “Tell me what drives you crazy,” he whispered, thrusting deep inside her.

“When you rub me,” Ani moaned against
Sebastian, pulling his hand back down between them.

“Like this
?” he whispered, licking his finger and softly stroking her trembling clit.

“Yes,” Ani breathed, closing her eyes.

“Open your eyes,” Sebastian demanded, thrusting into Ani as he stroked her. “I want to see you,” he murmured huskily against her lips.

“
Sebastian,” Ani gasped against him, holding his gaze as she gave into the waves that shook her body and clung to him as he thrust inside her with a final groan.

“
God you’re so beautiful,” Sebastian sighed, collapsing on top of Ani and wrapping his arms around her. “Mo chuid den tsaol, you are everything to me,” he whispered.  

“
Mo ghrá thú,” Ani murmured back. “I haven’t heard Irish in so long,” she whispered, burying her face into Sebastian’s neck. “I remember when you used to speak it to me when we were kids, especially after you came home from visiting your grandparents in Ireland.”

“I studied it in prison,” Sebastian
confided. “I didn’t want to lose it.”

“Really?”
Ani asked, lifting her face up to stare into Sebastian’s eyes. “Say something else,” she coaxed.

“
Tá tú iontach álainn, a rún mo chroí,” he murmured, trailing his fingers lightly across Ani’s face. “You are amazingly beautiful, beloved secret of my heart,” Sebastian translated, brushing his lips across Ani’s eyes.

They spent the night wrapped around each other on the floor of the loft with
Sebastian’s hoody draped over them, and they awoke to the rising sun streaming in the windows and filling the apartment with its beautiful soft light.

“Oh my
God, what time is it?” Ani murmured against Sebastian when she noticed the sun shining through the windows.

“
Five a.m.,” Sebastian murmured sleepily against Ani’s neck after he glanced at his phone.

“I have to ge
t to the bakery!” Ani pushed Sebastian away and stretched out her cramped limbs. “I hope Soy came in!” she moaned, reaching for her clothes.

“My da
d will be pulling out without me right now,” Sebastian admitted with a rueful grin, reaching out an arm to drag Ani back down to the floor. “Just one kiss,” he coaxed with a devilish grin.

“No way!”
Ani exclaimed, swatting Sebastian away as she quickly dressed and ran out the door.

“Soy?
” Ani called as she poked her head in the open back door of the bakery a few minutes later. 

The lights were on and Ani could smell scones baking, but the rest of the kitchen was alarmingly empty.

“Oh my God A,” Sawyer called, poking her head out of their walk-in freezer where she was pulling a tray of frozen muffins out. “I can’t believe we both slept in!”

“Do we have much in there?” Ani asked her sister in alarm, pulling ingredients out hastily and tying an apron around her wrinkled dress.

“No,” Sawyer grinned wryly as she took in her sister’s disheveled appearance. But it looks like we both got lucky last night so that’s positive,” she laughed, pulling the scones out of the oven and sliding the muffins in.

“Nicki’s back from California?” Ani asked, expertly mixing up pumpkin bread batter and pouring it into muffin tins.

“Not exactly…” Sawyer hedged guiltily as she dumped butter and cream cheese into the mixer.

“
You little tart!” Ani exclaimed teasingly.

Sawyer made a face at her sister in reply.
“When the Mackenzie girls fall from grace, we fall hard,” she sighed dramatically.

“You’re looping you
rself in with me?” Ani raised her eyebrow. “Must have been some night….,” she murmured with interest.

“It was,” Sawyer sighed again, surprisingly closemouthed.

“You drop a bomb about falling from grace and cheating on Nicki and that’s all I get?” exclaimed Ani, pulling pans from the oven and sliding whatever she could find in the freezer in. 

“She’s Japanese,” Sawyer murmured dreamily, picking up a tray
of scones to bring out front.

“Of course she is,” Ani replied with a laugh. “What is it with you and Asian girls?” she teased. “Talk about fetishes……”

“Their skin is like silk,” Sawyer called back from the front of the bakery.

“Whose skin is like silk?”
Sebastian called teasingly from the doorway as he paused to tie the laces of his paint-splattered converse.

“Asian girls,” Ani replied with a grin.

“Ahhh…….” Sebastian replied with an understanding nod.

“What would you know about Asian gi
rls?” Ani asked, tossing a pot-holder at Sebastian’s head. “You’ve been in prison for fifteen years.” She narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously.

“
Yes, but he’s been out for seven months,” Sawyer called to her sister, grabbing another tray off of the counter. “First thing I’d do if I’d been a nun for fifteen years would be to get some Asian pussy,” she declared with a grin, laughing at the shocked expression on Ani’s face. “Oh my God A, tell me you didn’t think Bast didn’t fuck anyone when he first got out.” Sawyer stared at her sister like she had three heads.

“Of course not,” Ani protested, her face scarlet red, but it was obvious from the way that sh
e was staring at Sebastian that that was exactly what she had thought.

“A,” Sebastian laughed, slipping his arms around her. “Pussy and booze are the first stop for a
ll cons when they step outside. But the only one who I ever wanted was you, and you damn well know it,” he murmured against her neck.

“No
more time for chit chat lover boy, we need to bake,” Sawyer called out, coming back into the kitchen and stopping to stare at Sebastian as she took in his bare chest and arms. He hadn’t bothered to put his t-shirt on when he’d followed Ani down the street to the bakery.

“Jesus, no wonder you couldn’t get out
of bed this morning A,” Sawyer exhaled in admiration. “Bast, your body is fucking ridiculous!” She walked over to Sebastian and ran her hand over his chiseled chest, sculpted abs, and bulging arms.

“Hey, hands off,” Ani yelled at her sister as she slid a tray of cookies into the oven.

Sebastian grinned at Sawyer in response and ran his fingers over her arm lightly. “You’re looking pretty hot yourself these days Soy,” he replied, giving her an appraising once over.

“Hello??” Ani called from across the kitchen. “Standing righ
t here, at least go somewhere else if you want to ogle each other,” she teased.

“Actually I’m going to go back to the loft and take some measurements,”
Sebastian said, walking over to Ani and leaning down to kiss her. “Especially since you haven’t made any coffee yet,” he teased.

“We’re a little backed up
in case you haven’t noticed, why don’t you stay and help,” Sawyer coaxed. “You can make us coffee.”

Sebastian
laughed in response, “I’ll make the coffee, but then I’m taking off,” he said with a smile. “I want to take advantage of not being on the water today and get started on the loft.”

“What are you doing to our loft?” Sawyer asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Sebastian offered to build us some walls and I asked him to paint a mural for Raffi’s room,” Ani explained to her sister.

“Oooh
, I want a mural too,” Sawyer exclaimed, picking up the finished trays of scones and muffins and taking them to the front of the bakery to stock the case.

“Oh I know what kind of mural I’ll paint for you,”
Sebastian called after Sawyer in a lewd tone. “And I’ll make it double D.”