The Forbidden Secret (Forbidden #2)

Chapter Ten

Zeke Coleman

Something was happening with Evelina.

Something was different. After the library, she had given me sidelong glances every time she thought I wasn’t paying attention. She held the romance book to her chest the entire drive as if using it as a shield between us.

But she said nothing.

I walked around the exterior of the apartment, considering where we would go if this situation continued. I had a handful of safehouses, but when we moved every five days, they were running out quickly.

It would be something to consider later—something that would only become important if Jaimie didn’t find a way to resolve the tension between Clide and Alonzo. If we couldn’t come up with a solution soon, I didn’t know what we would do. I didn’t know how we would keep Evelina safe.

I ran my hand through my hair and shook off the thoughts as I focused on my surroundings. I couldn’t afford to be distracted right now. Not when Evelina’s safety was contingent exclusively on me.

I sat out in front of the apartment, holding a cigarette between my fingers as if I were smoking it. I nodded at the other residents as they walked inside, and most of them nodded back. I waited, and when I saw nothing concerning, I turned and walked back into the building. I took the steps slowly as my mind once again drifted back to the way Evelina had flushed bright red when I had noticed the novel she had chosen.

Why couldn’t I get her out of my fucking head?

When I walked in the door, the sound of her in the kitchen met me. I walked around the corner and found her… chopping vegetables. I leaned into the countertop as I watched her nimbly dice them into small pieces, her eyes going between the vegetables and the book in front of her, propped open with a salt and pepper shaker on either side.

She scanned the pages while cutting mindlessly.

“Need some help?”

She jumped and squealed, straightening as she met my eyes. Her rapid movement shifted the saltshaker from her book, and it slammed shut. “What… I thought you were outside.”

I had not been quiet coming inside, so I smirked. “Is the book getting interesting?”

“Very.”

A small flush covered her cheeks as she got back to chopping.

I moved forward and grabbed a pepper from her small pile, then a knife. “What are we making?”

“We?”

I glanced over at her, knowing it was stupid— so stupid to deepen the connection between us. I had done everything to push her away, but Evelina somehow managed to unravel all my attempts at staying away with one look.

When I didn’t respond, she gave me a small smile and flicked her hair over her shoulder before continuing her chopping. “I’m not much of a cook,” she admitted. “I’m making a salad. I noticed the veggies in the fridge and didn’t know what else to do.”

“Jaimie brought them by,” I explained.

“Is she making progress?”

“There’s nothing new if that’s what you’re asking.”

She shrugged. “Oh.”

I couldn’t unravel the meaning behind the word. The tone sounded disappointed but not angry. She didn’t recoil from me at the thought of staying in the same house, and I wondered what had shifted.

I cut the pepper quickly and reached for a head of broccoli before she slapped my hand away and pointed toward the chopped pepper in front of me. “That’s a monstrosity,” she laughed. “Fix the pieces.”

I glanced down at my work and compared it to hers. Maybe the cuts weren’t as even, but at least it was chopped. “It’s going to taste the same.”

She rolled her eyes. “Nobody wants half a pepper in a bite. It has to be way smaller.”

I exhaled a long, suffering breath before getting to work on cutting it into smaller pieces.

“Why are you so good at this?” I scoffed as I sawed at the pepper and found it still unstructured and lopsided, unlike her pristine slices.

“A meticulous eye for detail,” she replied easily. “Cooking is like art, if you think about it. Every detail matters as it all comes together.”

“What got you into art?” I pushed.

She didn’t look up, but I saw how light filled her eyes. “Honestly, it sounds really stupid.” She chuckled at herself and shook her head. “In second grade, we went to an art museum, and it was fine. I was more interested in being outside of school than paying attention to the art. But I was messing around with a friend and ran into a middle-aged woman, and she didn’t even acknowledge me as I tried to apologize. She just kept staring at a painting in the corner of the room.

“It wasn’t even one of the headlining art pieces, but she was so fascinated just looking at it, so I looked too. I wanted to see what held her attention, so I stared at it for a few minutes. I didn’t see anything extraordinary. I turned to leave, and she finally spoke. I’ll always remember what she said. She told me that it wasn’t what was on the canvas that made the painting so meaningful. The importance was in the artist’s decision to leave out certain details.”

“That made sense to a second grader?” I pushed.

“Not even a little bit. But when I went back to the same museum for a middle school trip, I sought out the same painting. It was still there, and through the eyes of a young teenager, I did see it. I saw the blues and cool undertones of the woman’s painting. I saw the emptiness in her eyes, and I looked for what was missing. It all fell together, and I understood how much went into paintings. I saw that it was so much more than just drawing a picture. The choices an artist makes can add so much weight to a painting. So much depth and importance are in every choice and meticulous move.”

I dropped my knife as she spoke and watched every change in her expression. I swallowed any response to her words and allowed her to continue for long minutes, talking about her favorite paintings and why they meant so much to her.

“There’s something else I requested that Jaimie bring here before we arrived,” I finally told her.

She looked over at me with a raised brow. “There is?”

I made quick work of leaving the room, and when I came back, I set the large gift in front of her. It had been extravagant, but after everything Evelina had been going through… she deserved at least this.

Her mouth fell open, and she placed a hand over her chest. Then, she released a small laugh. “I don’t even have an easel at home. You and Jaimie didn’t need to do this.”

But I had. Selfishly, I had wanted to watch her paint.

Her dinner was forgotten as she moved toward the easel and opened the drawers, finding small tubes of paints and an assortment of brushes.

She turned toward me and ran. It was unexpected enough that I almost didn’t catch her before she flung herself into my arms, wrapping hers around my neck and squeezing. I couldn’t help the smile that spread across my lips as I wrapped my arms around the small of her back.

“Thank you,” she whispered in my ear.

I tightened my grip on her and closed my eyes as the scent of her hair invaded my nose. Evelina was addicting. She was what I imagined an addict felt when searching for their next fix. I had gotten a taste of her once, but never this much. I had never gotten this close, and I didn’t know if I would be able to stay away. Not after all the time we had spent together.

Not when Evelina was the single most important thing in my life.

How had we gotten here?

“I don’t want to stay away from you,” she whispered into my neck. “I know I have to come to terms with there never being anything emotional between us, and I will… eventually. I understand where you’re coming from, Zeke.”

I pulled back just enough to meet her eyes.

“You do?”

She nodded with enough understanding in her eyes that I wondered if she really did know the reason I wouldn’t allow myself to go further than physical with her.

“I see you, Zeke.”

Her hand rose to my face, and as it ran down my cheek gently, my body began shaking with my pent-up need. The single graze of her fingertips unwound the control I had spent weeks carefully constructing.

Just the graze of a finger from Evelina, and it was over.

“Have you read many interesting parts in that spicy little book over there?”

Her grin widened. “I don’t think you would be comfortable doing the unmentionable things the man in that book does.”

I grabbed her hips and lifted her in an instant. Her legs wound around my hips as she giggled.

“Baby, I don’t think the man in your book would compare to what runs through my head,” I told her as I strode toward the bedroom. “Are you telling me that you want to explore more acquired sexual tastes, Evelina?”

She began trembling in my arms, her chest rising and falling more rapidly.

“I would do anything with you.”

I didn’t think she could have said anything more powerful. Anything more erotic.

She sighed heavily. “If dark, unmentionable acts are what you need, I want to do them with you.”

I wrapped a hand around the back of her head and grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling her head back in a rapid motion. “I would do anything for you, Evelina.”

I meant every damn word.

My lips grazed the side of her throat, and I sucked in her sweet skin before nipping her neck. She gasped, grinding her hips into mine. The small, breathy plea that came from her lips destroyed me as I lay her on my bed and came down on top of her in an invasion of lips and teeth and pure need.

I had wanted this from the second she came back into my life, and when she clawed at my back and panted my name from a mere kiss, I knew we were in similar company. I knew she wanted this as badly as I did.

“Tell me,” I rasped, looking down at her.

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me what dirty little fantasies that book has given you, Princess. Next time you read it, I want you to imagine me doing all of those filthy things to you while you’re reading, and then I want you to come to my room and show me what you want. Do you understand?”

She nodded quickly as I placed a palm on her belly and then pushed down beyond her pants. She nudged them down, and I chuckled as I removed the barrier entirely.

“I… I have only ever had sex with you,” she admitted. “I don’t want you to go slow this time. I want you to give me everything. I want to see you unleash yourself on me, Zeke. I want you.”

“Fuck,” I growled as we came together again, and I gave her exactly what she wanted. In a matter of moments, she was bare before me, and our clothes were a tangled mess on the floor.

Every inch of her was as perfect as I remembered it.

She was perfect.

She was mine .

I did exactly as she asked as I pressed my middle finger into her, massaging the bundle of nerves between her legs with my thumb. She bucked into me with a breathy cry, and as she shifted her hips, I pressed my other palm into her belly. “Easy, Princess.”

She made a sound of frustration as her body trembled viscously, and I continued. I waited until her breath hitched before adding another finger and watching her explode before me. The hardness in my pants had every inch of my body focused on what was coming next. But fuck, as she shattered beneath my hand, clenching my fingers with the shuddering weight of her orgasm, I could have come from the mere sounds—from the grip she had on me.

I slid my fingers free, and in an instant, I was on her. I grabbed the back of her neck and pulled her up just enough to whisper against her lips, “Keep singing for me.”

She cried out as I thrust myself into her. Her eyes rolled back, and I could have mirrored the expression as the feeling of her consumed me. How was it possible for one woman to have such a tight hold on me… literally and figuratively?

I eased in and out of her, working up a tempo as her hands trailed up my chest and over my heart. She kept them there as she moaned my name and closed her eyes.

I slowed myself as I felt the sensation rising. The need to come inside her. On her. To claim her in every possible way. I forced myself to slow as I ran my hand between us again, stroking the place that had so quickly sent her the first time.

Immediately, Evelina cried out.

She spasmed and came around me. There was no holding back as my name filled every crevice of silence between us, and I erupted right alongside her.

With those noises, that look of pure ecstasy, and the way her hands remained on my chest, balled in fists to weather the intensity of her orgasm, I knew she would ruin me from ever wanting anyone else.