Chapter 10 – Janelle
Chapter Ten
Janelle
Iwrap my arms around Zebulon’s back. I can only feel how firm and muscular his body is when I sit on the back of the bike and I hate that I notice but…
I would notice everything about his body considering how closely I have to hold him.
I’ve never touched a man with such a solid chest, and his back at least gives me a solid place to rest my head.
My breath catches when he starts the bike as I prepare for new hell.
By my estimates, we still have six and a half hours until we get to Chicago.
I don’t know if I can survive that long.
My fingers sink into Zebulon’s rib cage.
He leans back and shifts his hips back so that my legs are spread wide around his ass cheeks.
The bike trembles and I surrender to Zebulon’s control.
The further we get from Boston, the more terrified I feel having only this strange man to rely on for my safety for some unknown amount of time.
Leaving with him was definitely crazy, but as the shock dissipates and my choices sink in, I wonder if there was anything else I could have done aside from disappear on the back of his motorcycle.
Especially when he takes the highway onramp and the wind whips past me so quickly it feels like we’re at the center of a tornado.
Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes and my fingernails sink even deeper into Zebulon’s cut.
He isn’t going slower at all, which I should have expected.
The first thirty minutes of the ride are even more painful than the first time.
The highways are practically unpaved and it doesn’t miss my awareness that a slight misgroove is the only thing standing between me and God.
Trusting this man might kill me.
Zebulon stops again after three hours to smoke.
We pull over at another rest stop and this time, I don’t throw the helmet at him because he jumps off the bike faster than I can and takes my helmet off himself.
Smart man. When the helmet frees my head from the tight restraints and the motorcycle vibrations knocking me around, I feel immediately better. Zeb’s caring look doesn’t hurt.
“Did I knock you around too much?”
“A little.”
He reaches for my lips with his thumb and brushes them over slowly, so a shudder spreads through me. I look up at him with confusion, but Zebulon offers me a soft smile.
“Sorry,” he says. “I need a smoke. You need anything?”
“No. And smoking is bad for you.”
“So is staying up all night in the middle of the desert, but the government paid me pretty well to do that.”
“Army?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Zeb finds himself a cigarette. I don’t like smoking, but there’s something vulnerable about his need for it that makes it so that I can’t look away from him. His lips clench desperately around the tip and he offers me one, but I politely decline.
“Getting used to the bike?”
“No.”
But the next time I have to throw the helmet on so we can leave, I don’t even question doing it.
It’s like I’ve already surrendered myself to the situation, but I’ll need to take some kind of action soon.
I cling to Zebulon’s back with a lot less fury for the rest of the ride until we get to our first stop of the night.
Zebulon was exaggerating when he called this place Chicago because we are several miles outside of Chicago in the middle of nowhere. The only thing that I’m thankful for is the fact that this place he’s putting us up at is pretty nice.
We’re both too tired to do anything but climb into bed together. I don’t even bother to give him a warning about keeping his hands off of me. I don’t even care about the fact that I smell like asphalt, Zeb’s cigarettes, and my own adrenaline-infused sweat.
I rest my head on the pillow for a while as Zeb goes into the bathroom to take a piss, but that’s the last thing I remember after entering our small room at the Marriott.
When I wake up, there’s something heavy laying across me.
Like a giant column. I try to flip over so I can discover what the fuck is pinning me to the bed.
But I can’t even move. I reach out to move the giant column pinning me down and my hand comes into contact with human flesh.
It’s a person. I grunt and try to push harder to get the person off of me, but he doesn’t move.
I can tell from the size and the arm hairiness that this is a man, but based on how hard it is to move this arm, he’s either asleep or dead.
I grunt and shove the body part off of me, but it doesn’t work.
I groan and flop back on the bed, giving up entirely.
It’s Zeb. I’m awake enough to not totally freak out about it, but I can’t get his arm off of me and he’s literally pinning me down.
I squirm a little and embarrassment heats up my cheeks.
My ass brushes up against Zeb’s thigh and the truth hits me.
We’re spooning. I can’t escape because his heavy, muscular arm pins me to the bed.
And I’m pretty sure he isn’t conscious of this. For all I know, I’m the one who started this. The worst part is that I can’t even get away from him and gain my sense of dignity and control over this. Fuck. Now I wish I hadn’t done anything to wake him.
Zeb grunts, farts loudly, then murmurs. “Good morning.”
Great. So that was an intentional fart. Zeb farts again, leaving no doubt that he is way too comfortable around me. But I’m still frozen in his arms and those big, heavy, muscular arms really are quite strong. I don’t respond to his morning greeting.
“I know you’re awake,” he whispers. Then I feel his breath and the tip of his nose poking into my neck and I freeze even more. Zeb’s body wraps and curls around me like a boa constrictor. His nose and his lips are close to my neck.
“You smell incredible,” Zeb whispers. “Sorry for getting so close, but you were shivering all night no matter what I did.”
I don’t remember shivering. And I also don’t know what the hell is wrong with me for not moving away from him right now as he draws my body closer to him.
My hips move seemingly without me and brush up against something more rigid than Zeb’s already muscular thighs.
It’s his dick. He grunts and I know that I wasn’t imagining things.
But he doesn’t move things along any further. He just keeps holding me.
“We can’t stay here all morning,” Zeb says. “But I don’t mind holding you for a little while.”
I breathe out slowly, still not saying a single word.
He moves my hair away from my neck and plants a gentle kiss there.
Gooseflesh spreads all over my body, and I still don’t respond to him at all.
I don’t fight his arms around me, but I can’t bring myself to agree that it feels good.
There’s a part of me that’s still numb over what happened yesterday and downright terrified of what’s ahead.
Zeb’s arms feel good, though, and I don’t want to snap out of the moment and force myself to face the terrifying, uncertain reality.
Fifteen slow and easy minutes pass in Zeb’s arms. I can feel his dick pressing against my ass the entire time, but Zeb doesn’t make a move.
He does nothing but hold me, and it makes me wonder if maybe he really is doing it for himself too.
There’s a part of him that really needs this. Before I can bring myself to ask, Zeb slowly peels his body off of mine.
“I’m taking a shower. You can grab one after. I’ll go find you some clean clothes and breakfast while you unwind.”
“Okay,” I mutter, just so he doesn’t force me to face him, which feels totally embarrassing after we just cuddled for so long. It felt so good, and I don’t want Zeb to think that enjoying that closeness means I want anything more. I already owe him enough… I’m surprised he hasn’t taken more.
There isn’t much time before he gets out of the shower.
I check my phone and have several missed calls from Rana and a few text messages.
Shit. I respond to her texts and let her know that I’m alive, but that I’m nowhere near Boston.
I didn’t quite deal with the fact that I have an entire job and life that I just left behind to hop on the back of Zeb’s motorcycle.
Before I can give her a heavily edited version of the story via text, Zeb gets out of the shower.
I wish he’d put some more clothes on but then again, maybe not.
He walks out of the bathroom with the towel slung around his waist low.
He’s totally unselfconscious about it, which would make sense if he spent time in the military.
Zeb catches his own gaze in the mirror for a few seconds, giving his face a brutal, scrutinizing look.
He touches the sides of his face and then pauses to look at his own eyes before turning to face me.
His hand briefly touches the top of his eyelid with the fake eye and then his hand drops away.
I feel like I witnessed something private and intimate between him.
I almost wish we hadn’t made eye contact as I sit on the edge of the hotel room bed.
I could have kept gazing at my phone. Zeb smirks a little bit, so maybe he doesn’t feel attacked by me looking at his fake eye.
But I’m a sane, heterosexual woman and Zeb has an incredible body.
I’ve never seen a man with a body like this in real life.
Everything about his physique is completely natural.
He has lean, defined muscles all over every inch of him supported by thick, powerful legs.
The same legs that cradled me all night.
Even his chest is firm and looks totally solid.
I can see each well-defined ab muscle. The water dripping all over his body only makes Zeb look sexier.
Water darkens his very light hair and sticks it along the sides of his head, allowing me to see the definition in his jawline and cheekbones.
He’s so fucking sexy, but covered in more tattoos than I realized.
I shouldn’t stop and stare, but Zebulon’s body isn’t just perfect, each of his tattoos clearly has a story behind it.
Asking would be weird, but I can’t help but wonder.
There’s a pair of boots on his ribcage with four sets of initials beneath them, a gigantic chest piece with angel wings and the word Trigger, Death Before Dishonor tattooed on the other side of his ribs, and more tattoos intertwined with various scenes and pieces all over Zeb’s chiseled body.
There’s something strangely beautiful about him and his skin is so pale that it looks dusky gray, almost translucent in the dim bedroom light.
He turns away from me and drops his towel to grab a fresh pair of boxers. I don’t have to look at him, and he doesn’t seem to care whether I look or not, but I… can’t help myself. Biting down on my lower lip, I look over at him and my face slackens as Zeb unwittingly hypnotizes me.
My throat tightens as my heart races and my body has a natural but embarrassing response to seeing a caked up white boy drop his towel.
It’s only for a moment before he bends over to grab his boxer briefs.
Without looking at me, he slides the underwear over his muscular thighs, allowing the fabric to cling to his ass cheeks before he snaps the waist band of his underwear against his flat hips.
I quickly look down at my phone before Zeb turns around. I can see him throwing on a shirt in my peripheral vision as he looks over.
“Hop in the shower,” he says. “And take your time… it’s been a hard ride.”