Chapter 26 Sloane
Sloane
Three Weeks Before
I can’t breathe. I can barely keep my legs straight. Can barely concentrate on my surroundings as Zeth growls into my ear. “Then you’d better get talking.”
My cell phone is wedged between my shoulder and my ear and Pippa is rambling away on the other end of the line, oblivious to the fact that a dangerous, impossibly sexy, impossibly cruel man has two of his fingers inside me.
He works his thumb over the swollen bud of my clit, smirking with a look of dark pleasure that sends vibrations through my whole body.
“Pippa, hi… I… I need to ask you a favor.”
“A favor? For my favorite girl? Sure, hon. Shoot.”
Zeth draws his fingers out of me and slides them over my pussy, grinning when I twitch. “I need you to see someone for me.”
“Like a patient?”
“Like someone who wants to ask you a few questions before you see the—ah!—the patient.”
“Are you okay, Sloane? You sound like you’re trying to do yoga and failing again.”
Zeth gently squeezes the tiny knot of nerves at the apex of my thighs, grinning mercilessly.
He switches hands and begins stroking me with his left, bringing his right up to his mouth.
He slowly slides his fingers into his mouth, piercing me with his gaze the whole time, sucking them clean.
Embarrassment floods me, swiftly followed by a crescendo of desire that takes me by surprise.
Every single experience I’ve had with this guy has involved him going down on me or tasting me in some way.
As a fairly introverted person, the prospect of someone enjoying the way that I taste is a ridiculous one, but there’s no denying Zeth’s addiction.
He leans into me, pressing his chest against mine, and my heart stumbles in my chest. He’s going to kiss me. He’s actually going to kiss me…
But at the last moment he angles his head, like he’s caught himself about to do something unwise, and nips just below my jawline with his teeth.
“Sloane? Sloane, do you need to call me back?”
“Uh… may… maybe.”
Zeth palms my breast through my T-shirt, squeezing painfully. He shakes his head, tutting. “Don’t be a bad girl,” he whispers.
I am instantly filled with the urge to please him. “I just need you to meet this guy, Pip. He wants to ask you some questions before he sends his friend over to you. Is that okay?”
Zeth nods approvingly, watching me squirm beneath him like a hungry cat might watch a mouse, right before it pounces. Pippa goes silent on the other end of the phone. Even her breathing stops. I can imagine her eyebrows banking into a frown as she sits at her desk.
“Sloane. Please tell me I don’t need to have that conversation with you after all.”
“What conversation?”
Zeth pulls back, still watching me, backing up toward the kitchen island.
He reaches out behind him, barely glancing to locate what he’s after, and then my throat swells up.
His hand curves around a black handle—the one belonging to the serrated knife that lives in the wooden block on my marble countertop.
My heart doesn’t beat once during the long second it takes him to withdraw the blade, always watching me, never taking his eyes off me.
“The conversation I said we’d skip back in the coffeehouse. The one about you making smart choices. This is about that guy, isn’t it? You promised you weren’t going to see him again, Sloane. He’s dangerous.”
He is dangerous. He’s approaching me with a sharp knife in his hand, and he looks seriously fucking dangerous.
I press back into the wall, clutching the phone against my ear.
I know he can hear what she’s saying on the phone, and Pip’s remark seems to have galvanized him toward some outcome I don’t even want to think about. “You’re wrong,” I breathe.
His torturously slow approach hesitates. With his head tilted to one side, only half a degree, he narrows his eyes, studying me.
“He’s just looking out for his friend. Why else would he be doing this? How can he be so bad if he cares for her so much?”
“Just because he cares for someone else doesn’t mean he won’t skin you alive and hack you into small pieces. You’re being incredibly na?ve over this guy.”
“I’m not,” I whisper. He’s closer now, standing right in front of me. He takes hold of the hem of my T-shirt, gathering it carefully in gentle fingers. “I’m just choosing to be hopeful.”
“Na?ve,” Zeth mouths, shaking his head again.
I swallow down the building panic that forces its way up my throat, pulling in a deep breath.
This is going to be okay. This is all going to be okay.
A clever person might tell Pippa right here and now that Zeth Mayfair is holding them at knifepoint in their kitchen, but something holds me back.
“Well,” Pippa says on the other end of the phone. “I really hope you’re not letting your vagina rule your head on this one. If I meet this guy and he’s smoking hot, then I know you’ve lost your mind.”
“Don’t worry, Pip.” Zeth takes the sharp edge of the knife and holds it to my T-shirt, barely touching the sharpened metal against the material. It parts like he’s tearing through wet paper. “He’s hideous,” I say into the phone. One dark eyebrow curves upward as he reacts to that. Bullshit.
“Playing with fire,” he tells me. I don’t think Pippa hears him, though. His voice is so low and laden with desire that I’m pretty sure I don’t really hear it. I feel it in my bones, burning its way inside me, branding me, charging me with electricity.
“I can see him tomorrow. I have a half-hour spot open at two. If he’s late or he doesn’t show up, then we’re done. I don’t trust him, Sloane, and I think you’re mad to even be talking with him. If I were you, I’d sever all ties and run like hell.”
Zeth has cut a clean line all the way through my shirt. He places the knife onto the countertop beside me and then draws back the fabric, exposing my bare breasts. His eyes feast on me, lighting every square inch of me on fire.
“I don’t like your friend,” he growls. And then he dips his head and laps his tongue at my nipple, sucking the bud of flesh into his warm mouth. My knees want to buckle, but his solid body presses into mine, holding me up.
“Two o’clock. Got it. I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
“I’m more concerned about you getting this message, Sloane. Please tell me you’re hearing me right now?”
“Yes! Yeah… ah… I am, I swear.” This is not going well.
Zeth seems intent on me giving myself away.
His hand finds its way down my jeans again, teasing over my sensitive skin, making me tremble, while his other hand works over my breast, roughly pinching my other nipple so hard that I want to slap him.
“All right, then. Tomorrow. Maybe you should come with him. I don’t know if I want to be alone with him either.”
“I… I’ll do my best.”
Pippa hangs up. She’s pissed at me. I knew she would be, but for some unknown reason I can’t say no to this man. I have a feeling that’s a skill I had better learn soon; otherwise, God only knows what kind of fucked-up situations I’m going to find myself in.
“You ready?” he asks me. That question has me shivering from head to toe. This is a prime moment to try out that word. No. It’s just two letters. I can say it. I say it to other people all day long.
Hey, Sloane, you gonna eat that?
No.
What, you didn’t remember it’s your birthday today?
No.
Can you sign off on my rounds sheet this morning? I know I was late, but—
No.
And yet it’s a totally different matter when this man is standing three inches away from me.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m ready.”
I melt internally when he gives me a savage smile.
“Wait here, then.” He leaves the kitchen, at which point my common sense returns with a vengeance and kicks my ass.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid…” I put down the phone and grab myself a glass of water, downing the whole thing in one long, gulping mouthful.
It’s so weird how Zeth can make one part of me so wet and then another part of me so ridiculously dry.
Has anything ever been as inconsistent as my body right now?
I hear him come back inside the house. I brace myself against the sink, closing my eyes and savoring a deep breath—I need it. Need the oxygen.
“Sloane.” My name is a reprimand on his lips, like he’s scolding a dog that’s about to pee on the carpet. When I turn around, he has something in his hand that makes me want to bolt from the room.
The black bag.
Zeth sets the bag on top of my dining table, unzips it, and pulls out a length of coiled rope.
“You gonna take the rest of your clothes off or am I gonna do it?” he asks.
With any other person, I’d probably leap at the second option.
Someone slowly, seductively stripping you out of your clothes would probably be incredible, but with Zeth, he doesn’t mean it like that.
I think what he’s really asking me is if I’m going to behave myself.
I have yet to find out what happens if I don’t.
I pluck up every scrap of courage I possess and walk over to the kitchen table.
I position myself right in front of him, so close he can see the fuck you in my eyes.
I’m doing this because I am evidently addicted to what this man does to me, but that doesn’t mean I have to be grateful for it.
I lock eyes with him, refusing to look away as I yank my jeans down.
I kick them away and shimmy out of my underwear, tossing the items of clothing away like the fact that I’m stripping for him means nothing.
Like my heart isn’t thundering like a piston.
Zeth nods, appraising me. His half-lowered eyelids give a heavy, sleepy look to his eyes that feels positively sinful. “You’re perfection, angry girl. No need to huff and puff. I’m gonna take care of you.”