Chapter 13
He shoves me into the passenger seat without a word and gets in, tires screeching as he peels away from the curb.
I stare out the window, my reflection a ghostly, wide-eyed stranger.
The fight plays on a loop in my head: the sickening thud of a fist hitting flesh, the primal roar that ripped from Zane’s throat when that guy came for me, my own pathetic attempt at heroism.
My stalker is Zane Ivarsson. My protector is Zane Ivarsson.
The two realities are at war in my head, and I’m the battlefield.
He remains completely withdrawn, a tense, simmering volcano in the driver’s seat. He drives with a focused, aggressive precision, his bruised knuckles white on the steering wheel.
I steal a glance at him. A dark, ugly bruise is already forming on his cheekbone where the mask didn’t protect him, and there’s a split in his lower lip.
We drive for a long time. Too long. The familiar streets of campus disappear, replaced by a quieter, more affluent part of the city I’ve never seen before.
He pulls into a private underground garage beneath a modern, minimalist apartment building. This is so far from the chaos of university life.
The ride up the elevator is silent and suffocating. He unlocks a door at the end of a long, sterile hallway and lets me in, his hand a firm, guiding pressure on my lower back.
The apartment is huge, a sprawling space with floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a glittering panorama of the city lights. It’s impersonal and pristine, more like a hotel suite than a home. He reaches for a light switch, his fingers flicking toward the panel on the wall.
“Don’t,” I say, the word rushing out of me before I can stop it. He freezes, his hand hovering in the air. “Don’t turn on the lights for now.”
The command surprises me as much as it does him. But the darkness feels safer. The darkness is where all the lines have been blurring tonight.
“Your… your hands,” I stammer, needing to fill the silence, needing to do something, anything, other than stand here and wait for what comes next. “And your face. They’re bleeding. They need to be cleaned.”
A desperate, flimsy attempt to seize a fraction of control, to create a task that will distract us both from the raw, vibrating tension in the air.
He watches me for a long moment, then gives a single, curt nod.
He leads me through the dark apartment, his footsteps silent on the hardwood floors, until we’re in what is obviously a master bathroom. It’s the size of my entire bedroom, all dark tile and gleaming chrome fixtures, dimly lit by the city glow filtering through a high window.
He pulls a comprehensive first-aid kit from a cabinet under the sink and sets it on the counter with a quiet thud.
I open it, my hands shaking as I pull out antiseptic wipes and gauze. He offers me his hands without a word. I take one, cradling his large, rough hand in my own two smaller ones. The skin on his knuckles is raw and split, oozing blood. I gently begin to clean the wounds.
“Just wrap them,” he says, his voice low and gravelly. “I’m getting in the shower.”
My face flushes with a heat that has nothing to do with shame and everything to do with anticipation. I feel like the most naive idiot on the planet. Of course. We’re in his bathroom. He’s going to shower. And then… then what?
My indignation flares. “Fine. I’ll just wait in the…”
“You’re coming with me,” he states, as if it’s the most obvious fact in the world.
“I can’t, I… my clothes are muddy,” I say, the excuse so pathetic I want to cringe. “I’ll make a mess.”
“Then take them off,” he says simply. He steps closer, closing the small space between us. Before I can come up with another stupid protest, he’s pulling the hem of his torn and bloodied hoodie off over his head.
My breath catches. The dim light casts shadows across the hard planes of his chest and abdomen.
He’s littered with bruises from the fight, dark smudges against his pale skin that only make him look more dangerous, more primal.
He cups my face in his hands, his thumbs stroking over my cheekbones. “Stop thinking,” he murmurs, then his mouth is on mine.
This kiss isn’t like the ones in the park. There’s no punishment in it, no desperation. It’s slow, a deep, soul-stealing kiss that tastes of him and the blood on his split lip.
He kisses my jaw, the frantic pulse in my neck, the corner of my eye. “You’re safe here, with me,” he whispers against my skin, and the insane thing is, I believe him.
My hands find the hem of my sweater and I pull it over my head, my movements clumsy.
I step out of my muddy jeans and kick them aside, standing before him in nothing but my boxer briefs, feeling exposed and insecure. He doesn’t miss a beat.
His mouth continues its devastating exploration down my chest, his lips and tongue teasing my nipples until they’re hard, aching peaks. It’s a hell of a distraction. He works the button on my boxers and they fall to the floor.
He pulls me with him into a shower stall the size of a small car, turning a knob that unleashes a torrent of steaming hot water. It sluices over my cold skin, a welcome shock to my system.
We’re under the spray together, bodies slick and flush.
He pins me against the cool tile, his hands tangled in my hair, and kisses me like a man starved.
His cock, thick and impossibly hard, brushes against my thigh, my stomach, my own aching length.
It’s a constant, maddening reminder of where this is going.
I break the kiss, gasping for air. “Why?” I ask. “Why didn’t you just tell me not to go to the party? Properly, I mean.”
His whole body tenses. Annoyance flickers in his eyes. “I did tell you,” he says, his voice tight. “Repeatedly. As for ‘properly’… I didn’t know exactly what Nero and his friends had planned until a few hours before. I thought I could contain it. I thought I could keep you safe from a distance.”
“What did you mean?” I press, needing to understand. “When you said that they found out how you feel about me?”
His expression darkens. A muscle jumps in his jaw.
He presses me harder against the tiled wall, the water plastering his dark hair to his forehead. He growls, his lips moving against mine as he speaks.
“And how do you think I feel about you, Easton? Which one of us is playing games here? I’m fucking burning alive for you.
I tried to fight it. God, in the beginning, I tried.
But then I stopped fighting it. All I could do was try to find any excuse to be near you.
An shove, a stupid comment, anything. But you just looked at me with that fucking contempt in your eyes. ”
He takes a breath, his chest heaving. “I had no idea if you were into guys, and then I realized I didn’t give a shit.
I was going to have you anyway. And then you started tutoring me, and I started losing my mind.
Sitting right next to you. Smelling you.
Touching you by ‘accident.’ And you looked back at me, Beeler.
” His voice drops to a lethal whisper. “You looked back. You little menace. And I thought I was going to lose it if I couldn’t touch you for real, if I couldn’t see what you look like while I’m fucking you. So how do you think I feel?”
The raw, desperate obsession in his voice strips me bare.
Before I can answer, he turns me around, pressing my front to the tiles. He bites the back of my neck, not hard enough to break the skin, just a sharp, possessive claiming that makes my knees weak.
He licks the spot, then his hands slide down my back, gripping my hips. He drops to his knees behind me.
I feel his hot breath, then the wet, shocking touch of his tongue. He’s licking my hole. My mind short-circuits. My back arches, my hands slapping against the tiles for support as a moan is torn from my throat.
“Zane, no, you can’t—” My protests are breathless lies. “It’s… it’s not… Oh my god…”
“Don’t care,” he murmurs against my skin, and then he does it again, a long, slow lap that makes me see stars.
I surrender, a helpless sound escaping me as he tastes me, claims me in the most intimate way possible.
He rises, his hands gripping my hips as he presses his cock into the space between my legs. “Are you a virgin, Easton?” he asks, his voice rough against my ear.
The question hangs in the steamy air. “Yes,” I whisper.
I feel him smile against my skin. “I thought so,” he says, his tone dark with satisfaction. “I fucking hoped so. If anyone had gotten to you before me, Easton… if anyone had even gotten close, I would have killed them.”
“Don’t say that, Zane.”
“Say my name again,” he commands.
“Zane,” I moan, just as a slick finger presses against me, then slides inside.
The feeling is tight, foreign—a shocking intrusion that burns and thrills all at once.
My body rebels first, every muscle clenching against the stretch, but the rebellion melts into something else, something molten and humiliatingly sweet.
A second finger joins the first, and the sensation intensifies—wider, deeper, my breath stuttering in ragged gasps as he works me open with slow, deliberate precision.
He moves like he owns every inch of me, like he’s memorizing the way I shake, the way I try not to make a sound. His lips brush my ear, his voice a low, sinful murmur. Dark praise. Twisted affection. Words meant to undo me. Good. Just like that. You take me so well.
But then—he stops. The sudden stillness is maddening. The ache he’s built lingers, pulsing, demanding more, but he gives me nothing. His fingers stay buried inside, unmoving, claiming without mercy but withholding what I’ve started to crave.
He doesn’t fuck me with his fingers. He just holds me there—open, trembling, knowing that I want it now—and that he’s the one who made me want it.
He turns me around again, so my back is pressed to the cool tile. He just looks at me, his gaze intense.
His hands clamp over my chest, heavy and claiming. He kneads my nipples into hard, trembling peaks, then shifts his grip.
One hand touches my breast while the other rolls and teases the nipple until it’s straining, hard and desperate for more. He squeezes, kneads, and traces insistent circles with his thumbs, leaving my skin flushed and trembling under his control. Every movement is precise, almost cruel.
“I’ve never…” I whisper, my voice cracking with emotion. “I’ve never felt anything like this before.”
His face darkens with a pleasure so intense it’s almost frightening.
“I’m going to dry you off,” he says, his voice suddenly husky. He reaches over and yanks the knob. The torrent of hot water cuts off, leaving us in a suddenly quiet, steam-filled enclosure.
He’s going to dry me off. And then he’s going to take me to his bed.
The thought doesn’t spark fear. It sparks a wild, frantic panic born of absolute certainty. The certainty that I’m going to let him. The certainty that I’m even going to beg for it. Because I want him that badly.