Chapter Fourteen #4
Spotting a rock small enough to fit inside my palm, I slow down just enough to swipe it from the ground and then I throw it at Zeke’s retreating back before he’s out of range. “Hey!” I yell as soon as it hits his right shoulder blade. “Asshole, I’m talking to you!”
He stops and turns to face me, his green eyes wide with shock. “Did you just throw a rock at me?”
I nod. “I did.”
Zeke looks at me like I might do it again. “Why?”
“I need to rest.”
“So rest.”
He turns away like he’s going to run off and leave me, so I grab a fistful of much smaller rocks this time and start throwing them like I’m playing Down the Clown at an arcade.
“Aaargh!” Zeke whips back around and starts ducking the little round missiles. “What the hell is your problem?”
“You!” I aim for his midsection, and the rock ricochets off his glistening abs. He doesn’t even flinch. “You’re my fucking problem, asshole.” I throw another rock, and he swats it away.
“Oh, I see. We’re away from my brothers now, so you finally drop the act.”
“On the contrary. No one knows me better than them.”
Zeke visibly revolts at the idea. It’s like we’re divorced and fighting over who gets the kids. His lip curls as his gaze narrows. The expression is the complete opposite of the adoration and obsession I’m used to seeing even though the face it adorns is the same. “You’re so full of shit.”
“No. I’m just fed up with yours, Ezekiel.”
He looks as if I’d slapped him. “I told you not to call me that.”
“Oops.”
“You’re such a bitch,” he says as his gaze sweeps my face and then my body. It feels suspiciously like he’s checking me out—like he’s seeing me for the first time. And his tone… It was filled with more heat than ice.
I’m stunned enough that I forget to respond.
I don’t even notice that he’s moving closer until Zeke seizes my wrist and twists it, forcing me to drop the remaining rocks in my palm. He then uses his hold to spin me around until my back is pressed to his sweaty chest, and he wraps an arm around my waist while he pins my arm at my lower back.
I can feel his breath skate along my cheek and his lips by my ear. But even more distracting is the long, hard ridge I can feel pressing into my trapped arm. “Let me make something clear to you, princesa. I am not yours. We are not in a relationship. This is not happening.”
He’s clearly rejecting me, so why does it feel like he just struck a match and lit my blood on fire? Confused and eager to get out of his hold before I do something embarrassing—like begging him to kiss me—I nod. “Okay.”
“I am not Seth.” He stalls like he wants the opposite. An excuse to keep me in his arms.
“I know that.” A scoff that sounds more like a sob escapes my throat. “Don’t you think I know that? How can I confuse you when you look at me like you hate me? Seth never did that.”
Zeke spins me around but doesn’t let me go far.
He grips my upper arms and pulls me right back in until the front of our bodies are melded together and I can see the small brown flecks in his green eyes.
“You look at me like I’m him,” he accuses harshly.
“Like you don’t even see me. It drives me fucking crazy. ”
“I don’t mean to. I just…” I love him. “I miss him.” Zeke closes his eyes as if my confession pains him, and then he nods and exhales slowly.
His breath still smells like the mint from his toothpaste mixed with citrus from the orange juice he drank earlier while listening to Khalil curse me out.
On the other hand, I’m still falling apart at the seams. “Do you think—is there any way I can talk to him? Just for a minute?”
“No.” My heart drops like a boulder, and Zeke releases me suddenly, moving away as if he’s desperate for the distance.
Moments ago, I could swear he wanted to kiss me.
My lips are still tingling from that brief but suspiciously deliberate contact.
“I’m sorry, Aurelia.” He backs up another step while keeping his gaze on mine.
“It’s going to take a lot more than some pebbles thrown at me to force him out. ”
“No, that’s not—”
“We should go.”
Zeke starts running again, but I can’t bring myself to follow, and he doesn’t look back to make sure that I am. He disappears through the trees, and I take a moment to catch my breath.
What the fuck was that?
I think it’s safe to say that Zeke has my head in a tailspin. He’s hot one moment and ice cold the next.
I can’t take it anymore.
This has to stop.
I look in the direction he’s running and see him disappear over the hill. The guys must be rubbing off on me more than I thought because the instinct to give chase kicks in and I’m running before I realize it.
Fuck it.
When I reach the top of the hill, I stumble to a halt when I spot him at the base, looking as if he’s waiting for me. I’m even more embarrassed that it was clear I was chasing him. By the time I reach him at the bottom of the hill, I’m more than ready for war.
“For the record,” I seethe as I come to stand in front of him, “I never asked you to be with me, but it doesn’t have to be this way either. We can be friends.”
Zeke perks a brow while the rest of his face remains impassive. “No.”
“No? What do you mean no? Why the hell not?”
“Because I don’t trust a word that comes out of that pretty little mouth, princesa.”
“See…that. There! Why do you say things like that?”
His green eyes turn challenging, and he takes a step closer. “Like what?”
I refuse to back down, but I can’t deny my voice sounds unsure when I answer. “You said my mouth is pretty.”
“So what?”
“Soooo… You don’t say things like that to someone you hate.
You say it if it’s someone you want to…kiss.
” Zeke doesn’t respond, but the knot in his throat bobs as if he just swallowed a really large pill.
For some reason it gives me a false sense of confidence, and I inch forward. “Do you want to kiss me, Ezekiel?”
I expect him to deny it immediately. Instead, he stares at my mouth for a really long time before he rejects me. “No.”
“Are you sure?” I inch a little closer, something like hope tightening inside my chest. “Not even one little kiss?” I decide to taunt. “It’s just us. The others don’t have to know.”
“You want me to help you cheat on my brothers?”
I close the last bit of distance between us, and Zeke breaks first, stumbling in retreat.
I take a page out of Thorin, Khalil, and Seth’s book and I don’t let him run.
I chase. His back hits the huge tree behind him, and his green eyes flare wide when I boldly invade his space.
When I place my hands on his shoulders and mold the front of my body against his, his eyes take on a glassy look. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s really not,” he returns dryly. And yet he’s still staring at my mouth.
“You’ve kissed me before.”
“Seth kissed you.”
I roll my eyes. “Ta-may-toe, ta-mah-to.”
Zeke swears. “You enjoy provoking me, don’t you?”
“Yes, but only because you make it so easy.” I breathe deeply when it doesn’t feel like the whole truth and I begin pushing toward it.
“And,” I add reluctantly, “when I make you angry, it hurts less to know that you’re not the man I love anymore.
Sometimes, I see you and I forget. And then you see me too and…
I remember. At least when you’re angry about something I actually did, it feels like I deserve the way you look at me. ”
“I’m sorry,” he says with a pink tinge to his cheeks. “I’ll…try to stop. But won’t kissing you just confuse you even more?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. We won’t know until we try. It could be good for us both.”
“And why is that?”
“Because I’m confused and you’re curious. You want to know what made Seth and your brothers fall so hard for me. Well, here’s your chance.”
“I’m pretty sure it wasn’t that set of lips that made them fall, princesa.”
“You could kiss those too,” I blurt and then I have to swallow my surprise and keep up the pretense that I’m in control of this dangerous game we’re playing. “But we probably shouldn’t go that fast. Just to be safe.”
“You think?”
“Kiss me,” I demand again.
“No.”
“Because you’re scared.”
“Because you’re dangerous, Aurelia.”
“So? Rumor has it you like courting danger. Maybe it’s why no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop flirting with me, Ezekiel.”
“Is that your version of what’s been happening between us?”
“No. It’s the truth.”
“I don’t want to kiss you, Aurelia.”
“I won’t offer again, Ezekiel.” I use his full name purposely and watch his nostrils flare as he bites back the command that I never do it again.
And still he doesn’t take his eyes off my lips.
A moment later, this tormented look enters his eyes as if the demons in his mind are divided on what he should do and waging an all-out war.
“It’s okay,” I say softly, taking pity on him and deciding to end this game. “You don’t have to.”
I start to push away when he reaches out suddenly, and I feel his palms burning their brand around my biceps. “Wait. Just…wait.” He sucks in a sharp breath, and a certain resolve settles over his features.
This time it’s my turn to panic when I realize he might do it.
Zeke might actually kiss me.
Suddenly, it’s my demons that are screaming obscenities at me for courting danger.
My heart is thundering when his head finally dips and he leans forward. My belly swoops with want, and I can’t quite catch my breath. When his hold tightens and he pulls me closer, I realize I’m not breathless. I’m hyperventilating.
“No,” I say to my surprise and his.
Zeke stops immediately with a question in his eyes and a confused furrow in his brows.
We’re frozen in place, our lips a hair from meeting while I search pretty desperately for the reason I stopped him after damn near begging him to kiss me.
“No?” he echoes, his voice thick with need but his eyes full of resentment for it.
It hits me then—why this feels wrong.
“Zeke… I can’t imagine what you went through in that place, and I’m sorry for it.
” I gently place a hand over his heart and keep my gaze pinned there.
I’m not surprised to find his heart racing, but the rhythm is unsteady, as if the war in his head is also being waged in his heart.
“You have no idea how sorry I am that you’re hurting.
” Inhaling, I drop my hand but cowardly keep my gaze on his chest as I take a reluctant step back.
His hold shifts from my arms to my waist so I don’t go far, but the absence of his hard body pressed against mine is enough to strengthen my resolve.
“I wish to God that I could take away your pain, but I won’t be your punching bag.
I won’t pay for what Tatum did. It doesn’t matter what you feel for me if it isn’t intentional.
I’m not a side effect or an experiment. I’m a woman who deserves to be loved.
” Finally, I let my blurry gaze meet his, only to find it blank.
The resentment is gone, but so is everything else. “You can kiss me when you mean it.”
I go to pull away when his hands tighten on my waist, and I gasp as something dark, possessive, and very much intentional swims across his features—until he doesn’t look like Zeke anymore.
He looks like a nightmare and a dream wrapped up into one.
It raises the hairs on my arms. The chilling sense that I’m in danger skates down my spine, but when I try to pull away again, he growls and I feel his fingers bite into my spine.
“Z-zeke?”
His gaze narrows at the name, making the harsh planes of his visage that much more frightening.
A terrified whimper tears from my throat.
The sound snaps him out of it, and I watch without breathing as Zeke visibly sheds the violent reaction.
It shouldn’t be possible the way his eyes seem to brighten from seafoam on a stormy night to their usual spring green, but the more his expression relaxes and returns to normal, the more his eyes do too.
“Fair enough,” he says as if he didn’t just scare the shit out of me.
His tone is casual but cool, leaving me to wonder if I just imagined the whole fucking thing or if Zeke is wholly unaware of what the fuck just happened.
Clearing his throat, he avoids my gaze as he drops his hands from my waist and steps around me. “Come on. We should get back.”