Chapter Thirty-Six
Chloe
I woke up to the cool morning air, the absence of warmth next to me a silent sign that Zane had left. Of course he had.
But I was grateful he’d been there until I’d fallen asleep because I wasn’t sure I could have without him.
Rolling onto my back, I stared at the ceiling as images from the night before replayed vividly in my mind.
I jolted upright, forcing the thoughts to stop, and hurried to the bathroom.
Turning on the water, I let the steam fill the room before getting in the shower.
The hot water helped relax my muscles and organize my thoughts whenever things became too loud inside.
It was my escape, the only way I knew to calm myself.
When finished, I wrapped myself in a towel and opened the bathroom door, only to find Zane sitting, waiting for me on the edge of my bed.
Dressed in his usual dark attire, he looked like himself again—strong, composed, calculated, different from the unguarded version of him I’d seen last night.
But not everything was exactly the same. There was something different in his eyes today.
“You’re awake,” he said, his voice low as his eyes roamed over me without shame.
Though I’d just walked from the shower, his presence didn’t bother me the way it would’ve before.
I nodded, watching him cautiously.
“I’ve been up for a while now. You’d know that if you hadn’t left.”
My tone betrayed the disappointment I hadn’t meant to show as I deliberately closed the distance between us. His eyes flickered as if he was momentarily surprised I was moving so close.
“How’s your foot?”
“Healing,” I responded. “Thanks for helping me with it.”
I reached for his hand, my fingers lightly over the gauze in his palm. “How’s your hand?” I asked, unsure why my voice was sounding so sultry all of a sudden.
“Healing,” he echoed me and I smiled.
He leaned in slightly but didn’t stand like he usually did to remind me who was in charge.
“You were right. There was someone outside the house. Carter found something while checking the surveillance.”
The fear from last night came rushing back, and I instinctively wrapped my arms around myself. Zane’s jaw ticked when he noticed. My stomach knotted, everything inside me turning cold.
I hadn’t imagined it. Someone had broken in and tried to pass me a message I wasn’t supposed to share.
Could it really have been from Malia? Did she figure I was in trouble?
I had to find a phone, had to find a way to tell her to stay away from all this and I couldn’t ask Zane, not without putting her in his line of sight too.
“Do you know who…?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.
“I don’t know yet.”
My head turned to the side, trying to hide my discomfort from him.
But his hand tugged gently at my towel, pulling me toward him until I was standing between his legs. The tension thickened, my heartbeat stuttering as he reached up, brushing my damp hair away from my face.
There was something in his eyes, something keeping me trapped, an intensity I’d never seen in him before today.
“You’re safe here,” he murmured almost to himself, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “No one’s getting near you, Chloe. I’ll kill anyone who tries.”
Although there was always a touch of insanity and a hint of possession in his words, I knew he was going to honor them.
His words should have calmed me, but instead they sent my heart racing for all the wrong reasons.
I should have stepped back, should have resisted, but my body was betraying me again.
I craved his touch, the power and stability I felt whenever I was with him.
And I needed everything to stop, just for a moment.
Before I could stop myself, my lips crashed into his, igniting a spark that spread through me like wildfire. His hands gripped my waist, pulling me in, and I let the towel fall to the floor.
My legs moved, climbing onto the bed and wrapping around his waist as he stood up effortlessly, turning us around and laying me on my back and positioning himself on top. He removed my grip from around his neck, pinning my wrists above my head on the mattress.
His tongue did incredible things with mine, making everything I was feeling much more combustible.
As the kiss deepened, he rocked his hips against me, his length pressing into my soaked center. My knees parted instinctively, and he pressed harder, the head of his cock grinding against my clit in small, torturous circles that left me moaning into his mouth.
Then his lips traveled down to my nipples, sucking one in as his free hand pinched the other one, playing and flicking, until they were both painfully swallowed with arousal.
I groaned at the sharp pain that was quickly turning into pleasure.
And as if that was his cue, he stood up and started undressing. His clothes flew to the floor in a blur. When I looked up, his bulging erection stood proudly, hard and ready.
I watched the light coming from the windows illuminate him like a god standing above me and the way his icy blue eyes roamed over my naked body, filled with primal hunger.
Realization hit me.
I lay bare with my legs open, vulnerable in the unforgiving light. I instinctively turned my face away, afraid to see in his eyes something he wouldn’t like.
“Don’t look away from me, Chloe.”
His voice was too commanding to ignore. I didn’t want to look, but my body obeyed him anyway. Meeting his gaze again, he was gripping his cock, his hand stroking it slowly, like he was waiting for me to take over.
“Play with it.”
He instructed and my eyes frowned in confusion.
“And look at me while you do it.”
I swallowed hard, his eyes devouring me mercilessly, taking in my most intimate parts in detail.
Zane
She hesitated, long enough for me to catch the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, as if she didn’t know what to do next, as if she was trying to remember how to even hold a cock in her hand.
I knew Chloe wasn’t a virgin but damn me if she sometimes didn’t look like one.
She was a stripper for Bruce. I would’ve bet my right hand she was experienced, that she’d had more than a few close encounters with men.
But the more I touched her, the more I started to believe that, whatever the deal between her and Bruce, he must have kept her behind a glass wall like some forbidden prize to be admired but never claimed; because every time I touched her, it was as if she’d never been touched before, never been taught.
And fuck, I couldn’t put into words what that did to me.
“You know what I want, Chloe. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
I dragged my gaze down to her glistening pussy, giving her silent direction and like a good fucking dream, her hand moved.
She wrapped her fingers around me tightly, my eyes shutting as the first bolt of pleasure tore through me with the contact of her skin on mine.
“Show me how much you want it, amore.”
She dragged my tip between her folds, coating me in her slick heat, and then started circling her clit, using me to pleasure herself.
My jaw locked. I had to grip her thighs to keep from exploding.
Her hips started rolling, chasing the friction. Her mouth making sounds I wanted to bottle.
“That’s it, amore,” I growled, getting completely drunk on her torturous moves. “Keep going. Make me watch.”
She was soaked. The sounds my dick made every time she slid it on herself were filthy and addictive. Her hand was dripping with fluids from us both, and when she circled her clit again, her body jolted, short-circuiting. Then, she pushed the tip inside her.
I pulled it back, and she moaned, frustrated.
“Zane, please—”
I slid down the bed, down to the place I’d been obsessing over day and night.
“Zane…” she panted, feeling my finger sliding into her.
And before she had time to breathe, a second finger joined it.
She grabbed the sheets, twisting them in her fists, her legs spreading wider for me on instinct as I pumped into her. The faces she made… fucking God.
I replaced my fingers with my tongue, nuzzling into her.
Her back arched, her breath hitching so hard it sounded like a sob, as if she’d never felt a man’s tongue there before me.
It made me so fucking possessive my cock throbbed aggressively.
“Oh my God, Zane!” she cried out, digging her nails into my skull, sounding like she was summoning a god.
Her body convulsed and shattered and my tongue swirled, not wanting to miss a drop as she orgasmed all around me.
I needed to be inside her. Right fucking now.
Before she could recover, I moved over her, pinning her with my weight, claiming her mouth so she tasted herself on my tongue.
Her lips tasted better than the rest of her body, and that said a lot because her pussy was fucking phenomenal.
I aimed for her entrance and thrust into her in one deep stroke that made her gasp into my mouth. Her walls gripped me tight, fluttering as I sank to the hilt, and her back arched violently, the remnants of her orgasm shuddering through her.
I wanted to drag it out, keep her on that edge as long as I could.
Her nails clawed at my shoulders, her breathing ragged, skin damp with sweat, and fuck me, she was just as tight as the first time.
I kissed her again, somehow knowing she needed that connection as I started to thrust slowly and deeply, working to find our rhythm.
I’d never had gentle sex before, had never wanted to. Never gave a damn about the body underneath me. But I wanted it to be good for her this time.
I knew she needed that and something in me forced me to be that man for her.
Her body responded to every thrust, each growing harder and deeper until we were both gasping for air.
“Tell me,” I murmured against her mouth, “how do you like to be fucked, amore?”
“Exactly like that,” she whimpered back.
My cock throbbed inside her. That fucking answer!
“Then I’m the only man you will fuck. Got it?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t want to give me that satisfaction.
So, I stopped. Froze inside her.
Her hips tried to move, to chase after the feeling I’d stopped giving her but my thumb moved to her clit, pinning her down, holding her right there at the edge.
“Not until you say it.”
I pressed and she growled in frustration, and then—fuck—she bit down on my bottom lip hard enough to split it open. I tasted blood, and it only made me harder.
“Yes,” she hissed, feral and breathless.
I crashed my mouth against hers, bloody and bruised, claiming her lips like I owned them, like I owned all of her. Then I pulled back just enough to lock eyes with her, and only then I started to thrust again.
No one had ever brought me to this frenetic state before and I’d been with a long list of women. I could’ve fucked her all damn day and still come back for more the next minute. I didn’t care even if my body gave out, I’d crawl back inside her anyway.
I had no idea what this woman was doing to me, but inside of her, I had no chance.
There was no way I could deny it anymore.
Whenever her soft, delicate body pressed against me and her tongue tangled with mine, I became a different man.
I stood, gripping her thighs and lifting her legs up my chest, repositioning her as I wanted, changing the angle to hit deeper, aiming for that sweet spot that drove her wild.
The moment I found it, her body jolted, a painful gasp tore from her throat, and I knew I had her right where I wanted her.
I pressed harder, my rhythm steady but powerful, feeling her tighten around me with each stroke.
“Zane,” she moaned, her voice breaking into a desperate, breathless plea. “I can’t,” she whimpered, her brows pinching, her body trembling under me, not knowing what to do with the pleasure building inside her when she’d barely recovered from the first one.
“Come for me, amore.” I growled, my voice rough, filled with need. “I want to feel you come all around me.”
As if my words flipped a switch, she shattered.
Her entire body arched violently, her mouth opening as her eyes rolled back in ecstasy, leaving me stunned.
I kept thrusting, determined to ride out the moment, but the way she clenched around me so tight, so wet, it was too much.
With a strangled growl, I slammed in one last time, deep and hard, then tore myself out at the last second. My hand wrapped around my cock, and I spilled all over her.
My body tensed, my head fell back as the pleasure crashed over me.
And all I could think was I wasn’t done with her yet.
Not even close.