Chapter 4- Zane
I didn’t know why I was following the giant man who lived down the street.
He wasn’t much more than a stranger to me who happened to live in the same neighborhood, but something in his pretty eyes had pulled at something in me.
Now he was speed-walking, and I struggled to keep up with him in the middle of the night.
His grip on my arm was tight as fuck, but I don’t think he noticed.
I couldn’t guess what he wanted me to see that involved my husband. He was in Miami for business. But maybe whatever it was could explain why Mark had changed so much.
He led me down the side of his house. The path was dark and silent, causing goosebumps to pebble my skin.
My left hand gripped the blade in my pocket.
I wasn’t stupid. I had grabbed it when I went back in the house just in case.
Sam stopped at a window in the back, nodding for me to look.
I already had a bad feeling, but I pushed up on my tiptoes anyway.
“This is not the first time they’ve done this,” I whispered to myself more than Sam. The kisses were too sweet, their touches too intimate. Bile rose in my throat. My knees buckled, and I would have collapsed if Sam hadn’t scooped me up effortlessly.
Despite the chaos in my mind, my brain decided to focus on all the wrong things.
I wasn’t a small woman, but Sam lifted me like I was.
It was kind of sexy. I wanted to laugh at the thought.
Was I losing my mind? I had just witnessed my husband having sex with another woman and I was thinking about how sexy her husband was. I had to be losing my mind.
Sam took charge. He carried me to his car parked down the block. His arms were solid around me, his chest warm against my side. I was glad it was dark out and none of the neighbors could see us.
He opened the passenger door, lowered me into the seat with more care than I expected—like I was glass.
He leaned, his body crowding my personal space, his arm brushing my breast. The click of the seatbelt echoed in the quiet of the night.
His knuckles grazed my hip—too slow to be accidental, or maybe I had imagined it.
I held my breath as heat prickled up my neck.
His fingers lingered, rough pads catching on the thin fabric of my shirt.
His exhale warmed my collarbone, and for a stupid, reckless second, I wondered what his mouth would feel like there instead.
My skin hummed thought. His scent messed with my sense.
He smelled like cedar and smoke. Maybe paint.
And there was the faint trace of whiskey. He smiled manly.
Then he stepped back, and cool air rushed in replacing his warmth.
But his eyes stayed on me. He watched at me.
Stared, actually. His eyes traced my face like he was trying to read something written just beneath the skin.
They touched my mouth, my cheeks, my wet lashes, everywhere.
I couldn’t look back. I felt too naked and vulnerable.
What was he searching for? Permission? Weakness? The raw, ugly truth. My cheeks flushed hot. My reaction made no sense to me, even now, with my heart in pieces and my husband’s betrayal fresh between us, my body reacted to this strange man in a way my body had never reacted to anyone before.
Then suddenly his eyes darkened, and his jaw ticked. Like he’d found it—whatever he was looking for—and didn’t like it.
“You’re beautiful, you know that, right? Fuck him.” he said, voice low.
The words hit something soft in me, but I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I just sat there, humming from his compliment, and in the same breath, feeling the need to sob.
He let out a long breath through his nose, like he was really fucking tired. “I shouldn’t have let you see that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” “You good?” he asked. I nodded, though I wasn’t.
The neighbors had said he was mean. Abrasive. The kind of man who made children cry at barbecues and never waved at anyone unless they waved first—and even then, maybe not. So why was he being nice to me?
He shut the door gently. I sat there and let him drive. He didn’t talk, didn’t ask where I wanted to go. I stared out the window, watching the city slip past in shadows.
I don’t know how much time passed before he pulled into a gated drive in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Clearwater and punched in a code.
The gate slid open slowly. The house on the other side was small but expensive—clean lines, dark wood, quiet money. I followed him inside without a word.
He pointed to the couch. “Sit.” I did.
He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. I blinked at him, still heavy with everything I’d seen. In my feelings.
“I don’t drink that,” I mumbled. “It’s too strong. I’m a lightweight.”
He frowned, like me saying I didn’t drink annoyed him for some reason, but didn’t say anything. He tipped the bottle and poured it anyway. Two shots. One for him. One for me. I noticed how thick his fingers were around the glass.
“Drink. You need it,” he said, shoving the glass in my direction. I did need it. So I did.
It burned going down. I asked for another.
He took a seat across from me in a leather reclining chair. We sat in silence for about thirty minutes—him drinking, me sipping.
Then, out of nowhere, Sam said, “I haven’t wanted to be married to her for a long time. I’m glad your husband’s fucking her.”
I looked at him, surprised by his admission.
“I love my husband, I think, but I don’t like him.
I’m not glad he’s fucking her, but it makes sense…
He hasn’t fucked me in forever. I like sex.
I like the way it makes me forget everything else.
The push and pull, the heat, how it quiets the noise in my head.
I miss being touched.” At this point, I was rambling, and I didn’t know if it was the fact that I was able to say how I felt out loud without being judged, or maybe it was the liquor, but I kept going either way.
“I knew something was going on, but I didn’t say anything. I've just never been good with confrontation. I’m still not. My mother says I’m a pushover, and Mark’s the type that’ll walk over you if you let him. And I let him.”
I didn’t know why I was telling this man everything. Yeah! I’d blame it on the liquor later.
Sam nodded. “Seems we both stayed too long in a place we didn’t belong.” It was my turn to nod.I raised my glass to my lips, and swallowed, letting the alcohol burn its way down and warm my insides.
“Yeah, seems that way.”
We drank more. The burn stopped bothering me after the fifth glass. It dulled the edge of my pain. I welcomed it.
Sam didn’t talk much. Just sipped slow, his eyes distant. Like he was trapped in his own thoughts, probably replaying every mistake he’d made that led to tonight. Same as me. He sat with his legs spread in that chair, his knuckles resting on the arms.
I stared at him. Really looked at him for the first time.
The light from the window behind me cast a soft glow over his face, catching the neat line of his beard.
It was shaped to his jaw, connecting to his mustache.
His hair was cropped low in a tight Caesar, the waves barely visible but still there.
His skin was light, a warm golden tone. I wondered if he was mixed-race.
He looked young, but older than me—early thirties, maybe—but there was something in his eyes that made him seem older than that. Like he’d seen things.
He had long lashes and these deep, soulful, grayish eyes. God. He was beautiful.
His wife, Janet, was older—I knew that. She was uptight and unfriendly to the women in the neighborhood. Like some older women get when they start to realize they’re the oldest in the room. He was too beautiful for her.
Looking at him caused something hot to uncurl low in my belly and spread until my body tingled.
“We should fuck. Get payback,” I blurted out.
The words came from nowhere and everywhere.
Saying them out loud caused heat to bloom in my chest, my neck, between my legs.
I stood, glass still in my hand, and crossed the space between us before I could second-guess myself.
He didn’t move, not even and inch as I climbed into his lap, knees straddling his thighs, my skirt pulling tight around my hips.
He still didn’t touch me. I leaned in to kiss him.
His hand came up fast to stop me, fingers wrapped around my jaw, holding me in place. His thumb pressed just under my chin.
“Oh, baby girl,” he said low, his voice deep and warm, like gravel under silk. “I would love nothing more than to ruin your little pussy right now just to watch your pretty ass come undone.”
His words changed my breathing patterns.
His lips brushed mine as he spoke. Cream pooled out of me.I had no dignity left. But I didn't want to be anywhere else in the moment.
“But I can already tell… you’d regret it the second you came down from the high.”
His other hand slipped around my back and under my shirt, his fingers dragging slow, lazy circles across my skin. I could feel every groove, every ridge in them.
My breath caught.
“And you’d hate me. I don’t think I could take you hating me.”
I swallowed hard because I didn’t know what else to do. My skin pulsed under his hand. I should have moved. Should have laughed or cried or walked away.
But all I had for him was “Okay.” And that word barely made it out.
He didn’t push me away. So I sat there, in his lap. His hard dick pressed against the heat between my legs. I needed physical contact. Needed to feel wanted. Warm. Alive. I needed to feel something else but grief. This was enough.
After a beat, I pulled back slightly, just enough to meet his eyes. “This house,” I said, voice still soft. “Is it yours?” I asked it like I hadn’t just crawled into his lap and stayed there. Was I drunk?
He nodded once. “Yeah. Bought it before the neighborhood blew up. I use it as an Airbnb.” I nodded too.
We sat like that a while longer. His hand on my back. My weight in his lap. Both of us pretending this was normal.