Chapter 26- Zane
I had my feet on the dash, Anderson .Paak was spilling out of the speakers as the road stretched ahead of us in long, lazy lines.
My phone buzzed for the third time in twenty minutes, and I didn’t even have to look to know who it was.
My momma had been calling me for two days, but I already knew she was only going to tell me Mark had visited her.
Sam’s investigator had already informed us.
I found it funny—Mark was running around looking for me but still fucking Sam’s wife every night.
“Your mama and daddy?” Sam asked, one hand on the wheel, the other drawing circles on my thigh, making my nipple ache. This man had a way of turning me on with just a simple touch.
We were on the way to the resale warehouse I’d told him about. It was a four-hour drive, but we planned to make a day out of it.
I nodded, chewing my lip.
“You tell them about me yet?”
“I told them you’re my boss.”
He grunted, not hiding the smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That what we’re calling me? Your boss?”
I cut my eyes at him and laughed. “You want me to tell them I’m sleeping with a married man who’s paying me—and I’m also married?”
“Damn,” he muttered. “When you say it like that, this sounds like a scandal.”
“It is. And you are scandalous.”
He glanced over and gave me that lazy, cocky grin. “Yeah. But you like me this way.”
I nodded, because I did.
The silence that followed was comfortable. Easy. Like breathing. I’d forgotten what this kind of quiet felt like. It wasn’t the same kind that came with the loneliness I’d been experiencing in my marriage.
Around noon, we stopped at a roadside farmer’s market thirty minutes in.
I grabbed two jars of honey and a bag of kettle corn.
Sam paid without asking, then snuck off to buy a jar of something that looked suspiciously like moonshine.
He winked like he had plans for it. I winked back because Sam fucked like a madman when he was drunk.
“I should probably call my momma back,” I said before we got in the car.
Sam raised a brow. “You want space?”
“No,” I said quickly. “I don’t care if you hear. I’m just calling her to let her know I’m safe. She knows where I’m staying. I just don’t want her to show up at your house with her pistol thinking I’ve been kidnapped because I’m not answering the phone.”
He laughed.
I hit redial standing in the open door. My daddy answered. I could hear my momma coaching him in the background.
“Baby girl, you alright?”
“I’m fine, Daddy. I meant to call Momma back, but I’ve been working hard on that house I told you about. I be tired.” It was mostly the truth.
“Where are you?”
“With my boss on a trip to buy supplies.”
My momma’s voice cut through the line next. “Are you safe?”
“I am. I swear.”
They asked too many questions. I gave them the answers they needed, and I promised to call them again tomorrow.
We got back on the road after that. It was less than an hour to our destination. I was leaning my head on the window, watching the trees blur, until Sam slowed down unexpectedly.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the right.
It was a sunflower field.
Not a patch—a whole field of them. The yellow heads swaying, reaching toward the sky like they were praise dancing.
“Pull over,” I whispered. Something about seeing them made me want to run through them, touch them.
We got out. Sam reached for my hand, his fingers threading through mine as we wandered deep into the rows.
In the middle of it all was a tall tree, half-swallowed by the edge of the field. Carved into the trunk were the words:
Love loves Kevlar
And under the name, someone had carved a tree, and each branch had a different name. There were fifteen—I’m assuming children and relatives.
I ran my fingers over the letters and imagined what they looked like. With names like Love and Kevlar, they were probably Black. With dark skin and nice-looking. People who carved their names in trees were always nice-looking in the movies.
Sam was quiet.
“You think they’re still together?” I asked. Hoping they were, but not too much. It seemed too easy for love to dissipate. You could be carving your name into a tree one day and falling out of love the next.
He looked down at me, eyes soft.
“I do. I at least hope so, since they have such a big family tree.”
A crack of thunder rolled low in the distance, interrupting our conversation. We both looked up. The sky had shifted. Clouds were darkening fast.
The rain came suddenly—big, heavy drops fell from the sky like the clouds had just decided the earth needed renewal and opened.
My hair was silk-pressed, and the last thing I needed was for it to get soaked. I shrieked and tried to run, but Sam caught me from behind, spinning me into him, mouth crashing onto mine like he was starving. He fed me his tongue.
The kiss turned frantic. Then slow. Then everything in between.
I grabbed at his shirt, and he helped me peel it off, his hands sliding down my back like he couldn’t get enough of me. We sank down into the grass, wet. I was so cold and trembling, half-mad with how much we needed this. Needed each other.
He pushed my dress up around my hips and slid my panties to the side and pushed inside me, sucking my titties as he stroked me slow. His dick caused a deep, aching stretch that burned. His body was warm despite the rain and wind. I clung to him. For warmth, for pleasure.
The sound of my name rolled off his tongue like a confession as he danced inside of me.
The rain soaked us both, my hair flattened to my scalp, his breath hot in my ear.
This shit felt magical.
“I love you,” I said.
It slipped out. But it was true. I had known him for less than 90 days, and I was hopelessly, irrevocably in love. I’m talking about fight-a-bitch-in-the-street type crazy type love.
He stilled—just for a second. Then pushed deeper. Fucked me harder.
“I love you too, Zane.”
Luckily, my tears were hidden by the rain.
We stayed there, bodies tangled together, moving in the grass, the tree with someone else’s love story watching over ours.
I closed my eyes, listening to his heartbeat under the storm. And for the first time in my whole damn life, I felt I actually understood what love meant—and felt like.