Chapter 12 Family & Fracture
FAMILY & FRACTURE
ZANE
Santa Fe is too damn quiet.
The private estate Freddie secured sits high in the red-dusted hills overlooking the city, sun bleeding gold through every window, heat clinging to the walls like oil. It should feel safe after the fan scare. After the death threats. After the stalker.
But Ruby’s shoulders are too tight.
Her laugh is too forced and God, her hum—my lifeline—is uneven.
And every muscle in my body is coiled.
Freddie sits opposite me in the vaulted living room, hands tight around a tablet, looking like he wants to throw it at my face. “We’re not canceling the party.”
“Yes, we are,” I say flatly.
Freddie’s eyes flash. “No, Zane. We’re not.”
“I said—”
“And I heard you,” he snaps, louder than he’s spoken to me in years. “You’ve already bailed on the last two studio events. Execs are pissed. The label’s pissed. This whole tour rollout depends on cooperation, not you hiding like a paranoid raccoon because you found a girl.”
My jaw clenches hard enough to crack teeth. “Watch your fucking mouth,” I growl.
“No.” Freddie gets to his feet. “No, for once you watch your mouth. You think Riot Saints is just you? You think Jude, King, Bishop don’t exist?
You think their livelihoods don’t matter?
You think the crew doesn’t matter? You think the hundred people on payroll don’t need these partnerships to go smoothly?
You’re risking everything because you’re—”
“Because Ruby’s safety comes first,” I bite out.
Freddie throws his hands up. “Zane, we’ve secured her. You’re in a private estate with three layers of security and facial recognition on the damn gate. She’s as safe as you are.”
I punch my fist, ready to Hulk-Smash. He shouldn’t have said that because my Ruby just flinched. Barely, a twitch at the corner of her mouth, quick as a blink, but I saw it.
And fuck, I don’t think anything’s terrified me more.
It’s the first crack.
We’re three weeks in, and if the pressure is getting to her, how long before the fame, the fans, the humming, the headlines, the locked-down house, the constant eyes, send her running?
My worst fear unfolds behind her eyes.
She jumps to her feet and everything inside me twists into a pretzel.
I step toward her but she holds out her hand.
“It’s okay. I’m okay. Go ahead and have the party. I need to…” she starts, voice thin, then gives up the excuse. “Give me a minute.”
Freddie nods his approval and I want to smash his face in until it’s a bloody pulp. But I know Ruby won’t like that. So I smash it into my palm, snatch fleeting satisfaction in watching Freddie jump.
The second she’s out of sight, the meeting dissolves, Freddie storming off to call the execs. The band avoids my gaze as they file out, muttering low.
I hear Ruby’s footsteps disappearing down the hallway.
I stand and I follow.
Silently.
She ducks into a guest room and closes the door but the good thing about fuck-off houses that cost millions is that there’s zero squeak when you open a door to eavesdrop on your woman’s conversation.
I ease myself into the room and I’m two steps away when I hear her voice—soft, strained.
“Hey, Mom… yeah, I’m okay. Just… tired.”
My chest tightens.
“I know I said I’d come home after the first month. I will. Promise.”
A pause then a brittle, fake laugh. “No, I haven’t lost my mind, I’m just… figuring stuff out.”
My pulse spikes.
“I know,” she whispers. “I know it’s crazy. I know I’m not built for this. It’s a good thing it’s temporary, right?”
She listens for a few minutes while a red haze rolls across my eyes. Then her voice lowers. “And I miss normal. I miss Oregon. I miss you guys.”
Something inside me snaps.
Quietly.
Dangerously.
Normal. I hate that fucking word.
And also…she’s thinking about leaving.
Planning to leave me.
Imagining a world where she goes back home after this tour, where she trades this—us—for mediocre coffee shops and shitty, handsy landlords and a life that doesn’t have me in it.
The thought detonates something black and primal in my chest.
I step into the room.
Ruby jumps when she sees me, clutching the phone. “I—I have to go,” she stammers into the receiver. “Love you.”
She hangs up.
Silence burns between us.
Then…“You were listening to my conversation,” she says. Not a question. A verdict.
“Sure was. And I heard enough.”
Her eyes flare. “Jesus, Zane—do you ever not step over the line?”
“Only when my girl is talking about fucking leaving me.”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what you meant.”
Ruby’s face hardens. “You don’t get to decide what I mean.”
The fury rises fast, hers and mine, twisting together like barbed wire.
“You think,” I say, stepping closer, “that you can just walk out after this? After what we’ve been doing? After everything I’ve given you? After everything you are to me?”
Her laugh is sharp and furious. “Given me? Zane, you’ve taken over my entire life—”
“Because you’re mine.”
“I’m not a possession!”
“You are to me.”
Chaos explodes between us in a fireball of anger, fear, hunger, insecurity, lust—all slammed together until the air singes and vibrates.
Ruby shoves my chest. I catch her wrists and she yanks free.
I hoist her up, cage her against the wall. She spikes her fingers into my hair. “Fuck you, Zane!”
“Right the fuck back at you.”
I push my furious, rigid dick into its favourite slot between her legs. Her legs immediately snap closed around my hips, caging me close.
Her grip tightens in my hair and nostrils flare as I rock against her, pushing the seam of her denim shorts right where it’s most effective.
She shudders. Her nipples push against the cotton, and I swoop down to capture one between my teeth. Or I try to at least.
Her fingers clench so tight in my hair, I think she’s tearing it from the roots. And fuck if that doesn’t make me harder. If it doesn’t make my cock drip.
“You think you deserve any part of me, after that?” she hisses.
“Fuck no. But I’m gonna take it anyway. You gonna stop me, little girl? You gonna deny me those sweet tits or that pretty pink pussy?”
“Fuck you, Zane.” Her eyes blaze, drop to my mouth.
Then she’s kissing me. It’s hard and angry and desperate.
Our mouths collide like we’re trying to destroy each other or save each other or both.
Her nails rake my shoulders as my hands slide under her thighs.
She wraps around me like fire and it’s not gentle or soft or sane. Our tongues battle as she rips at my shirt. I hear a rip and grunt in the dirty pleasure of it.
To know I spike such emotion in her is like a drug to my blood.
To know she wants me despite all my flaws is a high I know I’ll never come down from.
I drop her legs and spin her around, then press her into the wall with my body as I reach around to snap her shorts open, rolling my hips over her lush ass all the time.
“You think you can leave me, baby? Think you can do without me stuffing this tight as fuck pussy when it weeps for me? Think again.”
She jerks against me when I yank the shorts over her lush hips and down her legs.
Barely give her time to kick them away before I’m nudging her legs apart as I reach beneath her crop top and flick open her bra.
Her heavy breasts fall into my grateful palms and I squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, incoherent noises leaping from throat when she pushes her ass into my crotch.
“Look at you, hungry for cock even when you’re pissed off harder than a wet hen.”
“Shut up.”
“Are you sure you want me to? No dirty talk as I stuff your stupidly tight and disobedient cunt? No telling how fucking hot you are walking around in these tiny shorts. Or how I’m going to fucking spank you for not wearing panties?”
“W-what…Zane!”
Her shriek when my palm comes down hard on one plump ass cheek is music to my ears.
“My fucking siren. Walking around with no underwear. When did we agree that was a wise choice?” Smack.
“Fuck, Zane, that hurts!”
“Good. Will you do it again?”
“Yes! You don’t fucking control me!”
Smack.
“Then you don’t control how I react to it, do you, baby girl?”
Smack.
She shrieks again.
“And I’m guessing you can’t control how my spanking you is making you drip down your fucking legs either?”
Her face flames and she attempts to hide behind her hair.
I smack her ass one last time, groan at how her reddened flesh bounces beneath my hand. Then I push her hair off her face, drag my mouth over her heated flesh, to lick at the corner of her mouth.
But I draw back when she tries to search for a deeper kiss.
I’m still pissed at that phone call. And at this point, she’s only making me glad of the plans I’ve put in place.
“On your fucking tiptoes, Ruby. You’re taking that last inch up that cunt today if we have to spend all afternoon trying.”
She glares over her shoulder at me, but…God love her, she slowly rises on to the balls of her feet, pushing her ass out at me.
And I can’t help it.
I drop to my knees, grip her thighs. And I feast.
Until her scent drives me delirious.
Until the wet sounds from her pussy makes my cock leak like a broken tap.
Until her hitched cries tell me she’s close.
“No! Please, Zane, don’t stop,” she protests when I stagger back to my feet, grip her tiny waist in my hands and yank her back.
I notch my purple crown at her dark pink hole. “You promised me three months, Ruby.” Even though I’m taking a lifetime.
Thrust.
She screams and shakes and claws at the wall.
“Didn’t you, Ruby?”
Thrust.
“Yes. And I…I n-never said I was leaving n-now. Oh God, fuck me harder! I want to come, Zane,” she whines.
Thrust, thrust, thrust.
“Take my last inch and I will.”
“How? I don’t know how, Zane!”
“Figure it out!” Am I being irrational. Sure as fuck. Do I care? Hell, no. It’s her fault. My siren. My muse. My doom.
She clenches down on me on my next thrust. My balls scream as stars dance across my eyes.
“Nah, baby, I don’t think that’ll do it.”
“Oh God,” she stops, clawing harder at the wall.