Chapter 27
Bonnie shot up in bed, her heart racing.
Darkness surrounded her, the unfamiliar bedroom in the cabin making the fear settle deeper in her belly.
Just a dream. It was just a dream.
But it wasn’t. It was a memory. Of Indie. Shoving her aside. Of the blood.
She dropped her head into her hands, fresh tears filling her eyes.
Indie had been hurt because of her…while saving her. She and her baby were okay, but it could have ended so much worse.
She turned to study the bed beside her. Empty.
Where was Zane?
After leaving the hospital, he’d brought her to this isolated cabin. It was big. So big that Ethan was in one of the bedrooms upstairs while she and Zane had the entire downstairs to themselves. They’d had dinner. Showered. And he’d held her until she’d fallen asleep.
But had he slept?
She pushed the covers back and touched her feet to the wooden floorboards. Even though the cabin was old, it had clearly been updated with heating and top-notch security.
So why was she still so cold?
Without bothering with a sweatshirt or pants, she left the bedroom, only wearing one of Zane’s shirts because they hadn’t grabbed anything from her place yet. The shirt drowned her, and it also smelled exactly like him—a mix of eucalyptus and smoked vanilla. So uniquely Zane.
Her footsteps were quiet as she padded down the hall, the darkness keeping her pulse racing beneath her skin.
She searched the kitchen first, then the living room.
Nothing. Had he gone outside? Maybe he was doing a perimeter check.
She was about to shift the curtain aside to look through the window when something sounded. A dull thump, like a fist hitting leather.
Was there a bag in this house? Zane had given her a tour, but there hadn’t been a workout room.
He’d only shown her the stairs to the basement though.
She turned and moved in that direction, then quietly opened the door and closed it behind her before descending. The thumps got louder, quickly accompanied by heavy breathing.
And that’s where she found him.
Zane was shirtless, his back toward her, hands wrapped and wearing only shorts. Every time he hit the bag, a thousand muscles pulled and strained in his back.
She shuddered at the fury in his hits. Like every time a fist landed, he was trying to beat the rage out of his bones and silence something inside him.
For a moment, she didn’t move. Just watched him throw hit after hit, her arms wrapped around her waist. She’d felt so much anger herself, about everything happening to him. The unfairness of it all.
But now, in this moment, all she could feel was a deep sadness. Sadness that he’d been chasing peace for the last year but still couldn’t reach it.
She stepped to the side of the bag. Two more hits and his eyes finally landed on her.
He took his earbuds out. “Bonnie.”
She stepped toward him, gaze going to the straps on his hands. “How long have you been down here?”
“I’m not sure.” He touched her chin and tilted her head up. The gentleness of his touch was in complete contrast to the aggression of his hits moments ago. “Are you okay?”
“I woke up and couldn’t find you. I was worried.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
She nodded at his hands. “Can I take these off?”
His silence stretched so long she thought he’d say no. Then he nodded. Carefully, she started unwinding the material before switching to his other hand.
“I missed you.” His quiet words whispered into the silence, almost knocking the breath from her chest.
She dropped the last bit of strapping. “It was only three days, but it felt like forever.” She looked up, and the intensity in his eyes…it burned into her. Filling every cold crevice. Making all of her feel warm and claimed.
“I can’t let him take you from me,” he said, a fear she’d rarely heard slipping into his words.
She cupped his cheek. “I’m not going anywhere. Neither are you.”
“Promise me.” He touched his forehead to hers. “Promise me we have a future.”
It wasn’t a promise she should be making, and they both knew it. She didn’t care. “Not just a future. We have forever, Zane.”
Warm breath danced over her face. He ran his thumb over her bottom lip before touching his lips to hers.
Once. Twice. The softest kisses she’d ever felt, while his hands slipped around her waist. On the third kiss, he stayed there, and the second she opened for him, he dove inside, his tongue curving around hers.
She groaned. “Love me, Zane.”
The second the words slipped from her lips, he growled and lifted her so that her entire front pressed to his, her legs wrapping tightly around his waist. And she knew that this, being enveloped in the safety of his arms, was the only place in the world she wanted to be.
Zane lost himself in the kiss. As if the world had narrowed to the taste of her lips and the soft feel of her skin.
A second ago, he’d been drowning. Hitting the bag like it was his only refuge from a world that was crushing him. But it wasn’t. She was his salvation. She was the one person who could pull him from the water when he was too deep to come up for air.
He threaded his fingers through her hair, his other arm secured around her, as if that could stop anything and anyone from taking her away.
She felt so fragile. Like she could slip from his grasp if his hold loosened. And she could. Today, he’d almost lost her. And it would have destroyed him. Pulled the foundation from beneath his feet and thrown him to his knees.
He turned and pressed her against the wall, her core surging into him, making blood roar between his ears. He tugged at the bottom of her top, pulling it over her head. Her creamy breasts bounced, so fucking beautiful that the need to touch them, taste them, throbbed like a pulse beneath his skin.
He lowered his head and took one pebbled nipple between his lips.
Bonnie’s cry was fucking music to his ears. He could listen to it every day for the rest of his life and never tire of the sound.
He swirled his tongue around her bud, flicking it back and forth before sucking.
This time she was louder, her fingers latching onto his hair, pulling at the roots.
He switched to her other breast, cupping it as he tasted her.
Perfect. She was so fucking perfect. Made for him.
She arched, pushing her chest into his mouth as if she felt the suffocating need to be closer too.
He kissed back up her breasts then neck, stopping at a spot behind her ear and nibbling.
Another feminine groan slipped into the air, then her mouth was moving down his neck, onto his chest. Soft kisses that whispered over his skin. When she kissed a spot right over his heart, he swore the thing beat for her.
He cupped her cheek, and she turned her head and pressed her lips to his palm. But then she reached up and grabbed his hand to turn it over. And one by one, she kissed every scrape and bruise on his battered skin.
He felt her lips everywhere. They hollowed him out, making space for her. Only her.
At the lift of her gaze, she tugged his head but only so that her lips touched his ear as she whispered, “Feel this.” She placed his hand on her chest right over her heart. “It’s beating for you.”
Time bent around her, so much so that nothing else mattered.
He held her with one hand and used the other to push down his shorts. After sliding her panties to the side, he positioned himself at her entrance. Before he could move, she tightened her legs, tugging his tip inside.
And fuck, he almost lost himself then and there.
“Bonnie.” Her name was something between a whisper and a growl. His eyes shuttered, his temple touching hers.
He kissed her, slipping his tongue inside her mouth and curving it around hers. Then, slowly, he slipped the rest of the way inside her.
It was only then that he lifted his head, and the words finally slipped free.
“I love you, Bonnie.”
Tears immediately filled her eyes, air stuttering from her chest. “I love you too, Zane. I think I’ve loved you for a long while.”
He took a moment to breathe. To absorb her words and let them fill every part of him. Change him. Make her his.
He started to move, pulling out and sliding back in.
She whimpered, her hands now on his shoulders, fingers digging into his skin. “Zane.”
“I’ve got you.”
He kept moving. Thrusting in and out. Every time he returned to her, it was like coming home. Because somewhere along the line, this woman had become his home. The only damn home he wanted or needed.
He cupped her breast, rolling her nipple with his thumb as he moved.
Her breathing shortened and grew louder. Faster.
Beautiful. All of her. The sounds she made, the way her brow furrowed in that cute fucking pout he couldn’t look away from.
He lowered his hand to her core and swiped her clit with his thumb.
Her cry shuddered through the room.
He did it again, this time rolling her clit in a circle.
She started to buck. She was close.
“Zane,” she whispered.
He latched onto her throat, sucking. Then she screamed, her walls clenching his cock as she broke.
And fuck, she felt good around him. He wanted to keep going. To feel this, feel her, for longer, but he couldn’t. Two more thrusts and he crashed and burned with her, his cock pulsing inside her body.
Long seconds of stillness passed where neither of them spoke or moved…they just breathed.
Until, finally, she touched her forehead to his chest. “God, I love you.”
“You have no idea, honey.” He kissed the top of her head.
And she really didn’t. Because how could anyone understand this feeling inside him? He barely understood it. Only knew it was fierce and all-consuming and utterly unshakable.