Chapter 44 Sloane
Sloane
We didn’t end up speaking with Jacob. The man had demanded an introduction, but after Zeth had nearly beaten his lackey to death, the large man with the Southern accent had vanished into thin air.
Zeth had dragged me through the hallways of the Spanish-style villa toward a bedroom that smelled distinctly like him.
He’d shoved me inside, followed after, locked the door, and then placed a chair beneath the handle like in the movies.
Following that, he’d stripped down to his boxers, angrily throwing them onto the ground, climbed into the huge king-sized bed in the center of the room, and promptly gone straight to sleep.
Turns out he was mad at me.
I slept in the wingback chair by the window—barely—and woke at the crack of dawn, thanks to the bright sunlight eking through the curtains.
Since then I’ve been waiting, stiff and cold, for Zeth to rouse.
Dreading it. With his eyes closed, he breathes slow and deep, and he looks so vulnerable.
His belly and chest, arms and back are solid muscle, but that muscle is relaxed.
His knuckles on both hands are split open, but for the first time ever, it seems, they aren’t balled into fists.
I’m too nervous to wake him. I just sit, waiting, hoping that he wakes up in a better mood than he fell asleep in.
I’m also hoping Lacey is okay. She knew I wasn’t going to take her with me.
God knows how, but she didn’t even blink when I said she was going to stay with my folks for the night.
Two at the most. The relief on her face had actually been very obvious when I said it wasn’t safe for her to come.
She’d only become concerned when she’d seen the religious paraphernalia all over my parents’ walls: crucifixes, icons of the Virgin Mary, and cherub-faced depictions of Jesus blessing the masses.
She’d blanched, picking at her fingernails on their couch, watching my father suspiciously out of the corner of her eye.
I don’t know what’s happened to make her react that way, but it must have been bad.
I’m hoping she won’t be more traumatized when I pick her up than she was when I left her there.
I’m still thinking about this when, at just after seven thirty, Zeth sits bolt upright in the bed, gasping.
He scans the room, sees me, and the next thing I know, I’m being physically lifted and thrown onto the bed.
I yelp as Zeth’s hand flies, clenched into a scuffed-knuckled fist, down toward my face.
He chokes out a shout, catching himself just inches before he makes contact with my face.
“FUCK!”
The bed dips as he throws himself off me and rolls away.
Jesus.
Breathe.
I hold my hands over my heart, trying to slow it. All of the oxygen has fled the room. I start to shake, and Zeth storms across the room, pressing his back against the wall. For a second, he covers his face with his hands, his ragged breath whistling between his fingers.
“Fuck.” The curse is much quieter this time. Eventually, Zeth lowers his hands and fixes me a dark, thoroughly unimpressed glare. “You’re the worst thing that could have happened,” he growls.
The statement is so ironic that I almost choke. “Says you! Fuck you, Zeth Mayfair!”
“Yeah, fuck me,” he agrees. He pushes away from the wall and prowls toward the bed. I kick back against the rumpled covers, trying to maintain a safe distance between us. “You have no idea how complicated you’ve made things. Why the fuck did you come here?” he snaps.
My eyes start to prick. What a ridiculous thing I am, betrayed by my own body.
“I didn’t exactly have much choice. Your friends, Charlie’s men, broke into my place and tried to kidnap your—” I stop myself just in time.
Zeth’s reached the bed now, and has climbed up on his hands and knees, inching closer.
His brows furrow. “They tried to kidnap Lacey,” I tell him.
“And there’s no way I’m taking that kind of shit to work.
That job means more than anything to me.
You dumped Lacey on me and disappeared. I risked everything I have to get her to safety and find you, and you’re fucking mad at me for it!
” A tear of frustration races down my cheek, dripping onto my bent knee.
Zeth sits back on his heels, still wearing only his boxers, tattoos shifting as his muscles flex; he doesn’t even seem to realize he’s tensing them.
He’s built like a statue of a man, not the real thing.
He’s a portrayal of what perfection should look like.
I hate him for looking so good, when I know for a fact that I look like shit.
And I’m fucking crying. He scrubs his hand across his jaw, scowling.
He looked dead set on punishing me for coming here a second ago, but now he seems torn.
“Don’t do that,” he says in a flat voice.
“Do what? Be mad at you? Of course I’m—”
“Cry,” he interrupts. “Don’t cry. That’s a shitty, underhanded trick.”
“Trick?” God Almighty, the gall of this man.
I’ve been held up at gunpoint, threatened, driven across three states, shot at, and then threatened some more, and he thinks I’m crying to make him feel bad.
Asshole! I throw myself back onto the bed, pulling a pillow over my face, and I scream into it.
I do not hold back. Even with the pillow, it must sound like I’m being murdered.
A large, powerful hand closes around my right ankle, and then I’m being dragged through the sheets.
The pillow tears out of my hands. I pause for a moment, glare at him defiantly, and then carry on screaming.
He drops down on top of me, clapping his hand over my mouth.
He shoves his face into mine, all seriousness and sin.
“Shut up,” he hisses. “For the love of all that’s holy, please shut the hell up, Sloane. You’re gonna split my head apart.”
I don’t stop, so he takes further action and digs his knuckles firmly into my ribs. “Ow! Motherfucker!” I slap him hard, and the impact zips up my arm. Zeth’s head kicks to the left. When he turns it back to me, I realize what I’ve done. His dark eyes are murderous.
“I only trade in those,” he growls. “And with the hangover I have right now, that counts for two.”
Shit. I try to wriggle out from underneath him, but I have more chance of shrugging off gravity and floating off into outer space.
“Zeth.” I try a reasoning voice. Like he’s a reasonable person and might respond like one. He clenches his jaw, the smooth line of his chin turning to steel as he arches up over me and grabs both my hands.
“You should know better by now, Sloane. You’re an angry girl, yeah, but I’m angry, too. And if you plan on doling out punishment, you’d better be ready for it when your turn comes around.”
The first real spark of panic lights inside me.
I buck against him, still trying to get free.
A curious smile emerges through the stern expression on Zeth’s face.
He’s not bothered by my thrashing. If anything, my attempts at freedom seem to be making this whole thing more enjoyable for him.
At least, that’s what the growing hardness pressing against the inside of my thigh would suggest. And yet he nods once, narrowing sharp eyes at me, and then lets me go.
He sits back on his heels again, towering over me.
I freeze. I should probably bolt, but I know what that will lead to: a chase around the room, broken furniture, and potentially broken bones to match.
I clasp my hands over my chest again, fighting to stop myself from glancing down at the prominent hard-on that’s pulling against his gray boxers.
He smirks, leaning back a fraction in his straddled position, which pushes his cock closer to my hands. I roll my eyes at this, suddenly a little less afraid. “You have got to be joking.”
He shakes his head, still very grave indeed.
“Not joking, Sloane. You just woke the whole villa, when going unnoticed would really work in our favor.” His voice is gravel on gravel, deep and bottomless, filled with clashing desires.
He’s mad at me, but he also wants to fuck me senseless.
“You’re reckless,” he accuses. “You show up here, without any idea what you’re getting yourself or me into.
” He reaches down and palms one of my breasts through my clothes, squeezing hard and eliciting a gasp from me.
“I came pretty fucking close to being eighty-sixed yesterday, and the likelihood of it happening today is even higher. You put yourself at risk when I specifically told you not to. And then you go hollering at the top of your lungs at the crack of fucking dawn, reminding everyone that we’re here and we’re a fucking nuisance.
So if you’re gonna scream, Sloane, I’m gonna give you a reason. ”
Still kneading my breast in one hand, he wraps his other hand around his erection through his boxers.
I swallow, unable to stop myself from watching as he slowly works his hand up and down, squeezing himself just as hard as he squeezes me.
Should I be worried about this? He was raging a moment ago, and now he’s ready to fuck me?
The possibility that those two factors might be linked is a little concerning.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I breathe.
The corner of Zeth’s mouth pulls up at one corner—an unbearably arrogant smirk. “Sure you are, angry girl.”