Chapter Fourteen #2
All I want is to bury my face in his pillow and breathe him in until my head stops spinning. Until something inside me quiets and I remember who the fuck I was before he cracked something open in me.
But I can’t.
If I do that, I might not come up for air.
This is totally a fucked-up situation, and I’ve got no clue what the hell I’m doing here. My body’s a mess of want and warning signs. I can’t tell if I should bolt for the door or curl deeper into these sheets and lose myself in the way they still smell of him.
Zane gave me a place to land tonight, and yeah, I’m grateful. I am. But it doesn’t fix shit. Tomorrow, I’m back in freefall.
And Cassie… fuck, Cassie should’ve stayed out of it. She should’ve kept her damn mouth shut.
She had no fucking right to go behind my back. To call Zane. Acting like I’m too broken to handle my own mess as if I need saving.
How the hell did she even get his number?
Jesus.
My eyes drop back to the numbers on the page.
I stare until they blur, until my mind stops spinning. I tell myself to focus.
Zane walks out, dragging a hand through his damp hair, water still tracking down his chest. Grey sweatpants hang low on his hips, clinging to him in all the worst ways.
His shoulders roll loose, that slow, dangerous swagger stamped into every inch of him.
Bad boy without trying. Trouble without effort.
And then I see it.
The ink on his body.
The way it twists down from one shoulder, sliding over the curve of his chest, black against golden skin.
My eyes follow it before I can stop them.
I wonder if it’s new or if it’s always been there. All I know is I can’t stop looking.
He moves into the kitchen, and I track every step, pulse climbing with every shift of muscle under his skin. He grabs a glass from the sink and fills it with water from the tap. His movements are slow and unhurried. He has no idea of the effect he has on me seeing him like this.
Or maybe the asshole fucking does. Maybe he always has.
He’s beautiful in the worst way. The kind of beautiful that carves you open from the inside out. That leaves bruises in places no one else can see. He smells of danger and something darker. Something that pulls even when you know better. The beautiful you fall into with no warning and no way out.
A girl could lose herself in him without even meaning to. And I’m already halfway there.
Zane drinks, water dripping from his fingers. He tips the glass upside down on the sink, then turns. His eyes catch mine from across the room, and I feel it everywhere.
That stare drags.
It doesn’t skim. It lands. Lingers. Tracks over my face, down my neck, until it hits my chest.
My tank top is too tight, too thin, doing nothing to hide how hard my nipples have gone under the fabric.
His eyes don’t move. Just stares for one heartbeat too long before moving across the room.
I try to breathe through it, but it’s useless. My mouth has gone dry. My skin burns. Every nerve hums under the weight of him. And through it all, one truth keeps pulsing in my head. I am so fucked.
Zane crosses the room, the floorboards creaking under his bare feet.
He opens the cupboard on the back wall, reaches in, and pulls out a spare pillow. Every inch of him is coiled with that restless energy he wears like a second skin.
He tosses the pillow onto the couch, then turns and walks back over, dropping down onto it.
One arm hooks lazily over the backrest; the other drapes across his stomach.
His legs spread wide. His head tips back, eyes slipping closed.
He’s a storm pretending to be still. But every part of him thrums with tension. Ready to break.
The room falls quiet.
Only the soft hum of the fridge breaks the silence, paired with the slow, rhythmic tick of the clock by the window.
Every second drags, stretched thin by the weight in the air. Even my breathing sounds too loud, too obvious, as if it might give me away.
Zane shifts, the couch groaning beneath him as he adjusts. His body moves slowly, weighed down by the kind of exhaustion that seeps into your bones.
“Are you planning to stay up all night?” His voice cuts through the silence. A breath slips out of him. It’s almost a sigh, like the day’s finally caught up to him and there’s no fight left to hold it back.
I gather up the papers and set them on the floor.
My hand finds the old lamp beside the bed.
With one click, the light vanishes, throwing the room into shadows.
I lower myself onto the mattress, the springs groaning beneath my weight. The blanket comes next. I drag it up and clutch it close, his scent bleeding into my skin. It crowds my lungs and fogs my head, curling around every thought until my chest starts to ache.
I glance across the room.
His silhouette shifts on the couch. He’s lying down now, one arm tucked behind his head. The other resting across his stomach. I can’t tell whether his eyes are closed or if he’s watching me the way I’m watching him. But my skin burns at the thought of it.
God help me if he says my name right now, because I’m on the verge of doing something stupid.