Chapter 48 Zane #2
“I was trying to get us out!” I half yell.
“I was doing it for you.” I stand up from my chair and take the risk of walking around her side of the desk.
“Everything I did was for you,” I say again, spinning her chair around so I can lean down on the arms, caging her in.
“I loved you, Les, and I didn’t want you to live this life.
” She sucks in a breath at my admission about loving her because we never exchanged those words, there were too many unknowns between us, and she was too fucking young.
“Tell me you didn’t love me too.” I’m leaning so close to her face that I can see her pupils expand and feel her breath dusting across my lips.
It would be easy to lean down and capture her lips with mine.
“I didn’t,” she whispers.
“Stop lying,” I grit out. “Why can’t you tell me the truth?”
“What difference would it make?” She shoves at my chest, and I don’t budge. But I know if she wants me out of her space, she will make that happen.
“It will make all the difference in the world, Beautiful.” I lean closer so my lips rub hers when I talk. “Tell me you feel this,” I beg her.
“I don’t feel anything.”
“Your mouth is saying one thing, but your body is saying another,” I tell her, watching goosebumps pop up on her arms, her nipples hardening behind that thin excuse for a tank top. I run my lips up her neck. “Tell me the truth.”
“I can’t,” she half moans, her knuckles turning white from her grip on her chair, so she doesn’t reach out to me.
“Because of them?” I ask. I don’t wait for an answer; I already know. “They give you what you need?”
“Yes,” she moans again when I rub my lips on her neck again. I forgot how fucking responsive she is; my cock is hard as a rock, throbbing behind my zipper.
“I could too,” I whisper, and her body arches toward me.
“What?” she says, finally losing her battle and gripping my forearms. Just that little touch zaps through me like electricity.
“I could give you what you need too, Beautiful.” I’m saying exactly what she thinks I’m saying. I’ll share her with those assholes if means I can have her back in my life.
“You have to stop,” she breathes when I kiss at her erratic pulse jumping in her throat.
She shoves at my chest again, and I stand up this time, not even trying to hide what she does to me.
I hear Ryder’s boots stomping through the house and take several steps back, leaning against the bookshelf behind me.
He shoves the door open, narrowing his eyes on me again. Les’ cheeks are still red from what I was doing to her, but she mostly collected herself. Ryder slaps the folders against my chest before walking to Les, putting his body between us.
I take the folders and return to my chair. I flip open the first one, and it’s filled with the same kind of pictures I had. “Where did these come from?”
“Someone put some on Dex’s truck a while back, then on Gage’s a little bit after that. Now every time we go out, they appear,” Les answers, watching my face.
I hold up one that has the word ‘mine’ scratched across it in red. “Mine?” I ask.
She shrugs. “They seem to think so.”
I notice the guy’s faces are scratched out on some of them except mine. “Why isn’t my face scratched out?” I ask, looking at Les and me in a stare-off by the docks when she gave me the file on the shitty foster parents.
“That’s what I want to know,” Ryder says, leaning back against the table behind her again. “Seems pretty fucking suspicious, don’t you think?”
“You think I did this?” I ask incredulously. “Why the hell would I bring you the same thing if I’m the one doing it?”
“To save your own ass,” Les adds.
“You may not like me, Les.” I point to the pictures. “But I wouldn’t do something like this.”
“There’s more of them. More,” she waves her hand around, “personal.”
It takes me a second to catch up to what she’s saying, and I can feel my blood boiling. “Someone has naked pictures of you?” I grind out. I’ll kill this motherfucker for that alone.
“Yeah. Several,” Les says. “Of me and some of the guys.”
Someone not only has naked pictures of her, but they also have pictures of her in the middle of sexual acts. What the fuck?
“What are you going to do?” I ask, already knowing that answer. You won’t live after doing something like this to her.
“That’s none of your concern, Zane. Holden is on it, and we’ve been careful. That’s all you need to know.”
“It is my concern.” I tap my finger on the folder on her desk. “Someone wants me involved.”
She’s already shaking her head before I finish that sentence. “That’s beside the point. You know what we do isn’t legal; you don’t need to be involved.”
“I can help you.”
“I think it’s time for you to go,” Ryder says, standing up to his full height. Even I have to admit I know why Les uses him as her security; the fucker is huge.
I look at Les, and she won’t even look me in the eye. I know she feels something for me; I just need to get her to admit it. I’ll never force her into anything, but I can slowly push her into accepting it.
I stand up and lay her folders on top of the other ones. “If you need me, you know how to reach me.”
“I won’t,” she replies. I feel like she’s answering an entirely different question. Like she will never need me, and she will never admit what we had was real.
I jerk a nod. “The offer still stands.”
I return Ryder’s death glare one more time before letting myself out of her office. I hear him whisper something to her and the telltale sign of them kissing.
This isn’t over, Alessa Poletti.