Chapter 37
Clara
Zee had just offered me everything I’d thought I wanted. His love, his hand in marriage, a lifetime by his side. A week ago, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. But now, after everything that had gone down, I couldn’t say yes.
Now, it wasn’t just his love I needed.
I needed someone who could love me for all my faults. Who would walk beside me through all my troubles. Who would listen to me, and work to find out the truth instead of writing me off as a lying kid.
I needed to be trusted, and I wasn’t sure Zeno could do that.
I wasn’t sure I could trust myself.
Falling into my bed, I curled myself around my little pillow and cried until there were no tears left.
As morning came, the sun fought to peek through the clouds, and still, I couldn’t bring myself to stop.
My mind raced, and for once, I didn’t fight it.
I let it run away, let it go wherever it wanted, because I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it.
I wanted Zee’s love, but that wasn’t enough. I needed more than that. I needed what I’d been so close to getting before this all went down.
I needed help.
With that thought in mind, I rose from my bed and padded out of my room and up the stairs.
Zeno was still in bed, his big body draped over a pillow that took up my side of the bed.
I went to him. Climbed in beside him the way I’d been doing for weeks and felt the tears rising in my eyes again when he lost the pillow and wrapped me up in his arms.
“Clara.” He pulled me to his chest, and the gulf between us started to close.
I snuggled into him, breathing in his scent, finding comfort in the warmth of his body, in his firm grasp, in his constant devotion that always gave me strength.
I smoothed my hands over his bare chest, let my fingers creep over his sensitive throat before they swept along his jaw and across his wounded cheeks.
When he tilted his head down to look at me, I wanted to cry for the anguish painted across his face. I wanted to ease that for him, to give him an ounce of hope. Pulling him to me, I gave him a gentle kiss.
“I love you, Zeno.” I put my forehead to his and pressed my eyes shut. “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved. And someday, I want to be your wife. But I can’t do that yet. I need something else first.”
“Anything, Clara. I’ll give you anything in the world.”
Peeking up at him, I felt a tear slip from my eye. “I need help.”
He froze, his body going stiff around me. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep bumbling my way through life, being unable to focus, being unable to handle anything stressful without breaking down or acting out.
I need to get my meds adjusted, but I think I might need someone to talk to.
There’s so much going on in my head and I don’t know how to handle it.
And I can’t be who you need me to be until I get me figured out. ”
Zee let out a breath that sounded like a sob. His body melted around mine, soothing me like a summer storm. I could barely breathe through the weight of my feelings, and I clung to him as if he could keep me afloat.
“You are exactly who I need you to be,” he whispered against my skin before pressing a kiss to my throat. “I don’t want you to be anyone other than exactly who you are, but if you want help, then I want that for you too.”
“Really?”
Zee smiled down at me, and a tear trickled from the corner of his eye. “I can’t tell you how relieved I am.” I dipped my head, unable to look at him, but he wasn’t having it. He hooked his finger under my chin and forced me to look up. “I’ve been thinking the same thing for a while now.”
“That I need help?”
“That I need help.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I watched my father get murdered when I was seven. I’ve devoted my entire life to serving at Paulo’s side, putting my own desires on standby because I thought that’s what he wanted from me. I thought that’s what I wanted my life to be.”
“But it’s not?”
Zee brushed a kiss to my lips. “Not anymore. I will always be loyal to Paulo. But I want more for myself. I want a wife.” He kissed me again. “I want a family.” He squeezed me closer. “I want a happiness that isn’t tied to making everyone else happy.”
“I want that for you too.”
Zeno crushed his mouth to mine, then slanted his lips against my own until I was kissing him back. Our tongues met in a slow dance, and my body heated as his hands roamed.
“Let me love you, Clara,” he whispered against me. “Let me help you be who you want to be.”
“And what if I don’t know who that is.”
“Then let me help you learn.” He cupped my cheek and gave me a sad smile. “Let me help you the way you helped me.”
I returned his smile, my fingers dancing over his lips. “Yes.”
One of his brows quirked up, and my smile grew, because I loved it when he did that. I loved the attitude he brought with it, the fight that simmered under the surface of his skin. “Yes, what? You’ll let me help you?”
“That too.” I quirked my own brow at him, the smile flirting over my lips growing wider as his eyes grew.
“Do you mean, you’ll marry me?”
“Of course, I will.” I stopped him with a finger to his lips. “Someday. We’ll get married someday. But I want to focus on us first. I want to be the best Clara I can be, Zee. Because I never want to lose you. You mean too much to me.”
“You mean too much to me, too, kid.”
A scowl cut across my lips and I glared at him. But the happiness I felt wouldn’t let it stick. My lips curled up, and I bit my bottom lip. “Okay, Daddy.”
“Clara!” He was on me then, his big body pushing me into the bed as the head of his dick rubbed against my clit. “I’m going to fucking punish you for that,” he said as he dragged his tip against me. “I’m going to make you wish you never said that.”
“Hmm.” Laughter bubbled in my chest, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, pulling him to me. “If this is the punishment, then do your worst.”
Something like a growl tore through his throat, but I was too lost to the sensations to care. Too lost in his torture, in him rubbing his dick against me, teasing me until my sensitive skin couldn’t take anymore, until I wanted to cry if I’d had any more tears left in my body.
And then I did cry, because Zee gave me something I’d never felt before.
He kissed his way down my body, his lips and tongue and teeth lingering on my sensitive breasts, bringing me so close to orgasm as he sucked and licked and bit.
Then he let up, doubling the torture as he sucked along my stomach, over my hips, across my thighs, avoiding the one place I needed him most.
I was begging.
Crying.
Pleading with the man.
When I didn’t think I could take anymore, he brought his mouth to my mound. One lick, and I nearly exploded.
But I didn’t.
And he kept doing more.
“Zee!” I grabbed his hair, intending to yank him to me, to make him fuck me harder than he ever had. But instead, Zeno flicked his tongue across my clit, then sunk two fingers deep into my core.
I was nothing but an arc of electricity, a raging storm pulsing through me in time with each stroke of his fingers, with each suck of his lips. I was fire and ice and violent possibilities as he brought me to heights I never knew could exist.
When there was nothing left in me and I’d sank into the mattress in a puddle of flesh and bones, Zeno lifted his head, wiped the back of his hand across his wet face, then prowled over me with danger in his eyes.
I whimpered when he touched me, when his fingers pinched my pebbled nipples and his dick prodded at the wet mess between my legs.
“Please, don’t.”
“Don’t, what?” he asked, nipping at my bottom lip with his teeth.
“I don’t… I can’t… Oh, Zee!” He slid into me in one slow slide, his fat dick slipping easily through my wetness until he was seated all the way in. “I can’t take it! Oh Zee. Oh!”
It was pure torture, just as he promised.
It was the love he gave me every day.
This man was meant for me, and I’d never let him go.
Zee made love to me, fucking me with everything in him, making me come again and again.
He made me promise him I’d love him forever.
Made me promise I’d always be by his side.
But he couldn’t have gotten rid of me if he wanted to.
I’d loved him since I was a child, and there was nothing that could change that. Nothing that could make me stop loving him.
Zee was mine, forever.
And I’d always be his.