10. Chapter 10
Chapter ten
~LILLY~
I step through the double doors onto the back porch on my way to the long dining tables.
The porch is strung with soft lights, the evening air is warm against my skin, and the sound of music and the ocean folding in and out mixes with the chatter.
I start toward the porch steps when I catch movement in the corner of my eye. Off to the side, past the spill of patio light, there’s someone sitting on a big rock near the darker edge. I glance over and stop at the railing.
Zed is there. My eyes narrow, trying to make sense of the shape beside him.
Sam. And he’s hugging Zed with his face pressed all the way in. Zed has one arm around him.
For a moment, I genuinely can’t process what I’m looking at. I grip the porch railing, trying to get a better look.
I shake my head, trying to make sense of it. Not because I think Zed is incapable of apologizing. I don’t know him well enough to say what he is or isn’t capable of.
But after the way he reacted when I suggested an apology, I genuinely didn’t expect to see him do this. And whatever Zed said out there on that rock... it must have worked.
They’re far enough away that I can’t hear anything, but close enough that I can see everything clearly. Sam lets go of Zed and starts talking, animated, his arms moving.
I stay where I am, staring. Every time I think I’ve finally put him into a box, he kicks a hole through the side of it.
The scene feels impossible to fit beside the one from thirty minutes ago.
Watching him there with Sam after being so cold, it’s confusing as heck.
I haven’t known him long. Barely at all, really.
But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve never seen him so upset before.
For the first time since I met him, it felt like Zed genuinely wanted me gone.
“You’re staring.” Dom’s voice comes from beside me.
I glance over. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets, looking out toward Zed and Sam too. He doesn’t seem surprised. If anything, he looks like he expected it. I look back toward the beach.
“I didn’t think he’d actually do it,” I say quietly.
Dom hums once. Sam says something else I can’t hear, and Zed’s head dips a fraction when he answers him.
“Do you know what his deal is with kids?” I fold my arms.
“I have a good guess.”
“And?” I turn to him.
“And it’s not my story.” Dom’s answer is immediate and final.
“You’re seriously not telling me?” I stare at him.
“No.” His mouth shifts a little at that.
I let out a breath through my nose and look back toward Zed. “So, there is a reason.”
Dom follows my gaze. “For what it’s worth, I figured out pretty fast Zed didn’t come here for the kids.”
That gets my head around.
“That surprise you?” He glances at me now, and there’s the faintest trace of amusement in his face.
“No,” I admit. “I know he came because... of me,” I say after a second. “I just don’t understand it.”
“There’s not much to understand.” He shrugs a broad shoulder. “He saw something he wanted,” Dom says. “And he came to get it.”
The words settle somewhere I’m not quite prepared for.
Out on the beach, Sam finally steps away, heading back toward the others with an uneven, half-skip walk. Zed stays where he is for a second longer, alone again, a dark shape against darker water. Then he rises and starts walking back too, toward the front entrance on the other side of the house.
“I don’t do casual sex,” I say suddenly.
Dom turns his head toward me, a little confused.
My cheeks heat just talking about it. “I mean, that’s probably what he wants.”
“If Zed only wanted sex, he wouldn’t need a beach camp full of children to find it.”
I look at him and blink a couple of times.
“The man has infinite options, Lilly. That’s all I’m saying. He didn’t come here because Miami suddenly ran out of pussy.” Dom gestures loosely toward the house, the camp, the whole weekend. “That’s not what this is.”
I never saw it from that perspective. It’s clear that Zed only has to curl a finger to summon a line of women, but I somehow never used that fact as a lens for my own situation.
My thumb catches against the edge of the Band-Aid on my finger. I look down at it.
“Anyway.” Dom clears his throat. “If you’ve got something to say to him, say it tonight. He plans to leave in the morning.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what happened between you two earlier, but he was ready to go tonight. I stopped him.” Dom glances at me. “So, if you have something to say, don’t wait.”
I nod in thanks, and he squeezes my shoulder once before heading down the porch stairs.
I need to talk to him.
I can’t pretend I’m not thinking about this. I know enough now to know that whatever happened earlier wasn’t the simple cruelty I accused him of. I can’t let him disappear in the morning with all of this still hanging, especially after seeing him with Sam and talking to Dom.
I feel awful for the terrible things I said to him without even trying to understand what caused him to react that way.
So, I go looking.
The inside is quieter, most of the villa noise trapped outside with the low music and chatter. After scanning the entire ground floor, I make my way upstairs just in time to see Zed walking down the hallway. My heart kicks like it always does, and I suddenly need more oxygen.
The second he sees me, he stops. There’s none of the dark, cocky amusement I’m used to. None of that low, dangerous certainty that always makes me feel like he’s two steps ahead and enjoying the view. He looks braced, as if he’s expecting more of my anger and harsh words.
“I was looking for you,” I say.
He cuts me off before I can say anything else.
“Don’t worry,” he says flatly. “I’m leaving.”
He starts to step past me.
“Don’t.” It comes out before I can second-guess it.
Zed pauses. Slowly, he looks down at me.
God. My body reacts to that. How can his gaze alone do this to me? It always feels too physical. Being looked at by him counts as contact as far as my body is concerned.
“What?” His brows draw together.
I clear my throat. My voice feels too thin. “Don’t.”
That gets his full attention. He turns toward me fully and takes one step into my space.
“Don’t what?” His voice is low.
My pulse starts climbing. I should know exactly what I’m doing by now, but standing this close to him with his focus fixed entirely on me, I don’t know anything except that I do not want him to leave.
That is insane. But it’s also true.
I’ve never wanted anyone like this in my life. Never felt this lit up, this awake, this completely at the mercy of my own body. With him, everything feels... intense.
He takes another slow step closer, and my breath lodges in my throat.
“Don’t what?” he repeats.
I look up at him and force the words out.
“Don’t leave.”
For one second, he doesn’t move at all.
His tongue slides out and drags once over his lower lip while he studies my face, and I can feel him looking for the lie in me. Looking for the catch. The trap. The part where this turns into something else and he gets made a fool of for believing it.
There isn’t one.
My hands fidget helplessly with the sleeves of my overshirt. I can feel the heat in my cheeks and the pulse in my throat, so I look down.
Just as quickly, Zed’s hand comes up. Two fingers slide under my chin and tilt my face back toward his. The touch is light, the effect is not.
“You don’t want me to leave, snowflake?”
The nickname, said like that, nearly does me in on the spot.
“No,” I whisper.
His eyes dip and scan my face, and when they return to mine, they’re filled with dark curiosity.
“Say it again.”
My heart is beating so hard I’m half convinced he can hear it.
“I don’t want you to leave.”
The stretch of his lips is the only warning I get before his hand slides from under my chin to the back of my neck. My hands fly to his forearms on instinct, bracing against hard muscle.
And then his mouth is on mine.
Oh.
My.
God.
Zed Mercer is kissing me.
Hungry, rough, and devouring, his mouth moves against mine as his hand angles my head, holding me exactly where he wants me. If someone walked upstairs and saw us...
The thought barely forms before the kiss deepens and burns everything else out.
His mouth is hot, his lips softer than they should be for a man who feels this hard everywhere else, and everything about the kiss is rough in exactly the way he is.
A sound catches in my throat. He swallows it.
His tongue brushes against mine, warm and slow for half a second before the kiss turns rougher again, and adrenaline explodes through me so hard I can barely breathe around it.
I’ve never felt anything like this. Never been kissed like this.
Never had someone touch me and make my body come alive with this much force, this much want, this much shock.
I kiss him back. I can’t not. It takes me a second to find the rhythm of this thing he’s doing to me, but once I do, I’m gone. My fingers tighten around his forearms, my body leaning into his before I can stop it, every nerve in me lit up and begging for more.
He makes a low sound into my mouth. The vibration of it goes straight through me.
My stomach drops and tightens at the same time, heat pulsing low and hard through me in waves.
His hand in my hair tightens just enough to make the next angle of the kiss deeper, and my body almost folds right there in the hallway.
I open for him, kiss him back harder, feel the rough drag of his mouth and the hunger in it, and meet it with my own because apparently this is what wanting someone this much feels like.
Catastrophic.