19. Chapter 19 #2
My girl.
The words echo in my head, trapping the air in my lungs. His girl. He just claimed me. Zed just drew a line in the sand around me in public.
Liam looks at me, his eyes wide with mocking disbelief.
“Jesus, Lil. Does your father know you’re getting fucked by a sociopath?” He barks out a harsh laugh, tilting his head up to look Zed in the eye.
Zed’s hand moves, pulling me back even more and turning us around, silently putting an end to the conversation without giving Liam anything.
But Liam isn’t done. “Tell me, Mercer... have you already seen that disgusting scar she’s got right next to her snatch? Or does she make you keep the lights off so you don’t have to look at it?”
A shocking wave of pure horror crashes over me. My breath hitches, a massive, suffocating lump rising in my throat as every insecurity I’ve spent years trying to bury comes rushing violently back to the surface. I want nothing more than for the marble floor to swallow me whole.
Zed stops.
His brows pull together as his eyes find mine, and I know exactly what he’s thinking about.
Who told you that?
He knows now.
The arm around my waist disappears, and by the time I turn, Zed is already moving.
He closes the distance between them in two long strides, one massive hand locking around Liam’s jaw before driving him backward into the marble edge of the bar.
The impact knocks the champagne flute from Liam’s hand, sending it crashing to the floor as Zed towers over him, his frame completely eclipsing Liam’s.
“What the fuck?!”
Zed doesn’t answer.
His fingers tighten.
Liam’s cheeks compress beneath his grip, his jaw forced open at an awkward angle as Zed squeezes harder, and a horrible certainty settles into my stomach.
He’s going to break it.
Those hands have stopped slap shots at a hundred miles an hour. I know what kind of strength is sitting in those fingers, and from the pain and panic spreading across Liam’s face, he knows it now too.
“You picked the only room in Miami where I can’t put you through a fucking wall.”
Zed’s voice is low and frighteningly controlled, completely at odds with the force of his hand around Liam’s jaw.
“Stay the fuck away from her. You don’t touch her, and you don’t speak to her.”
He leans closer, forcing Liam to hold his stare.
“And if you ever talk about her like that again, you’ll spend the next six weeks sucking dinner through a fucking straw.”
A chill runs straight through me.
Zed holds him there for another long second, and I’m almost certain Liam’s bones will give under his hand before he finally shoves him away hard enough to send him stumbling.
“Enjoy the gala.”
Liam whimpers, a pathetic, choked sound escaping his compressed lips.
“Mr. Mercer, is there a problem?”
A security guard comes panting up to the bar, his face pale as he looks at the shattered glass and the NHL player slumping against the marble.
Zed turns slowly, putting himself between Liam and me without saying a word.
Liam straightens immediately, one hand going to his jaw as he works it from side to side. His face is flushed with anger, but whatever smart-ass remark is sitting on his tongue dies when Zed glances back at him.
“No problem,” Liam says tightly.
The guard looks from him to the shattered champagne flute scattered across the marble floor, clearly unconvinced.
“You sure?”
“Yeah.” Liam adjusts the front of his tuxedo, trying to recover some of the arrogance Zed just knocked out of him. “We’re good.”
Zed’s mouth pulls into the faintest hint of a smile.
“See?” he says, his voice almost bored. “We’re good.”
The guard hesitates another second before looking at me. “Miss, are you all right?”
I nod, still trying to get my breathing under control. “I’m fine.”
Liam looks at me then, and the anger in his face makes it obvious he wants to say something. Maybe blame me. Maybe find one more cruel thing he can throw my way before this ends.
Zed catches the look.
He doesn’t move toward him. He doesn’t have to.
Liam looks away first.
Zed’s hand settles against my lower back, warm and solid as he guides me away from the bar, leaving Liam standing there with one hand pressed against his aching jaw and two hundred people between him and the promise Zed just made.
Behind us, the music never stops.
The entire interaction takes place in a localized vacuum. To anyone looking from across the ballroom, it just looked like a tense, close-quarters conversation between athletes. The music keeps playing, and the rest of the room remains entirely oblivious.
But I am completely shattered. Liam’s humiliating words ring in my ears. I want to sink into the floor, claw my way out of this dress, and disappear.
Zed tracks the tremor of my lips, the unshed tears blurring my vision, and the deep, suffocating hurt radiating off my skin.
He glances briefly over his shoulder, scanning the oblivious crowd, before his hand slides down to lock around my wrist.
“Come with me,” he commands.
I don’t protest. I don’t have the strength to. I’m too paralyzed to care where he’s taking me.
Zed moves through the venue, pulling me behind him.
He bypasses the main corridors, steering me down a dim, restricted service hallway used by the catering staff.
He finds a heavy oak door, pushes it open, and hauls me inside a sprawling storage room lined with silver rolling racks and white tablecloths.
The heavy door clicks shut behind us, locking out the sound of the gala.
The instant we’re alone in the shadows, his mouth descends on mine with a feral, primitive hunger that steals the air straight from my lungs.
It isn’t a gentle kiss. It’s a possessive, punishing reclaiming.
He devours me, a low growl ripping from his throat and vibrating straight into my mouth, showing me without words exactly how much he missed me during the agonizing forty-eight hours he was gone.
I kiss him back with the same energy, the familiar butterflies fluttering wildly in my stomach, but the poison Liam injected into my veins is still too strong.
Zed pulls back, his breathing ragged and hot against my lips.
“Look at me,” he orders, his thumb sweeping a stray tear off my cheek. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Your body is perfect, Lilly. Every single inch of it.”
“No. He’s right. It’s...” I shake my head against the wall, a choked, broken sob in my throat. “You don’t have to pretend it’s not.”
Zed grabs my hand, his fingers forcing my palm flat against the material of his shirt. He drags my hand up and presses it firmly over his outer bicep, forcing me to feel the thick, uneven ridge of his scar.
“Am I disgusting, Lilly?” he asks. “Look at me and tell me if you are disgusted by this.”
I look at his muscled, powerful chest, feeling the violent knot of his scar under my palm. “No. But it’s not the same—”
“Why the fuck isn’t it the same?” Zed cuts me off, stepping even closer, his massive thighs pinning mine against the wall.
“Why are you holding yourself to a different standard than me? Why would you think that a scar on someone else’s body doesn’t make them less attractive, but on your body it does? ”
The tears are hot on my cheeks, the humiliation of Liam’s words still clinging like dirt. “Please... just—I feel...” My voice catches, and I have to force out the last word. “I feel disgusting.”
Zed’s pale eyes lock onto mine.
“Then you’re not leaving this room until I fuck that idea right out of your head.”
My breath catches, but he doesn’t give me time to argue.
His hand drops to the hem of my dress and slides under it, moving up the inside of my thigh until his palm settles firmly over my panties.
The pressure pulls a sharp moan from me, my hips tilting into his hand before my brain can catch up with what my body is doing.
“You took my fucking breath away when you walked in tonight, snowflake,” he murmurs against my skin.
His mouth finds mine, the kiss hot and hungry before his lips move along my jaw and down my throat. His hand stays between my thighs, touching me with the same certainty behind every word coming out of his mouth, until Liam’s voice starts losing its grip on me.
Zed catches the back of my thigh and lifts, bringing my leg around his hip before turning us away from the wall. I barely have time to register where he’s taking me before the edge of the table meets the backs of my thighs and he lifts me onto it.
Then he’s between my legs again.
His mouth returns to my neck, teeth catching the spot where my neck meets my shoulder as his thumb keeps working that maddeningly perfect rhythm through my panties. My back arches, my hands grabbing his shoulders as another moan slips out of me.
God.
This is what I needed.
His mouth. His hands. The hard length of him pressed against me. Something strong enough to drown out Liam’s voice and every ugly thing he managed to drag back into my head.
Zed presses harder, and my hips lift into his hand, chasing the pressure as he circles my clit. He keeps me there, working me higher until I’m pushing shamelessly into his touch, needing more.
Then his hand goes still.
A sharp exhale leaves my lips at the abrupt loss of stimulation. Zed straightens over me, his chest rising and falling hard against mine, his lips parted as he looks down at me with the same hunger that’s been there since the second he dragged me into this room.
“You stopped.”
“I noticed.”
My hips shift restlessly against the edge of the table.
His eyes drop.
“You’re not very patient.”
“You’re not the one being tortured.”
A faint smile touches his mouth. “Not yet.”
The promise in those two words sends heat curling low in my stomach.
Without breaking eye contact, his hands drop to his waist. His tattooed fingers grip the buckle of his belt, and with a sharp metallic clink, he unfastens it.
My heart leaps into my throat, another rush of heat flooding my core. My eyes dart toward the heavy oak door, my hands gripping the edge of the table behind me as I shake my head.