Chapter 12
SIENNA
I sat in that dirty room, the noises coming from everywhere like a whirlwind around me, tightening until I could hardly breathe anymore.
All would be well if Zane was still with me.
I’ve thought this exact same thing so many times over the years. For a while, it was like a mantra I’d repeat to myself when things were particularly bad.
But he wasn’t with me and there was no way to change that.
Now he is.
And I won’t just sit alone in a room waiting for him.
That’s all the thinking I did before leaving the room and coming down the stairs to the noisy, crowded bar below. I couldn’t see Zane anywhere, but I knew he must be near because I felt his presence everywhere.
I didn’t think coming down was a bad idea until a bearded mountain of a guy blocked my path.
He made slurred suggestions about taking me back up to his room and wouldn’t get out of my way.
He smelled about as bad as the room I just left and wasn’t taking no for an answer at all.
I knew I was in trouble as he grabbed my arm and attempted to pull me back up the stairs. I still couldn’t see Zane anywhere.
Until he slammed into the bearded man like a flash of the brightest light I’d ever seen.
The guy bounced off the wall like a toy might, and lost his footing just long enough for Zane and me to lock eyes.
The whirlwind stopped, the world grew completely silent and still—warm and pleasant where before it was filled with fear and repulsion.
And I knew I made the right choice coming to him. And that I should’ve done it years ago.
The bearded man got up but backed down after a few sharp words from Zane.
“I told you to stay in the room,” he says as he wraps his arm around my shoulders.
“I wanted to be with you,” I tell him as we just stand there as though we’re at some sort of crossroads.
His eyes are two deep pools of sky-blue water covered by ice. Things are alive in there, but they’re far from the surface.
A part of me wants to stay down here and dance all night. Another part wants to go back upstairs and make love to him—find and experience all I’ve been missing in the last ten years. And another part of me is perfectly happy just standing here with his arm around my shoulders.
He finally moves, leading me in the direction of the stairs. I follow, glad he made the choice. And that he made this choice. Because being alone with him has always been my top number one favorite thing to do.
But there’s not even a hint that he might feel the same way on his face once we’re back in his room.
“I should take you home now,” he says.
I didn’t expect him to forgive me just because I finally told him the truth. I didn’t even expect him to warm to me in any way. But this?
“My place is with you,” I whisper.
He scoffs, but his eyes aren’t as hard and uninviting as they were before. They’re more like the way they used to be. Filled with love and devotion for me. Filled with wonder at the love we shared.
I know that man is in there somewhere, beneath his tough, tattooed exterior—the shell he’s hidden himself inside for all these years. And maybe I can never find that man again. But I’m going to try.
I stand on my toes and kiss him.
Because everything makes sense when we kiss. Even whatever this is that we started tonight.
He returns the kiss, grabs the back of my head, and deepens it.
His hand slides across my bare back, rough and calloused, leaving a trail of sensations I can only describe as sparks.
A trail of sparks that will ignite the kind of fire I haven’t felt since he touched me last. Since we made love last.
He breaks away from the kiss and slides the straps of my dress off my shoulders. I’m not wearing anything underneath because this dress doesn’t work with underwear and feel his gasp of appreciation at that fact as though an earthquake just struck.
He reaches out and slides a strand of my hair behind my ear because it was covering my nakedness.
Then he slides his callused hand across my breast, across my erect nipple and a moan escapes my lips—a moan that I’ve been holding in for so long it turned painful.
“You really want it, don’t you?” he asks in a sneering voice. But it’s deeper than that. It tells me he wants me just as much as I want him.
The front of his jeans is tenting and I reach out, run my hand over his hard-on. “I want to be with you more than anything.”
I’m so ready for his touch my whole body is tingling with desire.
“Yeah?” he asks in that same sneering voice. “You want to get fucked?”
I shake my head. “No. I want to make love to you.”
I don’t know what kind of little game he’s playing or what his questions actually mean. All I can do is answer him truthfully and hope that’s enough.
“Love?” he sneers as he runs his hand across my nipple again, then down the center of my body, leaving those sparks of pleasure in his wake again.
“There’s none of that here,” he adds as he thrusts his middle finger into my pussy.
I gasp at the rough intrusion, but I’m so wet and so ready for him that all I want is more.
He adds a second finger without letting me get adjusted to the first, making me moan and gasp. He laughs. A harsh sound that fills the entire room and drowns out all the other noises coming from elsewhere in this building.
He keeps his fingers deep inside me as he massages my clit with his thumb, making me moan and gasp even louder. I lean against his hand, craving—needing—more, deeper faster.
He laughs again and there is absolutely no love in that sound. Just like there hadn’t been in his voice when he said what he said.
But then he hooks his fingers inside me and starts thrusting them in and out of my pussy, hitting the special spot inside me so well, so expertly that I forget I hadn’t felt this alive since he touched me last.
Before long, my whole body is on fire, those sparks of pleasure becoming a bonfire as he thrusts his fingers into me faster and faster, rougher and rougher. My moans and gasps are shrieks and screams now.
I would run, move away from his touch, which is pure fiery pleasure now. But I can’t, because his other hand is wrapped around my throat, squeezing hard. Not hard enough to take my air, but almost. And that’s good, because I don’t want to run. I want more.
As though he can read my mind, he squeezes my throat tighter and tighter as his fingers pick up speed.
The room is spinning all around me, yet me and him, we’re completely still in the center.
And his bright, ice blue eyes are my anchor.
Always were, always will be. Locked on mine even as my vision blurs from the lack of oxygen and the pleasure his fingers are giving me.
The pleasure that’s so absolute it lets in no other thought. Except… does he mean to make good on his word and strangle me now?
I wouldn’t mind. Not if it comes on the back of this pleasure.
Pleasure I can no longer contain.
The orgasm blasts through me with the intensity of a thousand fires, leaving no cell in my body untouched or unaffected by this explosion of bliss.
He loosens his grip on my throat as he leans down to kiss me, stifling, swallowing the screams that go with this orgasm ripping through me.
I’m having trouble standing upright as his hands finally leave my body. But he doesn’t let me tumble to my knees. He holds me and lays me down on the bed. The dirty bed that feels like the nicest bed I’ve ever lain in as he lays down beside me.
Maybe him saying there’s no love here wasn’t the complete truth.