by Heidi McVay
Scarlett lifted her head, her eyes on his face as she murmured the word again. “Yes.”
Zarek’s brow drew into a frown. “Yes, what? I don’t understand.”
“Your question about if you’d asked me to move to Los Angeles with you.” Scarlett’s voice was softer than he’d heard it in years, holding a note of vulnerability. “I’d have done it.”
His chest tightened at her answer, and his body reacted before he could stop himself. Zarek stared down at her, his eyes falling to her mouth, where she was biting her lower lip. He slid his hand from her hair and traced his thumb down her jaw, swallowing against the lump in his throat. He drew in a breath, his defenses now gone entirely. The words came out quietly. “I said your name.”
****
Scarlett’s heart pounded as Zarek mumbled the words almost inaudibly. The storm raged and showed no signs of abating, but with his arms around her and his large, solid body, holding her steady, she felt safe in a way she hadn’t in far too long. She frowned up at him, trying to ignore the way his fingers were now dragging over her spine, slowly and sweetly, stroking to soothe, not to arouse. But damn if the sensation of his fingers on her body wasn’t doing both. It was difficult to focus when he did that, but utterly unthinkable to her to stop him. Scarlett frowned at him, struggling to find her voice.
Fortunately, Zarek showed her a measure of mercy as his soft voice rumbled out again, deeper than the thunder, and softer than the touch of his thumb to her chin as he tugged at her lower lip again to get her to stop biting it. “You sure you want to know this, Scar? It will change things, and I won’t be able to take it back.”
It didn’t matter. Nothing could ever be the same again. She had a few more days before she had to brace herself against reality once more. This man could and would hurt her when it suited him. She had learned that the hard way. But Scarlett found herself nodding. She wanted to know, needed to understand. There was something about Miranda’s words that compelled her, and she didn’t get why they did. She just needed to know.
“The fight wasn’t about you. It was about what I said. About saying your name. How it happened.” Zarek’s hand dropped away from her face, but he still watched her steadily beneath the blanket. There was another series of flashes, and then the sharp, bitter thunder made her jump again. His arm around her tightened, and he shifted a tiny bit closer.
“I told you earlier that I went there to dump Tatiana that night. I’d realized that it just wasn’t going to work. But she refused to accept it. She told me we needed to talk it out, or at least she wanted to understand why I didn’t want to move things forward with her. She got out a bottle of bourbon, and we started talking. And drinking.”
Scarlett watched as the emotions played across Zarek’s face. Regret, anger, self-loathing. It all flickered across those steely gray eyes as he recounted it for her in brutal detail. “I’m not even sure how it started, how it happened. The next thing I knew, we were in bed together. I was just so angry and so drunk. There’s no excuse for it, and it should never have happened. Even while we were…” He trailed off, averting his gaze for a moment, then cleared his throat. “I knew it was wrong. I was hurt; I was angry. I try not to be rough in bed, but that night it felt like she hadn’t heard a word I said or taken any of it seriously. I knew I couldn’t be with her; I couldn’t stay with a person who was so fucking shallow. Somehow, through the haze of the alcohol, or maybe my own wishful thinking, it stopped being her.”
She frowned at that, her heart constricting for him. The ache in his tone was genuine, and she could hear his voice tightening, his breathing coming in harsh, angry bursts now, as if he were reliving that moment. “I needed to feel like I was with someone who mattered. Just for a little while. You have to understand that LA is full of people like her, especially in my industry, Scar. Jesse is probably my only real friend there. I was lonely. I was hurting.”
Scarlett let him speak, uninterrupted, even as his eyes turned sad. His body tensed ever so slightly, and she felt his muscles tightening beneath her fingers. He was bracing himself for some kind of backlash.
Zarek’s whisper was almost too low to hear. “You’re the only person in my life who really mattered then. I found myself thinking of you. And when I…” He trailed off again as understanding began to dawn on her, what he was trying to say. Disbelief rippled down her spine as he refused to make eye contact with her. “I said your name. I said Scarlett.”
Scarlett’s heart stopped beating. For long seconds she couldn’t even seem to hear the thunder. She couldn’t hear anything but those words echoing in her head. She stared up at him, only to find his eyes had settled back on her face, his silver depths now betraying apprehension and fear. Zarek had always been the more emotionally available of the two of them, but this was the last thing she’d ever expected to hear.
A clap of thunder made her jump once more, and she tore her eyes from his. Everything hit her all at once. Her heart began to beat, not just beat, race. It pounded with such sudden force that she could hear her own blood rushing in tandem with the thunder that rolled outside. She felt Zarek’s massive frame tensing as if he were expecting a blow. Her stomach clenched, though she didn’t know why.
Zarek’s voice tore through the cacophony of sudden sound, shattering that discordant symphony into a thousand pieces that fell around her like glass. “Please say something.” But she didn’t know what to say. His hands were suddenly moving, framing her face as he coaxed her head up from where she’d dropped it to his chest again. Even beneath the blanket, the lightning was like a strobe light, flickering through the room, mercilessly casting the lines of his handsome face as harsh lines and shadow, turning him from simply Zarek into a beautiful work of sinister art that held the power to completely annihilate what was left of her heart.
Scarlett’s fingers fisted in his shirt. He was right. She needed to say something, needed to do something. She needed to push him away. She needed to slap him for daring to use this against her when she was at her most vulnerable. Instead, she found herself pulling, rather than pushing, drawing him closer rather than sending him flying away from her as her brain told her she needed to do, must do. Zarek’s brows knitted together in a cautious frown, and Scarlett found herself wanting to reach up and trace her fingers over it, smooth it out, soothe away the edges of the stress. But there were no words, and so she lifted her face and did the only thing she could think of. She kissed him.
For a moment, there was no response. Zarek was frozen, his lips unmoving beneath hers. Panic began to set in. He hadn’t meant it. He’d felt guilty. He didn’t feel as she thought the words meant he had. It was her stupid heart overruling her brain. She pulled away from him a half-second later, the words bubbling from her lips without control. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t-”
His movement was so fast, so unexpected that she was still in the middle of a syllable when he dragged her forward and cut her off, his lips taking hers. It was as if something inside him had snapped. It wasn’t chaste; it wasn’t sweet. It was hot and greedy, his lips on her own as though he were a man who was dying of thirst, and she was the only source of life-giving water. His fingers plunged into her hair as she felt his lips part against hers, his tongue flicking over the seam of her lips. Scarlett gasped as sensation slammed into her all at once, and her eyes fell closed. Zarek seized that opening to deepen the contact, and suddenly he was everywhere. His tongue curled around her own, coaxing and demanding at once, and Scarlett responded on sheer instinct, tasting him as she had never thought she’d have the chance to.
Zarek was the first to make a sound, a soft rumble of approval that she felt against her own chest as he rose to his knees, taking her with him. The hand in her hair tightened, tipping her head to the side gently as his other snaked around her waist, hauling her against him. When his tongue retreated, hers followed, and another sound registered in her ears.
A whimper, soft and low, and she realized belatedly that it was her. The thunder
boomed again, directly overhead, and Scarlett nearly jumped out of her skin. She tore her lips from Zarek’s as she blindly turned toward the window behind her, the blanket falling away completely.
His voice low was as he spoke softly. “Nonono. Don’t go. Don’t pull away. It’s okay. The storm will pass. I’m right here, Scar. I’m with you.” Those sweet words were a gift, and when she refocused her gaze on him, her mind was swimming.
Zarek’s head was bowed, damp black strands of hair inky in the half-light of the living room, framing his face. He nuzzled against her nose with his, and Scarlett’s eyes fell closed once more. Almost without thinking, her fists loosened in his shirt, one hand sliding up his chest and around to the nape of his neck. He released a low sound that was at once soothing and arousing, his breath a warm whisper just a hairsbreadth from her lips. “That’s it. Relax, sweetheart. Everything’s okay now.”
Scarlett’s brain refused to function correctly with his head so close to hers, and when he took her lips a second time, sensation broke open through her body. Electricity ripped down her spine and heat unfurled in her belly, reaching out to her limbs in tendrils that made her feel truly alive for the first time since he’d walked away that night so long ago. Suddenly, it didn’t matter that her mind wasn’t on the same page as her body or her heart. All that mattered was that Zarek was kissing her again. This time, her lips parted, and she nipped at his lower lip as she’d imagined doing so many times. Even on their knees, he was taller. He was big, masculine, and comforting. Yet, he handled her with infinite gentleness as his hands slid to her hips, settling there as he stilled. His lips moved against hers slowly, sweetly, his tongue dragging over her own, as if he were reveling in tasting her, just as she was in tasting him.
She didn’t even know when her hands had come to rest on his face, fingers stroking the surprisingly soft beard that tickled her chin and her mouth. Those kisses were more effective than the whiskey, drugging and slow, making her feel as if he were feasting on her, taking nibble after nibble of a sweet treat, and she was the treat.
“Fuck, Scar. I’m so tired of missing you.” His voice was thicker than she’d ever heard it as one of his arms slid across her lower back, drawing her in closer until she could feel the hard, muscular lines of his body against hers. Every delicious inch of this man that she’d craved for years was now pressed against hers as he dropped slower, lingering kisses on her lips. She registered a new sensation, that of his hips moving, grinding against her ever so slowly. The realization that he was hard against the apex of her thighs sent another fresh pulse of arousal through her, and unbidden, the want that pooled low in her abdomen turned to outright need.
Zarek lifted his head, and when Scarlett dared to open her eyes, he was staring at her steadily. His eyes were half-lidded, and she read arousal there that she’d never thought to see directed at her. His tongue flicked out, wetting his lips as he exhaled harshly. “You have to know where this is going, Scar.”
Her body knew, even if her mind was having trouble catching up. Her fingers trailed over his jaw, beneath his chin, and she watched as his eyes closed, and he released a low-throated groan. “You have to know.” It was a question and a statement all wrapped up in one heady rumble. When Zarek’s eyes opened again, his hand was touching her face once more, his thumb dragging over her lower lip. “I’m going to fuck you, Scarlett.”
Those words, in their crudeness, were a blatant declaration of what Zarek intended. And God, did she want it. Even just for tonight. Tomorrow the storm would be over, and dawn would break, and reality would sink in, but just for tonight, she wanted this. Her own eyes closed, unable to bear the intensity in his gaze as she nodded. “I know.”
He growled as his lips slammed down on hers again. This time, his fingers were tight on her hips as he thrust against her more sharply, with more intent. Zarek’s mouth was searing, and the thunder was no longer the reason Scarlett was trembling. His fingers gripped the edge of her t-shirt, tugging it up. He broke away from her only long enough to tug it up and over her head. Without thinking, Scarlett seized advantage of that moment to pull his upward, for some reason stupidly thrilled when he was bare-chested. She’d seen him without a shirt countless times, but this time she was free to explore, to touch, even to taste. She ducked her head, barely able to meet his eyes as her face flushed with that realization. Her hand came to rest against his chest, her fingers dragging up the taut line of his skin before she gave a solid push.
Zarek frowned at her, his arm hooking around her waist to drag her back with him as he moved to lean against the couch. “Scar?” His voice held a question, and for once, there was a diffidence to his tone she hadn’t been expecting.
Scarlett shook her head. The last thing she wanted was to ruin this moment with conversation that would take her out of her body’s lead and into the cluttered, overcrowded mess that was her brain. Right now, she wanted to feel, not think. She drew in a deep breath, plucking up her flagging courage as she moved to straddle his thighs, and his eyes lowered once more as his lips parted, and he sighed in audible relief that she wasn’t rejecting him.
She’d never thought that she held that kind of power over Zarek. It was an idea that bore exploring later.
His hands came to rest on her hips again, tugging her forward until she could feel the hard outline of his cock against her core once more. When her hands came to rest on his chest, he stared at her face. Not at her exposed breasts as she expected, but at her face, directly at her eyes.
Scarlett swallowed hard, her voice coming so quietly that it sounded foreign to her ears, suddenly on the brink of losing her courage. “I… I’m not… sure what you like.” Scarlett wasn’t even sure why she said it; it was a dumb thing to say, exposing her vulnerabilities even at this most awkward of moments. She’d had sex. At least enough of it to know how this went, but this was entirely different.
As she stared at him, Zarek’s expression softened, and he slid a hand to her rear end, holding her securely in place as he sat up a little straighter. His voice was soft and sweet when he answered her. “Scar, you can’t screw this up. It’s impossible.” As he said it, her eyes widened for a moment in surprise, then narrowed as her lips curved into a smile.
Confidence surging once more, she licked her lips as she averted her gaze. Zarek’s voice was colored with caution and unexpected humor when he spoke again. “I know that expression. Should I be scared?”
Slowly she shook her head and then leaned forward, kissing him again. It was a laughably chaste brush of her lips over his before she drew back and rose to her feet, turning to head for the bedroom. “Scar?” His voice trailed behind her, uncertain. She was halfway across the living room when she turned back to see him staring at her, still leaning against the couch, watching her with open curiosity and now a dawning measure of dread. “Tell me you’re not changing your mind. Not now.”
Her confidence wavering, now that the warmth of his body was no longer against her own, she turned for the bedroom once more. She heard Zarek moving, heard his footsteps on the scarred wood floor of the old boat. He didn’t speak as he came to stand close enough behind her that she could feel the heat of his body. When he touched her this time, his hand came to rest lightly on her shoulder for a moment before trailing over her shoulder blade, then down her spine. Scarlett drew in a deep breath and hooked her thumbs in her leggings and panties, pushing them over her hips. She heard the harsh intake of breath from behind her as Zarek realized that she was undressing. His fingertips brushed her hips, and she stepped forward, toward the open door of the bedroom, leaving the silent invitation to follow in her wake.
Chapter Nine
She moved with a confidence she didn’t really feel. She’d no sooner dropped her bag to the floor from where she’d moved it off the foot of the bed than he was behind her again. This time, his body was bare against her back as his hand slid around to her belly, and his lips were suddenly at the curve of her neck, tracing a hot line with his to
ngue over her bare flesh. The nervousness melted into pure heat as she felt his fingers splay over her abdomen, dragging upward. The earlier patience and slow burn were replaced by all-consuming, raw need. Scarlett twisted in Zarek’s arms, her hand sliding around his body to his back.
His fingers were wicked, tracing a steady path over her side, up toward one of her breasts. Before she realized his intention, he’d bent down and lifted her from her feet. Zarek placed her down on the bed gently, his body moving to align with hers as his lips and tongue played havoc with her senses. It felt like fire trailing over her skin, nipping and licking in the exact shape of his lips and tongue. When his lips closed over one straining nipple, pleasure tore through her, quick and hot. His name fell from her lips without stopping to think of how it sounded. “Zarek!”
His reaction was immediate and unrestrained. Zarek’s teeth scraped gently over that pebbled peak before he soothed it with a swipe of his tongue. “Look at me, Scarlett.” His voice was deep, so deep she almost didn’t recognize it. Scarlett could barely focus on him as her fingers tangled in his hair, watching him as he dragged his lips over her breast, using the soft whiskers on his cheek to add even more stimulation. She’d never thought of a beard as an erotic tool before, but somehow, Zarek managed to drag another moan from her as her body arched toward the touch.
His voice was low, breath hot on her already over-heated flesh, and she realized his lips were so close that the words themselves were a kiss over her other breast. “I’ve never seen anything more beautiful in my entire life. I need you to know that bone-deep, sweetheart.” His lips closed over this nipple, sucking lightly for a moment before releasing it to blow a cool breath over the tight bud. Scarlett was having trouble breathing as she gripped his shoulder. He moved up, his lips blazing a path over her shoulder. Tiny kisses and licks once more pulled her into the ocean of him, and suddenly Scarlett was drowning.