She rolled her eyes and looked down at her plate. “The steak is almost gone.”
“I guess I should have bought bigger steaks.”
She rested a hand on her belly. “Maybe.” Sighing, she leaned back in the seat, feeling just a little too full. “Although I already ate too much.” Reaching for her wine, she eyed him narrowly. “Favorite movie, huh? Addams Family—the one they did with Anjelica Huston and Raul Julia. Only the first one, though.” She waited for a comment.
“Yeah?” All he did was cock his head and study her. “Why?”
She sipped at her wine, feeling a little self-conscious now. “Hard to explain.” Lowering her glass to the table, she shot him a look and shrugged. “It was one of the last movies I saw with my dad before he died. I mean, they were crazy and all, but they were . . . happy. They loved each other. Gomez and Morticia . . .”
“One of the greatest romances in all of Hollywood.” He smiled, looking amused.
Cocking an eyebrow, she said, “Make fun and I won’t help you with the dishes.”
He pushed his chair back and came around to kneel down next to her. “You’re not helping me anyway. But I won’t make fun. I like the movie, too. The first one was the best, if you ask me.” He pushed her chair out and then dipped his head, lowered his lips to kiss her knee. “I took Italian because of that movie.”
Well, damn. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope.” He slid a hand up her thigh, his fingers toying with the hem of her skirt. “Cara mia . . .”
Something hot and liquid spread through her as he leaned in and murmured to her in a language that secretly turned her into mush. That was another reason—one of her early movie crushes had been none other than Gomez. So she was weird. So what?
As Zane caught her ear between his teeth and tugged, she shivered.
Then he whispered, “Ti voglio piú di quanto abbia mai voluto un’altra donna.”
She curled her hands into fists while her mind struggled to translate. She thought maybe he told her he wanted her. Maybe. But he could have been reading a grocery list for all she cared. “That sounds a little too practiced to be your typical high school language requirement.”
“I didn’t just speak it in high school.” He kissed his way across her cheek, slanted his mouth over hers.
For the next few seconds, nothing else in the world seemed to matter. His tongue caught hers, toyed, tangled, while his hands slid under the hem of her short, tight skirt and moved up to trace the edge of her panties. Liquid heat spread through her and if he hadn’t kept her knees pinned in place with his body weight, she thought she might have wrapped herself around him like a vine and started to rock in sheer, desperate hunger.
His hand rested on her side and he slid it up.
Yes, please!
But all he did was move it up to rest on her throat, easing back.
“I spent a year in Italy. A year in France.”
She blinked up at him, confused for a minute. Then, slitting her eyes, she leaned back. “You’ve been to Italy.”
“Yeah.” He brushed his thumb over her lips. “It’s beautiful.”
“I think I hate you.”
He chuckled. “Now, don’t say that . . .”
He caught her mouth again, nibbling her upper lip, then her lower one, until she sighed in longing, opening for him. When he tried to pull away this time, she caught his head and pulled him back to her. He growled, hungrily, against her lips, taking her mouth with a harsh, deep hunger that left her panting.
Then he was gone.
Bemused, she stared at him as he started to clear the dishes.
“Have you ever been out of the country?” he asked, his tone conversational as he stacked up their plates, carrying them with a dexterity that left her eying him with more than a little consternation.
“You look like you’ve waited a few tables in your day.”
“I have.” He winked at her. “In Italy. And you didn’t answer me.”
Sticking out her tongue at him, she gathered up the rest of the dishes, just a few pieces of silverware and the napkins, following him to the sink. But when she tried to help, he caught her by the waist and lifted her onto the counter. “No. You’re not helping,” he said. “Unless you want to help like this.”
He poured her another glass of wine and pushed it into her hand.
“How is that helping?” she asked, staring at the wine for a minute before looking at him.
“Hate to waste it, right? I can’t have more than a glass of red wine or it gives me a headache.”
She snorted and took a sip. “Yeah. I’ve thought about it. I just . . .” She shrugged and looked away. “Never have.”
For a minute, the sound of running water filled the room. He didn’t say anything until he started to wash the dishes, and when he did speak, his voice was soft. “I’ve thought about a lot of things. For a long time. Put them off for too long. Sometimes waiting only makes it harder.”
“Don’t I know it,” she muttered.
But it didn’t matter. There were some things she’d never do. Not because she didn’t want to. She wasn’t going to explain all of that to Zane, though.
* * *
Zane wondered if she knew how much those eyes of hers showed.
Most people probably didn’t see the secrets.
Zane looked for secrets, though.
Studied them, even.
Hers were sad ones, painful ones.
One of these days, he hoped she’d share them, but he wasn’t going to push her on it. Not yet.
After he’d finished with the dishes, he dried his hands and moved to stand in front of her. She was still toying with her wine and he reached out, took the glass. He sipped at it, put it down. “You ready to go home or did you want to stay longer?”
Her gaze came up to meet his.
“Unless you planned on kicking me out for a rousing night of partying with your brother or something, I wanted to hang around for a while,” she said, a smile kicking up the corners of her mouth.
“Well.” He braced his hands on the counter by her hips, pretending to mull it over. “Zach stopped being an ass. I reckon we could hit the bars with a bunch of college kids . . . nah. I’ve done that.”
She chuckled and reached out, curling her hands around his neck. “What did you wanna do, then?”
“Movie?” He didn’t reach for her. He wanted to. Wanted to push that skirt up, peel that shirt away. He thought maybe she might be naked under the silk. Maybe. But he kept his hands planted flat against the counter.
Keelie’s gaze dropped to his mouth.
“I’m not in the mood for a movie.”
“You sure? Zach still has Netflix. We could probably find Addams Family.”
“No.” She licked her lips and leaned in, pressing her mouth to his neck.
He curled his hands around her waist then, wondered if she felt the same subtle shake he’d just felt. “What then?”
“Zane?”
“Yeah?” He turned his face into her hair.
“I’m already nervous enough. Can you stop talking, maybe?” The words came out tight and strained, like she’d squeezed them through a straw.
He caught her hand, lifted it to his lips as he leaned back.
Her hands were shaking, too, he realized.
“Why are you nervous?” He studied her face.
“Because . . .” She blew out a breath, her gaze locked on his throat. Finally, she looked at him. “I told you I don’t do casual sex. Quick fucks. Sex is serious for me.”
“Keelie, are you saying you’re—”
“I’m not a virgin.” She looked away, but not before he saw the haunted, strained look in her eyes. “I just . . . there was a time when I tried to treat it as casual, like it didn’t matter. I sucked at it, even then. But I thought it might . . .”
Her words trailed off, but he could tell she wasn’t done.
Finally, her shoulders rising and falling on a sigh, sh
e looked back at him. “It was a way to be close to somebody, I thought. Didn’t matter if I loved him or not, if he loved me. It was a way to be close. So maybe I had a few too many flings. It only made me feel worse. So I stopped. Since then, I just . . . sex should matter more than I let it matter. I told myself it would matter the next time.”
Her gaze lowered, and her words were ragged as she continued. “Ah . . . you’re the next time.”
* * *
He was quiet.
Too quiet.
She shot him a look, half afraid at the look she’d see on his face.
The moment she looked up, his hands cupped her face, cradling her so she couldn’t look away. His mouth brushed against hers, butterfly light. But even as she opened her mouth to deepen the kiss, he slid his lips up along her jawbone. She shivered as he nuzzled her neck, scraped his teeth along her neck.
The arm he had wrapped around her waist tightened and she whimpered, the sound foreign to her ears as she rocked against him. He caught her hips when she would have done it again.
“Easy,” he whispered, pressing a quick kiss to her mouth. “We have all night.”
“Is that enough?”
The question escaped her before she knew she’d asked it, and she bit her lip as she tipped her head back to meet his eyes. She was tall, standing five nine in her bare feet, and her heels added almost three inches to her height, but Zane still towered over her. In the golden glow that filtered in through the western-facing windows, a look of taut, harsh hunger tightened his face.
“No.” He pressed his thumb to her lip, his gaze locked on hers. “It sure as hell isn’t. But it’s where we start.”
There was a heat in those words, a sensual promise that threatened to send her senses into overload. She might have collapsed back completely limp onto the counter if he hadn’t caught her up against him.
* * *
You’re the next time.
Those words shattered the threads of control that Zane had been working to rebuild. He’d like to give her pretty, sweet words, but something told him that wasn’t what she needed, or wanted.
Pulling her up against him, he guided her legs around his waist, dying a little as the warm, wet heat of her settled against his cock. Watching her face, he carried her into the bedroom down the hall. There, dying sunlight streamed through the slits in the Roman shades. If there hadn’t been other buildings around them, he would have thrown the material back just so he could see the way the light played over her skin, the way the color of the tattoos spilled over the delicate ivory.
He’d find a place, he thought, somewhere out of the city, just so he could have her in the sunlight.
Soon. Some other time, he’d take her in the sun and trail his hands along those long, graceful limbs, see her pale skin painted gold under the setting sun.
Lowering her to the floor by the bed, he reached and caught the straps of her silken, rust-red blouse and peeled it down.
And realized he’d been right.
She was naked under it, the blouse lined. Her breasts, small and delicate, firm enough to go without a bra. A delicate blush painted her cheeks pink, spread down along her neck to touch the upper slopes of her breasts. Dipping his face, he pressed a kiss to her breastbone, nuzzled her softly.
“I knew you were naked under this. I knew it.”
“How?” She blushed even deeper as he cupped her breast and stroked his thumb across her nipple.
“Instinct.” He flashed her a grin. “And it was driving me crazy.”
The blouse caught around her waist as he turned, sat on the bed and guided her to kneel between his thighs. She was naked from the waist up. Leaning back, he let himself feast on the beauty of her, on the elegance of her tattoos scrolled up her arms, the way they swirled along her shoulders and down her upper chest to stop just above the slopes of her breasts.
He traced the lines of the rose that bloomed on her neck and pressed his mouth to it, male satisfaction rolling through him as she shuddered. He’d needed this, needed to feel her shaking as he touched her, needed to feel how much she wanted him. Was it as much as he wanted her? Could she ever want him that much?
He’d do his damnedest to make it happen, to brand himself on her as indelibly as those incredibly sexy tattoos.
More tattoos started along her sides and he tried to trace them only to get caught in the shirt. “Clearly, I didn’t think this through.” Easing her back, he stood up and grasped the shirt, pulling it upward. She lifted her arms to help him and he folded it, placed it on the table near the bed, before he went back to stroking his fingers along the tattoos, determined to memorize each and every line, every stroke, every curve, every swirl.
“You act like you haven’t seen them before.”
He looked up at her, smiling slowly. “The shower doesn’t count. I didn’t have my glasses, so I couldn’t see everything. And you wouldn’t let me play.” He slid his finger along the vine that started under her left breast. “Now I’m going to play.”
She shivered.
It made him smile as he turned her around.
Then he stopped, staring in amazement.
Her arms, torso, belly, and neck were a garden, only her breasts untouched by the vivid color of her tattoos. Delicate roses, tulips, and bright daises, other flowers he couldn’t name swirled and twined up her arms, vibrant bursts of color—some cute, others elegant, all of them beautiful.
The tattoo on her back was different, markedly, from the rest.
It was . . . haunting.
There was no other word to describe it.
And he realized, then, that he’d never once glimpsed it. Even with the clothing she wore, most of it picked out seemingly to showcase her ink, this tattoo had never been displayed so.
It was a tree, a stark, barren tree.
Her upper shoulders were bare, the tattoo ending along her mid-back, the branches of the tree empty, stretching across her back, the trunk following the line of her spine. At her hips, the ink flared out where the trunk met the ground and then, roots.
They trailed along her hips, curved along her buttocks before the ink stopped.
The entire tattoo was done in black, stark against her flesh.
She shivered as he leaned in and pressed his lips to the center of her spine, rubbed them along the edge of one barren branch.
“This is amazing.” He brushed his finger along one branch, felt her shudder.
She shrugged. “It’s just ink.”
“Funny words, coming from a tattoo artist.” He stroked the branch in toward the trunk. “Zach didn’t do this.”
“No. The guy who taught me did it. It was one of my first.”
He dipped his head forward to run his lips along another tree branch, one that curved around her side, almost long enough to tease the slight swell of her breast.
“It’s terrible to say this, but I’m kind of glad. I don’t think I want any of my brothers seeing you like this. Or anybody. Fuck, Keelie . . . you’re beautiful. You’re like a canvas and every single tattoo is a work of art . . . no. You’re the work of art.” He sank to his knees, trailing his mouth along her spine, his lips caressing the tree while her body trembled under his touch.
She swayed when he kissed the dip in her spine.
“Zane . . .”
He caught her skirt in his hands, started to tug. “Yeah?”
Her only response was a whimper and the sound of it was enough to draw that knot of hunger inside him tighter and tighter. After he’d stripped the skirt away, he settled back on his heels, studying the tree in its entirety.
She wore only a pair of icy blue panties that rode low along her narrow hips. The roots of the tree curled along her buttocks, trailing just to the edge of those panties. “Which one was your first?”
Slowly, she turned and he looked up at her from his position on the floor.
As she held out her arm, he shifted his gaze, studied the script.
Storms make trees take d
eeper roots.
Laying his hands on her thighs, he read it, thought about the tree. And something that might have been anger started to burn inside him. He shoved it down deep before he looked up at her. “Who said that?”
“Dolly Parton.” She shrugged. “Had a lot of . . . well, storms, I guess you could call them. A friend told me that once. It stuck with me. Got the tat to remind me that if nothing else, everything I’ve been through had made me strong enough to handle the shit life threw at me.”
Sliding his hand around, he danced his fingers up her spine, he studied her face. “Strong roots?”
“Ah . . .”
He leaned in and nuzzled her navel. “I see nothing but strength in you, Keelie.”
She swallowed. He rose, kissing a pathway along her torso as he moved.
Her throat worked as she swallowed. He teased the soft skin there, listened as she murmured, “I dunno. Anyway. I wanted the reminder. And then the roses and all. My dad . . .”
He stilled, straightened to look down at her.
She was smiling a little, a far-off look in her eyes. “He died when I was young. But he liked flowers. We used to have a garden.” Then she grimaced. “Weird shit to talk about right now. Anyway, plenty of kids think they have it rough, then, right? It’s part of growing up.”
Somehow, Zane suspected this went a lot deeper than growing up. That was for another time, though. He dipped his head, caught her lip between his teeth. “So . . . how are things now? They better?” he asked against her lips.
“Well . . .” She was gasping when he let her pull away. “Lately it hasn’t exactly sucked.”
“Such high praise. It’s going to go to my head.” He leaned in, so close their breath mingled. “I think I need to see if I can do better, though. Make things even better.”
A lot better. If he could, he’d make her entire world better . . . if she’d let him.
For now, though, he could give her this.
Of course, within seconds, he wasn’t thinking of anything but her, his hands on her, and how much he needed to make her burn—the same way she made him burn. Mouth slanted over hers, he tugged her to the edge of the mattress and leaned in, closer, closer, until nothing separated them but the layers of his own clothes and the thin barrier of her panties. Her arms wound around his neck, her mouth parting under his.
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