Zane (Alluring Indulgence)

by Nicole Edwards

  As though his words were liquid and she’d been dying of thirst, V’s body soaked up every nuance of every syllable; the raspy, low rumble settling some of her tension.

  Or, quite possibly, making her aware in other ways.

  “I thought about it.”

  Zane chuckled, then pinned her with that wicked come-hither grin, followed by a subtle, knowing wink and V inadvertently felt a shift in the air around them. How did he do that? How did he make everything better with just a tilt of his enticing lips?

  “Come in.” Raspy and suggestive, his voice soothed her and gave her the courage to accept his offer.

  It wasn’t like she had much of a choice. If she didn’t go inside, she would never be able to have a conversation with him because V was barely able to ignore the ardent memory of what they did, right there against the wall, just a few short months ago. That night had been perfect. The first night V agreed to go back to his house, and they hadn’t even made it through the front door before Zane had shoved her against the wall as they devoured one another. Right there, out in the open, Zane had rocked her world.

  Putting one foot in front of the other, V managed to get past him and through the front door as his uniquely masculine scent assaulted her senses and nearly had her stumbling in her four inch heels.

  V distracted herself by admiring his house and all of the warmth that radiated from it. It was only her second time to be inside, although Zane had been to hers plenty of times during their brief affair a few months before. And just like the last time, V was impressed by the sheer masculinity of her surroundings.

  Cowboy? Yes, that was one word that would describe Zane. From the bull rope hanging on the wall to the black and white framed images that told the story of Zane’s infamous, albeit short, bull riding career. He was also one of the only Walker brothers who owned a horse. Travis actually owned several, but Zane had only one. She wondered how the horse was faring after not seeing Zane for so long. The thought brought a familiar sadness to her heart.

  There wasn’t a single interior wall in the entire floor plan, only the four that constructed the outer structure of the house and a couple of cedar wrapped beams that supported the vaulted ceilings. Distressed hickory hardwood planked the floor while the walls were a relaxing shade of brown, like sandstone. She presumed that it was Zane’s rustic take on an open, airy loft space. V liked it more than she was willing to admit. There was something about the space that made her feel at home.

  Standing just inside the door, V’s gaze instinctively strayed to the bedroom space in the far left corner. A huge, four post, king sized bed made out of intricately formed thick wooden limbs stood beside a wide armoire made of the same distressed wood. The area wasn’t overly large, but V figured it didn’t need to be. Most of what Zane probably did was on the bed anyway.

  That particular thought had heat sizzling down low.

  The bathroom wasn’t separated by a wall, but rather an opaque pane of glass which offered some privacy and V had some vivid fantasies of what it would be like to have Zane in that monstrous shower. The last time she was here, they had never made it that far. Hell, they hadn’t even made it to the bed. The couch had been sufficient... As well as the front porch and the kitchen counter.

  Heat infused her, and V knew her blush was visible, so she kept her face turned away from Zane. Shaking the thought away, she reminded herself why she was there. It surely wasn’t so she could ogle Zane or to let him get even further under her skin. No, she was here to let him down easy.

  And to remind him once again, that if it weren’t for her, he wouldn’t have been through the hell he’d been through. Nor would his family have suffered for the last few months. That familiar ache reappeared, and V reminded herself that what she and Zane had wasn’t real. Never had been. And it was in her best interest – and his – if they didn’t see each other anymore.

  It would help if she actually believed that.

  ♂♀

  Zane didn’t make a sound as he stood by the front door, his hip propped against the wood, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched V. Since the moment he realized she was pacing back and forth on his front porch, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of her. He was doing pretty fucking well not touching her either.

  Now that she was inside his house, there were a number of excessively appealing ideas penetrating his sex deprived body. Three months had passed since he’d last touched her... Tasted her... Felt the searing way her pussy enveloped his cock. The last thought had him stifling a groan.

  This woman affected him in ways no other woman had ever come close. Before the assault, Zane had been pursuing V relentlessly, and she had been throwing him a curve ball at every attempt.

  Never in all of his twenty four years had he expected to have long term thoughts about a woman, but when it came to V, he thought of little else. It was surprising how much he felt for her and how quickly it had come on. Although they had been apart for three long months, Zane still felt exactly the same. Vanessa Carmichael was his other half, but, just like then, he knew he had his work cut out for him when it came to convincing her of that.

  He kept her in his sights, watching as she gracefully lowered herself to the black leather couch, fluffing her short brown skirt out so that it didn’t show any more of her long legs and beautiful olive skin. Zane had to bite his tongue.

  The last time she had come to his house, she’d been on that couch too. Only because that was the closest piece of furniture they could get to in their haste to practically tear one another’s clothes off. That night had been memorable, especially after Zane had fucked her up against the rough wood siding on his front porch, unable to keep his hands off of her long enough to make it inside. Not that she had been complaining.

  Unfortunately, Zane was pretty sure V wasn’t here to let him worship her with his mouth, although he liked that idea much better than what she probably had in mind. He knew based on his conversation with Kaleb just a short while ago that this wasn’t a pleasure visit. V had come over to see him just to keep him from going to her house. He could tell just how much she wished to be anywhere else by the way she sat with her back straight and her hands perfectly poised in her lap.

  Him, on the other hand...

  Zane wanted V as close to his side as he could get her. Preferably, he’d rather be on top of her. Or under her. He wasn’t picky either way.

  “Drink?” Pushing away from the door, Zane glanced in her direction as he made his way to the refrigerator. He wasn’t sure what he had to drink, but he was fairly certain there was water. At this point, that’s all he needed. For some reason, he felt a little dehydrated, and he was sure it was due to the way his blood pressure had skyrocketed and his body temperature had increased since the second he saw V on his front steps.

  “No, thank you.”

  All prim and proper, V was. Or so she tried to pretend. She might’ve forgotten that Zane had seen her totally out of control with lust a time or twenty, but he hadn’t. He was pretty sure he never would forget either.

  “You didn’t have to come all the way out here, you know.” Zane sat on the wooden table across from V, doing his best not to reach out to touch her. “I would’ve come to your house.”

  V’s pert little nose scrunched, her eyebrows dove down in a frown, and she didn’t look directly at him. She tried to play off her initial reaction by leaning back against the cushions, pretending to get comfortable as she did. She looked tense, and not at all like she wanted to talk to him.

  She didn’t make a sound for what felt like an eternity. “Talk to me, V.”

  “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  It was Zane’s turn to frown as he studied her, trying to understand what she was getting at. He’d been to her house on numerous occasions, right up until the assault and never once had she seemed unhappy to see him.

  “What? Talking?” If she didn’t intend to talk to him, what the hell had she come over for? “Help me out
here, V,” he leaned closer, resting his elbows on his knees with the water bottle clutched between his hands.

  Zane never had been good at reading a woman’s mind and V’s was particularly difficult to read. She had an uncanny ability to keep herself closed off as much as possible.

  “No. You. Coming to my house. We know how well that worked out last time.” V’s remark apparently shocked her as much as it shocked him. Her eyes flew up to meet his, and he saw the same horror reflected in the whiskey brown color that he’d seen moments before Jake Sanders had knocked him unconscious.

  So that was how she was going to handle this? Did she think that making him stay away from her house was going to protect him? He felt the swirling, black hole, filled with vehemence and loathing for what that bastard did to them, open up inside of him.

  There had been so many times he wished he could go back to that day and change how things had played out, but no matter how many times he thought about it, he knew he couldn’t have changed anything. Jake had planned it all out and somehow the man had gotten away with what he’d done, which had another jolt of anger bursting free inside of him.

  Zane would admit that he hadn’t been happy when he found out that V had tried to take all of the blame on herself. He’d wanted to talk to her, to shake her until she understood that nothing she did caused it to happen. But seeing her now, seeing the absolute anguish on her face broke his heart. The self-induced guilt was eating her alive.

  “Are you ok?” Sitting the water bottle on the table beside him, Zane moved an inch closer, his knees nearly touching hers.

  From the moment he woke up in that damned hospital bed two months ago, Zane had wondered how she was holding up. Both physically and emotionally. From the outside, V looked just as radiant as always, but he knew her better than she thought. She was notorious for pretending all was great and perfect, but when she didn’t know he was looking, there had been plenty of times he had seen her with her guard down.

  It hit him that he didn’t even know whether she had sustained any injuries that day. His memory had taken a little time to come back to him, but as soon as he recalled the way one of those bastards had shoved V, sending her slamming into the ground, he’d damn near walked out of the hospital that day. That one push had distracted Zane enough, giving those fuckers exactly the opportunity they needed to catch him off guard.

  “I’m fine. Why?” Her nonchalant attitude pissed him off sometimes. She acted as though nothing fazed her, but he knew better. He could see it in the way she forced a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “Did they hurt you?” He had to ask the question because he had to know. No one seemed to know exactly what happened right after Zane had been knocked out. Well, no one but V.

  “They didn’t hurt me,” she said, sounding for the first time, like she was trying to reassure him. “They weren’t there for me, Zane. Jake just used me to get to you.”

  “He didn’t use you, Vanessa. Jake came after me. It just happened to take place at your house. There’s a big difference.”

  The words came out a little harsher than he intended, but it was more than obvious that she was layering the blame on herself. He wanted to reassure her that it wasn’t her fault. He knew they needed to talk about what happen, but Zane was hesitant to relive those memories so soon after he was released from the hospital.

  He knew full well what it would do to him mentally. That black hole of fury was pulling him under, and if there was anything Zane knew about himself, it was that his temper bordered on out of control. He’d become intimately familiar with it during the few conversations that he’d had with that damn psychiatrist – or whatever she wanted to call herself – that his mother insisted he talk to in the hospital.

  V’s eyes lowered. “I’m so sorry.” Her whispered words broke his heart and pissed him off at the same time.

  “You have nothing to be sorry about, V.” This time he lowered his voice, trying to reassure her as he leaned closer, reaching out for the first time to touch her. Tilting her chin up so she had to meet his eyes, he smiled sadly, “Nothing that happened, that day or any other, was your fault.”

  “No?” V stood suddenly. Her abrupt shift had Zane flinching backward instinctively.

  Yeah, he was clearly going to have to work on that.

  Pushing himself to his feet, he closed the gap between them, towering over her as she stood staring up at him. At six-foot-four-inches, Zane was not by any means a small man. He was still working on gaining the pounds he’d lost while in the hospital back, along with the strength that was zapped from him thanks to a month in a coma.

  Standing next to V, all five-foot-seven or so inches of her, Zane couldn’t help but remember how well their bodies fit together. She was tall and curvy and breathlessly beautiful. Even in those heels, he still had to look down at her, and when she hit him with those whiskey brown eyes, some of his anger subsided.

  “No, baby. None of it was your fault. You couldn’t have predicted what that fucker would do.” He kept his tone low and even as best he could.

  Truth be told, Zane should’ve been smarter. He should have known after Jake jumped him at Moonshiners that the man was rapidly losing touch with reality. Maybe it was because Zane had knocked his ego down a notch the day Jake had insulted V, or maybe Jake was just a loose cannon, bound to explode at any time. Either way, Zane should’ve been prepared.

  Instead, he’d let down his guard some.

  “He was waiting for you. At my house. Why don’t you understand this?”

  “Understand what?” He took a step back. “You weren’t even at the bar when he jumped me there, were you? So I’m not sure how you get to blame yourself for any of this.”

  “No, I wasn’t. But if it weren’t for what happened at Anderson Croft’s, none of this would be happening. And in case you forgot that all started because of me.”

  True. V had a point there. The whole thing started that day, but besides her accuracy on the timing, her logic didn’t make any damn sense. Regardless, talking to her was useless because she had since made up her mind. The only thing he could do now was to try and change it.

  “You couldn’t control what Jake was going to do, baby, any more than you can control whatever this is between us.”

  Zane hadn’t expected to say the last part, but somehow the words had slipped out. The woman was a distraction, one that kept him away from some of the darker, gloomier thoughts and he welcomed that into his life. He’d gotten attached to her, and he wasn’t ready to let go even if she resorted to trying to convince him otherwise. Which he knew she was going to do.

  Zane didn’t have it in him to give up, and no matter how hard she tried to push him away, he wasn’t going to budge.

  Not this time.

  “Zane,” V choked a sob back, “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Well, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, even if he had expected it. In fact, it was a long time coming because he had been anticipating this conversation ever since the day he went to pick her up to take her to the groundbreaking ceremony. She’d been alluding to the fact that she didn’t want to see him anymore, but Zane didn’t believe her then.

  He still didn’t believe her now.

  “What can’t you do?” He needed to hear her say the words. He wasn’t sure she could actually say them.

  “This.” She wiggled one hand back and forth between them, referencing the two of them.

  “You can do this.”

  “I’m not talking about sex, Zane,” V huffed, backing up another step, her hands going to her hips, her eyes blazing with frustration and what he sensed was anger. “Fucking you has never been the problem.”

  Fucking him?

  Zane’s body hardened at the same time something else took root deep in his soul. Something that told him whatever this was between them wasn’t just about sex. Even if V wanted to believe that.

  “Then what’s the problem?” He was getting irritated now. “Are you
scared, V? Scared that fucking me might turn into something more?” Taunting her, he continued, “Scared that I might just be able to get past that impenetrable outer shell?”

  “No!” V stormed away, presenting Zane with her back.

  “That’s what it sounds like to me, baby. Sounds like you can’t handle fucking me because you’re scared there might be something more between us.”

  There already was, but Zane didn’t say that out loud. He knew how far he could push her.

  “You’re delusional, Zane Walker. Maybe you should go back to the hospital. I think the doctors might’ve overlooked the severity of your brain damage.” V turned abruptly to face him again.

  Zane laughed, and that earned him a death glare. God she was so damned bewitching when she looked at him like that.

  “Honey, I think you already feel something for me.”

  “Bullshit. You’re just a baby, Zane. We might have fun between the sheets, but that’s all it is.”

  V’s reference to his age, specifically the difference between them, only pissed Zane off more. He hated that she used that as an excuse. She’d tried it one other time, and if he remembered correctly, she’d been sprawled out beneath him in ten seconds flat, begging him to let her come.

  He was twenty four, almost twenty five, and she was just barely thirty. Fuck, he wouldn’t care if she were forty. What Zane felt for her, he’d never felt for anyone else, and he wasn’t about to let her get by with throwing whatever this might be away because of a few measly numbers.

  “A baby?” Zane stalked her across the room until he pressed her into the glass partition that enclosed his bathroom. He didn’t stop crowding her until he was crushing her between his body and the cool glass at her back. “That’s not what you were screaming when I had my dick buried inside of you.”

  Zane leaned in closer, his mouth hovering above hers as he waited for her response. Her sharp inhale, along with the full body shiver, told him exactly how much he still affected her.

  “Was it?” Letting his lips brush lightly over hers, he waited for V to push him away.