He stalks closer to me, cups my cheeks, his gaze dark with desire. Then he grabs my hips and starts walking me backward—toward his bedroom.
My eyes blur. I stumble, and he catches me, always catches me when I’m about to fall. He lifts me, holds me up. I should be scared by the way I feel—this raw emotion filling my chest from side to side—but my heart feels strangely light.
Chapter Thirteen
Zane
I walk her backward into my bedroom, trying not to think too hard about what I’m doing. I mean, fuck, I had her exactly where I wanted her, where I’ve been trying to get her from the start. My way. How I’ve always done it in the dimly lit backrooms of bars, in toilet stalls, with chicks whose names I never knew.
And I couldn’t do it. Couldn’t go through with it. Couldn’t finish it.
Dakota bumps into the doorframe, and I steady her, wrenching my thoughts to the here and now. She’s staring at me, those large blue eyes round and brimming with questions, one strap of her white dress untied, almost baring the sexy mound of her breast.
My dick hardens more, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek not to groan out loud. I steer her toward my bed and push her down. I press my knee between her legs, and lean over her, touching her perfect lips, taking in every detail of her pretty face.
I missed her. God, how I missed her during this weekend from hell. I want to map her body, draw it, cover it with my designs. Cover it with my body, my essence. Mark her as mine. I want to touch, and taste, and smell, and I want to push into her, spill into her.
Make her mine.
Christ, I can’t keep my head above the water anymore. I feel like I’m on a train that’s gone off the rails. Too fast. I’ve never done this before, this… relationship stuff. If this is what it is. Shit, I’m so out of my damn depth here.
Then she reaches between us, wraps her small hand around my dick, and holy crap, I don’t care if I die tonight. My hips jerk, my stomach muscles tighten, all air leaves my lungs, and all I can think of is hammering into her.
She shifts beneath me, parting her legs more, so she can press up. She’s naked under her dress, her panties gone, and I lift the soft fabric to see her, really look at her for the first time. I was right, she’s shaved, smooth and beautiful, open for me, her clit like a pearl inside an oyster, waiting for me to touch it, roll it between my fingers.
Fuck, this girl is breathtaking. I trail my hand down her neck, over her breasts, watching her nipples pebble. I lift the dress higher and caress her flat stomach. I dip my thumb into her cute bellybutton, then continue the journey down.
She moans when I touch her clit. She’s so wet from coming twice, and her slickness sends a jolt of painful need down my balls.
Fuck.
My fingers dip inside her, and she tightens around me immediately. I close my eyes and breathe in deeply her scent of arousal—salty caramel and smoke.
Now. Yeah. Observing her face, seeing how her lovely features shift with every move of my fingers inside her, I know I can’t wait any longer. I pull out my fingers and grab my dick, positioning it at her opening and sinking into her heat in one slow thrust.
Pressure is building fast behind my balls, so fast I can hardly breathe as I rock in and out of her, my thrusts going faster and faster. Her lips part, her brows lift as if in surprise. Don’t know why, but then she tightens around my cock like a fist, and her back bows right off the bed.
She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and as her orgasm rips through her, I reach for her face, stroke her cheek.
And cry out as pleasure crashes through me, taking over me. My body seizes with it, my lungs compress until I can’t breathe. Holy shit, I come so hard I see stars and comets, and the whole fucking galaxy.
She’s at the center of it all, filling my vision until I can’t see anything else. Goddammit, I’m in love. I’ve fallen for her, and I’m in too deep.
I should know better. Should keep to Zane’s Law. Never let anyone close because they’ll leave or die.
Yeah. Too fucking late for that now.
I’m lost in a dream memory of pain and terror, hands pawing me, voices screaming my name, when something breaks through. The dream shatters, and I groan, caught on the cusp between insanity and reality.
Where am I? What happened? Why can’t I move?
My teeth are grinding together, and I’m wrapped around something warm and soft. I blink crummy eyes and wait for my blurry vision to sharpen. I hope I haven’t done anything stupid while dreaming, because last night…
Last night I was with Dakota. And she’s right here, curled in my arms. She has her back to me, the deathmoth tattoo barely visible in the gray light of dawn seeping through the window. I study the sweet curve of her shoulder, the pale expanse of her neck.
Then she tenses, curls up tighter. A whimper escapes her.
So this is what woke me up. Bad dream? I frown in the half-light, not sure what to do on this end of it, not being the one having the nightmare.
Sometimes, back when I lived with Emma and had bad dreams, she’d wake me up and stroke my arm until I could breathe again.
Uncharted territory.
I reach up and cup Dakota’s shoulder, then stroke her arm. “Shh, it’s okay,” I whisper. “You’re okay. I promise.”
She whimpers again, then jerks and twists around. Before I realize what’s going on, she’s turning in my arms, clutching me around the neck, nestling close.
Shocked into stillness, I don’t move as she rests her head on my chest, her soft hair tickling. After a small eternity, she settles, and I wrap my arms around her again.
Cuddling. On my bed. With a chick.
Must be the end of the world. I wait for darkness to set in. For an earthquake to hit or a bomb to go off, calamity to strike, and take us both down.
Nothing happens.
I relax a little, and thread my fingers through her hair. “Are you okay?”
She nods. “Nightmare.”
“What about?”
She swallows hard. I can feel her throat move. “Falling.”
I tense. “Why are you so afraid of falling?”
She says nothing.
“Go back to sleep,” I whisper.
“Don’t want to.” She sounds like a petulant child, and I smile in spite of myself. “Tell me about you.”
“My life’s not a fairytale.”
“Never said it was. I’m also building my folder on you, you know.”
“You are?” There’s a pleasant catch in my chest, like a kiss at my very center. Oh, fuck. And the worst part is that I want to tell her. The whole sad story of my past. All that fucks up with my head. All I’ve lost and may still lose. “What do you wanna know?”
“Why your cock is pierced,” she says.
I choke on laughter. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting this. “Seriously?”