“Yep. I wanted to be the one who could make all the decisions when it came to my life, not leave my happiness up to someone else.”
“Hence where you get your zeal to tell it like it is.” He pats his hand over his heart and this time when he puts it down—the smile broad on his face—he places it ever so casually atop my knee.
“Off with their heads,” I say in my best British accent.
“Careful there, Cinder . . . I come from a place that was once a colony of your kingdom, my liege.” He squeezes my leg. “What else did that creative mind of yours want to be?”
I fall silent and look back to the skyline. “I had a modeling scout approach me at a mall. Told me I should do headshots. My mom thought it was a scam but I begged her to let me do it. I got my first job a few weeks later. It was a runway show—small time stuff—but there was something about the feel of it that just . . . I don’t know . . . ” I shrug, feeling silly and strangely vulnerable.
“You don’t know what?”
“It’s silly really.”
He knocks his knee against mine. “Tell me.”
“It made me feel loved.” I clear my throat, hating that I suddenly feel exposed. “I know it was the clothes I was wearing that people were applauding, but for this girl who no one took notice of . . . who’s dad didn’t think she was important enough to stay around and watch grow . . . it just, it made me feel like I was worth something. And yes”—I hold up my hand to stop him from speaking—“before you say you shouldn’t find your self-worth in others’ opinions of you, I know that. Back then though, that modeling job was the start of me getting my feet under me. It was the moment where I could have stayed where I was, who I was, or I could be the person I wanted to be.”
“All I was going to say was that I get it,” he murmurs. “I understand. My family . . . Christ, my family was a hot mess. Sure my parents were together forever, but when you live under the drunken haze of alcohol, it makes everything more tolerable . . . for everyone except the people who live with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. They preferred their vodka over their son and god forbid if he came in between the two.” My heart lurches in my chest for the little boy who grew up in that situation.
“Is that why you came to America?”
“One night . . . shit, one night, when I was fifteen, my dad raised his usual hand to me and for the first time, I fought back. Things changed after that. Their fighting grew worse, their drinking became heavier . . . and I couldn’t do anything right anymore.”
“Zane . . .”
He rocks his head from side to side as if he’s remembering and measuring how much to tell me. “The day after my eighteenth birthday, I made my move. I stole a necklace from my mom and hawked it to pay for my plane fare here. Not proud of it, but sometimes you do what you have to do.” He purses his lips for a moment, almost as if he’s weighing what to say next. “When I made my first big trade on the stock market—when I got that same feeling of worth that you were talking about on your first modeling job—I sent her a check for the necklace and then about fifty more of them. That was my thank you for bringing me into this world . . . and then my affirmation that I never wanted to be like either of them.”
“Do you think you’ve achieved that?” He flashes his eyes my way, surprised by my question. “I mean, have you made that distinction in your head that you’re different than them?”
“I think I’ll always be chasing that distinction,” he murmurs and then clears his throat, the reflective look in his eyes gone. A topic a little too close for a man used to being closed off from the world.
And before I know it, he’s effortlessly shifted us onto the grass behind us where his lips find mine.
The kiss knocks me astride for a second.
We’re not in public. There is no one to document the relationship between SoulM8’s owner and his match.
We’re not in the coach. There is no, “this is just casual sex with nothing else.”
This is Zane and me on a hill with hot air balloons above us and no one around for miles.
I sink into the kiss. Into the lack of pretense with it. Into enjoying the warmth and softness of his tongue and the strength in his hand that’s cradling my head.
“What are we—”
“Shh. We’re watching balloons,” he chuckles, preventing me from being stupid and stopping him from kissing me.
Because this feels so good. He feels so good. So incredible that I need to shut my mind off and just let his lips and tongue and the heat he’s spreading throughout my body be the only thing I’m thinking about.
“What other things did you dream of being?” he murmurs against my lips when the kiss ends.
“I’m still dreaming,” I say when I open my eyes to find him on his elbow looking down at me and his hand resting on my stomach.
“And men? Do men factor into this dreaming?”
I laugh. “That’s a pretty broad statement.”