“How are you related to me?” I moaned. She had been rockin’ out on stage last night. She should be acting like a proper teenager and rock and roll prodigy and sleeping till at least noon.
She turned her head, her pretty face was red and hair stuck to her forehead. She grinned. “Morning, Mom,” she puffed before turning her attention back to the TV.
I scowled at her back and stumbled into the kitchen, needing caffeine in my life more than oxygen at that moment. I surely wasn’t going to get any sleep with Bigfoot practicing kung fu in my living room.
I gaped in horror at the empty space where the coffee had been. I was sure it had been there. Right there. I must have been staring for a while, because a red-faced Lexie bounced into the room, sucking from a water bottle.
“Looking for coffee?” she chirped. Yes, chirped.
“Are Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell not the single most important couple in Hollywood, if not the world?” I shot back at her.
She moved to boil the jug. “I threw it out. Decided we drank way too much and thought we could try green tea instead. It’s got natural caffeine in it.”
I turned to face her slowly. “What?” I said quietly with a hint of menace.
“I said--“
I held up my hand to silence her. “I knew what you said. I just thought you were playing some kind of cruel trick,” I said. “Now I see you have just decided to kill your mother,” I finished.
She opened her mouth.
“Uh uh,” I interrupted. “You do not speak to me after what you have just done,” I declared icily. “I am going to get Shelly coffee, and the changeling that has replaced my daughter better be gone when I get back, or I will be forced to perform an exorcism,” I shot, moving out of the room.
I sipped the glorious caffeine filled cup, only now realizing that my outfit wasn’t even close to matching. At that moment, I didn’t care. I had coffee; all was right in the world. I was thinking of cruel and unusual punishments for my spawn when my phone dinged.
Lexie: Sorry, Mom. I was operating under the influence of endorphins. They make your brain do weird things. Bring a latte home and I’ll upgrade your retirement plan to a villa in Tuscany.
I smiled at my phone. Then I ordered Lexie’s coffee to go, plus another one for me. I would surely finish the one in my hand in no time. I needed a roadie. So, I had the last of my cup sitting in a booth, happy to stare into space when I felt a presence sit across from me. The presence that seemed to turn the air wired.
I looked up at angry—no, furious—black eyes.
“You didn’t come last night,” Zane bit out instead of greeting me like a normal human.
“Are you following me?” I asked him seriously.
Zane narrowed his eyes.
“Seriously, I’m only up at this hour on a Saturday because I made the mistake of letting my daughter think it was okay to eat healthy and exercise. What’s your excuse?”
“Club business,” he ground out. “Right now I don’t need your word vomit. Need to know why the fuck you didn’t come last night,” he demanded harshly.
I stiffened. Word vomit? I may babble slightly, but I thought about my words before I spoke them. Most of the time. Okay, like one third of the time, but still.
I leaned in. “I didn’t come over because I decided that I wasn’t going to become a mindless sex drone that obeyed your every barked command,” I whispered.
Zane’s form stiffened but I decided I was on a roll.
“I have discovered I can no longer continue to sneak over to your place under the cover of darkness and let this just be about sex. I want more. I need more,” I continued.
Zane’s eyes bore into me as I silenced myself. I ignored the part of me that screamed to take whatever I could get from this complicated man.
“So do I,” he said finally, his voice gravelly.
I jerked slightly in surprise.
“I want more from you, Mia,” he continued. “It’s not enough just having your body. I want more. All of you. Every inch,” he declared roughly.
I tried not to open my mouth out of shock. I was speechless. That didn’t happen, like ever. I had a response for everything.
“Here you go, sweetie,” Shelly broke the moment by placing two coffees between us.
I distractedly smiled and thanked her. For once, the appearance of coffee actually pissed me off.
Zane’s face had shuttered with Shelly’s arrival.
“Tonight,” he murmured once she had left. He stood and leaned across the table slightly. “Tonight, I claim every inch of you.”
With those words and a smoldering look, he was gone.
I sank back into my seat, feeling the urge to fan myself with my hands.
He couldn’t just say goodbye. No. He had to rock my world and make my lady bits do cartwheels and disappear into the night. Well, not the night, the early morning…but still.