Need spread beneath the weight of his hand, billowing out and sliding free.
I whimpered, and Zee shifted me, my back to his chest. His arm wound around my waist and he buried his face in my neck. “You make me fucking crazy, Alexis. Do you know that? I want to make you feel good. Just for one night…let me make you feel good.”
He edged me forward. My door stood wide open. A beacon.
A shiver rolled down my spine as Zee bunched my hair up in his free hand and pressed kisses to the junction of my shoulder and neck, moving across the star I’d inscribed there as a reminder to never stop believing.
His voice was a rasp across my skin. “First time I came here, I knew it. Knew you were different. Knew I wasn’t ever gonna be the same.”
He kicked the door shut behind him.
His hand splayed wide across my belly that shivered and shook, the darkness swallowing us in its warmth. It was only broken by the swath of moonlight pouring in from the window.
He kissed behind my ear, teeth raking the lobe.
That desire that’d been subdued to a smolder flamed back to life.
I gasped when he suddenly turned me again and pushed me down onto the loveseat.
I clung to the fabric, squirming as the man stared down at me in the shadows.
“You were sitting right there,” he said, so low, like a threat. “There I was, showing up to check on you, and the only damned thing I could think about was crawling over that tight body, pushing you back against the couch, and sinking in.”
I shivered and my mind spun. “Take your shirt off.”
Oh God. Where did that even come from? But I wanted it. To see him.
Because my own fantasies had been there, too.
Zee slowly reached down and pealed the tight tee up his body. He yanked it over his head and dropped it to the floor.
I swallowed around the lump that throbbed in my throat as my gaze stroked and caressed over every beautiful inch of him.
I’d said it before. This man was brilliant. Magnificent.
Inside and out.
His shoulders were wide and his skin was smooth where it was stretched taught above the rigid, defined muscle that bristled underneath. His abdomen was flat and cut, lines carved and distinct as it tapered down to his narrow waist.
My mouth watered as I imagined tracing my tongue along those lines, tasting and touching and exploring.
But it was the ink etched on his skin that made my spirit lurch in a bid to bring him closer.
It was the first time I’d been able to take in the designs in their entirety, to understand what he had etched on his body like tribute and praise.
One arm was a tapestry of life, stars and a perfect, endless night.
The other was death. A dragon at the bottom of the deepest sea, the skulls of its victims piled like trophies at its feet.
Curved around one side of his collarbone was a simple tattoo that somehow felt incredibly profound, written in an almost medieval script
Relentless.
It was easy to see which of these two worlds he was chained to.
“You are beautiful.” I could barely form the words.
The lowest chuckle slid out from his mouth. “If you saw everything hiding underneath, you’d know better.”
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered where he towered over me in the shadows of the night.
He set both hands on the back of the couch on either side of my head, leaning in close and murmuring, “That’s because you are belief.”
He slowly sank down to his knees.
Everything shivered. My body and the air and the foundation of my heart.
He set his hands on my knees. “That’s because you’re everything that’s good. You think I don’t see it, Alexis? Feel it? And I’m the bastard who can’t stay away. Desperate for a taste.”
He slid his palms higher, riding up the top of my thighs.
My belly trembled, and I sucked in a breath when his hot hands landed beneath the fabric of my shirt. He drew it up. A trail of goose bumps were left in his wake as he dragged the blouse over my head.
He tossed it aside and then slipped his hands behind my back, freeing the clasp of my bra, inching the straps free.
“Zachary.”
“I’m going to make you feel good, Alexis. After tonight…I need to make you feel good.” His fingers were on the button of my jeans, and I was gasping as he pulled them down, taking my underwear with them.
The man exposing me, inch by inch.
Chills lifted, that energy suffocating, almost too much to bear as his gaze washed over me.
Wonder.
Awe.
He tugged off my shoes and leaned back to pull my jeans free from my ankles. And there I was, spread out for him across my couch like an offering.
That was exactly what I wanted to be.
“You are the best thing I’ve ever seen. Can’t believe I get to see you this way. That I get this chance.”
I heard what was behind his words. That it was going to be the only one, the only chance.
He edged up, his waist barely breaking the boundaries of my knees, one hand pressed to the couch beside me to hold him up. His eyes latched on to mine as his fingertips traced the skin of my thigh, up and over my hip, tapping out a soft beat across my trembling belly.
My back arched from the tease. “Oh God…Zee.”
“Shh, I know, baby, I know.”
His fingers trailed down, barely making contact as he brushed them over the short crop of hair that covered me, before he parted my lips and dipped his fingertips into the wet flesh.
He teased and tortured, just barely touching my clit.
My hips jerked, desperate for more. “Zachary…”
He met my eye, his gorgeous face carved in stone and etched in restraint. “Do you need me? Tell me, Alexis. Do you need me?”
I touched his face. “I need you.”
He growled before his hands were back on my knees, forcing my legs apart.
He drove his tongue into my folds.
My hands flew into his hair. “Zee.”
He licked deep and long. His hands glided down the outside of my thighs, gripping and caressing and stroking, before they slipped under to grab hold of my ass to yank me closer to the edge of the couch.
He inched back, piercing me with his hungry gaze. “You are the miracle, Alexis.”
His fingers kneaded my flesh, and I squirmed, hips jerking in a plea. He let his thumbs brush at the skin just at the juncture at the inside of my thighs and my center.
Teasing.
Taunting.
“You make me remember.”
My hand was shaking like crazy when I cupped the side of his head, fingers still threaded in his hair. “What did you forget?”
He dipped down and pressed a simple kiss at the juncture, whispering at the sensitive flesh. “You make me remember what it’s like to feel. What it’s like to want someone in a way that makes me feel like I’m going out of my mind. Coming out of my skin.”
“And you’ve made me feel that way for the very first time.”
He clutched me tighter to him, his fingers searching, dipping into my sex and running along the crease of my ass, his breath a flame as he exhaled slowly across my clit.
My heart stuttered and heaved. “Zachary…please.”
“Please what?”