Zane (Inked Brotherhood Book 3) (28 page)

Crap, I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way before.

Until now.

***

“So…” Zane unlocks the door and pulls me into the apartment, then slips his arms around me and walks me backward toward the sofa.

“So…?” I’m a bit nervous, wondering what he thought of my family. He seemed to get along fine with my mad relatives, but who knows what’s going on inside his head?

“So, what’s the deal with the water?”

I blink, at a loss. “Water?”

“And falling.” He marches me backward until the back of my legs hits the sofa, and then he’s lowering me on it, bending over me. His arms tighten around me, so that I’m suspended for a moment over the cushions, before he gently settles me on top.

“I…” He’s propped with one arm on the backrest, the other next to my head, gazing down at me. His eyes are soft with curiosity, velvet black. In the late afternoon light seeping through the window, the strong line of his jaw and his dark brows are deep shadows, his mouth a tempting curve.

“See, I’ve met your family, and they’re fucking crazy. Good people. They didn’t mistreat you. You’re not sick and dying. Apart from a small surgical scars on your back and right arm, I don’t see any evidence of violence. So I’m missing something.” He lowers his face until his lips brush my cheek. “Why the hell did you want a dragon tattoo? I’d say you were just teasing me, but there’s more, isn’t there?”

I nod, unable to speak.

“You don’t scare easily. In fact, you’re fearless.” He gazes at me solemnly, not asking. Stating a fact. I like his conviction, even though it’s not true. “You have to be, to be with me.”

“I’m not fearless.”

“You’re afraid of falling…and of water.” He’s still gazing at me, and it’s like a warm caress. “You said someone pushed you. An ex-boyfriend.”

“Collin. My ex-boyfriend.”

His eyes narrow, and his mouth flattens. “But it doesn’t explain why you’re so scared of the water. Something happened to you, babe. What was it?”

Babe.
I smile. I’m not fond of pet names, but it sounds so good, coming from him. It grounds me, reminds me it’s time I told him everything. Not just because I owe him for opening up to me as he did, but because I want him to know all about me.

Besides… We’re now marked by one experience in common. We’ve both survived it and are here now, together.

Zane lowers himself by my side, an elbow planted on the sofa, the other coming to rest over my stomach. “You okay?”

“You want to know why I stay away from the lake when we go to the park and from the pools at pool parties,” I whisper. “Why I freaked out when I was almost dropped into the pool. Why I’m so scared if nobody tried to drown me when I was a child.”

Like they did to you.

He winces and buries his face in my neck. “Yeah. I want to know, even if you think it’s stupid and unimportant. It’s important to me.”

My throat closes at his admission. I reach up and stroke the side of his head. He’s shaved it again, and there’s a small white scar there I never noticed before. So much I want to ask him. I want to know everything about him.

“Collin and I dated for a year. He played in a punk rock band, and I auditioned. That’s how we met. I was fourteen. He was seventeen. I loved his tattoos.”

“Mine are better,” Zane says, muffled in my neck.

I laugh. “Yeah, they are.”

I feel him smile on my skin. “Go on.”

“It was a weird relationship. I wasn’t picked for the band, but we still mostly met during their rehearsals, concerts and parties. He never kissed me. We…” I stare up at the ceiling. “We had sex a couple of times. In the bars where they played, in the bathrooms. He had me stand and took me from behind.”

Zane stiffens and lifts his head. “Hot damn. If I’d known… Did he hurt you?”

I shake my head. Not really. Nor had it been pleasant. “I thought it was normal. He was a musician. A bad boy. He was older. He was busy and didn’t have much time for me. He was my first boyfriend.”

Zane’s hand inches up from my stomach and rests between my breasts. “What did the fucker do apart from throwing you into a pool?”

I swallow hard. “I found out he cheated on me. Well, as he put it, we never did say we were dating, so technically he wasn’t cheating on me. Just fucking. He fucked every female in the vicinity, including me.”

Zane’s eyes narrow, darkening to charcoal black. His jaw clenches so tight his teeth grit together. “Motherfucker.”

“I was so upset. I thought I loved him.” I frown. “I think I was in love with the idea of being in love. With the idea of him falling for me. Anyway, I was disappointed and confronted him during the party after one of their concerts. We had an argument. He was drunk. He pushed me into the pool and…”

I inhale and force the words out. “The pool was very shallow. I hit my head and back on the bottom. I don’t remember the details. I think I remember floating underwater, unable to move, panicking. But it may be dreams I remember. Doctors said I lost consciousness the moment my head cracked on the tiles of the pool bottom.”

“Christ, Dakota.” Zane’s breathing picks up, and his hand slides up to my throat, to my jaw, cupping it. “Were you okay?”

Tears burn behind my brow. After all this time, just retelling the story makes me want to cry. “No, I wasn’t. I had swelling in my brain, and I hurt two vertebrae in my back. My right arm was broken in three places. They operated and took out the disc shards, drained fluid from my head, repaired my arm. But they couldn’t wake me from the coma.”

“Coma.” Zane’s voice is strangled. The color drains from his face. “You went into a coma?”

I take strength from his hand on my jaw, its warmth and its solid weight. “For five weeks. I had a feeding tube stuck into my stomach. Here.” I reach down, touch the spot over the cloth, where I know a small scar remains.

“Five weeks. Holy shit.” He worries the barbell in his tongue, sucking on it. “And then you woke up, like me.”

“Not like you.” This is the hardest part. “When I finally woke up, I was told I was paralyzed. Two of my vertebrae were damaged. I couldn’t feel much from the waist down, but I felt my toes, and I insisted I’d be able to walk again. They didn’t believe me. But I proved them wrong. I threw myself into physiotherapy and exercise. Worked my body to exhaustion every day, so that I slept fourteen hours every night. It took me a year to walk again properly.” I chew on my lip. “My left side is still weaker. But I can walk, and dance, and run. I’m a survivor. Told you.”

I wait for Zane to say something. But he’s silent, his eyes hooded. Maybe he’s processing what I said. Besides, I’ve gone through the story as fast as humanly possible, not wanting to linger on what was one of the worst times of my life.

His hand on my jaw shifts, sliding down my neck, over my arm, to my side. At the same time, his other hand is slipping under my back, gathering me to his chest. Before I know it, I’m rolled on my side and enfolded in Zane’s embrace, my head tucked under his chin, my chest resting against his heart.

It’s racing a hundred miles an hour, and his arms tighten around me until I can’t breathe.

“Zane…” I choke. “Zane.”

His hold relaxes marginally. His body is so tense it’s trembling. Muscles shift on his chest as he twists until he lies on his back. He pulls me up, so that I’m sprawled half across him.

“Better?” he asks, and I nod. I lie still, listening to his heart thump, noting when it starts to slow.

“I’m okay now,” I say, because I have a hunch he needs to hear it. “It’s been three years since the accident. I’m fine.”

“Did he call the ambulance? Did he take you to the ER?”

“Collin? No. He left the party.”

His hold tightens again briefly. “I’ll kill that motherfucker.”

My chest clenches painfully. “He’s already dead.”

Zane’s heartbeat picks up again, drumming under my ear. “How did that happen?”

“He crashed with his bike while I was lying in a coma. He was…” I close my eyes. “He was thrown off and broke his neck on landing. Died on the spot.”

Silence stretches, marked by the beating of Zane’s heart and my own painful breaths.

“I’m not sorry,” he finally whispers. “He deserved worse.”

Maybe. What it means is that I can’t hate him. Not for being a coward. Not for freaking out and running when I was brought out of the water, unconscious. I don’t hate him, but I can live with his death.

“I won’t let you fall again,” Zane says quietly, his voice rumbling in his chest.

He’ll fight the monsters. He’ll wrap his magical dragons around me to keep me safe. “I know you won’t.”

“I’ll give you wings.” He strokes my back, along the bumps of my spine, and I wonder if he feels the surgical scar under the colors of my tattoo from fixing my broken discs. “I’ll help you fly.”

“And you’ll fly with me,” I whisper, warm and content and comfortable on his chest.

“Maybe.” There’s an odd note in his voice, a catch. Somehow I don’t think he’s talking about flying anymore. I look up into his beautiful eyes, and I see the ghost of a doubt.

“No,” I say and reach up to touch his face. “No maybes. I’m with you. This is for sure.”

And that’s a promise I’ll work on making him believe every day of my life.

Dakota

Rafe accompanies the last notes of the song with a wicked drumroll, and even that is soon drowned in the applause of the small crowd gathered in Halo. The bar is dimly lit as always, but that doesn’t deter me from scanning the sea of faces for my friends as I let go of the mike and struggle to catch my breath.

Audrey’s red curls and Tessa’s platinum tresses catch the light. Then I see Dylan, standing like a pillar behind her, and Ash, then Tyler with his arms around Erin.

Zane isn’t with them. I don’t expect him to. I wave, and bow, and then turn around to get my stuff from the back.

A dark silhouette leans against the wall, arms folded over his broad chest, the crest of his hair casting a shadow over his face. He’s at his usual place, and I smile. He has my back. He’s always there to catch me.

And then his lips turn up in a wicked grin. He pushes off the wall and lets his gaze rake my body from head to toe. Shivers wrack me when he grabs my hand and tugs me through a door into…

“What’s this place?” It’s a small room with a couch and armchairs. Cozy.

“Private room. Kenneth said I could use it.”

“You know the bar owner?”

“Who do you think inked him?” Zane winks and closes the door, latching it. Then he turns toward me.

Holy crap…
He’s dressed in low-slung gray jeans and a black T-shirt that molds to the hard planes of his chest, leaving his tattooed arms bare. He looks… delicious. And dangerous. In a good way.

His eyes burn through me. He stalks toward me, and I take a step back, my heart hammering. My back bumps into the wall, and I gasp.

“Where do you think you’re going?” He’s still walking toward me, and the swagger in his step…
Holy shit.

My whole body is tight with want. My breasts tingle, and I’m wet just from watching him move.

He leans over me, bracing one hand on the wall beside me. “Hey, babe.”

I swallow thickly. “Hey.”

He touches my chin, then trails his hand down my neck, grips my waist and pulls me against him. Another gasp escapes me at the feel of his hard cock pressing into me.

I push my hands under his T-shirt, skimming his firm abs. My mouth waters at the thought of getting him naked here, in this borrowed room, touching him everywhere, tasting him…

His gaze smolders. “What am I gonna do with you?” he breathes.

“Anything,” I whisper back.

“I have a few rules,” he says as he lowers his face, and his lips brush over mine.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I don’t take girls home. I don’t kiss them. I don’t look into their eyes when I fuck them.”

I shudder.

“But you…” He nips at my mouth, making me moan with need, and grins. “I don’t know. For you I could make an exception.”

I laugh and throw my arms around his neck to kiss him properly. There’s that tiny flinch like every time I touch his scars, but he’s working on it, and he relaxes again.

I open my mouth to ask if he’s okay, and his tongue thrusts into my mouth. It strokes and licks at me, until I have to close my eyes and surrender to his kiss.

When I finally resurface for air some time later, he’s breathless like me, his cheekbones flushed, and his hard-on hot where it’s trapped between us.

“I want you,” I gasp. “I want you right here.”

“Naughty,” he pants, grinning again. It’s beautiful. He’s beautiful. And oh so sexy. “I wanna do it my way.”

I smile. “You just get off looking at my new tattoo, don’t you?”

“Hell yeah.” He grabs the hem of my blouse and pulls it up, over my head, and I lift my arms to aid him. His eyes darken when my bra is revealed, a black triangle bikini top. He growls softly and puts his hands over my breasts, then nips at my mouth again as his thumbs flick over my stiffening nipples over the soft cloth.

A second later he’s undoing my pants and pushing them down my legs, along with my black panties. I toe off my sandals, and I’m left only in my bra, squirming under his hot scrutiny.

“So pretty,” he breathes and pulls me to him, his hands smoothing down my sides, down the back to grip my ass. “Smoking hot.”

I don’t fight it when he turns me around in his arms to face the wall. I splay my hands on its surface willingly, bending over slightly. I glance at him over my shoulder. “Like this?”

“Yeah. Oh fuck…” His hands stroke my upper back where his tattoo now spreads, having my deathmoth as a centerpiece. “My girl.”

“Yours,” I whisper and shudder when his hands travel down my back to my ass and then lower, spreading me. “God, Zane…”

“Just Zane is fine,” he says, predictably, and then buries his fingers in me, making my back bow and drawing moans from my throat. “So wet. Oh Christ…You’re ready for me.”

I am, more than ready. I’ve been waiting for his touch all day. “Please, Zane.”

I hear his zipper, and then he’s nudging my entrance, slowly slipping into me. He grips my hips as he slides in deeper, and I shake with the pleasure of it. Nothing compares to Zane’s cock inside me, the feel of him.