by Scott, J. S.
I sighed, wishing that was the truth.
The last few days had been magical, everything a couple could want on a honeymoon. Well, minus the sex part.
Zeke was attentive and affectionate, but he hadn’t pushed for anything more than I wanted to give.
Truth was, I wanted to give him everything, but I knew that was dangerous.
This new relationship is not even meant to be permanent, which scares the hell out of me.
Every moment I spent this close to Zeke was both heaven and hell. He made me happy, but I was terrified what would happen when it was over.
For me, every touch, every brush of our bodies, made me want to beg him to fuck me, but I’d been thinking a lot lately about his long-ago rejection on my twenty-first birthday. I wasn’t sure why, but I could still see the look on his face when he’d told me he didn’t want me.
Zeke wasn’t a guy who played games, so when had that changed?
I didn’t feel like things were make-believe anymore. We both wanted more, and I was convinced that Zeke would like to explore something more intimate. And I really wanted to know what it would be like to be with him.
I wanted the experience without the risk, but those two things went hand-in-hand when it came to Zeke.
“Thank you for today,” I said softly.
“Was it the experience you hoped it would be?” he asked.
I smiled. “It was. I can’t explain it, but I could almost feel the souls of the Maya there. Is that weird?”
He shook his head. “No. I felt the same way. Maybe because we’ll never really definitively know what happened to them. A lot of people have their theories, but it’s still a mystery. Maybe that’s why those places are so compelling.”
“I think you’re right. So what’s on the schedule for tomorrow?”
“Whatever you want. This is your time, Jellybean.”
I lifted my head to look at him. “I want you to enjoy it, too. The ruins were something I wanted to explore.”
“I have a confession to make,” he answered in a sincere, mesmerizing baritone. “There isn’t much I’m not going to like if we’re together.”
I melted from the heat in his eyes, and swallowed hard. Sweet Jesus! Was I ever going to get used to the way that Zeke looked at me like he wanted to devour me whole? “I’m willing to do just about anything.”
“There’s a catamaran trip I wanted to arrange so we could do some snorkeling.”
“I’d love that,” I replied excitedly. Honestly, I was good doing anything with Zeke, too, but the idea of getting into the water was pretty damn appealing.
He nodded. “I’ll hook us up. And then we can go into town. I got another tip on where we might be able to get some more authentic Mexican food.”
“Sold!” I said with a ridiculous chortle that I couldn’t hold back. “You had me at ‘snorkeling’ but I think you knew that ‘authentic Mexican food’ was definitely going to seal the deal.”
I watched as his expression changed, becoming more thoughtful as he looked at me intently. “Do you know how good it sounds to hear you really laugh, Lia?”
“Have I really been that bad?” I asked, knowing very well that I hadn’t been the same person for the last year or two.
Had I completely lost the ability to find any joy?
I’d been miserable with Stuart, and the dynamics of that relationship had changed me.
Somehow, I’d forgotten how it felt to be with somebody who accepted me without criticism, without judging everything I did.
“You look happier,” Zeke observed with a questioning look.
I was happier, simply because I was with him. “We were always like this when we were younger. I guess I just forgot what relaxation and fun was like.”
“That won’t happen again. I’ll be here to remind you.”
I sighed.
No more Stuart.
No more constant belittling or sarcasm.
No more demanding mother of my fiancé who never thought I was good enough for her son.
No more…fear.
No more…paralyzing insecurity.
I was finally starting to see how really bad things were in hindsight. I just wish I had wised up sooner.
“I nearly married him,” I whispered in a horrified voice. “What was I thinking, Zeke? Was I so damn desperate for love that I was willing to turn myself inside out to make things work with him? Was I willing to give up myself to please him?”
Zeke tightened his hold on me. “He was a master manipulator, Lia. For fuck’s sake, don’t blame yourself. You’ll get over him. You just need time.”
Our eyes locked as I said, “I’m not in love with him anymore, Zeke. I’m not sure I ever was. I don’t need to get over him. I need to get over the fact that he played me so damn well. I have to figure out what in the hell is wrong with me.”
“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Zeke rasped. “It’s his issue, not yours. He just caught you when you were vulnerable.”
I wanted to believe what Zeke was telling me, but deep inside, I knew so much of what had happened with Stuart was my fault. “But I should have been strong enough to stand up for myself. I let him distance me from my friends, even you. We’ve barely seen each other for the last two years if it didn’t involve the coffee shop.”
I hadn’t even known what was really happening in Zeke’s life. I’d completely missed the fact that he had broken things off with Angelique, and my relationship with him had been almost…superficial during the time I was with Stuart. That hurt, considering all Zeke and I had been to each other over the years.
“I think I can take some of the blame for that, too,” Zeke said, his gorgeous eyes reflecting more than a little remorse. “I didn’t want to see you with Stuart, so I pretty much avoided us meeting outside Indulgent Brews. It was easier to just see you at the shop.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“Because he had something I wanted,” Zeke said in a husky voice.
I raised a brow, confused. Zeke was a man with qualities Stuart could never dream of having. “What did Stuart have that you don’t?”
“He had you, Lia,” he answered in a rough, raw tone.
My heart ached as I looked at the tense expression on his face. Zeke was as serious as I had ever seen him. “God, I just wish we would have talked to each other,” I said in a rush.
He raked a frustrated hand through his thick hair. “Fuck! I should have told you that I envied what you were giving to a guy who didn’t deserve you,” he countered.
Was it possible that Zeke Conner had really been jealous of Stuart?
Immediately, I pushed that question from my mind, certain he’d only meant that he’d missed our time together. I understood, because I’d missed him, too. “None of this was in any way your fault, Zeke. I wanted to pretend that everything was great with Stuart. In the beginning of my relationship with him, I convinced myself that he was the one. But he never was. You know my insecurities better than anyone, and you’ve never tried to play on them. I guess it was unfathomable to me that somebody else would use them to manipulate me. I was an idiot.”
“Nobody who really cares about you would ever play those head games with you, Lia.”
“Stuart did,” I answered, resigned to the fact that I’d allowed Stuart to do it. “He made me feel so small and imperfect, Zeke, and he turned things around subtly at first, so I didn’t recognize what he was doing. But eventually, he’d messed with my head so much that I actually thought that I was lucky to have him. I believed that everything that went wrong was my fault. God, I even hated myself because I couldn’t satisfy him sexually.” I took a deep, ragged breath, my emotions so close to the surface that I couldn’t seem to stop myself from letting them pour out of my mouth. “To be honest, even though I haven’t had that many sexual relationships, I�
��ve never been enough for any guy. Sex has never been a big thing to me, so maybe that part of it was my fault.”
Zeke lifted a brow. “Are you serious? Please tell me you don’t actually believe that bullshit.”
I nodded firmly. Maybe our sex lives was the one subject Zeke and I never talked about, but I’d come too damn far to stop now. “Something is wrong with me, Zeke. I’ve never really enjoyed anything intimate. Or maybe it’s my stupid curvy ass—”
“Goddammit, Lia!” Zeke interrupted in a graveled voice. “There isn’t a damn thing about your body that isn’t completely desirable. In fact, every single one of your gorgeous curves has been getting my dick harder than a rock for years now. Has the thought ever run through that beautiful head of yours that your previous partners just completely sucked?”
I shivered as Zeke’s nostrils flared, and his eyes narrowed as he pinned me with an angry gaze.
“I’ve been with three guys, including Stuart,” I confessed, easily spilling my guts to the man who had been at my side for almost every traumatic event in my life. “And no, I haven’t considered that. One or two guys, maybe, but after three, I have to assume it’s me.”
Zeke was my best friend. Why had I never opened up to him before? Was it because I’d been too damn humiliated to admit to a guy friend as hot as he was that I was a sexual dud?
Or…had I never broached the topic because I hadn’t wanted to hear about his sex life?
“I don’t orgasm. God, I don’t even really enjoy it at all,” I admitted.
“Never?” he asked in a hoarse tone.
“Not once when I was with someone,” I admitted. Hell, I was way too far into this confession to hold back now.
“But you can get yourself off alone?” A muscle in his firm jaw twitched, and his gaze never wavered from my face.
“Yes,” I replied truthfully.
I watched as Zeke closed his eyes and let his head fall back until it hit the wall behind the sofa with a loud thunk.
I wasn’t certain, but the sound he’d released right before his head smacked the hard surface sounded suspiciously like a deep, tormented groan.
He was completely silent after his skull had collided with the wall behind him, and his eyes stayed closed. I could see his chest rising and falling rapidly every time he took a breath.
“Zeke, are you okay?” I questioned, slightly alarmed that he’d hurt himself.
His eyes suddenly popped open, and he skewered me with a dark, blue-eyed stare I’d never seen before. His glare was so intense that it made my heart lunge inside my chest. “There isn’t one fucking thing wrong with you, Lia. Never has been. Never will be,” he rasped.
Zeke had always been protective. Granted, he’d never been quite this fierce about shielding me from being so self-critical. Then again, my confidence had never been this blown to hell, either.
My heart ached as I recognized the fact that Zeke had always been there, that if I’d only reached out to him as my best friend, he wouldn’t have hesitated to drag me bodily away from a man who was messing with my head.
“Don’t,” Zeke answered in a warning voice. “Don’t start beating yourself up because you didn’t see it while it was happening.”
God, sometimes Zeke knew me so well it was almost unnerving, because I had been about to criticize myself up for being an idiot. I crossed my arms as I looked at him. “Then how do you suppose I forgive myself for nearly marrying the biggest asshole in Washington state?” I questioned as I raised a brow.
A slow grin formed on his face before he suggested, “Remind yourself that you were smart enough to marry a better guy for you in the end?”
I let out a choked laugh of surprise as the tension in the room lifted. After I recovered, I teased him back as I drawled, “You, Zeke Conner, are way more than just a ‘better’ man. You’re every woman’s fantasy. There isn’t a single woman on the planet you couldn’t have if you wanted her.”
I watched as his eyes narrowed before he answered gruffly, “Yeah, well, there’s a problem with that theory because there’s only one woman I’m fantasizing about, and she’s not exactly eager to claim me, even if she is married to me.”
My heart started to hammer so loudly that it was ringing in my ears as I answered, trying to keep my voice light as I said, “Maybe she desperately wants to, but she’s afraid her new husband will be utterly disappointed.”
“Then maybe she’s delusional, but her husband is sincerely hoping the condition is just temporary,” he grumbled.
There was a loud knock on the door before I could answer him.
I wasn’t sure if I was relieved or disappointed as he got up and went to the door to get our dinner.
Zeke
I should have never fucking asked her if she could get herself off.
I panted like I’d just run a marathon, my hand still wrapped around my rapidly deflating cock after jerking myself off to fantasies of Lia’s throaty moans of pleasure as she brought herself to climax.
“Christ! I’m so damn pathetic,” I said to myself aloud as I leaned back against the shower tile, trying like hell to catch my breath as I let the warm water wash over my body.
I’d nearly lost it when Lia had admitted that she could, and obviously did, satisfy herself, even though no guy had ever done it for her.
Fuck!
I hadn’t touched Lia in a thoroughly sexual way since that first day we’d sprinted for the sea from the beach. God knew I wanted to, but the more I recognized how damn vulnerable Stuart had left her, the less I wanted to rush anything.
Okay. Yeah. My body wanted me to kick the whole seduction thing into high gear, but my brain and my heart were keeping my dick in check.
I wish I had paid more attention to exactly what Stuart was doing to Lia. The bastard had done a complete mind fuck on her until she wasn’t sure if there was a single lovable thing about herself anymore.
It pissed me off that he’d been able to pick up on her insecurities well enough to be able to make her feel like she was…nothing.
Lia, she was something. Hell, she was everything. I knew I had to give her time to realize that all of the problems had been Stuart’s. She was too damn smart not to eventually be able to internalize that truth in addition to just recognizing it.
“You need to be patient, Conner,” I grumbled to myself as I washed up. “If she needs you to just be her goddamn friend, then do it. Lia is a hell of a lot more to you than just a fuck.”
I slammed my hand against the shower control, turning it off much harder than necessary because I was irritated. Not with Lia, but with…myself.
I wasn’t the type of guy who’d ever let my dick think for me, not even when I’d been a hormonal, horny teenager. So why in the hell was I having such a hard time—no pun intended—thinking rationally when it came to Lia?
“Because you want more than just her body,” I rumbled, answering my own question as I stepped out of the shower. “Admit it, Conner—you want everything from Lia, and there’s no fucking guarantee that she’s able or willing to give it to you just because she agreed to marry you.”
I grabbed a towel, drying my body absently, unable to stop torturing myself about all the shit that Stuart had manipulated Lia into believing.
If it wasn’t so damn tragic, I would have laughed out loud about her assumption that she lacked passion. Seriously? Lia? There wasn’t another person on Earth, male or female, who threw themselves into their life and the people she cared about with as much enthusiasm as she did. The woman did nothing half-heartedly. So I had no doubt that if she ever found a man who gave a damn about her pleasure, a guy she could trust, she’d be out of control in the bedroom, too.
Okay, so screw that whole part about her finding a guy who cared about her pleasure. She already had one, and I planned on being that guy.
Eventually.
/> As soon as I could convince Lia that I had no intention of being her temporary groom. I was done pretending that I was okay with letting her go if it meant she might find happiness with another guy who wasn’t…me. In my mind, Lia had dated enough idiots who hadn’t appreciated her.
Finally, after years of just being her best friend, it was my goddamn turn, and I wasn’t about to blow the opportunity to make Lia mine.
If that made me a prick, I didn’t give a damn, because nobody cared about Lia’s happiness more than I did. “If she wants love so damn badly, then she’ll have to take mine this time,” I rasped irritably as I wrapped the towel around my waist. “Fuck knows I’m so damn crazy about her that my love wouldn’t just satisfy her. Hell, if she actually decides she wants all of it, I’m half afraid it would suffocate her.”
I’d tried to bury those emotions for so long, I wasn’t exactly sure what the hell would happen if I just gave up trying to suppress the way I really felt about Lia.
Fuck! Lia wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
I strode through the bedroom restlessly, forcing myself to think inside the friend zone when it came to Lia, just like I always did. For now, that’s what she really needed.
Lia had gone to bed early since we had a morning snorkeling excursion scheduled.
But I knew I was never going to sleep. I was way too wound up.
I went to the small kitchen of our suite, and pulled out a beer. I chugged it down, tossed the bottle and then grabbed a second one and screwed the top off.
“Zeke?” Lia’s sleepy voice called my name softly, making me hesitate before I started on beer number two.
I turned toward that irresistible sound, and saw her standing at the entrance to the kitchen.
“You can’t sleep? I couldn’t sleep, either,” she mumbled unhappily as she walked toward me.
My eyes followed her.
I recognized the red and white cotton sleep shorts and the matching tank top she was wearing. I’d packed them. Lia and I had been friends long enough for me to know what she preferred to wear when she was sleeping, even if we’d never shared a bed.
