by Nola Marie
I give a nod in understanding as I make my way back to the ring once again.
My entire body aches like I’ve been run over then backed over. Layla’s fighting style was much more like how we want mine to be. Defensive and analytical. Not that I don’t have a defense. But my style has always been about getting in there and getting the job done quickly.
I stare out the window of Zane’s truck for a moment until my eyelids are so heavy, I can’t keep them open any longer. It felt like seconds later, Zane was pulling me out of the truck, carrying me like a bride through the garage to his private elevator. Maybe I should insist that I can walk but I don’t. I’m just so tired and exhausted.
Once we get into the apartment, he walks straight to the bathroom. He sets me on the marbled vanity counter, and I watch as he turns to his tub. He pours a box of Epsom salts into the water and stirs with his hand. He turns to me and begins to undress me, slowly peeling off the workout gear until I’m sitting there with absolutely nothing on. He gently lifts me then lowers me into the water.
Instantly my muscles begin to relax in the heat of the water. He reaches over and turns on the jets. I can’t stop the groan that slips from my lips at it kneads and massages my aching body. The lavender and eucalyptus scents soothe me as he washes every inch of me.
I have no idea how much time passes. I’m probably more than halfway asleep when he lifts me back out of the tub and places me back on the counter. He dries me then carries me to bed.
“Turn over, Baby,” he says softly. The first words he’s said since we left the training center of Diamond Industries.
I do what he says without question. I have no idea what he’s about to do but I’m too tired to question it. Too tired to care.
More lavender and eucalyptus invade my senses, but I don’t turn to find the source of the smell. I just continue to lie on the plush comforter without moving. He lifts one ankle gently placing a kiss on it before his hands begin to work the tendons and muscles in my foot. He slowly works his way up into my aching calves and then my thighs. He kneads and works his hands into my lower back up into my shoulders. He places a soft kiss onto my shoulder, and he begins to massage my upper arms all the way down into my hands.
It feels so good I could cry. My body feels like it has been ripped apart and put back together many times over the last few weeks. Everything he is doing is the care I’ve desperately needed but was too prideful to ask.
Butterflies take flight in my stomach as I realize this is also the most intimate I’ve ever been with a person. This isn’t sexual in any way. This is simply Zane taking care of me. Showing me how much he loves me.
This man, who is probably just a sore as I am after long grueling practices and training in football then more training with me, is taking care of me. He hasn’t made any remarks or real complaints with how tired and worn out he is.
I turn over, grabbing him by the shirt to pull him closer to me. I kiss his lips softly. “Thank you,” I tell him.
“For what?” he asks as he brushes a stray hair from my face.
“For taking care of me. I know I don’t make it easy because it’s not easy for me to let someone take care of me.”
“I love you, Tori. Taking care of you is my job whether you make it easy or not.”
I kiss him again this time making it deeper. More passionate and fiery. He groans against my mouth then pulls back a little to move his way down my jaw to just behind my ear. “This isn’t what I was trying to do,” he rasps in my ear.
“I know,” I tell him. “But it’s what I want.”
His mouth travels down my collarbone in sweet little kisses. He makes his way down the center of my chest, my navel, my hip bones. All the while his eyes never leaving mine. “You need rest and sleep,” he tells me.
As if I could do either right now. Whether he’s meant to or not, I’m burning. I’m an inferno in desperate need of what only he can do to me. What he can give me.
“I can sleep when I’m dead,” I gasp as his tongue makes a trail down my inner thigh.
He moves so that he’s hovering over me. “At this moment in our lives, that’s not funny,” he growls.
“I don’t care,” I tell him, practically humming. His eyes narrow as they rake over my body. I can see his breathing is becoming harder, more labored. “Hurt me, Zane,” I challenge.
With a growl, he flips me back over, pulling me so my ass is in the air. He drags his rough hand down my spine. His hands grip my ass cheeks hard spreading me apart. He presses his thumb against that very private part of me and massages.
My eyes roll back in my head and I grip the sheets as I begin to clench around nothing at all.
The fingers on his other hand spread my lower lips then dip inside. He moves in and out as his thumb dips inside my ass. “Where do you want me most, Baby?” he asks as he works me into a frenzy.
“Everywhere,” is the only thing I can say. He moves from behind me and I instantly miss him. His body over mine. His hands on me.
He opens his nightstand again. I don’t see what he’s grabbing but I don’t need to. I know exactly what he’s going for and my entire body feels like it could spontaneously combust at the anticipation of what’s to come.
My heart races as cool liquid runs down my backside. He inserts two fingers carefully, moving them in, out and in scissor motions as he preps me. I white knuckle the sheets as his other hand massages my clit.
“Zane, please,” I beg for him to take me. To join us.
I feel as his thick cock presses against my backside, slowly pressing in. He pushes against that tight ring and moves one excruciating inch as a time until he is seated all me way inside of me. Just like always, he stays still giving me time to adjust to the exquisite pain of it all.
But I need him to move. I clench tightly around him causing him to release a low growl. He moves a bit. Just miniscule movements before leaning over me. He hands me the dildo we like to play with, and I clench even more at what I know he wants.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”
“I can’t help it,” I say with my own growl coming out.
“Yes, you can,” he tells me in my ear. “Now put it in your pussy. Fuck your pussy with the dildo while I fuck your ass with my cock.”
I reach beneath me, slowly inserting it inside me. The pleasure and pain war with each other as the incredible fullness of it all takes my breath away. I move it slowly in and out a couple of times before he begins to move himself.
Moans fill the air of the otherwise silent apartment. The sounds of skin slapping skin permeate the space around us.
My body is a volcano about to erupt. Fire and electricity trickle down my spine. My core clenches. My ass clenches. I fight hard to hold on just a little longer, not ready for all of this to end so quickly, but the burning stretch feels so good.
White hot fire fills my vision as I begin to spasm. Screams and curses and moans and prayers escape my lips as I fall over than blissful edge, Zane following with me with a roar of his own as his cock expands and pulses inside of me.
Still panting, he slowly withdraws from me as I remove the toy.
He leaves the bed to the bathroom only to return with a couple of warm wash cloths. He gently cleans me then throws them to the floor. He lays down beside me, pulling me tightly into his chest.
That’s not what I meant when I told him to hurt me. He knows it. But I know he wasn’t going to do anything else. Not when my body is already nearly broken.
We lay there in silence and darkness for so long I think, maybe, he’s asleep until he kisses the crown of my head.
I’m so damn tired. My body is relaxed but my mind is nowhere near. “Tell me about Lacy,” I say into the dark quiet.
He rubs his hand absently up and down my arm. He doesn’t say anything at first, and I think he’s not going to until I hear him inhale deeply. “What do you want to know?”
“What was she like?”
&nbs
p; He chuckles a little with a shake of his head. “She was a lot like you and the complete opposite at the same time. She was shy around people she didn’t know very well but warmed up quickly. She was quiet and a little bit nerdy. The first memory I have of her is sitting in the corner of the cafeteria in sixth grade with a book in her hand. But once she got to know you, you couldn’t get her to shut up. She moved in eighth grade, and I didn’t see her again until college. We fell in love fast. A couple of months into our relationship she learned her leukemia had returned. It was stage four, and it was the third time she’d relapsed since she first got it when she was seven. Fuck, I cried so damn hard when she told me. I was so pissed that she didn’t want treatment.”
I can’t stop the sob that escapes me. That poor girl that struggled most of her life with a disease that was so indiscriminate and so cruel. He pulls me tighter to him, consoling me because that’s who he is. “It didn’t take long for me to pull my head out of my ass. I was on borrowed time with her and didn’t want to waste a second. We spend the next four months doing everything we could together. Bungee jumping, rock climbing, you name it which wasn’t easy to do with school because she refused to quit or let me quit. We made love under the stars. By the ocean. On the rooftop. She just kept going and going until about two weeks before she died.”
“How?” I ask not really knowing what I’m asking.
But as always, he knows. He understands exactly what I’m saying. “I had to, Tori. She wouldn't have wanted me to be alone forever, and I knew what love was like. I wanted it again. I’ve had lots of hookups and one-night stands. Not because I refused to move on, but because I knew exactly how I would feel when I met the right girl. There was no harm in a little fun until I met her. And I learned the hard way how fucking short life really is. And the minute I laid eyes on you at that bar, standing in front of that stage watching your brother play, I knew it was you.”
“How could you know it was me before we even really met?”
“Didn’t you know I was the one for you before we ever spoke?”
I giggle a little. He’s right. The minute I saw him, I felt absolutely drawn to him. It was like destiny or kismet and absolutely out of my control. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't fight the inexplicable need to be near him - with him.
A huge yawn escapes. My eyes are heavy, and my body is so relaxed it’s like I don’t have bones. “Go to sleep, Tori,” he tells me with another kiss to my crown.
“I love you, Zee.”
“I love you, Tori," he tells me. Then mumbles so softly I almost don't hear him say, "more than I’ve ever loved anyone.”
I hum at that comment while falling into the arms of the darkness of sleep.
Zane
I can’t stop myself from watching her as she sleeps. The way her hand is splayed next to her head. The way that long white hair tangles around her face.
She looks like a fantasy and dream.
Mine.
Everything about her is beautiful. Her smile. Her eyes. Her heart.
Mine.
She is bold and courageous. Fearless. Resilient. Loving. Loyal.
Mine.
It’s all I can think about. She’s mine. Every inch of her. Her mind. Her body. Her heart. Her soul.
Mine.
Her phone buzzes on the nightstand for probably the fifth time this morning. I pick it up to see what the deal is.
Anger floods my body. Fury permeates my senses. Possessiveness and protectiveness fill my gut.
Rossi: You’ll pay for that little stunt the other night
Rossi: Running to your boyfriend won’t save you
Rossi: Ignoring me? Do you really think that’s wise? Do you have any idea what I can do to your
sweet little sister?
Rossi: I’ll get what I want out of you one way or another. And there’s not a fucking thing you
can do about it.
Rossi: Look you fucking bitch. You will answer me, or I’ll make your sister pay.
Everything in me wants to call the motherfucker. Let him know exactly where she’s at. Who she’s with. I know he already knows. I know he thinks he knows who I am, but he hasn’t got a fucking clue.
But I know that calling him or confronting him right now would be the worst thing I could do.
“What are you doing with my phone?” I hear her groggy, sexy voice say.
“It wouldn’t stop buzzing,” I tell her trying to reign in my frustration. “How long has Rossi been texting you?”
She sits up in the bed looking at me half accusing, half guilty. “Since I ran out of the hotel.”
“Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” I say a little too loudly.
“Because I didn’t want you to do something crazy.”
I close my eyes to stop myself from losing my temper. When I know I can respond like a normal human, I open them again. “Stop hiding things from me. We are supposed to be a team, but we can't be a team when you keep things from me. I know I can’t just fly off the handle, Tori. Text him,” I tell her handing her phone back.
“And say what?” she demands.
“That you’ll be there like you’re supposed to be. That you’re not distracted. That you’re training and you don’t need him harassing you. Whatever you need to say to get him to back off for now.”
“I have told him. He’s pissed I didn’t go back to New York.”
“Because he can’t get to you there. He knows it. Getting to you in the hotel was a one off.”
Her lower lip begins to quiver a little. “Do you think he’s going to do something to Cara?”
“No. Not yet anyway. He knows you’ll want to see her when you get there.”
She nods and begins to text. She looks up at me when she’s finished. “What now?”
“Now we get breakfast, and you wait on a response.”
“What kind of response do you think he’ll send.”
“Probably one demanding you be there early. Alone. At a place of his choosing.”
“And I take it from your tone, we’re not doing any of that. Are we?”
“Over my fucking dead body.”
I walk into Bastian’s loft with Tori by my side. Rory and Jax are already there. All we’re waiting on is Christian, Drew, and Tristan.
“Wow,” Tori gasps when we walk into the loft. “This place is -.”
She pauses like she can’t quite find the words to describe what she’s trying to say. “Awesome,” I suggest because most people think Bastian’s loft is.
“Very New York, actually. I mean ten times the size of any SoHo loft I’ve ever seen, but it’s spot on. Industrial chic.”
I burst into a cackling laugh. “That’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What’s so funny,” Jax asks as we take a seat next to him.
“Tori just called this place chic.” Jax joins right in on my cajoling, unable to contain himself at the word chic and Bastian in the same zip code. Our laughter doubles when Bastian and Rory walk into the space. They look at us like we’re insane before Rory gives us the finger and Bastian calls us a couple of ‘testa di cazzo’s’.
The other girls are noticeably absent from this meeting. I’m sure Layla gave Rory hell. Zoey, I know, isn’t happy about not knowing what’s going on with her friend. Verity is probably the only one more than happy to be left out of the loop. She doesn’t want to see Chicago or anything from there ever again.
“Rory, man,” I start because I’m an ass, “you look like total shit, man.”
But he doesn’t even flinch. The fucker just leans back in the chair with a smile as his eyes fall closed. “Sophie doesn’t sleep on a great schedule yet,” he says. “Fuck, I wish I hadn’t missed out on all of this with Bella, but I’m damn glad I’m here for Sophie.”
I smile at him. He deserves to be happy. They all do. Fuck, if I do too.
But happiness isn’t something that falls in your lap. It’s something you have to look for and fight for. It�
�s not something that just happens. You have to make it happen. You have to take it.
And dammit I’m going to fight for my fucking happy until the last battle is won. I’m going to fight for Tori’s happy until it’s all that’s left to grab.
Starting with this shit with her sister and the fucking douche bags trying their best to take our happy.
The elevator begins to make noises signaling that the rest of the appointed crew will be walking through the door any second. “How are we working this out?” I ask before they get here. “I mean how much are we telling them.”
“We can’t hold out on them. They can’t do their jobs if they don’t have all the information available,” Rory lets me know with a glare.
“I wasn’t suggesting holding out on them, asshole. I just didn’t know if you wanted them to know everything. Like Cara or even Tori’s part in all of this. Or Rossi for that matter.”
“Watch the attitude, Zane,” he growls low at me.
I laugh again. This time at him. “When are you going to figure out you don’t scare me, Rory. You didn’t scare me when I was eight. Why the fuck would you scare me now?”
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he folds his arms across his chest with his brows furrowed deep between his eyes.
“No. But you want me to fall in line, and I don’t do that either.”
“Calm down,” Jax bellows.
“Both of you,” Bastian adds.
Rory and I continue to glare at each other for several more second. There is absolutely no other purpose to this standoff other than he is the boss but I’m not his underling like the others.
“I said that’s enough,” Jax yells, making us both jump.
Bastian and Rory look to him in surprise but I’m not. Jax is the quiet one for the most part. He doesn’t say a lot about many things. But he has a quiet authority about him. I wouldn’t let him tell me what to do any more than Rory, but something about Jax always has everyone falling in line.
