by Naima Simone
Surprised, he arched an eyebrow. He could count on one hand the number of times Shalene had apologized for anything. The cynical part of him contended that this overture must hide ulterior motives. He hated that thanks to his experiences with her, seeking someone’s angle or motivation had become normal to him.
“You helped me establish it. And I, more than anyone, understand what the cause means to you. I get how important the work is to you, and no matter what happened between us, I wouldn’t take that away from you.”
“Yes, it is important to me,” she agreed, shifting closer to him. Placing a hand on his chest, she tilted her head back, and her eyes darkened with emotion. An emotion he’d long since ceased to reciprocate. “But so are you. You’re the other reason I’m glad to still be here. The reason I work so hard to make each event, like the camp, a success.”
“Shalene,” he warned, covering her hand with his and removing it. But she only circled his arm with the other.
“I’m sorry for hurting you, Zeph. For…for everything. I told myself to give you space, to not pressure you. But I miss you so much. Not only did I lose the man I love, but I lost my best friend. I want him back. I want us back. We have too much history together to just let it end like this.”
The bitterness and anger he tried to control around her bubbled to the surface. “Leave it alone, Shalene,” he warned.
“When are you going to forgive me?” she whispered, her hurt unmistakable.
There was once a time when he would’ve caved, given her the words just to avoid hurting her feelings. But he couldn’t. Ordinarily, he could’ve buried the hurt and the rage under a blanket of ice. Not today. Not with her reminding him of their history.
“Let it end like what? With all the lies you told me? With a call from my bank asking if I’d authorized the thousands of dollars you’d stolen from my account? Or end in a lawyer’s office where I found out that the son I thought we’d had together wasn’t mine?” he growled, all the disillusion, grief, and agony of that day pouring into him like a flood. “Shit,” he ground out, turning away from her, scrubbing a hand over his head. “This is why you should’ve left it alone. I don’t want to go into this. Everything we had to say to each other—anything that needed to be said—was done over a year ago. This is pointless.”
It wouldn’t erase the joy of watching a baby he’d believed was his being born, of holding him. And it damn sure wouldn’t expunge the agony of discovering he wasn’t his. It’d been like a death. No words or apology could wipe that away.
“No, not pointless,” she argued, shaking her head. She reached out, grasped a hand in hers. Clenching his jaw, he stilled the impulse to jerk free. Whatever their past, he didn’t want to harm her physically. “Because if you’re still angry with me, it means you have feelings for me. I’m holding on to that.”
“Shalene, I can’t—”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.” The soft voice might as well as have been blared over a megaphone.
He broke free of Shalene’s hold and turned to face Sophia. For once, her expression didn’t reveal her thoughts. She glanced from him to Shalene, then returned her regard to him. Still no hint of emotion. Irritation rolled up inside him, but he almost immediately smothered it. What? Did he want her to go Jerry Springer on his ex? Stake a claim?
Maybe. The sly insinuation slid through his mind before he could bar it.
“I’ll wait for you to finish up here,” Sophia said, already pivoting to return to the car he hadn’t heard pull up.
“No, wait.” He reached out, grasped her upper arm and prevented her from taking another step away from him. “Shalene and I were finished.”
The other woman hesitated, but then after a long moment, nodded and walked away.
“I could’ve waited by the car,” Sophia said, glancing after his ex. “Whatever you were discussing looked important.”
An explanation hovered on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it. Talking about Shalene, the hell she put him through, the loss of a son that hadn’t been his to begin with… The thought of reliving it tightened his gut into knots, as did the idea of laying his shit out there so she could see how much of a fool he’d been. To this day, he’d only shared all the details with Dom and Ronin.
Instead, he shifted forward, not stopping until her back met the door, the need to distract her—distract himself—a razor-sharp, desperate impulse. He flattened his palms on either side of her head, leaning down until their mouths hovered a bare inch apart. Inhaling, he could already taste her kiss on each breath she released.
“You have a real issue with crowding me,” she muttered, her face losing that damn mannequin expression for a scowl. The vise grip on his chest loosened a fraction. “Some would call it intimidation.”
“Then some wouldn’t know how it felt to have all your pretty curves pressed against their body. Or know what it is to feel your mouth part under theirs. Or to have your scent in their nose, on their skin. If they did, then this would be their favorite position, too.”
Her eyes widened, then became hooded, arousal entering them. Her fingers slipped under the hem of his T-shirt, hooking into the waistband of his shorts, brushing him. That small skin-to-skin contact had his stomach contracting, his cock hardening.
“I know you’re trying to sidetrack me,” she murmured. Her lips twisted into a caricature of a smile. “But you don’t have to tell me about what I walked up on if you don’t want to. We have an arrangement, remember? Just sex. Not inquiries into our personal lives.”
She was right. They were temporary; fuck buddies with an expiration date. No promises, no expectations. But, damn. Though she tried to conceal it from him behind nonchalance, he could spy the hurt in her eyes, in her voice. And yeah, the thought of going into the crap that was his past didn’t appeal to him, but the bruises in her gaze punched a hole in his gut.
Yeah, it was too late. Somehow, someway, in spite of every warning his mind had blared, it’d become personal.
“She’s my ex-girlfriend,” he ground out. “Though we’ve been broken up for a while now, she still works with the foundation.”
“She still wants you,” she stated just as softly.
“Yes.” Denying it would be stupid. Sophia was smart and had eyes.
They stared at each other, the Thursday evening traffic bypassing the school drowning under the weight of the silence between them. Slowly, he eliminated the distance separating their mouths and claimed her. The metal of her ring rubbed against his lip, and he flicked his tongue over the jewelry before grazing her sensual flesh with his teeth. That familiar and damn sexy whimper escaped her, and yeah, he needed another one. He swept inside her mouth, devouring, feasting, his patience incinerated by the hunger that flared to life every time he touched her.
He thrust a hand into her sensual riot of curls and waves, holding her steady for every lick, suck, and taste. No passenger in this passionate ride, she gave as good as she got, meeting him plunge for plunge, stroke for stroke, demand for demand.
By the time he lifted his head, they both shuddered against each other, and his dick desired nothing more than to be buried so deep inside her she would feel him when he was no longer there. The thought of no longer being there—of no longer being able to inhale her sweet scent, listen to her weirdly hot snark, of curling his body around hers in the night—caused his heart to pound a little harder, tightened his gut until it complained as if he’d done a hundred sit-ups. He drowned out the ache and the dangerously sentimental thought with another deep, claiming kiss.
“Now your turn. Tell me what’s wrong,” he said, tearing his mouth away from hers. He didn’t bother asking her if something bothered her. He could see it in her eyes, the shadows that darkened them. And he sensed it didn’t have to do with his ex-girlfriend. “Let me fix it for you.”
She didn’t deny his assertion. Instead, a small, almost apologetic smile tilted a corner of her mouth. “You want to slay my dragons?” she m
urmured.
“If you’ll let me.”
Her gaze dropped away from his, and though she didn’t physically move, a distance seemed to insert itself between them. He hated it. Wanted to ram his body against it, tackle it to the ground.
“Come home with me.” A command. A plea that came out of him before he’d consciously given it permission. But once it was out there, he didn’t take it back. After the conversation with Shalene—after the raw, still sore emotions she’d dredged to the surface—he needed to find forgetfulness in Sophia’s body. He didn’t care how she interpreted it, just as long as she said yes.
Her lashes lifted, and she subjected him to a scrutiny that seemed to search him for an answer to a question he didn’t know had been asked.
But finally, she nodded. Exhaled a breath. “Okay.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Will you tell me about her?” Sophia whispered the question against the bare skin of Zephirin’s chest. More like hid her face against him. She sounded like a jealous girlfriend inquiring about the past ones. God knows she’d felt like one when she’d walked up on the two of them at the high school parking lot. Which was ludicrous. No-strings-attached sex did not a girlfriend make. As long as she kept that reminder at the forefront of her brain, then when this arrangement between them ended, the hurt would be minimal.
And she wouldn’t go around in danger of snatching up handsy women who dared touch Zephirin in front of her.
She swallowed a sigh. Yeah, that didn’t sound jealous. At. All.
Oh well. In for a penny ‘n’ all that. And damn it, she really wanted to know. “Your conversation seemed really intense. Did she hurt you badly?”
Beneath her, Zephirin’s body stiffened, and for a moment, she didn’t think he would answer. Would push her away. When he rolled out from under her and sat on the side of the bed, a boulder-size lump settled in the pit of her stomach. Like she’d mentioned earlier, their relationship had boundaries. And obviously, she’d crossed one.
“Here.” He handed her the T-shirt she’d stripped off him earlier and swept up his shorts. As he stepped into them, she froze, studying his perfect form. Strong back with muscles that danced with each movement under taut skin. A tapered waist. Firm, gorgeous ass. Powerful thighs. The man was stunning in his masculine beauty.
He glanced over one of those wide shoulders, an eyebrow arched. Blushing, she fumbled into his shirt. Scrambling off the mattress, she stood, and the material hit her at the knees. His earthy scent enveloped her, and she barely smothered the urge to bring the cotton up to her nose and inhale him.
Enfolding her hand in his, he led her from the dimly lit bedroom to the shadowed living room. He left her on the couch, and she curled her legs under her. Light softened the dark as he clicked on a lamp, his footsteps heading in the direction of the kitchen. A short while later, he returned to her, a glass of red wine in each hand.
“This is going to require alcohol?” she teased, accepting the glass, although her stomach knotted with nerves. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d seen Zephirin drink. That he needed one to discuss his ex-girlfriend didn’t bode well.
He sank down next to her, and she resented the wedge of space he left between them. Elbows propped on his thighs, he stared straight ahead at the gorgeous view of Seattle at night, his fingers loosely cradling his glass. The dime around his neck swung forward, and she curled her fingers into her palm, quelling the urge to stroke its cool surface and the taut skin beneath it.
“Shalene and I grew up in the same neighborhood, but we didn’t really become close until high school. We started dating in my junior year, her sophomore. I guess you could say we were in love—as in love as teenagers can be. She was beautiful, sweet, the smartest girl in the school, and had one hell of a voice. She actually auditioned for American Idol her junior year of high school but had to drop out. She found out she was pregnant.”
He went silent, a muscle ticking along his strong jaw, his fingers tightening around the glass in his hand. Sophia’s heart pounded in her chest. God. If she’d known her question would take him back to an obviously troubled time in his past, she would’ve minded her own business.
“I’d just been accepted to LSU, but I was prepared to turn it down, get a job, and take care of my responsibilities. But then she miscarried, and I’m not going to lie. I-I…” The muscle in his jaw ticked harder. “A part of me was relieved. I wasn’t ready to be a father. To let go of my scholarship and the chance to play football for the university I’d wanted to attend since I was a kid. I would have, but suddenly I didn’t have to. We stayed together, but when I left for college, we decided to break up. She had her senior year of high school to finish, and I wanted to start the next phase in my life fresh, without any obligations to anyone but my education and football.”
He lifted the glass, sipped, and still kept his gaze fixed on the dark waters of Elliott Bay. Although Sophia doubted he really saw anything; he seemed steeped in the past. A past she’d dredged up.
“After I was drafted to the Warriors, I returned home for a visit with family and saw Shalene again. Of course I’d thought of her in the four years I’d been in college, but seeing her again was almost like the first time back in high school. The feelings rushed back in, and when I left for Seattle a couple of months later, she came with me.”
Pinpricks of jealousy stung Sophia over the dizzying fall into love he glossed over but must have felt to move so fast with his high school sweetheart. Sophia and Zephirin had known each other for a short time, but she would’ve never associated “impulsive” with him. That he’d been so with Shalene only betrayed the depth of his feelings for the other woman. The pinpricks transformed into daggers, and the nicks into cuts. No man had ever loved her so passionately, and she had never experienced that kind of emotion either. Hadn’t realized she wanted to until she heard Zephirin talk about him and his beautiful ex-girlfriend.
“For the first two years, we had the perfect relationship,” he continued. “I bought us a house, we settled down, formed a life here. She even helped me establish the foundation. I thought we were happy. I thought…” His voice trailed off, and a small hard-edged chuckle escaped him. “Admitting being made a fool of isn’t easy.”
He surged to his feet, setting the wine on a nearby glass end table. Scrubbing his hands over his closely-shaven head, he paced to the window. Remaining on the couch, Sophia stared at the rigid, uncompromising line of his shoulders, the tautness of his back.
“At first, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. For nine months out of the year, football dominates my life, so when she decided to try and pursue a singing career, I supported it. And truthfully, I harbored some guilt regarding it. She’d had to abandon the American Idol audition because of the pregnancy. Even after we lost the baby, the opportunity had passed, that particular door closed. But I’d gone on to pursue my dream of playing ball and achieved it. I was partly responsible for her missing out on hers, so I tried to help her emotionally and financially. But she couldn’t break through. And with every disappointment, it seemed she became more…desperate for fame, for acknowledgment. She even signed on to do one of those reality TV shows about wives and girlfriends of athletes, promising them I would film. I refused, and the producers eventually dropped her from the show because of it. I think that’s when her resentment really started to grow. When she decided to go after what she wanted by any means necessary, not caring who she hurt in the process. When the lies started.”
Lies. It echoed in her soul, the loud clang of it an indictment only she could hear and feel. The nerves in her stomach twisted into an almost painful coil.
“Money started disappearing from our joint accounts. Thousands of dollars. She started going MIA for periods of time. Rumors would crop up about her being in one place when she’d told me she had plans to be in another. We stopped talking—or rather she stopped talking to me.”
“She was cheating,” Sophia breathed, spea
king for the first time since he’d started his recount. Disbelief rocked through her. How could anyone want someone else when they had the heart and body of this man?
Zephirin turned around, a corner of his mouth lifted in a humorless smile. “If only it was that simple. Maybe if she had only been screwing another man, spending money on him, it would’ve been easier, more understandable to eventually accept. The truth is much harder to swallow. Because it means at some point, I had my head so far up my ass, I missed when she became so bitter toward me that stealing my career and my reputation was a means to justify an end.”
He retraced his steps across the room and, picking up the wineglass, drained it.
“My agent brought an endorsement opportunity to me that I wasn’t too sold on. But after discussing it with Shalene on one of the few times we actually communicated, I decided to do it. Weeks later, Ronin brought certain rumors to my attention. Rumors about me insisting on and receiving kickbacks when signing endorsement deals. I called the most recent company I’d signed on with, and discovered that I had apparently insisted that in order to be the face of their sports drink, my girlfriend had to sing the jingle on all three commercials they planned on filming.”
Sophia shook her head, confused. “I don’t understand. You—”
“Didn’t know a thing about it. That little detail had been added by my agent as payment to Shalene for convincing me to sign the contract.”
Shock and disgust gripped her. As did disbelief. “She sold you out.”
He snorted, sinking to the couch cushion. “Pimped me out would be a more accurate description. And not for the first time. I confronted my agent, and he confessed the truth. Shalene was his ace in the hole…or his saboteur. She would approach me as the concerned girlfriend, point out the benefits of seeing things my agent’s way, and in the end, she would receive a ‘bonus.’ On the other hand, if nothing was in it for her, she would emphasize why I shouldn’t accept. For the athletic clothing line I agreed to endorse, the company agreed to place her in my commercial as well as two more for different products. And all that time, I was the patsy, willfully blinded to their actions. No, not blind. Stupid.”
