by Chloe Liese
I’d asked her if she missed me as she pulled away, dark lashes clumped with tears. Her exhale was shaky. Her hands weren’t free to touch me, since she had to steady herself. She reached for a chair. Practically fell into it, unthreading her arms quickly from the crutches and pulling my face to hers when I sat, too.
“How did you find me?” she asked.
I slid my thumb over her lips. “I have my ways, innamorata.”
She shook her head. “No more of those ways, please. Tell me you’re free.”
I nodded slowly. “I am.”
“God, Zed,” she cried and pulled me closer. “I’m so happy for you.” She sat back and grasped my shoulders, sniffling as her eyes searched my face. “Think of what’s ahead for you! Club tryouts, travel. No more double life. Where are you going next? Where are Teo and your father?”
“Italy,” I answered. “They’re in Genoa.”
Her face flickered with an emotion that was too fast for me to catch before she smiled cheerfully and threaded her fingers through mine. “Of course you’ll go there. Juventus? Or I suppose Milan? Inter or A.C., either would be brilliant.”
I stiffened. “What?”
“What do you mean, what?” She scrunched her nose in confusion. “I’m talking about what clubs you must be considering, given you’re heading to Genoa.”
I pulled my hands away. This wasn’t going one bit how I’d planned it. First some fuckface having lunch with her, now her talking about me moving to Italy like it was nothing.
I couldn’t articulate how painful that thought was. The idea that my presence was optional to her, that possibly she’d met someone else and moved on. Then I caught the asshole watching us unsubtly from a bench down the sidewalk. “When’d you meet him?” I jerked my head down the street to where he sat.
She frowned, following the direction of my glare. “Zed.”
I leaned my elbows on the table and interlaced my fingers. “Nairne.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shrugged. “I’m going by appearances. And by the fact that I haven’t heard from you in almost a month, and you’re talking nonchalantly about me signing with clubs that are nearly one thousand miles away.”
She glared at me. “You think I’m seeing him.”
“If there’s anything more involved than that, I really don’t want to know. Not that I’d be surprised—”
Her slap cracked across my face before I even finished. Normally, I would have caught her hand on the upswing, but I’d been awake for thirty-six hours after nearly getting killed, being thrown across a parking lot by an explosive, and answering for eight years’ worth of quasi-criminal dealings. In short, I was not in top form.
“You bastard,” she croaked. “I’ve worried for you. Agonized over you. You come strolling in, see one moment and assume the worst.” She raised her hand again and this time I caught it. “You bloody brute.”
I held her wrist and tried to quell the emotion in my own voice as I leaned forward. “Correct me if I’m wrong.”
She shook her wrist in my grasp and blinked away tears. “I’m not defending myself to someone who can’t possibly consider an alternative.”
“I’m sorry.” I pulled her close. “What am I missing? Why haven’t you answered me? Why didn’t you call? I find you, and you’re with some man who’s—”
“Nella said she’d have you hurt badly, Zed!” Nairne hissed, yanking her arm away. “I tried to pay her to unseat Antonio and take over so you could escape, but she was more of a megalomaniac than I thought. She played me, took my money, then planned to keep you for herself. Then when she realized you were determined to get out, she threatened to harm you if I didn’t leave.”
My heart pounded. Paying Nella? Bargaining with her? That meddling spitfire. I knew she’d been up to something, but I couldn’t have possibly imagined she’d do something so rash. I wanted to kiss and fuck her senseless, beg her to explain to me how she could do something so dangerous.
“What the hell were you doing, brokering deals with criminals behind my back?”
She wiped her eyes furiously as they teared up. “I was trying to help you as I best could, because you wouldn’t let me otherwise. Then after all that effort, she threatened you and said I had to leave. What could I do? She’s insane—”
“Was.” I sighed, rubbing my forehead as the puzzle pieces fell into place. “She’s dead.”
“What?” Nairne’s voice was quiet and thin. “W-what happened?”
Her fingers slipped over the bump on my head, worry temporarily erasing her anger. I grabbed her hand and interlaced our fingers, and that seemed to remind her just how pissed she was at me, because she tried to tug them away again. I held tight and talked.
“The raid had a complication. Retribution for my cousin who Antonio had killed. A bomb. It was a mess. And I’ll speak more coherently about it once I’ve made you come, taken a long shower, and fallen asleep anywhere that doesn’t involve upright airplane seats and colicky babies.”
“You’re not sleeping with me,” she huffed. “Not after your spectacular entrance with its accusations painting me as some two-timing whore who couldn’t possibly have a logical reason for her odd behavior.”
“I’m sorry.” I sighed. “You’re right, it was the shittiest thing I could have said. I’ve been insanely stressed, and I missed you, and I couldn’t think of a reason why you wouldn’t answer, unless you were angry with me or over me. Then when I find you, you’re with some other guy.”
“A colleague!” She threw her hand up. “Zed, I’m in biomedical research. Unfortunately, that is still a vastly male-dominated field. You’re going to have to get used to me spending time with other men, assuming I ever let you back in my life, let alone my bed after this—”
“Woah.” I held up a hand. “There are no conditionals here—no ifs. I’m yours, and you’re mine. I just spent three and a half weeks walking the razor’s edge of incriminating myself and singlehandedly dropping enough information to put a hundred Don Corleones in jail for the rest of their lives, so I could find you and get us right back where we belonged. Together.”
Her eyes searched mine. “You did, didn’t you.” She ran her hand along my cheek, sighed as she smiled wryly. “You’re here safely. We should be celebrating. But instead we’re bickering because you have a gift for pissing me off with your hotheaded words.”
I grasped her jaw, kissed her hard. “You’re right, and I’m sorry. I should have cooled the fuck down before I spoke…and if I had the adequately poetic words to communicate how much you mean to me and how much I regret what I just said, I would say them. But you’re a woman won by action, Nairne. By promises kept, and faithfulness, and I have held myself to that. Everything I have done has been for this moment, to be free. To be with you.”
I searched her eyes and kissed the corner of her mouth, the tip of her nose, the soft curve of her cheek. “Forgive me.”
She smiled and kissed me back. “Yes.”
I sensed someone standing at around four o’clock. I had a guess who it was, and I wasn’t giving him the time of day.
“Is there a problem?” he asked. He had a French accent. Of course he did.
“Nope, you can move along now,” I answered. I stroked my thumb over Nairne’s lip and kissed her again. She let me, then pulled back and lowered my grasp as she glanced up at him.
“Christophe, I’m fine.”
He stepped closer and I tensed like a coil, ready to spring. “Doesn’t look like it.”
I wish I could say I handled it like a calm gentleman, but he was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I stood and grasped his shirt front, then yanked him to me. We were practically growling at each other, eye to eye. “She said she’s fine. Now get the fuck away from her.” I shoved him back roughly.
Then he made a very stupid mistake. He swung at me. I slipped right and he flew forward. When he stood, I threw an uppercut that nailed his jaw and sent him reeling backwar
d.
“Zed!” Nairne screamed. “Stop it!”
I turned toward her and threw up my hands. “What the hell, Nairne? He just tried to slug me.”
She sighed. “He obviously doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into.”
I had to smile at that, because anytime the woman stroked my ego, it was like she was stroking something else. “What are you saying, innamorata?”
She rolled her eyes then turned her attention to him. “Christophe, please don’t. This is my—”
I was preoccupied with her backhanded compliment, so I wasn’t prepared for his punch straight to my stomach. Air whooshed out of me, and I coughed it away, lifting him by his shoulder and throwing a hook that knocked him to the ground.
“Stop distracting me,” I wheezed. “Just let me beat the shit out of the guy, then we’re going.”
“Nope, I’m leaving. The both of you are being insufferable.” Nairne stood and gave us a wide berth as the asshole crawled upright and took another swing at me.
I dodged it and caught him as he almost hurtled into Nairne, then threw him up against the wall of the pub. “You and I are not done, but I want her right now way more than I want to beat the shit out of you.” I shoved him against the wall again, grabbed my jacket and jogged after her.
“Nairne, wait!”
I caught up to her quickly. “Innamorata,” I coughed. The punch still had my stomach in knots. “Hold up. This got off to a very bad start.”
Her pretty head of long auburn hair shook in exasperation. “I should have known. You can take the man out of trouble, but you can’t take the trouble out of the man.”
She stopped at the intersection, waiting for traffic to pause, and I stole the moment to grab her waist and kiss her neck. “Don’t deny it, fragolina, you like my trouble.”
Nairne sighed and tried not to smile at me. “I really am a masochist, aren’t I?”
Fourteen
Nairne
Going back to the lab after that was out of the question. I was too angry, Zed was making demands, and Christophe was unquestionably banged up but would likely finish the day and nurse his wounded ego. If I went back to do work, Zed would follow, and if Zed followed me there, I could see it now—those two rolling around, causing an expensive wreck of thousands of pounds of lab equipment as they brawled like boys.
“Men,” I grumbled.
Zed chuckled against my skin. I stuck the key into the front door of my flat and rattled the lock. Of course it wouldn’t budge for me. My hands were shaking because Zed’s lips were on my neck, his hand rubbing my arse emphatically, and the lock stuck to begin with.
He wrapped his hand around mine and wiggled it some more, until it swung open. I lost my balance and tumbled forward, but Zed slipped an arm around my waist and scooped me against him. He kicked the door shut and lifted my legs so that they wrapped around his waist. I shook my arms out of my crutches until they clattered to the floor, before he slammed me against the wall and kissed me so hard my lip stung with a bite.
I gasped as the familiar circuit of pain and pleasure lit up my clit. I was aching and his cock rubbing up against me with our trousers between us was torturously insufficient.
“Shit, are you all right?” His hand went to my lower back. “I’m being too rough.”
I bit his lip back. “Never.”
He shifted and moved my hips against him, and it still wasn’t enough.
“Where’s your bed?” he said against my lips.
I jerked my head toward the futon. My flat was small because London was expensive, and though I had a healthy chunk of cash left even after paying Nella, I was cheap. I wanted to be close to the School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, while finding an accessible place that didn’t cost a fortune. It hadn’t been easy.
Zed glared at the daybed, then around the space. “What the fuck is this shoebox?”
I rolled my eyes. “Please don’t start pissing me off again. I’m actually really in the mood for you, and if you criticize my flat or my choices, I’m going to lose that desire very quickly.”
He begrudgingly brought this eyes back to mine. “After sex, we’re having a conversation about this.”
I groped his cock through his trousers, and he threw his head back. “Just shut up and fuck me,” I said.
“Oh, innamorata, you gotta watch that mouth.” He laid me on the bed and immediately turned me over. His hands hoisted my hips up as he dragged my slacks down to my knees.
Staying up on all fours by myself was hard. I could do it, but it made me tired. Zed knew this and held me one armed, as his other hand, warm and calloused, slid down my arse and over my entrance. His breath tickled my ear. “This might be your kitchen, your dining room, and your living room, but it’s also the bedroom. And while we’re in here,”—his hand lifted and came down with a perfect crack—“you don’t talk to me like that, or there’ll be hell to pay, my spitfire.”
I groaned and leaned into his palm as it whispered over my sensitive skin.
“Look at you.” I heard his belt unbuckling, the slide of his zipper, and I clenched in anticipation. “Absolutely perfect.”
His cock slid along my entrance, and I cried out when it hit my clit. “Yes,” I moaned.
When he drove into me, I let out a noise that wasn’t strictly human. Nearly a month without sex had left me unused to the roughness I craved, and pleasure burst like a flower from the bud of pain.
“Fuck.” He groaned. “So tight.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Believe me now?” His brow creased in confusion. “I wouldn’t be this way if I’d been sleeping with my lab mate like you assumed.”
Zed dropped over me and held me tight to him. Warm lips kissed the shell of my ear. “God, Nairne, I’m sorry. It was awful of me.”
“Doubt me like that again, and I will never forgive you,” I whispered.
He stilled, smoothing my hair back from my face as he kissed me gently. “I won’t. I promise.”
He pulled out, turned me over, and drove back into me, lifting my knee so I was open wide, and he could bury himself deep. He rocked roughly, right against my clit. I raked my nails down his chest, scraping his skin, and he shuddered.
“Ah, fuck, Nairne. Again.”
I scraped his skin until he had claw marks down his abs, and he slammed into me. His lips crashed to mine, tongue swirling and tasting me, as his body filled mine, fast and brutalizing.
His cock was stretching me. My arse stung from the spank, and my clit was sensitive. It should have been too much. But like always, pain fused into a new, heightened current of pleasure that burned across my breasts and surged down to my sex. Time blurred, becoming a slippery construct I had no sense of. Who knew what passed—minutes, hours—but eventually the edge of release had my body shaking.
“Oh, god, yes. Yes.” I shook as a tsunami of an orgasm flooded me.
Zed crashed roughly, groaning my name as he came. He collapsed onto me, kissing me hard, and rubbed my clit patiently for another orgasm that somehow he knew I needed. I panted as he pressed us together, while his tongue tasted every corner of my mouth. I came on a silent scream, groping for his hand because another touch and I’d die.
“No more,” I whispered.
He kissed me gently on the corner of my mouth, then brought his fingers to his lips and tasted me. “I’ll always want more with you.”
I exhaled unsteadily and kissed him back, slid my fingers through his dark waves that had grown a little longer. “I know. One of the many reasons I love you.”
His smile was sunlight—bronzed skin, bright teeth, those ocean eyes roaming over my face. “Nice to hear.”
I shook my head. “You know I love you. How could you ever doubt it?”
He kissed my neck, then trailed his way down to my breasts. “Your body always speaks volumes, fragolina, but I love your words. I love it all.”
When his mouth found my clit, I grasped his hair and tugged roughly. “Zed.”
<
br /> His eyebrows lifted. “You have a word, innamorata. If you’ve got a problem, use it.” He slid his tongue along my slit and plunged inside. I shivered as a wave of arousal washed over me. “Otherwise, I’ve got a very sweet cunt to eat out, and I plan to take my time enjoying it.”
“Bloody hell,” I cried.
“Nope, that’s not it.” His words vibrated against my skin and sent my hips ratcheting up.
“Oh—”
He paused, beautiful eyes trained on me.
I sighed and tugged his hair again as I smiled. “Don’t stop.”
Zed pushed the last of his full English breakfast around his plate, then dropped his fork. He barely looked up and the waitress came right over, because she was a normal female, and Zed was a god in a white linen button down, dark sunglasses, with tangled bitter chocolate waves that flicked in the summer’s late morning breeze.
“Espresso?” he asked.
She shook her head, silent with nerves.
“Latte then. Nonfat, please. And thanks.”
She left, cheeks bright red. I smashed beans onto my toast and added a piece of sausage. “You’ll be lucky if she can remember her own name, let alone your order.”
He ignored that, like he did the attention or mention of other women when he was with me. It was as if they didn’t exist, and I liked that more than seemed sensible.
“You look good, fragolina.” His eyes slid over me. “Been doing your PT?”
I nodded as I chewed a massive bite of beans, bangers, and toast. “Had to do something while I worried about you. And it’s not like I could pull long hours—the lab kicks you out after seven, which is ridiculous.”
His eyes narrowed as he crossed his arms. “No, that’s reasonable. You need a little more balance in your life.”
“Oh, Christ. Here we go.” I decided not to row with him about work-life balance and instead sipped my milky tea. I did miss MIT a bit, the park near my flat in Brookline, but it was nice being back in the UK. Here tea was made right, real breakfast was served, and I didn’t constantly have to explain my idioms. I sipped my tea again. Rich. Fragrant. Expertly brewed.
