She's a Spitfire (Tough Love Book 2)

by Chloe Liese

  Zed thanked the waitress as she set down his coffee. He held the saucer in his hand and sipped, looking dashingly European. My heart felt heavy and warm. I’d never understood how a muscle could feel love, but in that moment, I knew it was true.

  “I want to talk about the future,” he said.

  My tea caught in my throat and I cleared it loudly. He rolled his eyes as he sipped his coffee again. “I swear to god, you’re allergic to it.”

  I took a bite of toast and chewed maniacally. It still didn’t dislodge the catch in my throat. “To what?” I whispered.

  “Uh, intimacy. Plans. You know, adult relationship things.”

  “Zed, it’s not that. It’s simply…”

  “What?” He set his coffee down with a clatter.

  “You only just got your get-out-of-jail free card. Literally. And you’ve never had your own time to experience your life how you want it. I’ll restrict you, immediately tying you to me and my life.”

  Elbows on the table, he rested his chin on his hands. A perfect equilateral triangle. “Tied to you in what way?”

  I blushed and buried my face in my teacup. “Seriously.”

  His foot caught my chair and dragged me closer to him. “Did I hear you wrong amidst the dozen orgasms I gave you all night, when you said that you love me? Why would I want to be apart from you?”

  A few older women at a table glanced over their shoulder at us, looking a little scandalized but mostly curious. I leaned in and wrapped my hand around his.

  “Yes,” I said quietly, “and I’m not saying I don’t want to be yours, or be each other’s, Zed. I’m simply saying I want you to live your life however suits you, and trust that if that means departing from mine for a little while, we’ll find a way to make our two paths converge. I want you to be free, because I love you.”

  “I’ve waited long enough for what I want, Nairne.” He cupped my face, slid his thumb along my cheekbone as his eyes searched mine. “And I’m really tired of having other people and circumstances dictate what my life is going to be like. Maybe that sounds immature, or short-sighted. If it is, I guess I need a little time to childishly do whatever the hell I want.”

  I swallowed. “That’s what I’m encouraging.”

  “No.” His thumb drifted down and traced my jaw. “You’re encouraging me to do what you think I should want.”

  Was I? Perhaps I was.

  “Do you want to be with me?” He said it evenly, free of emphasis or pressure.

  It rushed out of me. “Of course.”

  “Then it’s settled.” He kissed me once, gently, and smiled. I remembered the first time I’d seen his handsome features transform from burdened to joyful. At the pub, the night he’d met Lucas and I’d been out with Elodie for my birthday. How rare that genuine grin of unbridled joy had been. Not anymore.

  “So, you’ll just stay here?” I asked. “That’s really what you want?”

  “My home is gone,” he said. “My family’s a thousand miles away. And it’s exactly what I want. I need a breather from responsibility to anything besides you and your well-being and me and mine. I’m signing with an English club. I’m buying a dope-ass flat that I’d really like you to move into, and then I’m pleasuring your body until you’re senseless. Indefinitely.”

  The eavesdropping women gasped nearby.

  “Zed,” I warned as I jerked my head their way. Everything he said made my heart pound with excitement, then settled in my belly like a fine whiskey, heady and warming. I wanted to be with him, but I still couldn’t shake the worry that he was giving up or curtailing his dreams to accommodate the rigidity of what I’d chosen, its constraints on our logistics as a couple.

  “You’re not limiting me. I’m not curtailed. The UK is a great fit for me. A team I like, a language I speak. You, here. I don’t give a shit about anything else, Nairne.”

  “Did I say all that out loud?”

  He nodded, traced his lips along mine. Feathered kisses on my cupid’s bow, the corner of my mouth, while his hand slipped beneath my dress under the table. I didn’t stop him.

  “I’m keeping my flat,” I muttered against his lips.

  “Like hell you are.” His fingers snuck inside my knickers and stroked me.

  “I’ll stay with you most nights, but I need my own place. And believe it or not, you do, too, Zed.”

  Two fingers sank into me and I bit my lip.

  “Somewhere along the way, we lost the dynamic. You’re telling me my business, fragolina, and it’s really starting to piss me off.”

  “I like to think of it as healthy conflict, Zed.”

  He shook his head and kissed my neck. “I want agreement. I want yes, Zed.”

  I turned and gave him my lips. “No, you don’t.” I kissed him once more. “You want me.”

  Fifteen

  Nairne

  Hitting womanhood in France under the spotlight of footballer stardom, and the socialite attention that Elodie and I garnered was not a typical teen experience. In France, if you were rich enough to get into elite clubs, you were old enough to drink. Obscenely expensive whiskey, fine wine, absurd gambling and dares. Nights that turned into mornings, full of dancing and groping, covert bathroom fucks, and morning after pills.

  I hadn’t been a saint. With my family gone, I’d been answerable to no one, and Elodie was my partner in crime and best enabler. She drank us all under the table and danced the longest, sang the loudest, and if you got her tanked enough, she’d start playing virtuosic piano pieces. The woman could bloody play.

  In that time, I hadn’t any serious, committed relationships. Then I’d gotten injured and shut down. And then I’d gotten hot and heavy with biomechanics and molecular design, multivariate calculus, and human systems. Enter Zed. Though he was outside my experience with both the duration and exclusivity we agreed to, we’d felt…manageably reactive at first. Our exposure to each other had an expiration date, a definite closure to our explosive dynamic. But then we went from a contained flame to a four-alarm fire.

  It was the point when you stood back and watched the consuming burn with an acceptance that all the water in the world wasn’t going to quell the inferno. And not only that it wasn’t going to, I didn’t want it to. I’d been cold and lifeless too long, and when Zed had sparked with me, made me fight and cry and feel again, there was no going back. I hadn’t wanted our connection to end, to fade to a dying ember, an echo of a once glorious blaze. I still didn’t.

  Now Zed was free, and he’d come to England, like it was so natural, so matter-of-fact. Signing with an English club, buying a flat. Extending an open invitation to move in. Zed lived by his instinct, like he’d internalized some intrinsic life compass that directed his every move as autonomically as his brain kept his lungs breathing, his pumping heart steady.

  I didn’t understand it one bit. But I liked it. Loved it actually, as I loved him. I just had no clue what I was doing. We’d obliterated the old formula—closed system, timed exposure, finite variables. I had no sense of the conditions, the context to optimize our success. I didn’t know what factors to throw out, or what environment would allow us to flourish while still preserving my own independence and sense of self. I didn’t play around in my lab, why would I in life? I needed a tutorial or something.

  I stared at the ceiling in his bedroom and drummed my fingers on my chest.

  Zed sighed and pulled me to him. “I can hear you thinking.”

  His bed was a lot more comfortable than mine, but mattress quality didn’t change that it was sunrise, so that meant I was awake. “I’m trying to figure it out.”

  “What?” he mumbled sleepily. His cock poked me, and I glanced over at him. He smiled but kept his eyes shut. “Why don’t you work on this while you’re spinning your gears.” Hot and velvety, sliding over my hip toward my entrance.

  “Zed, wait.”

  His eyes cracked open as his features turned serious. “What’s wrong?”

  I sighed and t
urned on my side. Zed fixed the pillow between my knees under the blankets, then straightened to look at me.

  “What if I’m bad at this?” I whispered. “I’ve never done a long-term relationship before.”

  Zed’s brow creased. “How could you be bad at it?”

  “I don’t know how to sustain it well, how often I should push you away to do what you need or take time for myself. I feel like I’m navigating this blind.”

  His hand slipped a loose hair behind my ear as his eyes searched my face. “Nairne, you realize I have as much experience as you, right?”

  I snorted and he rolled his eyes.

  “I don’t mean sex,” he said. “Not that you’re far behind me, from what you’ve said about your wild teens. I mean relationships.”

  He said that, but Zed had pursued me, and even when we’d blasted beyond the confines of our original agreement, he’d taken it in stride, with that enviable internal compass of his. I felt like I had no such thing. I had what he meant to me, in this moment, and a fervor not to lose it paired with a fear that I didn’t have what it took to preserve it.

  Birds chirped outside and the breeze rattled the windows as I looked into his eyes. They crinkled as he smiled at me. I’d never seen him smile so much.

  “I suppose,” I said through a small grin.

  Zed kissed me slowly as he slid his hand over my breast and rolled my nipple between his fingers. “Only two days in, and I’m really getting used to this you-in-my-bed-each-morning thing.” He slid into me and interlaced our fingers. I felt warm and full, and I sighed.

  “Morning sex.” He groaned. “Best way to wake up.”

  I laughed. “Better than coffee?”

  “Fuck coffee.” He bit his lip and held himself inside me. “God, the things I’m gonna do to you today—”

  Three loud bangs from the hallway startled us.

  “Are you expecting someone?” I asked.

  Zed glared over his shoulder. “Hell no. I’ve got security downstairs with strict instructions not to let anyone up. Besides, no one even knows I’m here yet. Now focus.” He grasped my jaw and kissed me.

  The banging returned and I pulled away, peering over his shoulder. “Obviously someone’s there.”

  Zed dropped his head. “Obviously I’ve lost my touch. Used to be as soon as my cock was in you, you were singularly focused.”

  More banging.

  “Zed, I’m not screaming my orgasms when you’ve got someone right outside your flat.”

  He lifted my hips and hit an angle that never failed to make me boneless.

  “You’re not, huh?” Zed smirked.

  “Oh,” I gasped.

  “That’s right, now—”

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  We both groaned. “Clearly somebody needs to see you.”

  He swore and pulled out. “I’m telling you, no one—”

  “Zeddy!” Lucas’ voice came muffled from the front door. “Stop styling your hair and answer the bloody door.”

  Zed’s eyes went wide. “No fucking way.”

  Lucas and Zed were each on their third muffin while I dunked a chocolate croissant in my coffee. After a bunch of back slaps and mumbled talk that I caught from the bathroom as I did my morning routine and dressed, they sat in the kitchen over pastries Lucas had brought, and coffee Zed had made. Zed told Lucas what had happened. He’d told me once already, but it still gave me an adrenaline rush listening to it.

  “Christ, Zed.” Lucas sat back in his chair. “You could have got yourself killed.”

  Zed nodded as he sipped his coffee, then set it down. “I’m looking forward to a nice long stint of boring life.”

  I rubbed his back gently. “Absolutely. Uneventful is on the agenda.”

  Zed squeezed my hand and pointed the last bite of his muffin at Lucas. “How the hell did you get up to the apartment?”

  Lucas nabbed an apple from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table, and crunched into it. “I’m royalty in England, Zed. No one keeps me out.”

  He frowned at Lucas. “I’m giving that security guy a talking to. And how’d you even know I was here?”

  Lucas folded his arms and sat back with his apple. “You’re not the only one with subversive means to information, Zeddy.”

  “Not anymore.” Zed grinned and sipped his coffee. “God, it’s surreal.” He turned toward me, slid his thumb along my jaw. “I get to just play soccer and be with you.” I couldn’t help but smile when he said it.

  Lucas shifted in his seat like he was uncomfortable. He often seemed to suffer around demonstrations of affection. Zed turned his way. “I can’t wait to see you as miserable as I am.”

  “Oi!” I lobbed a hunk of croissant at Zed’s head, but he turned and caught it in his mouth.

  “Miserable, as in lovesick. Head over heels. Wrecked.” He leaned over and kissed me. “When this guy finally falls, it’s going to be incredibly gratifying to watch.”

  Lucas rubbed the back of his neck and glared at Zed, until he faced me, and his features brightened. “Let’s ignore him, Mac, and talk about you. What lies ahead for the next Madame Curie?”

  I laughed. “Thankfully no radioactive experiments. University still. Probably forever. I’m in the same area of focus, in the research PhD track at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. Working on developing world vaccines still.”

  “Taking it easy, I see.” He smirked.

  “Actually, this weekend I am. I’ve got to get going now, meeting a friend.” I kissed Zed’s cheek. “Talk tonight?”

  Zed frowned at me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “I told you last night, El’s decided to come in for the weekend because she quit the club, and we’re going out and getting trollied.”

  “Well, you must have been doing something to distract me when you said that, because I don’t remember a damn thing about this.”

  I smiled deviously as I gathered my phone and keys into my bag.

  “You’re not getting trashed in public without me, Nairne,” Zed said matter-of-factly.

  By Christ, this man. “You have absolutely no say in what Elodie and I do, Zed, and—”

  “Hold on.” Lucas put up a big hand, then flicked a finger between us. “Who’re you talking about?”

  Zed frowned at him. “Nairne going out with Elodie.”

  “Is that the curly-haired goddess? The one who was at the hospital when you fell, Mac?”

  I tilted my head at him. “Yes, but how would you know? Did you meet her?”

  Lucas smiled. “I did, though it was entirely too brief. Where’d you say you’re going tonight? I might insinuate myself.”

  I’d never known Lucas to date. He’d told Zed he wasn’t getting into anything in the States because he’d had plans to leave at the end of the season. And right now, I didn’t particularly like the predatory glint he had in his eyes.

  “Well,” I hedged, “perhaps some other time you can see her. She’s going through a lot at the moment, and I want her to myself.”

  “I’m wounded, Mac.” Lucas frowned. “What do you take me for? A Casanova?”

  “If you don’t, you should,” Zed said. Lucas smacked him in the chest.

  I shrugged. “It’s nothing personal, Luc. I just want her to myself this time. Now, you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to catch a cab and be going.”

  “Nairne.” Zed sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands. “We need to iron out a few things. One, you can’t just catch cabs. It’s not safe enough. I drive you or you drive with me. Two, you’re not going out, all over London without someone keeping an eye on you.”

  “You’re adorable.” I bopped his nose with my pointer. “I’m going out, and I’ll be with Elodie. I catch cabs whenever I bloody well please, and if you try to stop me, I’ll bite your knob the next time you stick it down my throat.”

  “Christ woman.” Lucas shuddered.

  Zed glared at me. “Nairne. Hear me out.”

 
I folded my arms as I sat back in my wheelchair. “Go on.”

  “You need security if this is how you’re going to be.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Staggeringly independent.”

  I snorted. “Yes, well I’d say it’s a core quality of mine. But I don’t have security.”

  Zed sighed, then bopped my nose this time. “Now you do.”

  “What?”

  Zed stood and pulled his phone out of his pocket, mumbled something about “girlfriend” and “mental health hazard.”

  Lucas covered his mouth to hide his smile as Zed walked out of the room dialing.

  “Tom?” he said into his mobile. “Yeah, I’d like to get started today… Yeah, sooner than I thought… What can I say, you’re wiser than me. And man, I’m telling you right now, you’re going to be earning your money with this one.”

  Lucas laughed out loud at that and patted my hand. “You know he’s only taking the most basic and essential precautions, right? You’re going to be flooded with photographers soon. It comes with the territory, and you’ll be glad for the buffer.”

  I scowled toward the bedroom where Zed was. Lucas was right, but Zed’s approach was irritatingly autocratic. “Bastard.”

  “Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,” Lucas recited. “Being purg'd, a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes.” Then he took another bite of his apple and smiled as he chewed. “What is it else? A madness most discreet. A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

  “Bloody Shakespeare.” I sighed as I threw back the last of my coffee. “Accurately describing the torture of love since 1590.”

  Lucas laughed. “By no coincidence, his first play was Taming of the Shrew, so scholars say.”

  “Ooh,” I said, “so much innuendo in that one.”

  “Yes! So many brilliant ones. What, with my tongue in your tail? nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.” Lucas and I laughed. “Torture’s the exact word for love. But at least there’s Shakespeare and poetry for it. That helps.”

  Zed walked back in looking satisfied, which only made me angrier. “Poetry?” he said. “Never touch the stuff.” He stole the last of my croissant and popped it in his mouth. “I speak a different love language fluently though, don’t I, fragolina?”