by London Casey
The dressing room door swung open and shut with a soft squeak. A few seconds later, there was Bella, standing in a royal blue dress. Her hands at her sides, looking nervous as anything.
“Well?” she asked.
“Holy fucking hell, darlin’,” I managed to say.
My heart and brain fought over the last few breaths of air I had because I had never seen a woman look like this in a dress.
It stopped just above her knees. The curves of her hips looked ready to rip the dress open, but that’s how it was meant to be. Her body was made to hug the dress, not the dress to hug her body. The top was low-cut but not too much. It came just a sliver below her shoulders and went around her back. Her hair was back in a ponytail as she stood there, eyes wide.
“You look amazing,” I said.
“You’re just saying that.”
I walked toward her and shook my head. “Bella. You don’t understand how beautiful you look.”
I reached back and touched her hair. My fingertips found the hair tie and I pulled. I slid it down her hair and off, sliding it over my wrist. I stepped back, and she fluffed her hair for a quick second. Some of her hair fell over her shoulder, some didn’t.
“Fuck,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m going to lose my mind looking at you, Bella.”
“Zayne…”
“No,” I growled.
I grabbed her hand and pulled. I walked her toward the dressing room, and she clawed at me.
“Hey, that’s the ladies…”
“I don’t give a fuck,” I said.
I walked right into the room and went to the little changing area she came from. I opened the door and pushed Bella into it. I shut the door and slid the lock. I made her face the mirror and stood behind her, my hands at her waist.
“How the hell can you not see it?” I asked.
“Well, to be fair, I do look good in this dress,” she whispered.
“You look good in everything,” I said. “But, yes, this dress is…fuck.”
Bella turned her head and looked up at me. The biggest smile I’d ever seen on her face.
“What?” I asked.
“You really mean it. When you say it.”
“Of course I do. I’m not a liar.”
“Except about my car. Remember?”
“One time. And it sort of paid off.”
“Yeah? You still need to make that up to me.”
“Is that so?” I whispered. “Well then…”
I eased my right hand down and grabbed the bottom of the dress. Her eyes went wide. I pulled the dress up, easing it over her body, my hand moving between her legs.
“Zayne, no,” she whispered. “Not here. There’s cameras.”
“There’s no fucking cameras in the dressing room,” I whispered. “I think it’s illegal.”
“You think?”
“Who cares? Let’s give them a fucking show.”
“Shit,” Bella said.
Her face was flush. I pressed against her and she turned and quickly put her hands to the wall separating our dressing room and the next one.
My fingers cut between her legs even more, feeling the silkiness of her legs. She was warm, getting hotter by the inch, right up to where I touched her panties.
“Fuck, darlin’,” I whispered into her ear. “You better not make noise, or else we’re going to get kicked out and you’re not going to get this dress…”
I loved fucking flirting with her. I loved fucking teasing her.
My fingertips pressed against her center, twisted against her panties. Her hands spread wide against the wall as she put her head back against my shoulder. Slowly, gently, I brought my hand up and eased down into her panties. Her smooth skin gave way to her sweet wetness.
Curling my fingertips, I pressed and pulled, driving her back against me harder, making her gasp.
“Careful,” I whispered in her ear. “No noise, darlin’.”
Her mouth opened in desperation and she turned her head to kiss me.
We kissed as I slid my fingers down and inside her. Exploring her depths with circles, pulling back, thrusting forward, feeling her body come alive to my touch. Her right hand slid down the wall and reached back for me. Her hand against my thickness, squeezing.
“Zayne,” she whispered. “Please…Zayne…”
Her lips kept touching mine as she talked. I grabbed her wrist and pried her hand off my body.
She then looked at me.
Our eyes locked tight, a few inches separating our lips.
My fingers kept moving, sliding back just enough, and then up just enough to find her sweet spot. The second I touched her clit, she jumped and sucked in a breath.
She mouthed to me, “Holy fuck…!”
I grinned.
Then she started to say “I… I… I…”
I wasn’t sure what the next words were, but something exploded inside me. A surge of emotions that I couldn’t remember ever feeling before. I hurried to rip my hand away from Bella’s tender body. I spun her around and put her against the wall, harder than I should have. The thud of her hitting the wall echoed like a slamming door. Then I touched her again, this time facing her, this time wanting to make sure she could see me and I could see her. Eye to eye. Heart to heart. Body to body.
Faster. Harder. Thrusting deeper. Twisting. Easing out. Gliding along her sweet button…
Bella was breathless, jaw falling open, her grip tight on my shirt.
I moved in and kissed her as she brought herself to her toes. She was just seconds away from coming as my tongue flirted with hers. I had to kiss her because I had words flirting that wanted out.
But whatever I had to say…that would only change our lives.
I leaned against the same pillar and looked around the store. Nobody knew a fucking thing, and if they did, they weren’t looking or saying a thing. Which was good. It was my business. My phone started to vibrate.
Tilly from Miami was calling again.
My thumb hovered over the screen, debating what to do.
“You ready?”
I looked up and saw Bella back in her normal clothes, as beautiful as she had been in the dress. Her hair was pulled back again, a wild look in her eyes. Her cheeks still blushed a little, that sense of wicked guilt racing through her body.
I stuck my phone into my pocket and gave a nod. I grabbed her hand and led the way to the register. With the same hand that I had used to touch Bella’s most delicate of areas in the dressing room, I took my credit card out of my pocket and tossed it to the counter.
The woman behind the counter smiled and asked, “Anything you need?”
I looked right at Bella, smirking. “Nope…I don’t need any other thing in my life right now.”
28
BELLA
The dress was hung up on the door. Zayne was on his way to go see Tate for a suit. I couldn’t wait to see my hunky tattoo artist all dressed up.
I put a hand to the dress and bit my lip. What he did to me in that dressing room… I’d never done anything like that before. That craziness he brought out in me was…well, crazy. A different kind of crazy from what I was used to experiencing. Working at the cafe with Donna was fun. It was low-key. It was nice to meet people. It was nice to watch people. And at the end of every shift, I was able to sit and write. Hell, I was able to write whenever I wanted, actually.
Zayne supported it. He supported me. Yeah, we were in some kind of awkward stage of not knowing what we exactly were, but it was such a special thing for me to grab a notebook and start writing and have someone appreciate it. He’d walk to the table and kiss the top of my head and tell me I was doing great. Tell me that he hadn’t read a book since tenth grade in high school, but my book he would read.
All that romantic, flirty crap that made my heart race and all the butterflies kick up.
I was starting to fall for him, and that was a little scary to me. We were supposed to just be fooling arou
nd and making our exes jealous. Nothing else.
It left me with a lot of questions.
Was I going to stay in Hundred Falls Valley? Was I going to keep working at the cafe? Was I honestly going to finish my book? Was I going to just live with Zayne? As his roommate…girlfriend…
I looked at my left hand. “His fiancée?”
I swallowed hard.
My phone started to ring from the kitchen table where I had been writing.
I had notes spread across the table, a mug of cold coffee, and some pens and pencils scattered around. My phone was under some of the papers.
I shuffled through, and when I saw the screen, I curled my lip.
It was Abby.
I licked my lips, thinking about it.
Finally, I touched the screen. I took the call.
“What do you want?”
I sat at the table and looked around. Nothing was mine except the coffee stained and wrinkly pages in front of me. That’s what I thought about as Abby spoke to me, her voice crackling with tears…or fear…or guilt…
“I never meant for it,” she said. “I shouldn’t have let it happen the way it did. I really wish we could meet up, Bella.”
“We did that,” I said. “Remember? When I came back? And you sat across from me and cried. You sucked me right in to your world, Abby. That was your chance to tell me everything, and you didn’t. You won my sympathy vote by lying.”
“I know,” she said. “I didn’t know what to do right then. We were…I was scared. For you.”
“Scared for me? And you both were?”
“Yes,” she said. “You disappeared. You took a couple bags and you were gone. We…I didn’t want to chase you away, Bella. I kind of hoped everyone could just talk. Figure it out.”
“Figure it out,” I said. I laughed. “What, you and Parker on the couch? Me in the chair? You two holding hands, telling me how you fell for each other because of me, right? Because I worked too much at the diner, right? Or that you just fell for him, or maybe that it started as crazy sex, huh? There was something you did for him I wouldn’t, right?”
Silence on the other end of the phone.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m sorry,” Abby said, her voice crackling again. “If you want to know, we had feelings for each other a long time ago. But I fought them off for you, Bella. Because you two got together. I wasn’t going to be that person.”
“But you ended up as that person…but worse.”
“Worse?”
“Yeah. Worse because you didn’t just fuck my boyfriend, you slept with him. You fell for him. He fell for you. While I was waiting tables, he was pounding his dick into you. You two probably played house while I was at the diner, knowing my shifts down to the hour. I bet you two even let the guilt slip away, right? It all became a sick sense of fucking normal.”
“Bella…please…”
“No,” I said. “Go fuck yourself, Abby. Go fuck Parker. You two deserve each other.”
I ended the call.
Before I could break down into tears, the door opened behind me.
I turned, blinking fast.
It was Zayne.
He wasn’t wearing a suit—but he was holding a bag.
“Where’s your suit?”
“Why do you look ready to cry?”
I looked up at him as he towered over me, standing next to me as I sat in the chair.
“Abby called.”
“Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Bitch.”
Zayne smirked. “You know, it’s going to be a tough thing to figure out, darlin’.”
“What is?”
“The whole thing. How you want to move forward. You can’t ignore it. I know you want me there to make him jealous, which is good. But for her…she was your best friend.”
“Exactly. She was.”
“You should get closure.”
“Are you telling me what to do, Zayne?” I asked.
“Nope,” he said. He then put the bag on the table. “This is for you.”
“I thought you were going to get a suit from Tate.”
“Have you seen Tate? I’m big, but that guy is something else. I’d look like a little kid in a suit of his.”
“So you lied?” I asked. “Zayne…”
He leaned down and kissed my cheek. “White lies, darlin’. They don’t hurt the skin so much. I have a suit in my closet. I wanted to do something for you. Make sure you know I care about you. Besides all this making our exes jealous bullshit stuff.”
I reached for the bag. “I don’t do gifts, Zayne. Or surprises. Or…”
“You do now,” he said.
I slowly stood and looked into the bag. Then I shoved it away. “No.”
“Yes.”
“No. Zayne. No way.”
He grabbed for my arm and looked me in the eyes. “I’m starting to see that people have been trampling on your heart and your dreams for a long time, darlin’. I don’t know what I am to you or what I could be for you, but if anything, you should have yourself to rely on. You want this dream, Bella. Then fucking get it.”
“You bought me a laptop,” I said.
“Yeah, I fucking did.”
“It’s expensive…”
“All those extra hours I worked when you took off after catching me in that lie,” he said. “It’s my apology. What you made me earn. It’s yours, Bella. Just write. Tell all the stories you can tell. Who gives a shit what anyone thinks?”
“Christ, Zayne,” I said, my voice breaking up. “What the fuck do I do now?”
“Thank me,” he whispered. “Then I’m going to fuck you. And then you’re going to type some words because I have a couple appointments at the shop.”
“You’re telling me what to do again, Zayne,” I said.
He touched my face. “Yeah, darlin’, this time I am…and you’re going to fucking listen to me…”
29
ZAYNE
She looked even more beautiful in the blue dress. She insisted I looked good in my suit. A suit was a suit, though. A dress was made for a woman’s body. Certain styles and colors worked with certain people, kind of like tattoos. Some women were able to wear certain tattoos in a way that just made them come alive. It was something really amazing.
And what else was amazing was the way I got to hold Bella’s hand after we climbed off my motorcycle. Yeah, she was in a dress, I was in a suit, and we rolled up to a wedding on a loud-as-hell motorcycle.
People looked at us with wide eyes, and all I could do was smile.
This was really fucking happening.
The good news was that the wedding and reception were being held in the same place. Some fancy country club thing. Really nice and serene, a lot of green trees, buildings designed to look old but weren’t. The aura of douche bag floating low in the air.
It all made me grin.
But as we walked the stone path and I saw the rows of white chairs and a large white trellis with red roses, the altar where Steph would get married, I felt my heart tightening a little. Not because I had any love left for Steph at all, but just from thinking what we went through. What she’d done to me. The way she’d twisted me up on purpose and kept me like that for her own entertainment.
I paused and Bella looked up at me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“We can go.”
“Fuck no, darlin’,” I said. “She’s going to walk down that aisle and look right at me.”
“You think so?”
“I know so,” I said.
How did I pull that off? Simple. I walked to the last row of white chairs and took a seat right at the aisle. I stuck out like a sore thumb to those who knew me. I made damn sure I was on the side of Steph’s family and friends. In the other set of chairs, not a single person looked at me.
But being there…right in the mix of the glances, gasps, red faces, and people grabbi
ng for their phones to text each other that OMG! Zayne is here! What is he doing here?! it made me want to smile, but I held it back. I just sat there with a stoic look on my face, my hand interlocked with Bella’s.
I glanced over at her and winked. “Are you good?”
“I’m great,” she said. “Can’t picture a time in my life when so many were staring at me judgmentally.”
“They’re not looking at you, darlin’,” I whispered. “They’re looking at me.”
“No, Zayne, they’re looking at me too,” Bella said. She lifted her left hand and showed the engagement ring I had given to Steph to one of Steph’s friends who wasn’t good enough to be in the bridal party.
I think her name was Karie, and she widened her eyes and turned around.
“You’re so sexy right now,” I whispered.
“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here,” Bella whispered.
Right then, stringed music began to play. Live music from a deck a short distance away from the altar. I hadn’t even noticed the band there.
The wedding…it was underway.
A group of men walked down the aisle quickly, the last guy in line being the groom. I’d studied the calligraphy signature of his name on the invitation for a long time.
Stephanie Marie & Scott Andrew
He didn’t even look at me, because he had no clue who I was.
Then came the bridesmaids. All of them I knew. All of them knew me. They would each take three steps and then realize I was sitting there. I was tall and unavoidable, and I’d sat at the end of the aisle to really drive that point home.
The look on their faces was priceless. Surprise. Shock. Forcing themselves to stare forward, smile, all the while their mind played out scenes of what could happen. Would Steph freak out? Would she throw her flowers at me? Would she attack me? Better yet, what did I have planned? Would I stand up and interrupt the wedding?
I never thought presences and silence could be so powerful.
Then came the music for the bride.
I looked at Bella and grinned. I grabbed her hand and we stood up just like everyone else at the wedding did.
That’s when Steph appeared.
She was alone, but that didn’t mean her father wasn’t there. Steph loved attention and the spotlight. That was how I met her. In a sea of people at a club one night, she was the one who stuck out. She commanded the place, the people, the attention. It attracted me because I thought it meant confidence. That was something she did have. But that confidence was just a front for a cold woman.
