Asshole.
“So am I completely out there for sleeping with you and expecting something more?” I asked.
He didn’t even flinch. “Absolutely not. You’re different.”
I snorted. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”
Zane sat up, leaning over his knees toward me. “It sounds like a line. Believe me, I get it. But there’s something in you that I just can’t quit. You wanted honesty, so here it is: I can’t stop fucking thinking about you. It’s driving me insane.”
It was hard to keep looking at him after that, but I forced myself to. There wasn’t even a trace of a lie in what he said. Even someone as unreadable as him would have given something away. But he didn't; that meant either he was a championship liar, or he meant it.
I wanted to tell him that I hadn’t stopped thinking about him either, but we were talking about him—not me.
“And do you discard women like trash afterward?” I asked, imperiously calm. “Even the ones who manage to hold your attention for a little while?”
He sighed and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest. “There are those who would say I do, yes. But it’s not like that. Women always want some form of closure. When a man moves on too quickly, they have to know why. What did they do wrong? Was it the sex? The conversation? Did he simply find someone else? They can’t fathom that moving on could just mean moving on.”
“I think you’re being pretty unfair to both my sex and yours,” I retorted. “That’s not an exclusively female thing to do.”
“And moving on as quickly and as certainly as I do isn’t an exclusively male thing to do. I know. But I’m simplifying here.”
I gestured for him to continue.
“I’ve never entered a relationship with a woman that I knew had the potential to last. I’ve already moved on before we’ve even started.”
“How cold of you,” I remarked. “I wasn’t aware you were a robot.”
I was beginning to get agitated. What he was essentially telling me was that I was good for now, but he wasn’t going to settle down anytime soon, if ever. Suddenly keeping my personal feelings out of this wasn’t going so well.
Zane shook his head coolly. “Sasha, don’t. It’s not like that.” He sighed. “You wanted honesty. And we’ve made it this far. I may as well tell you the rest.”
I crossed my own arms. “The rest?”
He smiled. “Maybe I was a robot before, sweetheart, but I’m a robot no longer. I found someone who I think I have the potential to last with.”
“Oh yeah,” I challenged. “And what’s she like?”
He began to slowly slide from the couch, stalking around the back of my chair. I stayed stiff, still frustrated by his apparent stoniness. A little unconvinced that he was doing anything but messing with me.
His hands slipped over my shoulders from behind me, rubbing along the tops of my arms.
His breath tickled my ear, his face close to my head. “She’s very smart, definitely too smart to be hanging around the likes of me.”
I smiled, despite myself.
His hands dipped lower, and I could feel his chest pressed against my back as he began to caress my thighs. “She’s got eyes that could send a man to the grave, and a smile that could bring him back again.” His lips brushed the skin of my throat and I let out an involuntary groan. “And her body? Oh, Lord. I want to worship it with my lips. With my tongue. I want to ruin her for all other men so that if there’s ever another cock between her thighs, she pretends it’s mine.”
“That’s very ambitious,” I managed to gasp out.
His dark chuckle sent a thrill through me. My sex was already pulsing, anxiously awaiting its master. My breasts felt heavy and taut, aching for his touch.
“What can I say?” He nipped my neck. “I’m an ambitious man.”
Suddenly, he drew back, his footsteps receding. I turned around in alarm to see him standing by my desk, his hands tugging on his belt.
“Get over here,” he said. “We have some business to finish.”
The speed at which I leaped out of the chair was nearly superhuman. I couldn’t have run over to the desk faster if I’d been wearing running shoes instead of high heels. He leaned against the desk and took me in his arms, pulling me tight to his body like he couldn't have me close enough. His arms were a steel vice around me, locking me in place as his mouth took mine. I’d never felt so conquered in a kiss before, but it was a good feeling. I wasn’t being taken unwillingly by a mad king, but I was being consumed by a lustful god of need and protection. Nothing could get me, in those few square feet, except what Zane willed. And he owned everything he touched.
His lips were bruising, almost as hard against mine as the rough hardness of his cock trapped behind his jeans. It pressed against my belly, and I wondered how long Zane could last before submitting to the pulsing demand between his thighs. Based on the lust I tasted on him, it was some wonder I wasn't already full of him.
Zane’s hands cupped my ass and ground me up, lifting me onto my tiptoes with his powerful arms like I weighed nothing. I moaned breathily against his mouth and ground with him, picking up a slow and dizzying pace that caused heat to flare like fire in my loins. I needed him so badly. So badly.
His teeth nipped my lower lip and he shifted us, slipping me up onto the desk and anchoring himself between my thighs. I was so small before him, so much shorter and more breakable. I reveled in it. Despite this, our bodies seemed to fit together better than two puzzle pieces crafted from the same cardstock. We molded and remolded together, constantly in motion as we pawed and tugged at each other’s clothes. His shirt came off first, revealing his gloriously muscled and tattooed chest. I slid my hands along the warm skin, sighing at the perfection of his body. My shirt came next, then my bra. His cupped my breasts and bent his face to them, licking tingling paths of pleasure along each pink-tipped nipple. He sucked and nipped all along my breasts, right down to my ribs, then back up. I was quivering by this point, my body full of aching need. I felt empty and wanting.
“Zane,” I whispered. “Zane.”
I should have been able to say other words, but I’d forgotten what other words existed in the English language. I was speaking something else now, something bodily that was capitalizing my facility for thought. I was no longer a brain, but a body.
“Yes?” His lips danced along my collarbone. “Tell me what you want.”
I couldn’t. There was no way I could get it out. I wanted so many things. And anytime I opened my mouth the only thing that came out were breathy moans.
Instead of telling him with words, I embraced my new existence as physical energy and gripped his cock through his jeans. He growled against my ear and rode into my hand. God, he was so big and hard. I felt so powerful and powerless at the same time.
In a flash, Zane pulled me off of the desk and unzipped my pants. I hastily shimmied them off and stepped out of them, following with my panties. When I was finished, he was naked too. His cock stood up proudly, stretching for my body. I moaned just looking at it, and the darkness grew in Zane’s eyes so quickly that I knew I wouldn’t be left waiting any longer.
He pushed me back onto the desk and wrapped my legs around his waist, the head of his cock poking into my folds. I angled my hips upward, trying to urge it inside. He repositioned with a thrust that forced the air from my lungs and unleashed a cry of pure delight. My muscles welcomed him, squeezing him with delight. He shoved in to the hilt and held himself there, eyes closed in pure pleasure.
My arms supported me on the desk, leaving my full body exposed to his gaze. He slid his eyes up and down me with a sly grin as he pulled out once more, and then pulled my hips physically to him to join us. With each thrust, his powerful hands slid my back and forth against the desktop. If there hadn’t been a desk there at all, I’m sure he would have still been able to perform the movement. I realized the desk was for my comfort, not his. His strength was much greater than I’d anticip
ated.
Every movement of our bodies threw more kindling onto the fire raging inside of me. More oxygen. More to burn. Until I was nothing but a raging inferno, ready to explode. I nearly cried with the exquisite torture, the need. I was so close to an orgasm but powerless to Zane’s movements to help it along. Each of his powerful strokes was like an electric shock, but one that dropped me just below my line.
Until the one that didn’t.
Oh, sweet heavens, it was like reaching the top of a powerful wave and tumbling down to the choppy water below. My scream was guttural and throaty. Completely involuntary. I hadn’t planned on falling so deep into that pleasure. I hadn’t realized I could.
As I gasped for breath and hung out in the sizzling afterglow of my orgasm, Zane’s thrusts became more brutal and erratic. He crushed his lips to mine and flattened me against the desk, driving into me with a primal fury that I felt was going to break the damn thing. And then he shuddered and collapsed, heaving breaths flattening my breasts against his chest.
“Jesus.” It was the one word I’d regained.
He laughed. “Yeah.”
Perhaps he’d lost his words too.
The world around me came back into focus, and the hardwood desk creaked beneath us. “I think we better move,” I said. If for no other reason than this was not the most comfortable place to rest.
He nodded and pulled me up with him, holding me against his chest and carrying me to the couch. It was big enough for the both of us, thankfully. He lowered us down onto it, never releasing me, and settled down on his back with my body draped over his.
“Will you come to my billiards tournament and cheer me on next weekend?” he murmured, rubbing my back.
“Zane, I’ll go anywhere you want.”
I don’t know when we fell asleep, but things between us were different when we woke. We were strangers no longer. That night, Zane and I became something much deeper and much stronger.
When you’re dreaming, time doesn’t work the same way it does in the real world. You can fall asleep for a moment and dream for years. I have lived lifetimes in my bed, traveling the world and meeting the strangest, weirdest, and cruelest people I’ve ever known. I’ve always had very vivid dreams, and getting lost in them is an art I have perfected.
Being with Zane was like being in a dream in all the most clichéd ways. Most of all, though, time didn’t work the same with him around. A week flashed by in a blink, and only when I looked back did I realize the time had even passed at all. My mom seemed genuinely happy for me about Zane, though she thought it strange that I had to counsel him and his ex. But she trusted my judgment and didn’t feel the need to intervene.
School and work seemed to blur together in most cases. There wasn’t much that went differently for either of them. Edward was the only part of my life that was still causing friction. He’d been so weird ever since that day when I’d denied his dinner invite. I was just doing my best to be nice to him and to not bring up Zane anytime we met.
Zane made up for all of the shit with Edward. He brought me a gift every day. He seemed to have really committed to memory how uncomfortable I’d been with the idea of being his next broken heart and was determined to prove to me that I was something else. The gifts were all small and otherwise inconsequential, but the thought he’d put behind them made me glow every single day.
Things had never been better. But as his tournament drew closer, so did our next appointment with Asa. And I knew in my gut that nothing gold could stay shiny forever.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Zane
Asa and I’s next “appointment” with Sasha was scheduled the day before the tournament. We arrived around the same time, both still on edge after our last session. I hadn’t seen Asa all week, which probably had as much to do with me not going out to the bars at night as it did her staying away from the pool hall during the day. The argument could be made that our first appointment had gone horribly, but her actions spoke a different story. Something had changed in her. It was an almost imperceptible change, but it was there. Because I could tell she had thought about our last conversation and Asa didn’t take the time to think about anything.
We greeted each other solemnly at Sasha’s front steps. She kept her nose in the air, visibly still upset with me, but I ignored it. Sasha opened the door and welcomed us inside, this time wearing a form flattering knee length crisp black dress. It took all my self-control not to gobble her up with my eyes. I knew Asa would notice.
We followed Sasha down into the basement and took our seats on opposite sides of the couch. My gaze lingered on the desk at the other end of the room, and suddenly my pants felt tight. I started thinking about Asa and how the next hour of my life was going to play out and my bulge softened.
“How have things been this week?” Sasha asked, settling into the chair across from us. I smirked. She knew exactly how things had been this week. She knew that I’d spent more time fucking her than even thinking about Asa. But we all had our parts to play here.
“I’ve been feeling very neglected,” Asa said. She put her hand on her flat tummy and looked at Sasha sadly. “I’m carrying his child, and he hasn’t so much as called to see how I’m doing.
Sasha turned her cool gaze to me. “Why is that, Zane?”
I looked at Asa. “If the baby is mine, I’ll take care of it. But I’m sure that it’s not.”
“So you’ll just hang around and wait for a paternity test?” Asa asked, eyes narrowing at him.
I sighed. “Asa, this isn’t the Maury show. We aren’t here to talk about who’s baby it is.”
Sasha nodded and leaned back, her clipboard resting in her lap. “Zane’s right. You two have some problems that need to be worked out before you can even think of raising a child together. I think we made some good progress last session—I’d like to continue on that train.”
I tried not to smile. She was so damn good at this. Admittedly, I got a kick out of seeing her do her thing. Watching the wheels turn in her head as she garnered things about us that no other person ever had. I felt very exposed to Sasha, but I didn’t dislike it. In fact, it felt kind of good.
And she looked hot as fuck in that dress.
“What do you want me to say?” Asa grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Let’s start with why your relationship didn’t work before. Remind me, who ended it?”
I shifted. “I did.”
I thought Sasha was going to ask me why, but she turned back to Asa. “Why do you think Zane ended your relationship?” she asked.
Asa sat forward. “Because he’s a prick. He got scared of how real things were between us.”
I admired how Sasha could keep a completely clean and straight face. She didn’t seem at all bothered by the fact that the woman across from her was placing a false claim on me. I would have been fuming if another guy so much as looked at Sasha. But she was so cool and collected.
“I’m sensing you feel there was a deep bond between you.”
Asa nodded. “We were always really close. He just got scared one day and ended things. Didn’t even fight for what we had.”
Inside, I boiled. That wasn’t how it was at all. She was a goddamned liar. Or a fool.
As if sensing my rage, Sasha turned her calm face to mine. “From your perspective, Zane, is that how the events played out?”
I shook my head. I should have looked at Asa, but I felt compelled to explain things to Sasha. “We never actually got along on a personality level,” I said. “What Asa and I had was pure sex. It was the only language we both spoke. We fought constantly, and both of us were unhappy.”
“You threw me away like trash!” Asa stormed. When I turned to her, her fists were balled at her sides, and her beautiful eyes were like crashing waves. “You made me cry in the middle of your club and walked away without so much as a backward glance.”
It was a simplification of what had happened that day, but I’d never thought to look
at it from her perspective. “You didn’t care about me either.”
“I cared about myself.” Her voice was quieter now, hoarse. It looked like she was biting back tears. “And you treated me like shit.”
I stilled. I could feel Sasha’s eyes on me like a hawk, studying my expression. I didn’t know what she saw, but I knew what I was feeling: shame. Because I had treated Asa like shit. I hadn’t realized it at the time because I was so caught up in how unhappy I was and how crazy she acted. I completely forgot that she was a human being, just like every other person on the face of the earth.
“I treated you like shit,” I admitted. “I shouldn’t have, but I did.”
Sasha was silent. She must have been processing everything.
“I’m sorry, Asa. I should have told you that before.”
Devil's Property: The Faithless MC Page 49
