Nicole Edwards: Zane

“No?” V stood suddenly. Her abrupt shift had Zane flinching backward instinctively.

Yeah, he was clearly going to have to work on that.

Pushing himself to his feet, he closed the gap between them, towering over her as she stood staring up at him. At six-foot-four-inches, Zane was not by any means a small man. He was still working on gaining the pounds he’d lost while in the hospital back, along with the strength that was zapped from him thanks to a month in a coma.

Standing next to V, all five-foot-seven or so inches of her, Zane couldn’t help but remember how well their bodies fit together. She was tall and curvy and breathlessly beautiful. Even in those heels, he still had to look down at her, and when she hit him with those whiskey brown eyes, some of his anger subsided.

“No, baby. None of it was your fault. You couldn’t have predicted what that fucker would do.” He kept his tone low and even as best he could.

Truth be told, Zane should’ve been smarter. He should have known after Jake jumped him at Moonshiners that the man was rapidly losing touch with reality. Maybe it was because Zane had knocked his ego down a notch the day Jake had insulted V, or maybe Jake was just a loose cannon, bound to explode at any time. Either way, Zane should’ve been prepared.

Instead, he’d let down his guard some.

“He was waiting for you. At my house . Why don’t you understand this?”

“Understand what ?” He took a step back. “You weren’t even at the bar when he jumped me there, were you? So I’m not sure how you get to blame yourself for any of this.”

“No, I wasn’t. But if it weren’t for what happened at Anderson Croft’s, none of this would be happening. And in case you forgot that all started because of me.”

True. V had a point there. The whole thing started that day, but besides her accuracy on the timing, her logic didn’t make any damn sense. Regardless, talking to her was useless because she had since made up her mind. The only thing he could do now was to try and change it.

“You couldn’t control what Jake was going to do, baby, any more than you can control whatever this is between us.”

Zane hadn’t expected to say the last part, but somehow the words had slipped out. The woman was a distraction, one that kept him away from some of the darker, gloomier thoughts and he welcomed that into his life. He’d gotten attached to her, and he wasn’t ready to let go even if she resorted to trying to convince him otherwise. Which he knew she was going to do.

Zane didn’t have it in him to give up, and no matter how hard she tried to push him away, he wasn’t going to budge.

Not this time.

“Zane,” V choked a sob back, “I can’t do this anymore.”

Well, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear, even if he had expected it. In fact, it was a long time coming because he had been anticipating this conversation ever since the day he went to pick her up to take her to the groundbreaking ceremony. She’d been alluding to the fact that she didn’t want to see him anymore, but Zane didn’t believe her then.

He still didn’t believe her now.

“What can’t you do?” He needed to hear her say the words. He wasn’t sure she could actually say them.

“This.” She wiggled one hand back and forth between them, referencing the two of them.

“You can do this.”

“I’m not talking about sex, Zane,” V huffed, backing up another step, her hands going to her hips, her eyes blazing with frustration and what he sensed was anger. “Fucking you has never been the problem.”

Fucking him?

Zane’s body hardened at the same time something else took root deep in his soul. Something that told him whatever this was between them wasn’t just about sex. Even if V wanted to believe that.

“Then what’s the problem?” He was getting irritated now. “Are you scared, V? Scared that fucking me might turn into something more?” Taunting her, he continued, “Scared that I might just be able to get past that impenetrable outer shell?”

“No!” V stormed away, presenting Zane with her back.

“That’s what it sounds like to me, baby. Sounds like you can’t handle fucking me because you’re scared there might be something more between us.”

There already was, but Zane didn’t say that out loud. He knew how far he could push her.

“You’re delusional, Zane Walker. Maybe you should go back to the hospital. I think the doctors might’ve overlooked the severity of your brain damage.” V turned abruptly to face him again.

Zane laughed, and that earned him a death glare. God she was so damned bewitching when she looked at him like that.

“Honey, I think you already feel something for me.”

“Bullshit. You’re just a baby, Zane. We might have fun between the sheets, but that’s all it is.”

V’s reference to his age, specifically the difference between them, only pissed Zane off more. He hated that she used that as an excuse. She’d tried it one other time, and if he remembered correctly, she’d been sprawled out beneath him in ten seconds flat, begging him to let her come.

He was twenty four, almost twenty five, and she was just barely thirty. Fuck, he wouldn’t care if she were forty. What Zane felt for her, he’d never felt for anyone else, and he wasn’t about to let her get by with throwing whatever this might be away because of a few measly numbers.

“ A baby ?” Zane stalked her across the room until he pressed her into the glass partition that enclosed his bathroom. He didn’t stop crowding her until he was crushing her between his body and the cool glass at her back. “That’s not what you were screaming when I had my dick buried inside of you.”

Zane leaned in closer, his mouth hovering above hers as he waited for her response. Her sharp inhale, along with the full body shiver, told him exactly how much he still affected her.

“Was it?” Letting his lips brush lightly over hers, he waited for V to push him away.

She didn’t.

And that told him all that he needed to know.

♀♂

What the hell was wrong with her? Why did she knowingly push him like that? Zane wasn’t the kind of man to back off freely, and she had found exactly what it took to push his buttons. With the warmth of his body pressed against her, V knew she should be pushing him away, knew she should race right across the room, throw open his front door and run. Never look back.

For the life of her, she couldn’t seem to do it. Just like the very first time her eyes met his, there was a kinetic energy that shifted between the two of them and she couldn’t force herself to move away. Zane stole her breath and her common sense with just a smile. When he actually touched her, it was even worse.

In fact, V was positive she had never met a man as capable as Zane of causing her to drop her defenses as quickly as he caused her to drop her clothes. He was like a drug, impossible to resist once she’d had a taste of him.

And as for their age difference, V didn’t give a shit about it at all, but it was the only tangible thing she had to hold on to; her only justification for putting distance between herself and the one man capable of breaking her heart. Never would V let that happen. Not after what she saw her mother go through.

Her mother and her wandering ways had taught V one valuable lesson: never rely on a man to fulfill you. As she had seen time and time again, no man had ever satisfied her mother, yet Regina continued to ruthlessly pursue them in hopes of finding the one who would. V just figured if she never started, she’d never be disappointed.

This man threatened all of her carefully erected walls because she wanted him more than she wanted anything else.