67. Mira

67

MIRA

I pace barefoot across the floor and hug Zane's jersey around myself.

Partly because I'm cold. Being naked except for a polyester jersey can have that effect.

But mostly because this jersey with his last name on the back is the closest I've been to Zane in days.

He's always finding a reason to be out of the house—practice, coffee with Owen, dinner with Jace, a run. When he is home, he's quiet. Distant.

Growing up the way I did means I am always tuned in to how people are feeling. I over-examine every tiny, flickering expression to make sure I'm not about to be backhanded across the room. With the way Zane has been giving me the cold shoulder and tense, fleeting smiles, I feel more in danger than ever.

I check my phone again, but Zane still hasn't called or texted. After the game they just played, I doubt he's rushing out to celebrate with the team tonight. I don't know much about hockey, but I know the Angels were a disaster out there.

Aiden had a cough, so we watched at home. Now, Aiden is asleep, and I'm pacing. Alone. With no pants on.

"This is a stupid idea." I drop my face in my hands. "I don't know how to do this."

"This" being seduction and long-term relationships. Before Zane, my longest relationship was a guy I went on three dates with. I can't even remember his name now, but I think he was a dentist. Or a dental hygienist. Or I made that up because of the way he licked my teeth every time we kissed. It felt like going in for a cleaning.

I'm about to chuck on my leggings and try to solve this weirdness with Zane like adults. That is, to ignore it until it goes away.

Then the front door finally opens.

I sprint for the bed, arranging myself on top of the comforter like the X-rated version of one of those towel swans in a fancy hotel.

My heart is racing embarrassingly hard when Zane walks down the hallway and pushes the door open.

"Oh." He stops short when he sees me, his eyes cataloging the scene in front of him. "Hey."

"Hi." My voice comes out high-pitched and squeaky. "Sorry about the game."

"Yeah."

Then he just… walks to the bathroom.

I hike the jersey up a little higher on my thighs. Maybe Zane didn't understand what I was doing.

Or, maybe, he knows you're a lying liar who lies and he doesn't even want to look at you.

I swat away my internal monologue. The unending silence of the last week has given it plenty of space to take on a life of its own.

I didn't lie to Zane. I told him the truth about my dad.

Sure, I lied to Taylor four years ago about being raised by a single mother, and I had to maintain that lie at dinner the other night, which Zane definitely heard. And never asked about. And I never brought up because I'm a scaredy cat.

But that's not a big deal, right?

I drop my face in my hands again. God, this is such a mess.

Then the bathroom door opens, and I snap back to attention. "Did you go anywhere after the game?" I ask.

Zane pads to the closet, dragging his t-shirt over his head with one hand. His back muscles pinch and flex as he tosses it into the hamper. He's better at seduction than I am and he isn't even trying.

"No."

"You're just later than normal, that's all." I curl one knee towards my chest. "I was waiting up for you."

He doesn't even look at me. "I took a long shower."

"You could've taken a shower here." I pause, waiting for some kind of reaction that never comes. "With me."

He turns towards me, but still won't look at me. His jaw flexes in the low light. "I'm tired, Mira."

And I'm not wearing anything under this jersey!

For the sake of my dignity and my sanity, I need Zane to look at me.

I slip out of the bed and walk up behind him. He tenses when my hands slide down the exposed skin of his back.

He smells like wintergreen. Breathing him in feels like running in the cold. My lungs tingle.

"Then come lie down." I drag my fingers over his shoulder blade and across his bicep until I'm standing in front of him. "I miss you."

I didn't mean to let that slip, but standing so close to Zane is bringing the inconvenient truth out of me. He's right here, but he feels a million miles away. I want to grab his face and force him to look at me. I want to throw my arms around his neck and cling to him until he can't ignore me.

His eyes are a dark, stormy blue. They focus somewhere over my head. "I had a shitty night, and I just want it to be over. Maybe you should sleep in your room. I'm bad company."

"That's okay," I say. "I don't mind. If you had a bad night, I want to be here to… I don't know. To talk to. Or to make it better. Or—" I grab the hem of his jersey and yank it over my head. Exposed skin worked for him, why not me? "—to wait naked in your bed so we can have frustrated sex."

Finally, he looks at me.

Stripping naked feels like a cheap trick, but the desire pulsing in his eyes is better than nothing.

"Frustrated sex?" he grits out, his eyes dragging down every exposed inch of me.

"It's a little-known variation of angry sex." I step closer, our hips brushing. I press my palm to his chest. "Whatever you're feeling, you can take it out on me."

I reach for the growing bulge in his sweats, but Zane snatches my wrist. His grip is crushing. "This is a bad idea, Mira."

"I'm not scared of you. Whatever you're feeling right now—" I meet his eyes and slowly lift my other hand to his cheek. "—I can take it."

The moment stretches taut. Too many emotions to decipher flicker through Zane's eyes. I don't know what he's going to do until, all at once, he grabs my other hand and pins me to the wall.

Our fingers are tangled together over my head. Zane's arms cage us in, sealing us in a world of our own. He hovers just out of reach. "You're not scared?"

Funny he should ask: because I'm terrified.

Of losing him. Losing this .

I'm scared of waking up tomorrow without Zane and missing him for the rest of my sad, lonely life.

I shake my head. "You don't scare me."

He bands his hand around both of my wrists and uses his free hand to grip my hip. He snaps our bodies together, the hard length of him slipping between my bare thighs.

A moan tears out of me.

"Maybe you should be." He rocks against me. His eyes fall closed and his breath is a heavy exhale against my neck. "I told you to leave. I told you I'm not good company tonight."

I've seen Zane after a loss, but this is different. The frustration simmering under his skin has nothing to do with hockey. It's about me.

We've been circling each other for days and it needs to end.

We need to work it out.

My nipples pinch and I roll my hips to get closer to him. "Be bad company, then."

He opens his eyes and I watch his pupils expand. I watch the hunger grow with every brush of our bodies, but he's holding himself rigidly. I feel like a tourist in front of Buckingham Palace, trying to make one of the guards break.

"Fuck me," I beg, leaning as far from the wall as his hold will allow. I almost reach his lips, but he doesn't let me. "Use me, Zane. I can take it." I hook my leg around his thigh, jerking him closer. "I want to take it."

All at once, we collide.

His lips crush against mine, bruising and unrelenting. It's a scrape of teeth and tongues that leaves me breathless. He drags his tongue over my pebbled nipple and then takes it between his teeth. He tugs until I cry out.

"I thought you could take it," he growls, soothing the ache away with his tongue. "If you can't, say it now. I'm just getting started."

He talks against my skin like he can't force himself to pull away. Like he needs to taste and touch me as much as I need him to never stop.

"Don't stop," I breathe.

His jaw flexes. "Whatever you say, Mira."

He turns me around and plants my palms on the wall. I frown; I wanted to undress him slowly. To slide my hand in his sweats and work out some of the tension in his shoulders. I wanted to watch strong, sturdy Zane crumble in my hand.

But he has other ideas.

He kicks my ankles apart and, before I can even find my balance, he's pushing into me.

"Shit!" I hiss, back bending.

"You want to take it?" he grits out, sliding deeper. "Then take it. Take all of me."

I moan as my body stretches around him. His fingers dig into the soft flesh of my waist, pulling me against him until he's flush against my backside. Until we're sealed together.

"You weren't lying about that, were you?" he murmurs, almost to himself.

Before I can register what he means, he drags out of me and plunges back in.

I scrape my nails against the wall, searching for something to hold onto. But there isn't time. Zane retreats and fills me again, bending my back with the force. Before I can catch my breath, he's doing it again.

And again.

Some half-feral, desperate moan claws out of my throat as our bodies slap together. As he drives his frustration into me until my legs are shaking and Zane is the only thing holding me up.

Suddenly, he wraps my hair around his fist and pulls. My shoulder blades slap against his chest, and his hand slips from my hip to my center. He drives into me and stays there, rocking our bodies together until I'm seeing stars.

"Zane…" I gasp.

He holds me by the throat, squeezing just tightly enough that I can't get another word out. That all I can do is breathe while he fucks me deep.

"Am I supposed to feel better?" he snarls against the shell of my ear. "Is this what you think I want, Mira?"

His words swirl around the mess of my head, and I can't make sense of them. Not when devastating heat is building low in my body, building with every shift of Zane inside of me. He's holding me here at the edge, and I'm not sure if he's going to fall with me or throw me over the side and watch me shatter at the bottom.

"I want you, Zane." I might as well drop to my knees and beg; the words come out that desperate and broken. "I always want you."

His teeth latch onto my ear. "How much of me?"

" All of you."

A dark laugh rumbles through his chest. "Ironic."

Something is wrong, but I can't think. I can't stand. I can't do anything but dangle here where he's left me, entirely at his mercy.

"I already gave you all of me," he says. "But you never returned the favor."

My eyes snap open, the words finally penetrating, just as he grips my hips and slams into me. I cry out and want to tell him to stop, but I also don't want him to stop at all.

We need to talk, but Zane works his fingers over my clit and fills me from behind and completely overrides the alarm bells ringing in my brain.

Pleasure rises up in me so fast I'm helpless to stop it. I drop the back of my head to his shoulder and cry out. I clench around him, my orgasm shredding through me like it doesn't belong to me at all.

Zane groans in my ear, and I think he's going to fall with me. But before I'm even finished, he yanks himself out of me and drops me against the wall.

I catch myself on shaky arms, my knees buckling. Slowly, I turn to face him, letting my back slide down the wall until I'm in a heap on the floor.

Zane is tucking his erection back into his pants. His neck is red and his shoulders are tense.

"You didn't finish," I pant, pointing out the obvious. "We can try something else."

"Good idea. Let's try something else." He saunters closer. "What are you keeping from me, Mira?"

My brain is buzzing with post-sex hormones and I'm still naked. I'm as vulnerable as I've ever been and Zane's question slices to the heart of me.

Tears burn against the backs of my eyes. "N-nothing."

His top lip curls in distaste or anger. Maybe both.

Because we both know I'm lying—but after years of being on my own, of running, I don't know how to do anything else.

"I gave you all of me, Mira. Everything. But you're holding back."

I shake my head. "I'm not, Zane. It's not—You know me."

He barks out a laugh and shoves to his feet. "I don't know a fucking thing about you, Mira. Nothing. Where you were born, who your parents are. I don't even know your middle name!"

I open my mouth to tell him, but I can't.

I don't know it myself.

" You know me," I insist instead. He knows me better than anyone ever has.

"I know you don't like to answer questions about yourself," he rasps. "I know you like it when I hold myself deep inside of you while you come. But that's not enough anymore."

My face flames. He's wrong, but I can't force the words past my swollen tongue.

Zane knows about my dad. He knows why I don't like loud noises or screaming. He knows about my nightmares and how to rub my shoulders until I fall back asleep.

He knows a soft, vulnerable part of me exists, even if I've never let him see all of it. That's more than anyone else has ever gotten.

Because the details—all the bloody, nasty shit left over from my childhood—that isn't me ; it's just what happened to me.

Zane glares down at me for a few seconds. His jaw is tight, but his eyes are liquid sapphire. He's practically begging me to give him something, anything…

But I stay curled on the floor.

In disgust, he spins away and snatches a t-shirt from the closet hard enough that the hanger flings off of the bar. He doesn't stop to pick it up or to look back at me.

"I knew you had secrets when we met. I knew there were things you were keeping from me, but I thought you could trust me. I thought if I gave you time...." He tugs on his shirt with a sigh, heading for the door. "Time is almost up. I'm not going to wait much longer."