Chapter 23 Chapter 23
Zane’s voice was not exactly aggressive, but the sound of it made me freeze.
He stood in the doorway, his expression completely blank. It seemed like he had washed up after training as his hair was damp.
But his eyes were sharp.
I tried to close the booklet, but my hands fumbled. It slipped from my grip and fell open on the floor between us.
“I…” My voice cracked. “I was just—”
“Just what?” He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The sound of the lock clicking felt like a signal for me to bolt out of the room. “Looking through my things?”
“I needed to understand.” The words tumbled out of my throat before I could control it. “You touch them. You’ve touched all of them. That woman at the atelier, she talked about you like you were hers. Like she knew you in ways I never will.”
My voice broke. “But you won’t even look at me. You tried to, the other day. But you chickened out.”
He went very still.
Then he moved.
He crossed the room in few steps and stopped right in front of me.
Anxiously, my back hit the shelf behind me. There was nowhere to go.
One of his hands came up, bracing against the wood beside my head. The other gripped my waist, firm and possessive.
His body pressed into mine, close enough that I felt every inch of him. The heat radiating off his chest. The hard planes of muscle against my softer curves. He was close enough that his breath ghosted across my mouth.
“Do you want me to touch you?”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had closed up completely.
He shifted slightly, his thigh sliding between mine. The pressure made me gasp, a small, involuntary sound that I immediately regretted.
His eyes darkened.
“Answer me,” he said quietly.
“Yes.” The word barely made it past my lips.
His hand on my waist slid lower. Slowly. Deliberately. His palm traced the curve of my hip, then down to my thigh. His fingers found the hem of my dress and paused there.
“Do you want me to show you everything in that book?” His mouth was at my ear now, his voice dropping to something rough and intimate.
A shiver ran through me. Fear and want tangled together so tightly I couldn’t separate them.
His hand moved higher under my dress. Just… exploring. Then, his fingertips grazed the sensitive skin of my inner thigh, and my breath hitched.
Heat pooled between my legs. Wetness gathering in response to a touch that was barely there.
“You’re trembling,” he murmured against my neck. His thumb traced slow circles on my inner thigh, moving higher with each pass. Close enough to where I ached for him but not quite touching.
My hips shifted forward involuntarily, seeking more contact.
He made a sound low in his throat, a vibration between a growl and a laugh. His other hand left the shelf and came to my throat, resting there. His thumb pressed gently against my pulse point.
“Your heart is racing,” he said.
I couldn’t respond. I could barely breathe.
His hand on my thigh moved higher still. His fingers brushed against the edge of my underwear—just a graze, feather-light—and I bit back a whimper.
“You’re already wet for me, aren’t you?” His voice was rough now. Strained.
I nodded. Unable to deny it.
His fingers pressed more firmly against the damp fabric between my legs. Applying pressure exactly where I needed it.
My knees buckled slightly. His hand at my throat tightened just enough to hold me steady.
“You want this,” he repeated against my ear. “You love the feeling of it.”
“Yes.” The word came out broken.
His fingers moved then, a slow stroke over the fabric that made my vision blur at the edges. Once. Twice.
My hips rolled forward, chasing the friction.
Suddenly, he stopped.
His hand withdrew from between my thighs. The loss made me whimper.
“You’re not ready for this.”
My eyes snapped open. “What?”
He pulled back slightly, his jaw tight. His breathing had become uneven.
But his eyes were clear.
“You’re not ready,” he said again.
“I just—”
“And I won’t take you because you’re curious to know how I would feel.” His hand was still at my throat, his thumb stroking once over my pulse. “Or because you’re angry. Or because you want answers.”
His other hand came back to my hip—gentle now, almost tender—and his thumb traced a slow circle against my hip bone through the fabric.
“When I touch you,” he murmured, his mouth hovering near mine, “when I finally take you the way you’re begging me to right now… it won’t be because you stumbled into my room looking for explanations.”
His eyes held mine for a long time before he continued.
“It will be because you came to me on your right judgement. Because you’re ready for everything I want to do to you.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
He pulled back completely then, putting distance between us. His jaw was tight. His hands flexed at his sides like he was fighting not to reach for me again.
“Get out of my room.”
The words were sharp.
I stood there for a moment, trembling and flushed and soaking wet and completely overwhelmed.
Then I grabbed the edge of the shelf to steady myself and stumbled toward the door on shaking legs.
I didn’t look back.
But I felt his gaze on me the entire way out.
The door closed behind me with a soft click.
And I stood in the hallway, breathless and aching, my thighs pressed together trying to ease the throbbing he’d started and refused to finish, again.