Page 70 of Offside Angel

Her lips are swollen as she says, “Of course I want your babies, Zane. I love you.”

I’m not sure how we got there, but we’re on the floor. I drag her dress down her shoulders and bunch the material around her waist so I can wrap my mouth around her nipple.

She groans, her back arching off the floor, and I press my hands to her spine. I haul her against me and hold her in my lap as I fuck her.

She looks in my eyes and her expression is tinged with heat. She’s as lost to the feeling as I am. When she shoves against my chest and forces me back, I let her. Her hands smooth over my chest and lower. She reaches for me like she keeps expecting me to disappear. I grip her waist and we grind together until I feel her clench around me. Until she goes limp against my chest, and I have to hold her steady and fill her from underneath.

“I love you,” she pants against my neck. “Holy shit, Zane… I love you.”

Mira presses her hand to my cheek as I cry out and spill into her. I come hard, kissing her fingers and her palm on every ragged exhale.

I slowly work my way down her arm and across her collarbone. When I reach her lips, they’re salty again.

I pull back to see she’s crying.

“Are you okay?” I brush her tears away. “What’s wrong?”

She shakes her head. “Nothing. It’s… it’s nothing.”

“Mira—”

“No matter what happens,” she says, laying her head on my chest, “I’m just glad I’m here with you. In this reality.”

26

MIRA

“God, I love a boozy brunch!” Taylor declares, raising her wine for the third toast in the last half hour.

I tap my glass to hers. “It’s four in the afternoon.”

“Yeah, well, some of us don’t have to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to get kids off to school. I slept in today. For me, this is brunch.”

To be fair, this is brunch for me, too. I dropped Aiden off at preschool, went to the gym for a kickboxing class, and then had to distract Evan with some fake threat in the parking lot so I could ask the front desk about security footage in the locker rooms.

The woman looked at me like I was soliciting her for pictures of her feet. “It’s illegal to have cameras in the locker rooms for… obvious reasons.”

I tried to convey to her that I wasn’t trying to get naked footage of my fellow gym-goers and was, instead, trying to see who vandalized my locker, but first impressions are hard to undo. She thought I was a creep and had no intention of being part of whatever weird fetish she thought I had.

“Me, too!” Jemma chimes in. “I mean, I still had to wake up at the ass crack of dawn to get a kid to school, but I went to bed at eight last night. I slept for, like, nine hours. Going to bed early is as close to sleeping in as I get these days.”

Rachelle shakes her head. “I have no idea how you can sleep when Reeves isn’t home. When Jace is gone for games, I sleep like shit. I tossed and turned for a couple hours last night before I got up and deep-cleaned the fridge.” She shivers. “Some of the leftovers in there were older than Gallagher.”

I didn’t sleep well, either.

I haven’t in days.

Evan stayed in the spare room last night at Zane’s request, and I didn’t even attempt to argue. Having someone close by helped me get at least a couple hours of sleep in the big, empty bed. Then I woke up early this morning and found a black jewelry box sitting just outside my door.

Panic sliced through me for half a second before I saw Evan’s large note on the floor next to it. Zane asked me to leave this for you.

My hand shifts to the necklace sitting just above my collarbone the way it has repeatedly all day. I run my thumb over the little charms and smile.

“What’s that?” Taylor swats my hand out of the way and lets out a tipsy scream. “Oh my God!”

The patrons of Café Bisou glare at our table over their patisseries, and I slap a hand over Taylor’s mouth. “Can we not make a scene?”

She mumbles something about Zane and jewelry before she rips my hand away and keeps going at full volume. “—never thought I’d see the day that my bestie would be in a real relationship.” She waves Jemma and Rachelle closer. “Look at this! Hockey sticks with their initials.”

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