Page 55 of The Southern Thirst Trap

“Yes, I want to do this. I would fucking walk through fire for you, Lowe. I want to do everythingthismeans. Be a father to our son. Be the man you need. Share a forever with you. I want you to be mine so fucking badly, Lowe. Say the words, baby.”

I’ve waited five years to hear him say those words and mean them. I close my eyes and rest my forehead against his shoulder, breathing in the scent of storms and sandalwood of his cologne. He drops his hands to my lower back and holds me tightly as I process, as I think about how to place my trust in someone who can so effectively shatter it. I don't think there’s any way to know but to try, to believe, and hope for the best. I pull my head back and look up at him again, patiently waiting for me when I remember him to be one to take what he wanted immediately.

“I’m yours, Zander.” And with those three simple words, his face becomes absolutely radiant, like lightning has cracked open the sky.

“You’re not seeing that fucking football player anymore,” he growls, hands roaming possessively low and gripping my ass tightly. “I won’t be sharing you, so make arrangements right the fuck now, if you need to.”

I laugh softly. “I’m not with Knox anymore. He and I decided we were better friends than anything. Turns out, I’m not really his type.”

Zander’s face darkens with rage. “You’re incredible. What the fuck is wrong with him?” he asks, glowering. “Has he taken too many hits to the head or something? Did he not see your out-of-this-world ass? These fucking amazing tits? These thighs I want wrapped around me immediately? You’re a goddess; there’s no comparison to your beauty. I’m fucking rock hard just touching you.”

I laugh harder at his defense of me. “Relax. When I say I’m not his type, I mean you’re more his type. Knox is gay. He just came out to me, so you’re sworn to secrecy as the only other person who knows. He said I could tell you, if I needed to, after he saw how you acted at the gala. He was impressed with your defense of me, to say the least. You may have a six-foot-six admirer now.”

I walk my fingers up his chest and smile, thinking of the way Knox looked when we talked about it on the way home from the gala last weekend. He is seriously on Team Zander with Mom and Alicia.

I feel Zander’s muscles ease against me. “In that case, I’m fucking you tonight.”

His hands slide behind my thighs and pick me up like I'm not forty pounds heavier than the last time he did this, wrapping my legs around his hips and holding my ass as he carries me through the penthouse to his bedroom. He sets me down on a huge platform bed with a white duvet and just looks at me for a moment with those mercurial eyes of his.

“What?” I ask, feeling self-conscious. Maybe it’s my not-quite-toned arms, the bit of my belly with the stretch marks showing where my tank is riding up, or the squish of my thighs pressing together where I used to have a gap.

“You’re so beautiful. I’ve thought about your body so many times. I can’t wait to get you naked again.”

“Zander, my body has changed.” I wrap my arms around my middle, feeling self-conscious, despite years of therapy to get past my hang-ups and being a warrior for body positivity now. “I don’t look the same, and I don't want you to be disappointed.”

He kneels at my feet, staring up at me as he begins to unbuckle my four-inch heels one at a time, rubbing the instep of each foot, before lifting my leg and placing a kiss on my ankle. “There is not a single way your body could disappoint me. I know your body has changed and every change I’ve seen has made me that much crazier about you. Your fucking thirst traps on Instagram have been my undoing. Fuck, I've been going insane seeing those and not being able to get my hands on you.”

He stays on his knees in front of me as he runs his hands from my ankles to my knees and pushes them apart with a quick movement that leaves me breathless. He moves his hands to my inner thighs and slowly caresses up to the apex of my hips, where he grabs me roughly, and I whimper, feeling my need begin to outpace my self-consciousness. He rubs his thumbs softly along the seam of my pussy, still fully covered by my leggings and thong underneath, but pulsing with hot need for him already.

“I love this new softness to you. It’s made me insane to have had even a tiny touch of it here or there against me and not have my fill.”

He tucks his fingers into the waistband of my leggings and thong, pulling them down. I lean back on my hands and lift my hips for him as he peels the tight material down my legs with a slow reverence that leaves me speechless. He kisses his way back up my legs until he reaches the edge of my tank, his hands slowly raising the silky material along my skin in a sensual caress of its own as I raise my arms and he pulls it off, leaving me completely bare before him.

He stands and unbuttons his shirt, tossing it on the floor behind him, and I get to drink him in as he toes off his shoes, works on his belt and slacks, stripping down to his boxer briefs. The last five years have been good to him, filling him out, giving him the good kind of bulk that lends power instead of paunch, and he’s still exquisite in every way.

He stands staring at me for so long that I give him a look before he can make me feel self-conscious again. “Now what?”

“I’ve thought about having you back in my bed for so long, it doesn't feel real seeing you here now. I’m just taking a second to sear it into my memory as the moment my fantasies became real again.”

My eyes prick with the pretty words, but I know the truth. I shoot him an accusing look. “Liar. You didn’t think twice about me after that trip. You made sure of it. No repeats was your motto. No attachments. Be real with me so I can trust you.”

He kneels before me again and takes my hands, lacing our fingers. “On the outside, yes, but deep down, there was always a part of me that wanted this right here. I only do no attachments because it wouldn’t be fair to give anyone what’s left after what I devote to work. My first priority has always been Olympus. Going in early, staying late. Living and breathing deals is second nature. What does that leave for a relationship? Fuck, I’m scared of what that’s going to do to you. You deserve better, and I knew it then. I know it now, but I still want this more than anything. So I’m making changes, starting today, but it’s going to be an adjustment. Be patient with me as I fight my way through it to give you what you deserve.”

“Is that really the reason you didn’t want a relationship with me?” I ask, the information sinking in slowly. “Because of work? Not that I wasn't good enough? It wasn’t because you didn’t want me?” My voice sounds small and I hate the waver in it.

He gives me an incredulous look and brings a hand up to cup my cheek. “You thought you weren’t good enough and I didn’t want you? You have to be joking. I wanted you more than anything in the world. I fucking fell in love with you, Lowe. The same night you fell in love with me, in the bathtub, with these damn flowers all over us,” he says, turning and grabbing his discarded pants, pulling a plumeria blossom out of his pocket, and holding it out to me.

I take it with trembling fingers. “What… I didn’t know…” I fumble over my words, but he goes on, saving me from my inability to speak after that proclamation that just blew my mind.

“I couldn’t do that love justice. As much as I wanted that forever we promised each other, it wouldn’t work in the world I’d created back home, where Olympus came first and everything else a distant second.Youcouldn’t come second to anything. You deserved to be first. You deserved to be my queen, and if I couldn’t give you that, I didn’t fucking deserve you at all. So instead of giving you the scraps of what was leftover, I broke your heart and tore mine out completely, locked it up, and let it fester away, all while being the fuckboy who doesn’t do attachments until I saw you again last month and realized I’d fucked it all up. When I found out about Hendricks…” he pauses and shakes his head, looking down at his hands where he grips my thighs like he can’t find the words. He looks up, his eyes endless wells of brokenness. “Everything else in my world narrowed. I realized there’s something more important than Olympus, more important than work. I wanted to know this kid we made, more than anything. This kid that you raised all by yourself because I was a selfish bastard who gave you no other choice.”

He wipes tears from my cheeks with his thumbs and cups my face in his big hands, staring at me with a look so intense it makes me squirm under the attention.

“You have your psycho eyes on right now. They look like quicksilver and maybe you’re going to lock me in a closet and keep me as a pet,” I say to diffuse the intensity and the revelation that has burst like the clouds outside, rain now pelting the windows of the penthouse in earnest.

He laughs and drops his hands. “I deserve that. I’m being creepy. I do want to lock you up and keep you forever.”

He looks down and makes a noise that is all male, his big hands going to my waist, making me feel small under his touch. His thumbs trace the undersides of my breasts, brushing over my nipples, making me arch into the contact.

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