Page 23 of Escape From Me

I nearly choked on the pancake. I looked between him and Cali and back at him. I finally swallowed and lowered my voice to a whisper.

“When you said you were very clean, exactly when was the last time you, uh, dated anyone?”

He cocked his brow at me and shoved another bite of bacon in my mouth before he bit into the piece himself. The bacon was so damn good that I wasn’t sure if I would rather be in bed with this guy or doing exactly what we were doing.

This time it was his voice that was so low only I could hear.

“You moan like that one more time, and breakfast is over regardless of how sore you are.”

I wasn’t sure if that was supposed to scare me, but I leaned forward and bit a chunk off the bacon in his hand and moaned just because the banter and playfulness in this room was addictive.

I missed Zeid’s hand move, but when he slid it between my thighs and put pressure against my pussy, I nearly choked on the bacon.

“Don’t play with me, dove. I am as serious as they come.”

This time the whole room heard him because Cas chimed in for the first time all morning.

“He isn’t lying. So, Zeid, what does she know?”

The room went back to mausoleum quiet, something I was too practiced at. It also triggered something inside me. Fear.

Zeiden’s hand slid under the sweatshirt and rested over my chest, but not in a way that was sexual.

“Hey, dove. Calm yourself. What’s going on?” Zeid wasn’t looking away as he held me tightly.

I shook my head as I tried to slow my breathing and focus on something else. He felt so safe.

“I don’t know. I… It just got so quiet. It reminded me of home.”

The heat of his hand had some kind of magic as it melted into me like some kind of salve to my racing heart.

“Well, we aren’t your home. We are our own home, and no one here will harm you.”

He looked up and started to talk to the others while I tried to control whatever the hell was wrong with me. This was his home. Not mine. But there was the problem. I was going to have to go home. Wasn’t I? At some point this strange little dream would all end. He’d get bored of me. Maybe my dad would pay some kind of return fee.

“She doesn’t know much. Daddy is Senator Ashford though, and before you ask, no I wasn’t aware of that beforehand. I have it on good authority that the highest bidder for her fiancé is the new judge. Hart.”

There was a buzzing in my ears that I couldn’t shake.

Fiancé. I was going to be in so much trouble.

ELEVEN

zeiden

“Hey,stay right here? Okay? Rylee and Cali will sit with you, and when I get back I’m taking you somewhere to deal with that little panic attack.”

Her breathing had calmed, but I could still feel the energy rolling off her. Rylee was the first one to take a seat on the other side of the table with her own food. I could wait for Daisy to respond if she ever did. I lifted her up and replaced her in my seat carefully. I wanted to beat myself up for being so careless with her the second time. And why had she let me? Shit, why had she let me fuck her in the shower a third time?

I let my hand linger a little longer on her chin hoping that she’d at least blink and tell me she was okay, but I wasn’t sure what had set her off in the first place.

Finally she spoke.

“Yeah. No. Sure. What are you doing again?”

I nodded back to Cas and X who were already heading to the small gym we’d put in instead of an office. We didn’t exactly have a ton of space here.

“My boys want to talk.”