Page 95 of Deliverance

He leans in, and his mouth brushes mine carefully. Our lips are like old lovers meeting again after the longest break and there’s nothing gentle about this meeting. On the contrary, it’s wild and it’s desperate. And it’s setting off something in me—not panic. Desire. Red-hot, scorching desire. My stomach clenches in response when his tongue touches mine, stroking. A gasp forms deep in my throat and I have to pull back to gather my wits.

My heart is a mess and my chest aches from the onslaught of various emotions trying to fight their way out.

“You can take it or leave it,” Zander says. His hand that’s in my hair moves to my cheek and that’s when I notice how callused and blistered his palm is. “It’s up to you.”

“That’s not fair,” I protest, still dumbfounded after the effect of his kiss. “Ambushing me like this.”

A smirk appears in the corner of his mouth. “I didn’t plan it.”

“Liar.”

His thumb swipes over my bottom lip, then runs along the curve of my chin and down to my neck, exploring.

Heat pools between my thighs and I shiver from the sensation. Oh no, there’s no confusing this unhinged feeling with anything. “Zander—” I suck in a sharp breath and he drops his hand on the couch as if he just read my mind and knows exactly what’s going to leave my mouth next. “I don’t want to give you false hope that we can be something more than what we are right now.”

“And what are we right now?”

I shrug. We’re definitely not friends. Friends don’t make out the way we did in my studio. Friends don’t kiss friends the way we just kissed.

“Do you want us to be something more?” he asks, his fingers playing with the soft fabric of my dress.

“I’m not sure I can give you what you want,” I paraphrase my thought. “I didn’t like to be married—”Ugh, this is coming out all wrong.

“I haven’t asked you yet.” He laughs.

Blush hits my face, the tips of my ears turning sizzling hot. “I know… That’s not what I mean.”

He doesn’t react; he just stares, his arm still resting on the back of the couch and his other hand still grasping my skirt. We’re so close yet so far away and I don’t like that my heart is in disagreement with my body and my brain. Each wants different things.

“I like you too much to give up now.” Zander returns his gaze to my face, his expression pained. “Tell me what to do, Drew.”

“Give me time.”

“Done.” He smiles. “What else?”

“A ride home?”

16 Zander

A fucking husband.

She has a fucking husband whose guts I already hate more than I hate all the things I’ve ever hated in my entire life collectively.

It’s not the worst he’s done.

Every time I remember the agonizing look in her eyes when she said it, a chill hits my bones. There’s something about this woman that stirs the dark, animalistic part of me awake and it’s a terrifying feeling.

Because it took me years to perfect the art of control, and now one thought of someone hurting her makes all the rage pound and roar.

My need to find the fucker and teach him a lesson is so strong, I haven’t been able to sleep these past few days. The only thing that’s still holding me back from hiring a private investigator is the fact that my interference could mess up Drew’s divorce.

And I don’t want that.

I don’t want that, because it’s important to her.

Because she’s too good of a person to play dirty.

Because she’d never forgive me for taking matters into my own hands.

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