Fallen (15 page)

I’m not sure I’m ready, after everything that’s happened in the past few days, to feel that way. My strength has been the only thing keeping me going; I need to cling to that a little while longer.

“Mmmm. Well I can’t say I’m entirely happy about the situation, either.” I begin to pack away the medical supplies I’ve been using during the day, replacing them carefully back into my bag. It’s good to have something to do with my hands. Much better to keep busy than to collapse under the weight of everything that’s just happened.

“We’re gonna finish our conversation from the park now,” Zeth tells me.

“What?” My head snaps up. Of all the things to talk about, I really don’t feel like rehashing that. This really isn’t the time or the place. Plus our talk in the park, well, it was awkward to say the least. I doubt I’ll ever stop feeling like I betrayed myself when I told him what I did.

“You were honest with me, Sloane. Which means you were honest with yourself. I’ve been waiting for that.”

I feel like laughing. Honest with myself? He’s completely right. You’d think it impossible to deceive yourself, to hide something and pretend you don’t know it or see it or feel it, but I’ve been doing that for years. I’m good at hiding everything. I’ve been hiding from myself, from him, from my parents. From absolutely anyone who gets remotely too close. It’s been safer that way. My parents have been happy enough to pretend I was okay, even if they could probably see for themselves that I wasn’t, and I managed to somehow trick myself into believing that if I kept busy and didn’t give up searching for Lexi then I could hide myself away and simply survive. Zeth, on the other hand…Zeth
knows
. He’s known all along. He knows I’m not okay, that I haven’t been okay for the longest time. He sees straight through all of my shit, and he’s known how I feel about him for a while now, too. The most infuriating thing about this whole messed-up situation is that I can’t see
anything
about him as clearly as he sees me. I can count on my hands how many real things I know about his past, but the fact is that I’m too scared to ask. I’m scared because he
will
tell me the truth, and then I’ll know everything, and I won’t be able to run and hide anymore. I’ll have to face it all. Him. That darkness inside him that both terrifies and excites me at the same time.

“
Sloane.”

I stop winding the loose bandage around my hand.

“Are you going to ask me?”

My skin breaks out into goose flesh. Somehow I find enough courage to look up at him. He stares back at me, unblinking, dark eyes burning with intensity. “Am I going to ask you what?” I reply.

“What you’ve always wanted to ask me,” he says, a small smirk teasing at the corner of his mouth. His eyes are still serious, though. Focused and fixed on mine. “The question you’ve been thinking about since the day we met in that hotel room. You don’t care about how much blood I have on my hands.” I open my mouth—I sure as hell want to disagree with that—but he cuts me off. “You don’t care about prison, or Charlie, or Lacey. You don’t care about where I get my money, or how many women I fucked before you. You might tell yourself you do. It might even bother you a little bit, but none of that
burns
at you like this one question.” He sits forward, growling at the back of his throat as he moves. I don’t tell him to keep still anymore. I’m too mad at him for seeing inside me so easily. It makes me feel simple, like an open book that anyone can just come along and read any time they like.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I think I do, though, and that’s the worrying part.

He tips his head to one side, expression flat. A little angry. “
Sloane.
”

“
Zeth
. I’m sorry if—”

He lunges forward, grabbing hold of my face with both of his hands, pulling me to him. For an insane heartbeat I think it’s going to happen. Goddamn if I am not the stupidest woman on the face of this planet. I thought he was going to kiss me. It feels like my heart is burning in my chest when he doesn’t. He stops just an inch shy of my lips. “Ask me, Sloane.
Fucking ask me
.”

I’m about to tear my way free from his hold, but as soon as I touch his wrists I change my mind. I place my hands over his instead, holding them to my cheeks so that I no longer feel trapped, but rather safe. It’s the look in his eyes that’s done it. Flipped everything around on me and left me reeling. He looks…with that look in his eyes, it’s almost as if he’s begging me to do it. So I do.

“Okay, fine.
Why?
Why are you the way that you are?” A light goes on behind Zeth’s eyes. He blows out the breath he’s been holding, his eyelids fluttering. It’s like a tension inside of him has been cut or extinguished somehow. I know instantly that I’ve asked the right question. “Why do you have that black duffel bag? What happened to you? Who made you the way that you are?” I pause. Take a deep breath. “Who
hurt
you?”

The pressure of his hands increases as he tightens his hold on my face. He leans in even farther, so that our lips are a hair’s breadth apart. The close proximity is torturous; I’m trembling by the time he speaks. Even the movement of his lips faintly brushing mine as he talks is enough to make my heart slam against my ribcage.

“There we go, angry girl. The million-dollar question. Are you ready for the answer?”

I don’t know if I am or not, but the time has come. I nod my head just once, dizzy from the sensation of his breath skating over my mouth.

“Nobody hurt me, Sloane. No one made me who I am. I wasn’t molested or abused, or made to perform disturbing sexual acts. You have to know that there isn’t always a sinister shadow standing over the shoulder of someone like me. We’re a rare and dark breed. I carry that bag
because I like it
. I cut myself while I’m fucking sometimes
because I like it
. I play with a knife occasionally
because I like it.
I do all of the things that I do to you
because I like it
. And you know what, angry girl? The thing that disturbs you the most…”

My breath catches in my throat. I can hardly fucking breathe. Zeth’s tongue carefully flicks out, teasing my upper lip just once. I close my eyes as his words hit home, words that are whispered yet more powerful than a shout.

“…is that you like it, too. You’re just like me, Sloane. You’re just like me.”

Ever since I met Zeth Mayfair, my sleep patterns have been screwed. I’m slowly becoming used to the fact that I have enough problems to keep me awake at night these days, but right now not sleeping sucks. It’s three a.m.—I have to work in three hours, and I could really use the rest, but I’ve already been lying here for what feels like forever and I know there’s no way I’m going back to sleep.

Being in a different bed doesn’t help. I crashed out in Zeth’s spare room last night—he refused to let me or Lacey ‘babysit’ him any further—although I didn’t really pass out until after midnight. I was just too worried about everything floating around in my head. Pippa, and now Oliver, being mad at me. Lexi. Charlie. Julio. My poor mom and dad. Everything. Everything just spinning around and around, a blur of problems with seemingly no end to any of it.

Screw it. I figure I might as well just get up and start the day ridiculously early. Better that than lying here on the verge of a panic attack, anyway. A hot shower wakes me up a little and goes a ways to clearing my head some, but I’m still trying to untangle myself from the mess I’ve found myself in when I slip back into the room I’ve slept in…and see a dark silhouette sitting on the end of the bed. I suppress the scream of surprise that threatens to rip from my vocal chords, my body slumping back against the door. “Zeth! What the hell are you doing?”

He cuts an imposing outline even in the dark—bunched muscles, impressive traps. The lines of his body are barely visible, but they’re remarkable. He leans forward, leaning his elbows on his thighs. “Waiting for you,” he says, his voice rumbling in that beautiful tenor of his.

I’m still bundled in a towel from the shower, water beading over my shoulders. I’m shivering, desperate to dry off and get into some clothes, but I get the feeling Zeth has other ideas. “Are you serious? There’s no way you can be serious.”

“Deadly,” he informs me. My eyes grow accustomed to the dark, and I can make out the shape of him, see the faint glow of moonlight on his bare skin. He’s completely naked. I don’t see any bandages anywhere either, which I’m about to give him hell for, but he speaks in a tone of voice that dares me to even try. “Lose the towel, Sloane.”

Maybe a week ago I would have argued. Maybe less. But after our conversations yesterday, I’m done trying to resist him. At least for now. I drop the towel.

He inhales sharply through his nose. “Turn around,” he growls. I do as I’m told, holding my breath. Rustling sounds reach me; it sounds like he’s standing up. The doctor in me objects—he really is going to do more damage than good if he goes down this path—but I know it’s pointless arguing with him. And after the crash and him being stabbed and watching him wrestle to pull out of his fever, I need this. I need it badly.

“Put your hands against the wall, Sloane.” He’s standing right behind me. The feel of his warm breath against my chilled skin makes me come alive. I jump when a searing heat touches my shoulder and then trails up my neck—his tongue, licking the beads of water from my skin. “I need something from you, angry girl,” he whispers.

“Oh, yeah?” My breath hitches in my throat. The deep resonance of his voice as he whispers his command sends a tidal wave of anticipation through me, even though I get the feeling he’s about to ask something of me that I may be uncomfortable giving.

“I can’t do what I’d like to right now. I can’t tie you up and fuck you ’til you explode, so I have a little game in mind instead. You wanna play?”

There’s no screwing around now. No
will I, won’t I
in my head. Even before Zeth accused me of being the same as him, of liking this as much as he does, I’ve known it was true. I just wasn’t ready to accept it fully. But now…now fuck it. I have no idea how pliable he wants to make me, but I’m all in. There’s no other way to move forward. “Yes. Yes, I wanna play.”

He traces his finger up my spine, sending a shockwave of nerves through me. “Good. You’ll figure it out as we go along. Close your eyes, Sloane.”

Huh. So he’s not going to help me figure this one out. And he wants me to close my eyes? The room’s already dark, and he wants me to make it even darker. I guess that’s how it is with us, though. We met in the dark—something that Zeth arranged on purpose. It adds a certain electrifying element to the sex. And I know Zeth well enough to know that he didn’t switch the light off in that hotel room because he was embarrassed or he didn’t want me to see his face. He did it because it robs you of a defense mechanism.

As children, the majority of us are innately afraid of the dark. It’s an unknown entity, and can hide innumerable frights and scares. The bogeyman; the monsters under the bed; the ghosts hiding in the closet. It takes strength to overcome those fears as we grow older. Strength to analyze our dread and learn to accept it. To learn from it. To embrace it. In his own warped way, I think Zeth hides us away in the dark because he wants to make me fearless. It’s taking time, but I’m slowly becoming less and less gripped by panic whenever I find myself in this position.

“Now put your hands behind your back,” he tells me.

My nipples brush the cold wall in front of me as I lock my wrists together behind my back. I gasp silently, shocked by the chill. What is he doing? What is he
going
to do? I can sense him prowling around behind me. I get that sensation—a tingly, hyperaware expectation in the skin that comes when someone is mere inches away from making contact with you. My neck, my shoulder, my back. My buttocks. His hand is taunting me with its closeness. I know it; I can sense it. And I’m desperate for it. I realize I’m swaying a little, rocking ever so slightly on my heels as my body answers the pull it feels toward his.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up when I feel his lips gently brush my ear. “Stay still, Sloane. Otherwise I won’t be happy. You want to make me happy?”

A part of me kicks against this. The feminist in me who thinks a woman should never allow herself to be subjugated by a man. But then there’s the part of me that’s being breathed on by Zeth Mayfair, and it appears that part of me is getting final say. “Yes. Yes, I want to make you happy.”

Zeth makes a pleased rumbling sound at the base of his throat. There’s more movement from behind me and then something is being lifted over my head. Half a second of panic ensues where I wonder what the hell he’s doing, and I almost risk opening my eyes. I know he’s watching me, though. I keep them shut.

“Good girl. That’s my good girl,” he says, repeating it over and over again, like he’s soothing a wild animal. That’s how I feel right now—unsure and nervous. Alongside that is the thrill, though. The thrill of stepping into the unknown. Of handing the reins over to someone else and trusting them implicitly. I suck in a sharp breath as something insanely cold touches my neck—metal. It feels like metal. Zeth gathers my wet hair in one hand and lifts it out of the way as he finishes placing something hard and solid around my neck.