Zelda

 

I wasn’t going to admit it to anyone—not to myself, not to Nester, and sure as hell not to Santos—but I was in a tizzy after seeing Nester. It wasn’t like I didn’t know he’d gotten out. I’d been counting down the days, even though I knew how stupid that was. It wasn’t like there would be some wonderful reunion after he got out, but I couldn’t help myself.

 

But seeing him like I did…that was hard. Harder than anything I’d ever had to do up to this point, and I’d had to do some pretty hard things over the last few years.

 

The fact that I was so on edge was what made me decide that it was a cleaning day today. I had started with the kitchen and was about halfway through the living room now. The upstairs would be next. Since getting with Santos, I’d given up a lot of things that, at the time, had been both very important and not important at all in the grand scheme of things.

 

A job? Who actually wanted to get saddled with work that they absolutely hated?

 

So when he told me that I should quit, that he would take care of the expenses, well, I didn’t argue. I told myself it was because I hated that damn waitressing job and the secretary job before it, but I knew what the real reason was. I just couldn’t tell anyone else what that was.

 

As I finished vacuuming and put it up in the closet, there was a knock on my door. I glanced at my watch. Only a little after noon, so probably not Santos. He had “business” in the day, he usually told me, though sometimes I knew the real business took place late at night.

 

Thinking it was maybe the post or something, I headed to the door, wishing I’d cleaned up a little bit. I was wearing those ratty cutoff shorts that Santos hated so much and a tank top, the kind that actually buttoned down though it was more practical to jerk the shirt over my head than undo them all. My hair was tied up in a messy, wild ponytail. Not exactly the most presentable look in the world, but I was cleaning—what was the point of dressing up?

 

Swiping at stray strand of hair, I yanked open the door and felt my heart skip a beat. Twice in as many days, I found Nester Perry standing on my doorstep.

 

I almost slammed it in his face then and there, not wanting to deal with another argument or another round of the blame game. I was done with that, thank you very much. I had my reasons for doing what I did and I couldn’t share them with Nester, so really, what was the point of sitting there and arguing?

 

But before I could yank the door closed, he pulled out a drink holder with two coffees from that place I loved down on Cedar and a baggie filled with what I had a sneaking suspicion was two huge muffins topped with cinnamon sugar crumbles and toasted marshmallow coating stuffed with gooey chocolate chips.

 

My absolute favorite.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said, his face radiating a sweet earnestness that I didn’t think I would ever see again. His jaw was still sharp, the lines beneath his eyes were still deep and long. There was still an edge in his gaze, but I found a little of the old sweetness lingering there, too.

 

Something I’d missed sorely.

 

Still. I’d seen his flashing anger last night and I couldn’t for one minute believe that he had just let bygones be bygones after less than a day. There was no chance. Especially now that Santos was thrown in the mix. They’d been enemies for as long as I could remember, fighting with each other like only people who knew each other really well could.

 

No one had ever volunteered any information as to why, and in all fairness, I couldn’t care less. I didn’t want any part of their little feud and that was just fine with me.

 

Eyeing the coffee, I folded my arms beneath my chest, trying to hide just how much I wanted to believe that he really had forgiven me. That he was apologizing for real, but how could I? How could I when I knew the kind of hurt he was feeling?

 

I just couldn’t figure out why else he’d be standing in my doorway with muffins and coffee.

 

“Are you going to at least say something, or am I just going to stand out here all day while our coffee gets cold?” he asked, putting just a little bit of a lilting tease into his voice.

 

My frown deepened, but even as it did and I tried to hold strong, I felt myself softening. “What if I just told you to go away?” I forced myself to ask, though I knew that regardless of his answer I would never ask that of him. I couldn’t. I’d already done more than I ever thought I’d manage and it was just too much to expect more.

 

I saw his eyes flicker, but the emotion fled as quickly as it came, too fast for me to pick it out. But his smile stayed in place and he gave an easy shrug of his shoulders. Nonchalant, like this was nothing to him, all of it.

 

Now I definitely knew something was going on. Still, I waited for an answer.

 

“I guess I would tell you that you don’t really want me to go away.” He winked at me, like this was a joke or a shared secret or something else equally as ridiculous.

 

We weren’t children anymore, and I was marrying another man very soon.

 

Shaking my head, because I was starting to think of stupid, dangerous thoughts, I said, “No. I’m sorry, Nester, but you can’t come in.”

 

Instead of backing off or saying that was fine or doing anything else that might have made it easy on me, Nester did a Nester thing. He stepped closer, just a little, so that the tips of his steel-toed riding boots were just past the entryway, perfectly placed to keep the door at the very least cracked. I wouldn’t be slamming it in his face anyway. And then he leaned forward, just slightly, in that way that he used to do when we were kids and he wanted to charm me.

 

I was ashamed to think that it still worked, but it did. I found myself wanting to lean towards him to meet him halfway, to suck my lower lip between my teeth and worry it, because I knew if I didn’t, I’d say something stupid. Say something wonderful. Or that I’d just try to kiss him then and there.

 

My body flushed, though he wasn’t doing anything but looking at me, but it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter in the slightest, because I knew that look, had always known it from the first time we met in the rock quarry that night and he saved my life. He didn’t know it, probably never would, but I’d been in a bad place then and he’d pulled me back from it.

 

“Let me tell you I’m sorry, Zel,” he said, dropping the ‘e’ in my name so that he could whisper it like prayer. “Let me tell you that I’m an asshole. That you’re right. Just give me a chance.”

 

And before I could think better of it, before I could let myself remember all of the obvious reasons that this was such a bad idea, I found myself stepping back. I let the door open wider and let him cross the threshold into my home. The home that once upon a time I had dreams of sharing with him.

 

In only a few months, it wouldn’t even be mine.

 

He went to the kitchen and I trailed behind him, keeping some space between us because if nothing else, this visit had taught me that he still had the same irresistible pull that he always did on me. It wasn’t a good thing.

 

Nester set the coffee tray down and the muffins next to it, then grabbed one of the cups. Turning, he offered me a crooked smile, handing me the cup. “Coffee with two scoops of sugar and about a quarter cup of cream.”

 

I did my best to hold back a smile, but I could feel it on my face regardless of my wishes. I took a sip of the beverage in a pathetic attempt at hiding it from him, but I could tell by the way his own grin widened that I failed in my efforts.

 

Taking a deep breath, I finally said, “What are you doing here, Nester?”

 

He picked up his own cup—black coffee, as strong as they could make it—and drank it carefully, thinking over his next words. He looked casual doing it, leaning against the counter with one arm and drinking his coffee with his free hand, not quite looking at me, but instead staring up at the corner of the ceiling as though just casually examining a spot there.

 

But I knew there wasn’t anything casual about his stance. Casual was relaxed for Nester, and relaxed was a rare thing. He used to be with me, but that was a long time ago, and I didn’t think it would ever be that way again.

 

“Cleaning day?” he asked me instead of answering my own question.

 

I sighed, but nodded. “Yeah. I…just needed to work some stuff out.”

 

“You always did clean when you were stuck on something.”

 

‘Stuck on something’ was a polite way of saying a nervous wreck. Test anxiety? Clean the bathroom. Fight with your boyfriend? Clean the living room. Worried about paying rent? Reorganize your closet. Cleaning was my way of dealing with things and Nester had been with me long enough to know that. I wished he hadn’t noticed how spotless the kitchen was, but there was no point in denying it. I just hoped he wouldn’t bring up what was bothering me, because I didn’t think it would lead anywhere good.

 

“You wanna talk about it?” he asked carefully, but not pressuring. It was almost as though he were the old Nester, giving me the option to talk to him if I needed to, but also letting the whole thing slide if I just wasn’t ready to.

 

It was one of the things I had always loved about him.

 

Swallowing, I shook my head. “No, not…no. It’s a bad idea, anyway.”

 

There was a long pause and I felt my shoulders ease slightly in it. These kinds of moments had always been the ones I loved. Just me and Nester hanging out. We didn’t have to talk about anything, because we just knew what was going on with the other. If something was crazy, it’d come to a head and we’d deal with it, but it wasn’t like climbing a mountain the way it was between some people. Nester understood when I needed space, when I was hesitant to talk, and the silence always told me that was okay. I was fine to be who I was, even if that person was a little messed up sometimes.

 

“Is it about Santos?”

 

I froze. All of the easiness, the relaxation that had washed through me was suddenly gone, disintegrated until I was left with hackles raised and the growing pit of dread in my stomach. I suddenly realized that this wasn’t just like old times and this wasn’t even the old Nester. We were two different people, living two different lives and the goals in those lives had shifted.

 

With anger and true, deep sadness I realized that Nester was here about him. Santos.

 

I forced myself to unfreeze, thinking, I’m going to have to clean the kitchen again. Start all over. Maybe I’ll do the windows, too. Or the lawn. Both even. Putting my cup forcibly on the counter, causing just a little bit of coffee the color of chocolate milk to spill out over the lip, I didn’t look at Nester as I told him, “You should probably go. I’ve got stuff to do.”

 

Stuff being reorganizing my entire bookshelf alphabetically by author’s last name.

 

Nester stiffened beside me, then forced himself to relax, as though his body were turning to liquid. He leaned towards me, but I moved away. I wouldn’t play whatever game he was trying to start.

 

“C’mon, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up any…complications you might be having in your new relationship.”

 

He was probably trying to sound careless, even teasing, but I heard the hard edge in his voice as he said “new.” He wasn’t here to fucking apologize. I felt the anger rise inside me and I rounded on him. “I said go! I don’t want you here.” That was a lie, but only partway. I didn’t want him here, not this Nester. The one who still had bitterness in his eyes.

 

I wanted the old Nester. My Nester. I just didn’t think he existed anymore.

 

“Hey, don’t get all pissed off at me just because you’re going to marry an asshole,” Nester spat, suddenly forgetting that he was trying to be cool, trying to patch things up with me…or whatever he was trying to do.

 

I took an angry step closer. “Don’t get high and mighty on me!” I threw back at him, putting as much force into my words, because some part of me was cringing inside at the truth behind his. “Santos isn’t the one who just got out of prison!”

 

That was a step too far. I knew it as soon as the words were out of my mouth.

 

Nester’s eyes flashed and then he moved like lightning. So fast I couldn’t have even thought about reacting before I was pinned against the wall in the kitchen, Nester’s body so close to mine that I could feel the heat radiating from him. His nose was so close that it nearly brushed mine as he looked down at me, towering above my much smaller frame. His eyes were flashing with anger and intensity and maybe he was trying to intimidate me, scare me, but my body knew him too well. Instead of fear, I felt a shock of red hot desire surge through me suddenly and without warning.

 

I let out a shaky breath, trying not to let him see.

 

But he must have. It had to be impossible not to see. It was like a solar flare erupting from my body and colliding into his. As I looked into his eyes, I even thought I could see when it hit, when things shifted. He was still angry. He was still so, so angry, but there was something else there, too.

 

Desire.

 

He leaned closer.

 

How many times had we ended up in this situation together like this? How many times had I let Nester pin me against the wall, pushing his own body into me so that we were as close as two people could get? How many times had I let him whisper sweet, dirty things into my ears even as his hands choose to explore my form?

 

Too many.

 

His hands were covered in grease and dirt, but I didn’t care, couldn’t care. It was the middle of fucking summer and we were barely wearing anything at all and his damn shirt was off. How was I supposed to care about a little something like car grease?

 

My lower back was sticking to the wall behind me, my shirt rucked up thanks to my arms being held above my head—by only one of his large hands—and the fact that Nester had begun to let his right hand feather across my stomach.

 

He was smearing grease and dirt onto my already sweaty body, but I didn’t care. His touch sent shivers down my spine, lighting me up until I felt like I might melt right then and there.

 

My eyes were heavily lidded, my breathing coming in quick, hot gasps as I struggled to stay conscious. I was about ready to pass out from the fire that was surging through my body. Through my thick lashes, I glanced down at his rock hard chest. There were scars bit into his flesh, but they only made me want him more.

 

Battle scars, he’d called them once, and it had stuck with me. This was a warrior before me—and a lover, too.

 

His hand moved up higher. I felt him at my ribs, his thick, rough fingers seemingly counting each and every one of the bones there. Every time he slipped over one rib and onto the next, I shuddered, a new wave of heat sweeping me.

 

He leaned in even closer. I felt my breasts graze his chest and instantly I wished they weren’t covered. His mouth was a hairsbreadth away from me and I was desperate for him to close that tiny, tiny distance. The heat of his breath washed across me, a hint of whatever mint gum he’d been chewing earlier still lingering there.

 

“Do you fucking want me, Zel?” he asked me in a whisper that I could all but taste on my tongue. A whisper that made my lips tingle with anticipation and want.

 

A whimper escaped me first as his hand went higher, grazing the underside of my breast. At the very least I hadn’t worn a bra and I had never in my life been so grateful for that decision.

 

“Well?” he asked, his hand shifting so that his thumb supported the bottom of my breast while the rest of his fingers traveled up the side of it, not quite squeezing me, but hinting that that was what they intended to do. What they wanted to do.

 

In a voice that was tiny and a little squeaky and laced with all kinds of need that I couldn’t even explain, I said, “Yes, Nester. I want you.”

 

His lips crashed against mine.

 

We were back in my kitchen, not in his garage where he’d taken me against the wall that summer until I begged and pleaded and screamed his name like a prayer and a curse all at once. But it didn’t matter. That same heat was consuming me all over again and that kiss was the same as every one I’d ever had before it.

 

My lips parted and he swallowed the moan that escaped my lips as his body closed the scant space between us. His chest pressed hard against mine, my breasts trapped against him. His tongue dove into my mouth, searching, plundering. And I let him. God, I let him and wanted more still.

 

His leg wiggled between mine and when he’d gotten them wide enough that he could fit his leg between them, he kicked at my ankles just a little. Not hard enough to hurt, but with enough force that my legs jumped apart wider, wide enough for his body to settle between them.

 

I was lost in that kiss, lost in the feel of him. His hands groped at my tits, feeling them where they spilled out the sides so that he didn’t have to pull away from me to squeeze them. My hands grabbed at his hair, tugged at it hard to deepen the kiss. I felt his hips grind against me, rubbing me in that spot that drove me to liquid fire.

 

I felt him. Long and hard and begging to get out. Begging to find my entrance and impale me. I knew how big he was, how long and thick. I knew how much he’d have to stretch me after being so long without.

 

My eyes snapped open and I realized what I was doing. How wrong this was.

 

My hands left his hair and went to his shoulders instead. I gripped them, then I put as much force as I could behind them. I pushed. It was barely enough to move him, his body too huge, too muscled, for me to do more, but it was enough.

 

Enough to break the kiss, enough to slice a knife through the heat that had been consuming us.

 

Still feeling shaky, but a little stronger now, I shoved at him again. This time he backed away further, his eyes wide with surprise—and maybe hurt?—as he did so. Wanting to lick my lips, but afraid to do so because tasting him seemed like a really good and a really bad idea right now, I shook my head.

 

My chest was heaving from our heavy passion, but I couldn’t let it overwhelm me. I had to settle back down. I had to get a grip.

 

Finding my voice, I forced the words out of my mouth even though a huge part of me didn’t want to say them. “Get out. Get out now.”

 

I didn’t look at him, because I was worried whatever I found there would start things all over again, and this time I wouldn’t have the will to pull away. But I heard him as he moved. I heard the heavy footsteps as he moved towards the door, stomping angrily away. I heard the door slam shut, flinching at the sudden loud sound. I heard his bike start and then drive away, knowing that there was a good chance he would never come back again.

 

This was going too far.

 

When I knew he was gone completely, I let myself slide down the wall. “I can’t believe I just let that happened,” I murmured to the empty kitchen.

 

What the hell had I been thinking? What kind of a woman was I? I eyed the heavy rock on my ring finger, feeling disgust swirling deep in my gut. Here I was ready to let Nester strip me and fuck me until I begged him to do it a thousand more times while I wore the engagement ring given to me by another man. And not just any man, either.

 

Santos DeArma.

 

Letting my face drop into my hands, I fought back tears. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. When I met Nester in that rock quarry all those years ago, it was a strange twist of fate. I’d been contemplating some pretty dark things at the time, struggling with my own inner demons. Nester had been proving to a bunch of idiot friends no one even remembered anymore that he was as tough as nails and not afraid of anything.

 

Both of which were true.

 

When we’d collided, it was like the world had shifted just to bring us together. I didn’t know it in that moment, and I would spend the next couple of years skirting around what had already started to build in my heart, but when I finally admitted it to myself, there was no going back. I’d fallen heavily in love with Nester.

 

He’d consumed my whole being until I didn’t want to know what life was like without him. He’d encouraged me when I was struggling in nursing school. He’d chided me when I thought for sure I couldn’t do anything right. He taught me when I didn’t know. For a man who could be so hotheaded and angry, it was incredible how patient he was with me.

 

And how impatient he always was for me. Not that he’d pressured me. Instead, he always told me it was my choice, but that I should never question how much he wanted me.

 

Sometimes he even liked putting my hand on his bulging pants just to remind me.

 

And the sex was undeniably good. The sex was mind blowing in ways I didn’t know sex could be, but that wasn’t what pushed me over the edge and into love. No, it was the way he supported me and cared about me and made a point of doing better even though he might have screwed up before.

 

That was the Nester I’d fallen head over heels for.

 

“Not that it matters anymore,” I said angrily to myself.

 

I’d broken it off with Nester five years ago—and I’d hated doing it then, too. Although I knew that Nester had been hurt, maybe even heartbroken when I did it, there had been other things going on that I just couldn’t tell him about. He was in big trouble. The kind of trouble that would put him away for a lot longer than a measly five years. He was busted for drugs and not just a little bit of them. They were looking for closer to fifteen years if they could swing it, and I just couldn’t let that happen.

 

So when Santos approached me and said he had an offer, there was nothing I could do but listen.

 

“I can’t get rid of the charge,” Santos told me, sounding contrite, though I couldn’t imagine that was honest. “But I can get the sentence reduced. No reason he has to spend the next fifteen years in prison, right?”

 

I’d been eager, probably too eager, for anything that could help Nester. “You can do that?”

 

Santos smiled at me and in that moment, yes, he looked like a snake. Maybe the devil himself, who can tell? But I didn’t care, because I knew that whatever offer he made me, whatever deal he put on the table, I would take. No matter how much it ate me up inside.

 

“I’ve always admired how beautiful you are, Zelda. Absolutely stunning.” He lifted a curl from my chest, just barely brushing a breast. I had to force myself not to jerk away. “And I think that it’s not unreasonable for a man like me to ask for a shot with a woman like you.”

 

From there, the deal was obvious. He wanted me and in exchange for giving Nester his freedom a whole ten years earlier. I couldn’t turn that down, no matter how much my skin crawled at the idea of being with Santos DeArma.

 

But I did it anyway. And when he asked me to marry him, I agreed to that, too.

 

The only thing I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do, not yet, was sleep with him. There was something too wrong about the idea of letting him slide between my legs like he belonged there. There was only one man who belonged there, and that was Nester.

 

Of course, telling Santos that was a bad idea, so I’d fibbed a little and told him that I wanted to wait. Plenty of women waited until marriage—which was likely why Santos was so intent on marrying me in the first place, I thought—and it had been relatively easy to convince Santos of that.

 

But it wasn’t the truth. The truth was, Nester Perry was the only man I would ever love, and I couldn’t bring myself to betray the memory of us together like that.

 

Too bad that soon I wouldn’t have a choice either way.