Zane
“You ready to see what Levi has to say?” I asked, still holding Emme in my arms on the floor of my bedroom.
“Not exactly, but I know we have to at some point so…” she trailed off.
“Whatever it is, Emme, we’ll deal with it together,” I reassured her.
Her arms that were wrapped around me squeezed me a little tighter before she pulled back and said, “I guess we should face the music now then.”
“Yeah, I think so, too. But first, give me a kiss.”
She smiled at me before she leaned back into me to press a kiss to my lips. I savored the taste of her for several minutes. Reluctantly, I pulled my mouth from hers and moved to stand. “Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go down.”
We made our way downstairs and back out into the kitchen where we found Levi and Cruz. I could tell they were happy to see that things were ok with Emme and me, but they had some shit that wasn’t good to tell us.
“I’m sorry about earlier, Levi,” I heard Emme say from beside me.
“You didn’t do anything wrong, babe. There’s no reason for you to apologize.”
She nodded her head and leaned into me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and pulled her in a little tighter.
“Alright, Levi, we’re ready to hear it,” I said to him.
Cruz chimed in, “I just found out about it, Zane. I think we should go sit down somewhere.”
Fuck. This wasn’t going to be good.
We walked into the great room and sat on the sectional. Emme and I were on one side of it; Levi and Cruz were on the other.
Levi looked to me before looking to Emme with a pained expression on his face. “Emme, babe, there’s no easy way to tell you this. We found the place Miller has been staying at for the last several months, since July to be exact.”
“Wait, that was only a month after Charley and I moved here. He’s been here all this time?” Emme said, panic already filling her voice.
“I’m afraid so,” Levi answered her. “He’s no longer there. In fact, it looks like he left in a hurry. The place was ransacked and was an utter disaster. We found a few things that we’ve already taken back to the offices to look into further, but they’ll take some time. Most interesting to note was the smashed laptop and the several large external hard drives. All of the files on the hard drives are password protected, but I immediately put Trent to work on getting into those files. Earlier today I had Lorenzo and Dom go over to your condo to get the security system put in for you and Charley. Everything was going fine until they got to your room, Em. They found several small cameras set up and hidden in your bedroom and bathroom. They searched Charley’s room, but her room was clean.”
I felt Emme begin to tremble beside me. I pulled her closer to my body.
Levi took in a deep breath and continued, “I’m sorry, Emme, but Trent called me when I was on my way here to let me know he unlocked the files on the hard drives. We recovered a total of five hard drives. They are large so they’ll store a lot of files. There are hundreds of files on each of the drives. Every single one that he has seen so far is from inside your bedroom or bathroom. It looks as though at some point your ex got into your place, set up the cameras, pushed them to a live feed that he had access to, and recorded all the data. He’s been watching you for months, Em.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered as her body really began to shake violently.
“Fucking motherfucker,” I seethed.
I grabbed the blanket from behind us on the couch and wrapped it around her. I didn’t think she was cold, but I’m sure she already felt too exposed. If this girl hadn’t already been violated enough and now she had this to come to terms with. I was going to fucking kill this guy if I ever saw him.
“Do you know when the most recent videos are from?” Emme asked, fear laced through her voice.
“As recently as a couple days ago. If you are wondering if there are any with Zane there, the answer is yes,” Levi answered honestly.
What a sick fuck.
Emme’s voice was barely a whisper when she spoke again. “Um, will Trent, you two, or any of the other guys have to…” her voice trailed off.
“No, beautiful. We aren’t going to be watching the videos,” Cruz reassured her, knowing exactly what she was concerned about. “Trent will scan them for anything out of the ordinary and confirm that there aren’t any other files that aren’t from your bedroom or bathroom saved on the hard drives.”
“In addition,” Levi began. “We took the smashed laptop and are trying to see what we can get off the computer’s hard drive. It is possible that he saved things there or in the cloud as well. If the files from your place were saved in the cloud, Trent will destroy them so that there’s no chance of them being accessed by anyone else.”
“Well, I guess there’s the silver lining,” Emme said, sarcastically. “At least I won’t have to worry about anybody else seeing me naked today.”
My body froze as my arms tightened around her. “Anybody else?” I asked.
Her eyes came to mine and she said, “Well…um, Cruz may have seen me naked this morning.”
My jaw clenched and I snapped my head to stare down my brother. Levi had a look of confusion on his face as his eyes went back and forth between Cruz and me.
“Bro, it’s not what you think,” Cruz said.
“Care to enlighten me…quickly?”
“Zane, calm down,” Emme said from beside me. My eyes came back to hers and she continued. “I told you upstairs about the nightmare. As I said, I woke up screaming. Cruz was in there immediately. I was slightly disoriented when he first came in, and didn’t instantly realize it was him. He came over, sat next to me, and wrapped his hands around me trying to console me. I initially freaked and tried to pull away from him. As soon as I realized it was him I relaxed enough for him to be able to hold me while I settled. The nightmare was bad, so it took me a while, Zane. And I wasn’t cognizant of anything other than my concern or worry for you in that time after I woke up.”
“Ok. I would expect that. I don’t understand how this translates into him seeing you naked.”
“You are forgetting one thing.”
“And that would be?”
She leaned into me and said quietly, “I’m not sure if you remember, but last night after our fun on the chaise sofa you carried me to bed.”
“Of course, I remember that.”
She continued, “I slept naked last night, Zane.”
Fuck.
My eyes went to the opposite side of the couch. Both Levi and Cruz were smirking. Fuckers.
Emme’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts and back to her. “So, I was curled up in a ball crying while he held me. I don’t think he saw much.”
Fuck.
“You were naked and he had his hands on you?” I bit out.
“Really, Zane?” Cruz interrupted as he stood. “What the fuck did you expect me to do? Let her sit there in the middle of the bed terrorized with nobody comforting her because my brother thinks I’m an asshole and would cross that line? Fuck, man. She’s a beautiful woman; I’m not going to deny that, but my concern in that moment was making sure she knew that she was safe. I really wasn’t taking your feelings into consideration at the time since her well-being was the top priority.”
“Zane, baby, relax please. I wanted to tell you to be honest with you about it, but I don’t want you to freak out over it. It wasn’t Cruz’s fault that I slept without clothes on or that I had a nightmare. He really was a gentleman about it,” she said, her eyes pleading with mine to have a little more understanding about the situation.
Cruz began to walk out of the room when I yelled, “Cruz, wait.”
He turned to look at me.
I took in a deep breath and said, “I’m sorry, man. You give me shit all the time and yank my chain, but I know you’d never do anything like that. I feel like I’m going out of my fucking mind right now with all the shit we just learned. It’s like every time I turn around I’m learning that Emme’s been violated in another way. Would have preferred I was here for her this morning, but since I wasn’t you were the next best thing. Thank you for taking care of her.”
“Apology accepted. And, you’re welcome.”
I didn’t want him thinking I was happy about the situation so I added, “But if you ever look at her like you’ve seen her naked I’ll knock your fucking lights out.”
He grinned and shook his head as he walked back over to sit on the couch by Levi.
“Levi?” Emme’s delicate voice called.
“Yeah, Em?”
“What happens next?”
“We’re going to continue looking for him and we’re going to keep you and Zane covered until we find him.”
She nodded at him and said, “My schedule changed from yesterday when we met at your office. On Saturday, Zane has a half day of training.”
“Already knew that. I’m going to be with you on Saturday while he’s training.”
“Ok. Well, just wanted to make you aware that I won’t be at home. I’m going to be going to Wes’ place. He won’t be there, but Charley and Wes are flying our friends, Nikki and Monroe, in from California. They’ll be there Saturday morning and she wants me to come over for a day with the girls, Wes’ sister, Elle, and Charley’s friend, Greg.”
“No problem, babe,” Levi said.
“We’ll be wedding planning,” Emme added.
Levi’s head dropped down to the floor as he said, “Fuck me. And here I thought I lucked out by getting the half day.”
Cruz and I laughed. In turn, Emme laughed. As sure as I was that Levi was not looking forward to spending the day with a bunch of women and a gay man talking about wedding plans and truly meant what he said I was grateful for his reaction and the fact that I was hearing my sweet girl laugh for the first time that day.
Two hours later, Levi and Cruz were getting ready to head out for the day. They had stayed so long after giving Emme and I the news about her condo and the hard drives because despite everything that had been thrown at her, my girl insisted on making food for everyone. I had always admired her strength and told her on many occasions that she was the strongest woman I knew, but today Emme blew me away. I’m not sure where she found mental toughness to set aside each and every devastating blow, but it was evident to me that she was, if nothing else, determined to find at least a shred of happiness or beauty in each day. If cooking for other people brought her that happiness, I wasn’t going to take it away from her.
“Thanks for breakfast this morning, beautiful. And the food just now — everything was awesome,” Cruz said.
“You’re welcome, Cruz. Thank you for helping me this morning.”
“Don’t mention, Em,” he responded.
Levi looked to Emme and said, “Thanks for feeding me, too. And, don’t worry, Emme, we are going to find him. I promise you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s the least I could do after everything you guys are doing for me,” Emme said.
He smiled at her before turning to me. “Locke’s here with Emme tomorrow; Tyson’s with you. Told Tyson to follow you here afterward and then come in to meet her if that works for her.”
I nodded to him. “Sounds good, man. Thanks. See you Saturday.” I then turned my attention to Cruz, “Thanks again for what you did for Emme today.”
“No problem. You’re a lucky man, Zane. Don’t forget that.”
My brothers left and after I shut and locked the door I turned to Emme. She had a confused look on her face.
“What’s the matter?” I asked.
“Who is Locke?” she asked.
“Holden. Last name is Locke. A lot of the guys are referred to by their last names. Pierce’s last name is Reynolds, Lorenzo De Luca, Dominick Moore, Tyson Reed, Trent Michaels, and Gunner Hayes.”
“Got it. Though, I’ve never understood that. I mean, I can understand using a nickname or a middle name, especially if someone is named after a parent or other family member, but why the last name. I’ve never gone around calling the girls by their last names, Meadows, Archer, and Drake. And, nobody has ever called me by my last name.” She paused a moment, thinking, before her eyes got big. She asked, “Would you call me by my last name if I asked you to from now on? I think it’d make me feel like a total badass.”
I laughed. Really laughed. This woman was fucking crazy sometimes.
“Love you a lot, Emme, but not sure I can see myself being inside you calling out ‘James’ as I’m about to come.”
She burst out laughing. I fucking loved it. I wasn’t going to tell her that if it would make her that happy I’d call her anything she wanted me to call her. When her laughing ceased, her smiling eyes came to mine.
“Christ, Em, how do you do it?” I asked.
“How do I do what?”
I searched her face, and to my amazement there wasn’t a trace of worry in her features. “With everything that has happened to you prior to moving here to Rising Sun and then everything in the past few days, most recently a few hours ago, you have every reason to have a complete and total breakdown, but here you are lighting up my world with your laughter. How is it possible?”
She tilted her head to the side and asked, “You really don’t know?”
I shook my head.
She smiled big at me and said, “I’ve got you, baby.”
In stunned silence, I stared at her.
“Months ago, I was living in total darkness, Zane. There are still plenty of dark, ugly moments and bad things happening around me, but since you’ve come into my life I get glimpses of light. I hold on to those glimpses because I know that if I can get to a place where I’m in the light with you all the time, everything I’ve endured will be worth it.”
“Emme, as beautiful as what you just said is, you shouldn’t have ever had to suffer through a single moment of pain, heartache, or darkness.”
“Yes, I did,” she began. “Because not only did that all of that lead me to you, but it also taught me how much to appreciate the beauty that you give me every single day.”
“Sweetheart,” I said, my voice a deep growl, as I bent down and picked her up in my arms. “Need to love you good now. You alright with that?”
She nodded and smiled at me.
I carried her up the steps and to the bedroom where I loved her good. And my sweet girl gave back just as good as she got.
Emme
I was in Zane’s bed on my back, looking up at the ceiling, feeling deliciously sated. He had just given me some good love and I was basking in the beauty of that. I was also basking in the beauty of having Zane’s body next to mine with his arm draped across my abdomen and his head resting by my shoulder. It would have been easy to dwell on the horrific news I received from Zane’s brothers today, but I decided that focusing on the good I had surrounding me would reap much greater rewards. It was early evening and I had a feeling I wasn’t done receiving beauty from Zane.
“Zane?”
“Yeah, Em?”
Damn, but did I love his voice when he said that.
“Want to bake a cake with me?” I asked.
Zane chuckled and said, “Excuse me?”
“Cakes are celebratory. I want to bake a cake.”
“Ok, what are we celebrating?” he asked.
“Are you suggesting that there should only be one thing to celebrate? Baby, there are lots of things to celebrate right now. First, I don’t think we’ve officially celebrated the two of us. We’ve traveled quite a road to get to this point. It hasn’t been easy, but that’s worth celebrating, don’t you think?”
“Sweetheart, we’ve definitely fucking celebrated the two of us. I just think our definition of what constitutes a celebration is different.”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Ok, well we never celebrated your win out in Aspen. We also haven’t celebrated surviving our first real disagreement slash argument.”
“Emme, that wasn’t a disagreement or argument. That was me being a complete and total jackass to you. You want to celebrate the fact that you were gracious enough to forgive me, I can work with that.”
I smiled inwardly and asked, “Favorite flavor?”
“Chocolate cake,” he answered as he lifted his head off my shoulder and looked at me.
“Please tell me you love it with vanilla frosting.”
“I love it with vanilla frosting.”
“Do you really?” I asked, overly excited and sitting up in the bed next to him.
He grinned at me and nodded.
“Same exact taste in favorite cake and icing flavor — if that isn’t a reason to celebrate, I don’t know what is! Come on, we have to go bake it now,” I said as I hopped up off the bed and began throwing my clothes on.
I looked back to the bed after I had pulled my pants on and saw Zane hadn’t moved and was just watching me.
“What?” I asked.
“I fucking love you, Emme.”
I pulled my top over my head, walked over to the side of the bed, leaned over, and kissed him. “I love you, too, baby. But, you’ve got to get up if we are going to enjoy any cake tonight.”
With that, Zane got up and put some clothes on. We went downstairs and I got out the ingredients we’d need to bake the cake from scratch. After mixing all of the ingredients, we poured the batter into two eight-inch round pans and popped them into the oven. I set the timer and we went to work on the frosting. We finished the frosting and not long after the timer went off letting us know the cakes were finished. We pulled them out and set them out to cool.
It was at that moment that my cell phone rang. I walked over, looked at the screen, and felt my heart squeeze at what I saw on the display.
“Hey Mom,” I said into the phone as my eyes came to Zane’s.
“Emme, my dear. You sound happy.”
I sighed into the phone and said, “That’s because I am.”
“It’s been a while since we’ve heard from you. We miss you so much.”
“I know. I miss you both, too.”
“So, what is going on? There’s got to be something going on for you to sound so happy.”
I took a deep breath and answered, “I met someone.”
“Oh no,” my mother said and I heard the panic rising in her voice. She was scared.
“Mom, calm down.”
“My dear, how can I calm down? I’m so worried about you.”
“I understand that, but I promise you that you don’t have to worry about Zane.”
“Zane?” she inquired. “Ok, tell me about him.”
“Well, his name is Zane Cunningham. He’s a professional snowboarder and he’s best friends with Charley’s fiancé, Wes. He’s incredibly handsome and generous. But, best of all, he loves me, he makes me feel safe, and he enjoys my cooking.”
My eyes went to Zane’s and his were smiling back at me.
“He almost sounds too good to be true, dear.”
I heard a commotion in the background and my mom then cried, “Vince, I’m talking to her right now.” More commotion. Finally, my mom’s voice came back to the phone and she stated, “He wants to talk with you, Emme.”
“Ok.”
A few seconds later, I heard my dad’s voice. “Princess.”
“Hi, Daddy.”
“I am listening to your mom talking here and it sounds to me like you’ve met a guy. Emme, you have to be careful.”
“I know, but I don’t need to worry about my safety with Zane. He is always looking out for me.”
He sighed. “Miss you, princess. We want to see you and I want to meet this guy. I’m not going to let my little girl end up in a bad situation again.”
My eyes welled up with unshed tears.
“I miss you, too. And I know it’s hard for you and mom, but I promise you that Zane really truly loves me. He knows about Seth and he gets angry on my behalf about everything I’ve been through. Nikki and Monroe came out to visit for the New Year. I had a nightmare while they were here, and despite how early in the morning it was when Nikki called him for me, he came right over to be with me. He’s different, Daddy. He puts me first, he takes such good care of me, and he makes me happy.”
“Are you with him now?” he asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “In fact, he just baked a cake with me.”
My dad was silent a minute before he said, “Can you put him on the phone, princess? I want to talk to him.”
My eyes shot to Zane’s. I didn’t want to put him in an awkward position. “Is that really necessary?” I questioned, as Zane made his way over to me.
“Yes, Emme, it is. If he’s a good man, he won’t have a problem talking to me.”
Zane was now standing right in front of me and he asked, “Would he like to talk to me?”
I nodded while biting my lip, but I stayed frozen on the spot. Zane took the phone out of my hand and put it up to his ear.
“Mr. James? Zane Cunningham here.”
A pause.
“Yes, sir. That is the truth.”
Silence.
“Because, even though I’m not at all a fan of cooking or baking, both of those activities make your daughter very happy. And quite honestly, Mr. James, there’s nothing in this world more beautiful than seeing Emme when she’s happy.”
Oh. My. God.
Zane stayed silent a beat while my father spoke to him. Then, he said, “Yes, sir, I do love your daughter. I know what she’s been through and making sure she always feels safe is one of my top priorities, second only to making sure she knows she’s loved unconditionally.”
Pause.
“Ok then, Vince. I look forward to meeting you soon, too. You want to talk to Emme again?”
Silence.
“I’ll be sure to tell her that. Have a good night.”
He hung up the phone and looked at me with a sexy grin on his face. My jaw needed to be picked up off the floor. I was dumbfounded.
“You just called my dad Vince,” I exclaimed, astonished.
“He asked me to.”
“WHAT?!!?” I shouted.
Zane smirked and calmly answered, “He asked me to call him Vince. Emme, we had a chat. I think he understands I’m not an asshole and that I love you. He also knows that I’m the kind of man that’ll put your happiness before my own. He respects that.”
I stood there speechless.
“That said, I think you should invite your parents out for a visit with you sometime soon. It’s obvious they miss you. Can’t say that I blame them either.”
I looked down at the floor. I missed them so much and I knew how much they were hurting. After everything that happened to me, I completely shut down (more than I had already) and then I just left them. Zane brought his fingers to my chin and tipped my head back up.
“I miss them a lot.”
“We’ll bring them out here. Whenever you want just say the word and I’ll get them here for you.”
“Thank you, baby. My dad didn’t want to say goodbye to me?” I asked.
“Your dad wanted me to tell you that they love you. He didn’t want to take up any more of our time and said that they’d call again soon. According to him, you make the best cakes and he felt it was crucial that we get to enjoying our cake.”
“Well then, we should get to putting our frosting on.”
I got out a cake plate, put one of the cakes on it, and started putting the frosting on. After it was sufficiently covered, Zane watched as I put the second cake on top of the first. I spread more of the frosting over the cake so that it was completely covered. I was always sure to make a little extra frosting so that there’d be some to eat later. I then moved to grab two small plates, a couple of forks, and a knife. After cutting a rather large slice for Zane and a smaller one for myself I sat down next to him at the island.
“Can we add one more thing to the list to celebrate?” I asked.
“Anything you want. What else are we adding?”
“We’re going to also be celebrating the fact that my dad asked you to call him by his first name. I think that deserves a celebration.”
Zane smirked and moved to put a piece of cake on his fork. He brought it to his mouth as I watched. He groaned.
“You like?” I asked.
“Emme, every time I eat a new food that you’ve made I’m never disappointed, but this is a different story. This cake is, by far, the best food I’ve ever tasted.”
I smiled big at him.
We ate our cake and after finishing his first piece Zane went for a second, but smaller, piece. I finished my first piece and then used my fingers to have a few extra licks of frosting out of the bowl.
“Em?”
I turned my head to Zane’s as I was in the process of sucking some frosting off my finger.
“Sweetheart, watching you lick frosting off your fingers could easily be considered foreplay.”
I pulled my finger from my mouth and licked my lips. “Sorry,” I said, sheepishly.
Zane pushed his now empty plate back and reached over to pull me off my stool and over to straddle his lap. “Don’t fucking apologize for being the sexiest woman alive,” he said before he crushed his mouth to mine. His tongue was instantly in my mouth, tasting me. I tasted right back and he was absolutely delicious.
As we kissed I began rolling my hips in his lap and could feel the evidence of what our make out session was doing to him. When he pulled his mouth from mine, he looked at me with his brows drawn and asked, “Why did you make extra frosting?”
I gave him a coy smile and said, “So we’d have some if we wanted it not on the cake.”
“You little minx,” he began as he stood and set me down on the top of the island. “I think now is the time to act out that fantasy you had on Christmas Day when I brought you here for the first time.”
Thinking back, I remembered the details of that fantasy very well. Zane and I had been discussing whether he’d ever tease a girl.
“You’re going to tease me?” I asked.
His hands went to the hem of my shirt and he lifted it over my head before he answered, “Absolutely.”
I felt my body begin to tingle in anticipation of what was to come. I was also a bit nervous. Would he only tease me? Would he bring me to the edge and not send me over?
“Emme?” he called.
When my eyes came to his he said, “I’m going to take my time teasing you, but know that I will get you there, too, ok?”
I nodded.
He brought his hands to the waistband of my pants and said, “Lift up.”
I lifted so he could bring the pants down over my hips and ass and down my legs. I was then sitting in a bra and pair of panties while Zane took in my form. After looking at me for a few moments Zane moved to the bowl of extra frosting. He brought it over to where I was sitting and put his finger in the frosting. The next thing I knew his finger was at my mouth. My lips parted and I took his finger in my mouth. I licked and sucked all the frosting off his finger while I listened to the grunts coming from the back of his throat.
Once he removed his finger from my mouth, Zane’s hand went to the clasp at the back of my bra. He opened the clasp and pulled the straps down my arms. His mouth came to one of my breasts and instantly pulled my nipple inside. He licked and sucked before he pulled away.
I whimpered.
“You’ll get my mouth there again, Em. Just thought it might be fun to add a little flavor,” he said as he brought the frosting to my breasts. He covered both of them with frosting and then put his hands at my panties. I lifted so he could pull them down my legs. Once he removed them the fingertips of one hand traveled slowly up my leg as the other hand cupped one of my breasts. His mouth feasted, licking and sucking all the frosting off of me. The slow assent of his fingers up my leg combined with teasing he was doing to me with his mouth was absolute torture. My body writhed on the countertop, begging him for more.
“Zane, baby, please.”
I felt his mouth smile against my skin as he moved from one breast to the other where he was sure to remove all of the frosting he had put there. It was at this point that his hand had finally reached my core. I moaned in relief. Zane’s fingers worked me while his mouth remained focused my breasts. He was so good at what he did that within minutes I was on the verge of an orgasm. My breaths came quick and at that moment I lost Zane’s fingers.
“No, Zane,” I cried out.
His hands came to my waist as his mouth traveled down my abdomen. I felt his tongue swipe through my center. He pushed his tongue inside and brought me back to the edge within seconds.
“Oh baby, I love your mouth.”
He pulled his mouth fractions of an inch away from me to say, “Take it, sweetheart.” Instantly, his mouth was back on me. Seconds later, I came apart. It was intense — one of the most intense orgasms I had ever had.
As I came down from the orgasm, Zane stood in front of me and pulled his shirt over his head. Then, he dropped his jeans and I found that he had nothing on underneath.
“Commando?” I asked.
He shrugged his shoulders and admitted, “Figured they’d be coming off soon enough anyway.”
“I like it.”
“Happy to hear it,” he said as he brought his hands to my hips and lifted me off the island. “I’ve been dreaming about bending you over this island since Christmas, Emme. You good with that?”
I looked up at him through hooded eyes for a moment before I turned around to face the island. With my feet a touch wider than shoulder width apart, I bent over slightly, and placed my hands on the countertop. I turned my head to look over my shoulder at him.
“I’m definitely good with that,” I answered.
“Fuck, Em, you are so fucking sexy.”
Zane positioned himself at my entrance, gripped my hips, and pushed himself inside.
“Love this ass, Emme,” he breathed as he moved in and out of me.
I used my arms to brace myself against the countertop and pushed back to meet Zane with each thrust. We fell into a steady rhythm and it wasn’t long before I felt the tightening low in my belly. The sounds I heard coming from Zane told me he, too, was close.
“Zane,” I moaned.
“I know, Em. Get it, sweetheart.”
I got it right along with Zane.
Basking in our post-orgasm bliss, I curled into Zane’s body and he pulled me tight to his chest.
“That was incredible, baby…way better than the fantasy.”
Zane pressed a kiss to the top of my head and said, “Every time with you has been better than the fantasy.”
I smiled up at him when he bent down and picked me up in his arms.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“Shower,” he answered.
With that, Zane carried me up the steps and to the bathroom. He set me down on the counter of the sink, turned on the water in the shower, and came back to me with a serious face.
“Thank you, Zane.”
“For what, Emme?”
“Making sure I got beauty today. Could have very easily stayed dirty and ugly, but you gave me beauty. Thank you for that.”
“It’s all you, Em. You want that beauty so you always figure out a way to find it. Love that about you. That said, if you are ever struggling to find it, I’ll do what I have to just to make sure you get it.”
“I love you, Zane.”
“Love you, too.”
Then, Zane picked me up and carried me into the shower where he gave me more beauty.