My heartbeat pulses everywhere. “Zane…”
He tilts my head back with his fingers in my hair. “You make me a fucking monster, Ruby.”
His mouth drags along my throat and I gasp.
Not explicit. But filthy.
“You want me to stop?” he murmurs.
I swallow hard. “No.”
He presses me against the wall, his lips brushing my ear, voice rough enough to bruise. “Thought so.”
His kiss is claiming and messy as his hand slides under my shirt, not touching anything obscene, just stroking the side of my ribs like he’s mapping out his future home.
“Say my name,” he growls. “Like you mean it.”
“Zane…”
His whole body reacts, shuddering, tightening, groaning into my neck.
“Fuck, baby,” he hisses, pushing me harder into the wall, “I could take you right here… but I want you begging for it.”
My knees almost buckle.
Then Freddie walks by and mutters, “For the love of God, get a room—or a church, you animals.”
Ruby
Hotel Room — After the Show
The hotel suiteis too big, too white, too polished to contain someone like Zane Draven.
He paces the length of the room like a caged storm, shirt half undone, hair damp from the stage, hands twitching like they don’t know where to land unless it’s on me.
He hasn’t stopped watching me since we walked in.
He locks the door, turns and breathes out like he’s been starved for oxygen and I’m air. “Come here.”
I don’t, mostly because I can’t move. My knees are unreliable and my heart is caffeine and chaos. Has been since he looked at me and belted out those lyrics.
And the truth is, this raw obsession is starting to get to me.
It’s too big.
Too soon.
Too…Zane.
But honestly, is any one woman ready for this kind of biblical-level rockstar fixation?
I mean, I’m still figuring out my 401k and this man is out here rewriting hit songs like he’s proposing marriage at Coachella.
He stalks to me instead when I don’t move fast enough, or at all. Presses me against the wall gently—for Zane— then cups my jaw.
“You look good with my lipstick on you,” he whispers.
“I’m not wearing lipstick.”
