“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.” I stand, slowly lifting the mask off her face.
“Why?” The sight of her glassy, jade eyes staring up at me nearly force me back down to my knees.
“Because you’re all I’ve ever wanted, and now that I have you, I’m not letting go. I can’t let go.”
Zoe looks away, clearly uncomfortable with my words. It’s obvious in the way she’s trying to hold herself together.
“I don’t know how to do any of this. I’m scared, Dominik. I want to shut it off and feel nothing.”
I cradle her face, lifting her chin up and forcing her to look into my eyes. “Let me be your nothing.”
“You already are, and this isn’t even real.” Zoe shuts her eyes as if she’s said too much. Revealed a broken part of herself she meant to keep hidden.
“This has always been real, and you know it. It’s been real from the very first moment I laid eyes on you.”
Zoe ignores my confession. It’s the one I’ve been dying to say. I’ve wanted to say it ever since we started this ridiculous, fake dating arrangement. I want to tell her all the ways I love her, how much she means to me, but I don’t think she’s ready for that yet.
“It doesn’t matter. You’re going to get bored and leave. I’ll break your heart, self-sabotage. Nothing ever lasts.” Her eyes are cold and almost empty as she looks up at me. She’s trying to channel her anger, using it as a shield to avoid feeling all the emotions she’s been pushing away for years.
“Let me be your nothing,” I whisper, repeating the words from earlier as I plead with her.
I will never give up this pursuit. Not until my last breath.
Zoe shoots me an angry glare, snatching the mask from my hand and moving aside. But she doesn’t make it far before I catch up to her and yank her back. She screams at me, but her words fall on deaf ears as I quickly unlock the Audi and forcefully shove her into the backseat.
“Let me go!”
“You don’t get to walk away from me. Not anymore.”
I grab hold of her sweater and pull it off her body. “You don’t get to fucking ignore me and pretend like this isn’t happening.”
I quickly unbuckle her jeans and forcefully pull them off. She scratches at my arms, but I only see red.
“We can’t do this here. Someone could see us. Aaron could see us.”
Reaching behind, I undo the clasp of her bra and toss it aside. With my hand firmly on her throat, I sit her up and press her back against the middle seat. As I secure the seat belts, I carefully crisscross them over her bare upper body.
“Did you fucking hear me?” Zoe screams.
“Let them watch how I claim you. I want the whole city to hear you scream my name.”
Zoe inhales deeply just as my fingers brush against her slick panties and it becomes blatantly obvious how much of a fucking brat she is. She’s an excellent actress, I’ll give her that. Even if she wants to fight me off, her body will always tell the truth.
I move her panties aside, both of us staring down at my fingers pressed against her opening. “You can lie all you want, baby. But your words mean nothing when your pussy cries for me like this.”
Zoe gnaws on her lower lip but remains silent. I exhale, feeling the tension, and she smirks, fully aware that she has regained her hold over me. By engaging in these mind games, she knows how to provoke my wild side. And I willingly embraceit, because I am irrevocably intertwined with her wounded heart—inseparable, like a cosmic bond.
She is naked. I am fully clothed. Her back is against the leather seat, trapped by my body. I lean down to her lips, and her eyes meet mine. There is a magnetic force between us. How can I make her feel this energy? This pull that has driven me mad since the day we met.
I need to break down her walls.
No, fuck that… I’m sick of being nice. I just want to break her.
Right now, I can’t concentrate on anything other than how much I want to fucking kiss her lips and touch every inch of her body. Over and over again until the sun comes up and the basement is flooded with people.
Until she’s too fucking spent to fight this connection between us.
