ZANE
Now
* * *
Did she just…dismiss me?
I don’t know what I’d expected to happen when I sought Maia out in the kitchen, but it wasn’t that.
Ten goddamn years I’d wondered what it would be like to see her again. Never in any of the scenarios I’d played out in my head did she pretend we were strangers and then summarily dismiss me.
I’d imagined that the years might’ve softened her, but the woman I’d just encountered was more formidable than the one I’d known.
Fuck me, she almost flayed me alive with the look she’d given me. Just for a brief second when I’d told her that calling me “sir” was giving me ideas. She’d gotten it back under control, but for that instant, she gave me a flash of fire.
And I liked it.
Craved it.
Wanted more.
Did that make me a bastard? Maybe.
I shouldn’t have wanted anything to do with her, but the second her name slipped out of my brother’s mouth, I was like a moth to the flame.
She’d been hiding in the pantry and the only reasonable explanation for it was that she was avoiding me.
And she was…angry with me? Angry didn’t cover it. She was livid.
Why?
I spun on the possibilities. I’d spent so long thinking I was insignificant to her, my songs beneath her notice that I told myself it had to be something else.
But nothing else made sense.
She had to be pissed about my new single.
I hadn’t wanted to release the fucking song because I imagined her hearing it and laughing at me. If she even connected the dots, which had seemed like a pretty big stretch, she’d find the whole thing hilariously pitiful because of course she wasn’t still thinking about me.
But she wasn’t laughing.
She was hiding in a pantry. She had to feel something if she cared enough to hide from me.
The way she watched my mouth. The way her body responded to me even as she pretended we were strangers. If she didn’t feel anything, why not just say hi and go about her business?
Fuck me.
Had the lyrics hit too close to home? The only way for her to even have recognized the song was about her, the only reason for her to behave like that, was if it was true that she was haunted by it.
Did those memories keep her up at night? Even if she didn’t want the relationship, did she miss the sex as much as I did?
She could pretend as much as she wanted, but we’d instantly fallen back into our old dynamic, all the crackling tension flaring between us as she visibly fought the urge to submit to me. I had to clench my fists against the urge to push her to her knees or bend her over the counter and remind her what she was missing.
I’d bet my right arm she would’ve let me, would’ve done more than let me.
I’d never had another partner I could read so easily, who responded so physically to me. There was a part of this she wanted as much as I did.
I’d imagined what this would be like more times than I could count. Had played scripts through my head about what I’d say to her. But actually seeing her? It was like someone turned on all the Christmas lights at once.
