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"What're you doing?" I slur, leaning heavily against the broad wall of his chest.
"Getting you cleaned up." His tone is clipped, all business. "You'll feel better once you're clean and hydrated."
My sluggish brain takes a moment to process his words. Then, with a start, I realize his intentions and immediately try to squirm free.
"I can bathe myself, thanks," I huff indignantly, even as my limbs betray me with their lack of coordination.
Zane's arm tightens fractionally, keeping me upright. "You're drunk off your ass, Red. Don't make this harder than it needs to be."
I open my mouth to protest further, but he silences me with a look—that same penetrating stare that's always made my insides liquify. Swallowing hard against a sudden rush of heat, I give a jerky nod.
With surprising tenderness, Zane begins unbuttoning my shirt, his calloused fingers skimming my skin with feather-light caresses. My breath hitches despite my efforts to control it, the memories of our heated encounter still so fresh and vivid. His gaze remains locked on mine, dark and inscrutable.
Soon, my blouse falls away, leaving me exposed from the waist up in just my bra. Zane's throat works as his eyes roam over the newly bared curves with undisguised longing. For a suspended moment, the air crackles with the same scorching tension from earlier, threatening to ignite.
Then he tears his stare away with visible effort, focusing once more on the task at hand. I'm too muddled, too off-balance to process anything other than a vague sense of disappointment as his hands work at the button of my jeans.
Those, too, are deftly stripped away, leaving me shivering in just my underwear. Zane's arm tightens around me as he bends to ease my feet out of the tangle of denim. The motion brings his face perilously close to the lace-trimmed scrap of burgundy satin.
Rising fluidly, he hooks one arm beneath my knees, scooping me up in an effortless bridal carry. I let out a breathless yelp, instinctively clutching at the corded strength of his biceps as he deposits me in the steaming tub with surprising gentleness. As the warm water envelopes me, I feel his fingers deftly unhooking my bra and sliding it off, followed by a quick tug at my panties before they also slide off my legs.
"There you go," he rumbles, crouching beside the tub as the water laps soothingly at my flushed skin. "Just relax and let me take care of you for once, yeah?"
His words are gruff but laced with something deeper I can't quite put my finger on. Before I can dwell on it, he's reaching for a washcloth, dunking it in the fragrant water. I tense, fully expecting the rough, perfunctory scrubbing of someone performing an obligatory chore.
Instead, Zane's touch is infinitely gentle as he begins bathing me—long, soothing strokes along my arms, over my shoulders, and down the slope of my back. There's an unexpected reverence to each glide of the soft terrycloth, as if he's savoring the simple act of caring for me like this.
I find myself melting beneath his ministrations, lulled by the rhythmic motions and the heat of the bath seeping into my very bones. Unbidden, a soft sigh escapes my lips, echoed by the whisper of the cloth caressing my skin over and over.
For long, suspended minutes, the room falls quiet save for the lap of bathwater and our mingled breaths. My eyelids grow heavy, vodka and fatigue combining into a potent lassitude.
"Why'd you leave me, Zane?" The plaintive question slips out in a murmur before I can stop it. I crack one eye open, searching his expression for any flicker of emotion.
He stills, shoulders stiffening almost imperceptibly. When he speaks, his tone is carefully neutral. "You know why. After what happened to Mitch..."
"That's no 'scuse," I mumble petulantly. My tongue feels thick and leaden, words starting to slur together. I blink heavily, struggling to focus. "You just... left me. No 'splaining nothin'. Wasn't right..."
Zane is quiet for a long stretch. When he responds, his voice is barely above a whisper.
"You're right. I didn't handle things well back then. I was young and stupid, and I let my own pain push away the people I cared about most." He pauses, his calloused thumb grazing my cheek with a feather-light caress. "I'm sorry for that, Aspen. You didn't deserve to be shut out with no explanation after... after what happened."
The anguish in his tone pierces through my alcohol-induced haze, making me ache to soothe the demons still plaguing him after all this time. Before I can muster a response, the pull of oblivion grows too strong to resist. My eyelids droop, and I feel myself drifting.
"Easy there." Zane's voice is a low rumble as he gently lifts me from the cooling bathwater, cradling me against his chest. I'm only vaguely aware of him toweling me dry before carrying me to the bedroom.
He settles me onto the plush mattress and pulls the covers up to my chin. I sigh contentedly, nuzzling into the downy warmth as he settles beside me. Despite the gulf of hurt and unresolved history still yawning between us, in this moment, there's a fleeting sense of peace, of being inexplicably... home.
I feel the whisper of Zane's lips grazing my brow in the tenderest of kisses. "Sweet dreams, Red," he rumbles, his solid heat resonating against my back.
I surrender to the velvety curtain of slumber with a murmur, my soul knowing I'll never stop craving this brand of wildness—not really.
It's where I've always belonged, long before I tried reinventing myself.
Chapter 6
Zane
Zane
