She fought, because more than wanting to flee and escape his intense scrutiny, she wanted this time with Zachary. Wanted a chance with him. A minute, an hour. Maybe even a night.
She couldn’t have him forever, not with his redhead looming in his future. But just for now, after the kiss they’d shared, the intimacy that had somehow flowered between them, she wanted…something. With him.
Just for now.
“I…was…” She swallowed and forced the words out. “Injured, eleven years ago. A—” Lord, she didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to say it, remember it. “A shop window I was looking in exploded.”
“Jesus.” He stared some more, his brow puckered, his eyes troubled. “Fuck, this must have hurt like hell.”
He didn’t know the half of it.
She shrugged and closed her eyes, telling him silently she couldn’t, wouldn’t answer more questions. She rounded her shoulders, forcing herself to let him look, but this was something she simply wasn’t open to discussing.
Perhaps Zachary sensed as much, because the next thing Eve knew, it wasn’t his fingers feathering over the scar, it was his lips. His soft, warm lips tracing that line from her shoulder, over her breast and down to her sternum. And his tongue, leaving a tingly wet trail that made her belly tumble and her head wobble with confusion.
She flicked her eyes open to stare down at his beautiful brown hair. “Y-you don’t find it repulsive?”
He pressed a kiss to the top of her breastbone. “Find what repulsive?”
“The scar.”
He raised his head to look at her. “Why on earth would I find it repulsive?”
Him and his damn non-answers. “I have a line bisecting the left side of my upper body, Zachary. It’s hardly a visual delight.”
“It’s a scar, Eve. A mark left by what could only have been a physical trauma.” He traced it again with his finger. “The only thing that worries me about it is how fucking much you must have suffered when it happened.”
“Y-you don’t want me to put my shirt on? Go back to my room now?”
Now he stared at her as if she were crazy. “Are you nuts?” He took a step away, a tiny step, and caught her wrist in his hand. “Feel me, Eve. Put your hand over my erection and get a sense of what you to do to me.”
He directed her palm to his groin, making sure, Eve noted, to avoid hand-to-hand contact. “That’s it, Tiny. Press your hand flat against me, so you know how fucking much you turn me on. So you know that every inch of you, scarred or not, arouses me like no one has aroused me before.”
She pressed her palm to his groin, allowed his hard length to fill her hand, and let out a tiny rasp of air.
Yeah, she’d felt him pressed against her before, felt his excitement then, but to feel it now, after he’d seen the visible evidence of her trauma, to know he still wanted her…
God, it was a powerful aphrodisiac. And a powerful boost to her confidence.
“Now—” he snagged her other wrist, “—feel what your holding my cock is doing to my heart.” He placed her hand over his chest.
The thud of his pulse beat against her palm, firm, fast and pounding.
“It’s racing,” she whispered. Her eyes closed as she let his heart beat against her hand, felt his lifeblood pulsing through his chest. “Like your drums, only faster.”
“It’s the rhythm of my heart, Eve. Listen carefully. It’s beating like this because of you.”
“Zachary…”
“Your scar doesn’t scare me. But the thought of your walking away because you’re embarrassed by it does.”
Eve stared at him in wonder. This devastatingly sexual specimen of a man, who inspired hysteria in his fans, desired Eve. He wasn’t fazed by the disfigurement of her chest. Not even one bit.
The man standing before her—with his heart in her hand—made her feel things the scarred, traumatized girl hadn’t felt in, well, ever.
He made her desire things she hadn’t felt worthy of desiring.
Even if the visible scar was just the tip of the iceberg, the sense of being wanted, of being appreciated made her dizzy. It made her emotions crash around like crazy.
“I don’t want to walk away, Zachary.”
Stupidly, speaking out loud made her eyes fill with tears. Which in turn brought back a wave of panic. For the first time in so very, very long, Eve was happy. And sexy. And beautiful. And she had Zachary Pace to thank for that.
The last thing she needed to do now was destroy his image of her with tears. Because if those tears spilled over and wet her cheeks, that image would be torn to shreds—just like her face had been, eleven years ago.
“Oh, shit.” Zachary looked stricken. “Now I’ve made you cry.”
Hastily she brushed at her eyes. Much as she hated to move her hand away from the rhythm of his heart, it would do her no good whatsoever ruining her makeup now. Zachary may have accepted the scar on her chest. There was no need to subject him to the other ones.
“They’re good tears,” she insisted. “Emotional, not sad.”
He frowned. “There’s a difference?”
“There is. You’re making me feel things I’ve never allowed myself to feel. It’s good. Liberating. Scary, but good.”
Obviously Eve wasn’t doing a good enough job convincing him. Zachary’s erection began to shrink.
“You make me feel beautiful,” she told him. “Make me feel like my scars…this scar is just a natural part of me.” Time to be brave. “You make me want to show you more of myself.” Well, more of her body anyway. Her face—her real face—could remain hidden.
Some scars were way too hard to reveal.
Eve reached behind her back and unclasped her bra. She let it fall to the floor between Zachary and herself.
His harsh intake of breath as he looked his fill was all the reward she needed for her courage, yet he showered her with more.
“Jesus.” He swallowed. “You’re beautiful.” And slowly, almost reverently, he cupped her breasts, groaning hoarsely in appreciation. “You feel so good. So right.”
“I don’t have red hair,” she reminded him. “Or green eyes.”
Zachary dismissed yet another of her concerns. “You have everything I need or want right now. More than everything.”
He ran his thumbs over her nipples, and Eve shuddered as shivers rippled through her.
“Give me your mouth, Tiny.” Zachary’s eyes were closed, his face creased with pleasure. “Let me taste you while I touch you.”
Impossible to resist such a request. Eve leaned forward, pressing her breasts more firmly into Zachary’s hands and melding her lips to his.
He kissed her so tenderly, Eve forgot to breathe.
Zachary released her mouth only to press heated kisses down her jaw and over her neck. He nuzzled his nose beneath her ear and inhaled deeply.
“You smell so good. Better than a garden full of roses.”
Eve caught his arms, ran her hands over his biceps and beneath the sleeves of his T-shirt, confirming what she’d suspected all along. Now that she’d touched him, she never wanted to let go. She itched to run her hands all over his arms, his shoulders, his chest.
It was her turn to remove his shirt, and he released her to help shrug it off. As soon as the shirt hit the floor, Eve leaned in even closer, molding her breasts to the shape of his chest, hiding her scar with his body, imbibing the sensation of flesh against flesh.
The man was ripped. Abs of steel. Arms the same. Yet his skin was almost satiny smooth beneath the light sprinkle of hair that covered his chest and forearms.
“Zachary?”
He ran his hands down the length of her back, slowly, seductively. “Mmm?”
“We have a problem.”
“We do?”
“We do,” she whispered against his shoulder. “You know how you liked the fact that I wasn’t trying to get you into bed?”