Page 68

“Um, nowhere?”
He smiled. “When you told me not to stop touching you, do you remember what I said?”
I shook my head, only realizing I was biting my lip when he leaned up and licked it.
“I said, ‘Never, if you’ll only let me.’ I’m guessing you didn’t believe me.”
“In that case, it’ll be difficult to keep, um,thisprivate when we return to Shere.”
“And the reason I said, ‘if you’ll only let me.’ The minute you tell me you, like me, don’t care who knows, the moments when part of my body isn’t touching yours will be rare.”
I smirked. “You don’t mean it.”
His eyes scrunched. “Try me. Say the words, Alena.”
“What words?”
“You don’t care who knows.”
I tried to roll away, but he wouldn’t let me.
“Stop it,” I said.
“What should I stop?”
“Pretending this was more than?—”
He raised up so his face was close enough to mine for me to feel his breath. More, I could see the hurt in his eyes. “Don’t you dare say it.”
“Zeppelin—”
“Ah, I’m good ol’ Zep again, is that it? Or rather, Zep, who you can’t stand the sight of.”
“I never felt that way.”
His hand went to the back of my neck. “No, you liked to look, didn’t you?”
My eyes filled with tears. “Don’t make this ugly.”
“Me? You accused me of pretending this was something more than the words I couldn’t let you say. That was ugly, Verity.”
I tried to escape his clutches, but he wouldn’t ease his grip. “Let go of me.”
He shook his head. “I won’t.”
“Dammit, Zeppelin, let me fucking go.”
“Not until I do this.”
Like the first time, when the last thing I’d expected was for him to kiss me, he did it again. It was soft, gentle, so loving, so wonderful that I never wanted it to end, but it did.
Zeppelin rested his forehead against mine. “That’s how I feel, Alena. That right there. You felt it too. I take that back. Youfeelit. If you try to tell me you don’t, I’ll know you’re lying.Fuck,” he swore when the sound of our mobiles’ alerts brought the conversation to an abrupt end. He loosened his arms, and I rolled away, stood, and padded to the other room naked.
As I grabbed my cell, I glanced up and saw him still in bed, one arm behind his head, staring at nothing.
“Zeppelin? Do you?—”
He got out of bed, but instead of walking toward me, he went in the opposite direction, slamming the bathroom door behind him.