Page 7

Harmony felt irrationally, unacceptably exposed as the reality slammed into her. Despite his heartwarming words and searingly wonderful touches, she’d given him a chance and still Zeno hadn’t chosen to claim her. She didn’t understand. He had insisted he’d been searching for some obscene amount of time, hundreds of years, for his one predestined mate. He had insisted that was her. Yet he hadn’t claimed her.

She watched his lips dip into a subtle frown and her breath lodged in her throat as she waited for his response.

“Of course I didn’t.” His words may as well have slapped her straight across the face.

Harmony began shaking her head and pushed further away from him, doing her best to keep the tears at bay. Of course he didn’t. Did that mean he’d lied all this time? Had she been a fool for even considering what he’d been saying to her? A fool so desperate for escape from her cage that she’d fallen right into his trap?

“Harmony,” he said, stretching out an arm as if to catch her. To stop her.

An option that was somehow even worse whispered in the back of her mind. Maybe he hadn’t lied at all. Maybe every word had been true, but the afternoon they’d spent together—and seeing her body unwrapped and exposed as it was—had convinced him he didn’t need her. She wasn’t good enough.

Her feet nearly slipped over the beautifully polished hardwood floor as she made a dash for what looked like his bathroom. Her body was tired and she was humiliatingly nude, but she didn’t know what else to do. Where else to go. It wasn’t like she had a home to go back to. Or even a hotel. Hell, she no longer had clothes .

She choked on a sob as she clicked the lock into place, ignoring Zeno’s voice on the other side of the door. The sturdy thud of his fist—she assumed—connecting with the door was a little harder to ignore, but he didn’t break it down. Though he certainly could have.

She stumbled away from it and dropped onto the toilet, but even once she’d cleaned herself up from that she still felt wrong. Exposed, sticky, uncomfortable. Disgusting.

I’m either the world’s biggest fool or so repulsive even my fated mate doesn’t want me.

“Harmony, I can smell your tears through this door,” Zeno called again. His voice was louder and sounded angrier, rougher, than she was used to. “Don’t think for a second I won’t tear this door down. Come out here and let me explain.”

Her hands balled into fists, anger helping for a moment to stifle her pain. She shouldn’t be hurt. She’d been used. She was being tossed aside. What she ought to be feeling was outrage. “Just give me space!” Her gaze swept over the spacious bathroom, searching for anything she could use to her advantage. She wanted to step into his luxurious-looking shower and soak until her skin was raw. First, she needed to be sure she would get the opportunity.

“Harmony, I don’t understand—”

She slid open a drawer and found a pair of trimming scissors. They would have to do. Plucking them from within, she shouted, “Leave me alone or I swear I’ll plunge these scissors into my wrist.” It sounded horrible and a part of her questioned whether she could go through with it.

But would that be so much worse than continuing to be used?

The air itself felt heavier in the silence that followed. Then, quieter, Zeno said, “You wouldn’t really … Harmony, please don’t do that.”

“Then don’t make me!” She stood there for what felt like several minutes before she heard another sound from him. It almost sounded like shuffling.

“I’ve set towels by the door. I’m going to change the bedsheets and leave some clothes for you on the bed, but I’ll be downstairs. Out of your way.” Another momentary pause, and something in his voice changed in a way she hadn’t heard before. “Please just let me know when you’re ready to talk.”

Talk? She bit her tongue to keep from shouting at him. She wasn’t sure she believed he was really just walking away. But then, if she was right on either of her theories, she was giving him the perfect excuse to get rid of her, too. So maybe he was.

Harmony waited until she was reasonably certain he’d left, then set down the scissors and tiptoed to the door. She pressed her ear against it, heard nothing, and cracked it open. All she found were two fluffy, dark blue towels, neatly folded and stacked directly beside the door. She scooped them up and scampered back inside her improvised shelter.

The towels went on the sizable counter, then she finally took herself over to the unreasonably large walk-in shower. Even if they showered together, there would be room for more. Not that they would. She would leave this room eventually and never return.

The thought made something inside her ache sharply. She shoved the pain as far from her mind as she could and started twisting knobs until she figured out the setting she wanted. When the water was hot, Harmony stepped beneath the spray, tilted her face up, and let herself cry.

It was like releasing the gate on a dam. In seconds she had collapsed to her knees, her body shaking beneath the spray from the onslaught of her tears. She wasn’t even sure why it was as upsetting as it was. Sure, it was humiliating and insulting, but she was crying as if he’d broken her heart. She sort of felt like he’d broken her heart. It made no sense. Even if he’d been telling the truth about their destinies, she was human, and he hadn’t claimed her. His rejection shouldn’t hurt as it did—right?

Harmony had no answers. She couldn’t organize her thoughts well enough to think past how badly it hurt and much she just wanted to be wrong.

Everything had been perfect up until she’d come to that horrible, gut-wrenching realization. He’d been wonderful with her. The perfect combination of gentle and passionate. She had honestly not truly believed sex could feel so good—she’d thought it was a fantasy written about in romance books specifically because romance books were escapist fantasies for women. It wasn’t like she had anyone she could ask. It wasn’t like the one guy she’d let kiss her on one of the rare days she’d been on a college campus had made her feel anything remotely like what she felt when Zeno made any sort of contact with her. There was no comparison.

He doesn’t want me. That was all there was to it. She was only hurting herself by thinking about anything else. By lingering.

Zeno had taken her innocence, perhaps hoping he’d feel more drawn to her than he did or perhaps because he thought he was entitled to it, she didn’t know. But he had no intentions of keeping her heart. He was an ass for that, probably, but she wasn’t blameless, either. She’d asked—begged—for his touch. She only hadn’t known the ultimate outcome.

Harmony gasped, realizing she had turned and slumped against the tiled wall of the shower as water continued raining down on her. She had been too desperate, too na?ve, and too optimistic.

She looked down at herself, at the way her belly fat squished with her position and her breasts hung sloppily down her chest. The way her thighs splayed out like pale slabs of meat. It was no wonder he hadn’t wanted her. She was fat, short, and in every way an unsuitable match for a man as imposing and powerful as Zeno Darkhan. She was a freaking ant compared to him, and she hadn’t even ever seen his other form.

Tears and shower water burned her eyes and she was having to breathe through her mouth, as her nose had become congested due to her sobbing. She needed to pick herself up and start the scrubbing process before the water got any cooler. She needed to suck up her pride and pilfer whatever clothes Zeno had left out for her so she could leave this place, these memories, and this future that was never meant to be behind her. Except every time she thought about doing that, the tears redoubled.

She blamed her exhausted hyper-emotional state for why she didn’t notice that her privacy had been invaded until it was too late.

Without warning, Zeno’s shadow blocked out the bathroom light and his low, displeased growl filled the room. A single second later, she was up and off the floor, his already familiarly warm, strong arms supporting her like she weighed as much as a paper doll. “No more crying.”

Her muscles tightened and she sucked in a wet, watery breath. She didn’t have the strength to shove at him. Not when he twisted them enough to switch off the shower, not when he practically stomped from the large shower stall, not even when he set her carefully on her feet again. He kept a hand on her hip, kept her pinned between himself and the bathroom counter, and snatched the top towel off the stack.

“I—” Her words were lost as the towel descended on her and Zeno set to work rubbing at her skin. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes, trying not to just be a crying mess.

“We’re going to talk about that reaction you just had,” Zeno said, his voice quiet and rough. “But I’ll explain myself first.”

“Y-you don’t … have to,” Harmony said, her voice choked as she pushed the words out through her constricted throat. The last thing she wanted was to hear him articulate the things she’d already concluded.

Zeno exhaled heavily, the air heating around them. He slid the towel between her legs with swift, tender efficiency, then dropped it and reached for the other. With the other he wrapped up her hair and squeezed, then caught her chin and encouraged her to meet his gaze. “I didn’t claim you because you hadn’t asked me to.”

Harmony sucked in awkward breaths, trying to figure out his words. Trying to figure out where they fit in with what had happened. “So it is my fault.”

He arched a brow. “There’s no shame in needing time, Harmony.” His fingers trailed along her jaw until his hand was curled loosely around her neck.

“Time.” She sniffled, not even feeling awkward about it, and finally found the strength to at least raise her arms and cover her breasts. “Time for what? Do you want me to take the time to make myself prettier? Lose weight, learn about makeup, until I’ve fixed the ugly parts? I’ll always be short. Time won’t change that.”

Zeno growled and hauled her up again. He carried her from the bathroom, dropped her back onto the bed, and laid himself over her body. He dragged her arms up, holding them above her head by the wrists. His chest pressed into hers. “I told you I would never lie to you. You are the most beautiful, tempting woman I have ever laid eyes on. I will worship your body for every day of my life if you give me the chance. If you change yourself, you do so only because it is a change you personally and strongly desire. In which case, you will always have my support. In every decision you make—every decision that does not involve self-harm—you will have my support. Even if it hurts me .”

Her heart slammed against her ribs. She wanted to believe him.

Why was he saying these things now? He’d had such a perfect opportunity to let her disappear from his life. She was so confused.

And she still couldn’t breathe properly. She gasped—for breath as much as from the impact of Zeno’s words. “I thought … I thought you were saying … you didn’t want me.”

Pain and sadness flashed across Zeno’s face and he adjusted his weight, releasing her wrists in favor of leaning down and pressing his forehead to hers. The position rested his pelvis more heavily onto her, making her keenly aware of his straining erection. “Little Dove,” he said, a yearning slipping into his voice that hadn’t been there previously, “I want you more powerfully than I have ever desired anyone or anything in all my life.”

Taking advantage of having been released, Harmony reached down and found his skin with her hands. She threaded her fingers in his hair. Part of her felt as though she should have been pushing him away, but all she could do was hold him closer, to the best of her ability. “You said—” She hated the way her voice and her breathing was messed up with her congestion. But she ignored it. “You said ‘of course not.’”

Zeno’s brow pinched, for a split-second, before he sighed again. He angled his head to press a kiss to her cheek. “I would never claim you without your explicit consent, Harmony. You hadn’t given that. So, of course I didn’t. That’s all I meant.”

This time she did try to push him away, tugging at his hair and only succeeding in prompting him to push up to his elbows. He still hovered over her, covering her in his body heat and reminding her that he was as naked as she was. “I asked you to take me.”

“You asked me to be your first,” he said, speaking calmly. “You never said a word about tying your soul to mine. You never said you had decided to see out the next millennium at my side. You asked for sex.”

She opened her mouth to argue his words, to insist she had meant it another way, but his unflinching, patient stare held her retort at bay. She knew she’d expected him to claim her. And she knew, when she replayed the moments leading up to their return to the penthouse in her mind, that even as she’d asked him to make love to her she hadn’t been sure what she was asking for. She wanted him, without question. She wanted to know his touch and his kiss. She had been absolutely sure she wouldn’t regret letting him be her first.

She didn’t think she had given any real thought to soul bonding or living for as many as another thousand years. That probably meant she hadn’t said the words.

Harmony licked her lips. “So if I don’t say it clearly, then you won’t … ever?”

Zeno’s jaw tensed for a moment, but he leaned in, bowed his head, and brushed his nose up the length of her throat. She felt his chest rise on a deep inhale. Then he pushed himself up again enough to meet her gaze. “Not without your sober and explicit consent. Ever.”

She stared at him, trying to get her brain to work right. Trying to understand what he’d just done and why it had made her skin tingle with delight. But it was hard to think about anything when she couldn’t breathe, so finally she pushed at his shoulders. “I can’t breathe,” she gasped.

Zeno rolled off her immediately, pulling her up to a sitting position and sweeping her hair from her face. “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared into the bathroom, returning with a small box of tissues, and detoured to the garbage bucket before bringing both up to the side of the bed. He held out the tissues. “Here. I can make you some peppermint tea if that would help.”

Embarrassed, Harmony held a tissue up to her nose and ducked her gaze. “I think I just need a moment. Could you maybe pretend not to watch?” Blowing her nose in front of the man who’d just taken her virginity was humiliating. It was ten times worse on the heels of making an ass of herself, and she was rapidly realizing that was exactly what she’d done.

All because she had been too lost in her own tangled emotions to make a decision.

Zeno was still kind enough to move around the room, gathering dirty laundry and scraps of ruined fabric, heedless of his glorious nakedness. Or perhaps that was part of his seduction plan.

She was not so polite as to not stare at his butt for a long second when it came into view.

When her nose was as clear as it was going to get, Harmony finally spotted the simple—but probably expensive—t-shirt that had been laid out for her previously and pulled it over her head. The towel Zeno had wrapped around her hair before had been dislodged with the whole bed-tackling thing, but at least her hair was dry enough not to immediately soak the fabric. She opted not to bother with the gym shorts. She didn’t even know why he owned them.

Did shifters really need to go to the gym?

A low grunt drew her attention back toward the doorway and Harmony found Zeno standing there, staring at her. He had finally donned a pair of black sweatpants, slung low on his hips, but the should’ve-been-thick material did nothing to hide his arousal.

Harmony swallowed heavily and tugged self-consciously at the hem of his shirt, which hung to her thighs. He was so much larger than her. “Should I wear the shorts?”

“No.” He stepped forward, moving straight to her, not stopping until her back was against the glass of the floor-to-ceiling window that ran the entire length of the wall behind his bed. The man did like his high views. He raked his gaze over her, his eyes practically burning. “Have you calmed down enough to decide your boundaries, Little Dove?”

Too many thoughts swirled through her head. She was probably tempted for the wrong reasons. Surely, she hadn’t known him long enough. So she latched onto that little voice of reason and finally said, “I’m kind of sore.” Her hands came up, fingers settling on his firm abdominal muscles. “Probably I should at least let myself rest before I make a big decision. And you owe me an awesome breakfast.” She smiled, hoping to show she meant it to be funny, before adding a more truthful statement. “But also, I owe you an apology … so I thought, maybe you could teach me…”

Zeno’s breathing faltered, just a little, as her hands dipped beneath his waistband. “Harmony,” he said, almost as if in warning.

She smiled, curled her fingers around his thick length, and stroked slowly. She watched his nostrils flare, his chest rise with a deeper breath, then she dropped to her knees and shoved his pants past his hips. She’d certainly never done even this much before him, but she obviously knew one did not give a blowjob with the pants still properly in place.

Somehow, she thought he looked bigger than before as his dick sprang free.

Zeno buried a hand in her still-damp hair. “If this is what you want,” he said, voice thick and roughened once more, “then open those sweet lips.”

She complied immediately, even sticking out her tongue and sweeping it across his tip.

He groaned. “That’s right, Little Dove. Follow that instinct. I want you to lick me, root to tip. Don’t be shy.”

Harmony swallowed a small flicker of nervousness and leaned closer, letting her tongue make better contact with his cock. She focused on the way he held her and the low sounds he emitted and soon her self-consciousness was gone in favor of heady excitement. Soon her tongue was twisting around his length, one of her hands taking hold of him again as she licked back up to taste the drop of pre-cum beginning to form. She didn’t wait for his instruction before opening her mouth more and trying to take him inside.

Zeno cursed under his breath. “Easy. Watch your teeth, Little Dove.”

Harmony retreated, licked her lips, and made a conscious effort to flatten her tongue as she went back in. She kept her jaw wide, lips curled close to her teeth like a shield, and after two more tries she had nearly the entirety of his cock in her mouth. She swore she could feel him hitting the back of her throat and fresh tears pricked at her eyes, but his grip had tightened in her hair and he’d emitted a deep, guttural groan that made her own body pulse with need. Somehow it was worth the initial sense of discomfort, knowing she was bringing him that pleasure.

She ran her hands up his thighs, over his abdomen, and finally dug her fingers into his hips as she began to bob her head on his dick. Once she got used to the movement, she went a little faster and started rolling her tongue underneath his length.

He grunted again, bending forward until his free hand was balanced on the glass of the window behind her. “You’re doing amazing,” he said, his breathing uneven. “If you don’t want me pouring down your throat, Little Dove, it’s time to pull off.”

Harmony pressed herself closer, shoving him as deep into her mouth as she could, and hollowed her cheeks on a hard suck. She felt his cock twitch in her mouth as his hand moved to hold her head in place, and again he let out a loud, thrilling roar of ecstasy—and with it, streams of hot cum shot down her throat. Thick, tangier than she’d expected, and almost too much to swallow, but she was determined to do for him what he’d done for her, so she willed herself to endure. She licked lightly at him as her throat worked to pull down every drop, until Zeno finally tugged her forcefully off his slackening length.

She gasped, relieved for the chance at a better breath and somehow faintly disappointed all the same.

He was breathing hard, chest heaving. His eyes were practically fire when they latched onto hers. “I’ll feed you breakfast in the morning, Harmony. And then you’re going to be mine. Unless you’d rather I eat you out right now.”

Heat flashed through her. She definitely felt a degree of hot-and-bothered, but every time she moved her body reminded her she’d also put it through something new and intense rather recently. “Breakfast would be better.”

He smirked and pulled her off the floor, locking her against his chest. “Let me hold you tonight. I promise to behave. I want you to see what it could be like, to choose me. To choose us.”

The sensual desire that had flickered in her core bloomed instantly into a chest-warming sensation at his words and Harmony smiled. “I would like that. But you should put your pants back on.”