She hides a laugh behind her hand, facing away. When she turns back to me, her eyes have that glint in them I’ve only seen a handful of times.
“Fine.” Delilah sits straight. “You annoy me, Zane. You follow me everywhere.”
“Not true.”
“You act offended that I’m not falling all over you like some love-struck puppy dog.”
“Also not true.”
“You say the most offensive things and then act appalled that I take offense to them.”
“You’re overly sensitive.”
“You have no regard for any kind of rules.”
“Okay, now you just sound like Rue.”
“And every time I’m around you, you make me lose control.”
“Ah, there we go.” I move my hand to her hip and pull her into me. “That’s what this is about, Delilah. You not having control. It isn’t me or the things I say or do. This isn’t about me at all. It’s about you.”
Her brows meet in the middle and then relax, and her shoulders fall. She knows I’m right. I can see it in that defeated expression on her pretty little face. She just won’t admit it.
“I’m going,” she says. “I didn’t come here to fight with you.”
“You call this fighting?” I watch her move toward the rope, pushing the curtains aside and peering into the crowd. “You’re really going to leave right now? Un-fucking-believable.”
“I’m removing myself from this situation,” she says. “Before we both say things we’re going to regret.”
I stand back, watching her fidget with the ropes, trying to unclip the barricade and get away from me as fast as she can. In all my years as a grown adult man, never once have I dealt with a woman so desperate to get the hell away from me after a hook up.
It’s almost always been the other way around.
I move toward the ropes, unclipping them and setting her free.
And maybe it’s for the best that I let her go.
Clearly she doesn’t want anything to do with me.
Clearly I had no business getting her in her pants in the first place, but fuck, I wanted her more than I’ve ever wanted anything.
Still do.
And she was worth it.
Hot damn, was she worth it.
Just wish I’d have known that my first time fucking her . . . was going to be my last.
Chapter 11
Delilah
I check my phone for the umpteenth time, and my heart does a little jig when I see my sister finally replied to my fifteen hundred text messages.
I want to yell at her for bailing, but I’m so relieved that she’s okay that I let it go.
DAPHNE: WITH WESTON. HE’S COOL. HAVING FUN. DON’T WORRY. MEET YOU AT THE HOTEL LATER.
Replying, I tell her to keep me updated, to text me when she’s on her way back, and to stay safe and keep her phone on her at all times. I’m sure I sound completely ridiculous, but she’s always been the adventurous one.
I’ve always kept close to home and played it safe. I couldn’t even move across the country for school – I had to move halfway across the country.
She’s the one who flew across the ocean for nine months and took some Parisian lover and spent her days drinking wine and restoring antique oil paintings in the back room of some fancy museum.
I should trust her, and I’ve been around Weston enough to know he’s not a slime ball.
But I just worry.
After changing into pajamas, I brush my teeth, watching my reflection in the mirror. I’m wearing way too much makeup, but I’m having a rare good hair day despite the Florida humidity that tends to swell my strands.
I rinse my mouth, running my fingers through a loose tendril and breaking up the curl as I recall how Zane said he liked my hair down.
It’s only when I’m changing into my pajamas that I pause and think about what he said earlier about control.
He’s right. And I know it. But admitting it feels like defeat. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to be me. Growing up, my family has always teased me about my control-freak tendencies, but I can’t change that part of me any more than I can make my eyes switch from brown to blue.
I can just hear my Interpersonal Psychology professor’s analysis in my head . . .
Control is safe.
And Zane makes me lose it.
Therefore, Zane is not safe.
It’s a simple equation. And Jesus, Zane figured it out without a graduate degree, so props to him. I just can’t . . . I can’t do this with him. There are no rules or definitions or boundaries or expectations.
He makes me feel like I’m falling with no safety net.
Slipping my pajama top above my head, I tug it down and grab the ice bucket and my hotel room key.
Halfway down the hall, I spot the sign for the vending area and trudge along. Rounding the corner, I stop when I see another hallway of rooms . . .
. . . and Zane de la Cruz seated on the floor outside one of the doors.
I clear my throat, and he glances up.
“Well, shit.” His knees are bent, his elbows resting upon them, and he looks over at me.
I tuck the ice bucket under my arm.
“Before you accuse me of following you to your hotel . . .” He places his hand up in protest.
“It’s okay,” I say. I’m too exhausted to argue with him, and it makes sense that he’s here. Hotel Azul is connected to its namesake club below, and the nearest hotel is eight miles north of here.
I press the ice canister against the dispenser and listen to the groan of the machine.