Page 92 of Broken Trails
She shakes her head, teeth clenched. “You want honesty? Fine. I’m tired. I’m angry. And I’m sick of being told how I should feel. I don’t want to talk about Liam, or the lawyers, or how I’m coping. I just want to breathe without someone picking me apart.”
My hands flex at my sides. “I’m not picking you apart. I see you, Zoe.”
Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t move. “And what exactly do you see?”
I let my gaze drop. Once. Slowly.
She’s soaked through, her blouse clinging to her skin, outlining the swell of her breasts, the curve of her waist. Her skirt hugs her hips and her legs. Christ. Those legs. Thick, smooth, wrapped in sheer black stockings that disappear beneath the hem. Heels still on.
Every inch of her is fucking lethal.
My voice is raspier now. “I see the way you carry yourself. The way you walk into a room like you’re already preparing to defend yourself. I see how you fight—quietly and fiercely and fucking stubborn as hell. I see a woman who hasn’t let herself fall apart, not even when she probably needed to.”
She shifts just enough for my gaze to catch the way her thighs press together, the way the fabric of her skirt clings high, inching up just far enough to test every last thread of my restraint.
“And I see every curve. That sharp mouth that never lets up. That fire in you—pulling everyone close, dragging them straight into your orbit before they even know what’s happening.”
“Everyone? Or just you?”
“Well, I hope to God it’s just me.” With a short, impatient huff, I close the distance between us. “You’re standing there in those heels and stockings, dripping wet and pissed off, looking like sin wrapped in a skirt. You really think I haven’t noticed?”
Her breath hitches. Loudly. The kind of sound that echoes in a quiet room.
The kind that gives a man ideas.
“I’ve spent most of my nights imagining you spread out beneath me, those perfect thighs locked around my head while I devour you until you’re hoarse from screaming my name.”
Colour blooms across her cheeks—not from shame, but from the kind of heat that coils low inside. She lifts her chin, attempting to slip that armour back into place, but her stance gives her away. A subtle shift from one heel to the other, like she’s bracing herself against the pull in her body, fighting the urge to close the space between us.
“You… can’t say those things, Michael.”
Her voice is barely above a whisper, but hearing my name on her lips is its own kind of torment. Something so small, so ordinary, but from her, it’s dangerous. Addictive.
“Why not?” I murmur. “Last time I checked, I’m single. So are you.”
Her mouth parts like she’s about to object. “Well—”
“Careful.”
Her head tilts, defiance sparking. “Or what?”
I hold her stare, letting the silence tighten between us until I catch the hitch in her breathing. “I’ll wreck you in all the best ways,” I murmur. “Bend you over this bed and make you forget his fucking name.”
Her hands ball into fists like she’s searching for something to hold onto. “I’m too old for you, Michael.”
“Says who?” I take another step closer. “Age is just a number, and I couldn’t give less of a fuck about it. Not when I can’t get through a single day without picturing you. Wondering what it’d be like to have you, just once. To know what you sound like when you finally stop holding back.”
Her eyes remain locked on mine. They’re daring, and her lids are heavy. I know she is trying to hold the line, but every inch of her is screaming to cross it.
She closes the small gap between us. “I’m thirty-six, Michael. Old enough to know better. I come with too much baggage—”
“So do I. You’re gonna have to try harder than that.” I’m close enough now to feel her minty breath fan across my face.
“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.”
A quiet tsk slips out as I lean in, letting the space between us shrink to almost nothing, close enough that the challenge is in the air between us. “Try again.”
But she doesn’t. Her lips press into a stubborn, thin line. I take her in—the rise and fall of her chest, the tension wound tight in her jaw, the fire she’s barely keeping caged. Her eyes flick down to my mouth, then drag back up to meet mine, and that’s it.
