Page 37 of Dirty Like Zane
I started to getdressed.
“Stay,” hesaid.
But I knew I couldn’t stay. I knew I shouldn’t have been here atall.
I knew I’d just set something in motion that I couldn’t take back. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take itback.
I wasn’t sure aboutanything.
Which was why I had togo.
I peered at him and told him, “I shouldn’t behere.”
Because I knew I couldn’t be withhim.
I couldn’t be with him… but maybe we couldfuck?
NO.
Fuckingno.
Stupid.
Terrible fuckingidea.
Theworst.
“Like hell,” he growled. “You’re mywife.”
“I’mnot.”
“You’re gonna be,” hesaid.
He was still on the bed, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath. Just lying there staring at me, totally unconcerned with his nakedness or the fact that we’d just fucked, or the fact that all of this was just going to end up hurting usboth.
“One day, Maggie, you’re gonnabe.”
I left without another word. Because there was nothing else I could say that wouldn’t becruel.
Because I knew he waswrong.
Chapter Six
Zane
Next timeI saw Maggie we’d stopped for a late lunch at a diner in the middle of pretty much nowhere, sometime in the afternoon. Jude knew some guy, who knew some guy who ran the restaurant. It was pretty empty when we walked in, just a lone trucker up at the counter and an old couple in abooth.
Between the members of Dirty, Steep Trap, management, various spouses and security, there were nearly thirty of us who piled into the place. They actually flipped theClosedsign for us, because the dude working alone in the kitchen was barely gonna be able to handleus.
And maybe we scared the other customers away or something? By the time we started ordering our food, they weregone.
Dylan, who’d had an honest job flipping burgers in high school, went back into the kitchen to help the cook out, and a couple of the Steel Trap guys went withhim.
When the lone waitress, who was probably in her fifties but looked about eighty, started bringing out the food, Maggie and Talia got up to help her and so did Katie. Which meant Jesse got up to help, which meant I had to join in, because no way was I letting Jesse Mayes come off as some kind ofhero.
We were all packed into the booths while we ate, and Maggie sat about as far away from me as possible, down at the other end of the place. She hadn’t spoken to me or even glanced my way since she ran the fuck out of my bus mere minutes after I made her come—again—but we had all day to get down to San Francisco. We also had tonight off. Which meant plenty of time for me to chip away at her fucking wall and get her back in mybed.
I’d lock her in my bus if I had to. Buy her every shooter from here to Los Angeles if that’s what it took to get her to look my way again with those soft grayeyes.
