Keep (Seaside Pictures 2)

I suppressed a nervous giggle.

“Something funny?” An extremely—thank you, God—naked Zane was standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in one hand, a marshmallow in the other, and an acoustic guitar hanging off the side of his body.

I wasn’t really sure if I should laugh or just cry at the image of perfection standing in front of me, every rippled muscle on display for me to see.

That was the thing about Zane.

His secrets were his and his alone.

But his body? It was as if he knew the mental barriers he put up and didn’t want to do the same with the physical ones, like it was all he had to share at times.

And I respected that.

Even though I didn’t quite fully understand it.

“You,” I finally muttered in a sleepy voice. “Let me guess, marshmallow pancakes for breakfast?”

He made a face. “Marshmallow waffles. Actually.”

I scrunched up my nose. “Those are better how?”

His face broke out into a grin as he took a sip of coffee. “Be a good girl and I’ll tell you.”

“It’s too early for you.”

His smirk was ridiculous, yet I couldn’t help but laugh and throw a pillow in his direction, hoping it would at least alleviate the giddiness in my chest that I was really there.

In his hotel room.

In his bed.

And I had been the only one.

A sense of rightness washed over me as I grabbed one of the blankets in an effort to cover myself.

“No,” Zane said in a commanding voice.

I looked up. “No, what?”

“Morning time is naked time.” He took another slow sip. “No clothes.”

“But—”

“Nope.”

I frowned and slowly stood, naked, on both feet. We’d had sex how many times? And I couldn’t stand in front of him naked? As sunlight streamed in and basically put a beam on every imperfection I had.

“Happy?” I huffed.

“I’m…” He tilted his head and smirked. “…very pleased, yes. Yourself?”

“You have too much energy. What time is it anyway?”

“Don’t cross your arms.”

“Huh?” I crossed, uncrossed, crossed again, then clenched my fists. “I’m standing in front of you naked.”

“My body and mind are both well aware of this awesome fact. Thanks for clarifying though, just in case there was any confusion.”

I swallowed and looked down, body shaking a bit. “I’m not like you. I can’t just walk around naked and be okay with it—even with you.”

“Yes, you can,” he said simply with a shrug. “Now, do you want waffles or not? I’m a pretty bad ass cook, and I figured since we were keeping each other and all, the least I could do is feed you.”

My stomach growled.

He tossed me a marshmallow.

I caught it mid-air. “I’m going to develop diabetes if I keep eating all this sugar.”

He waved me off with his cup. “Eh, you’ll be fine. There are worse things out there, trust me.” His expression sobered for a flicker of a second before the smile was back. “Now, I have some recording to do. And I may have promised Jay I’d meet him on set today for a small cameo.”

My eyebrows shot up. “On set? With crowds?”

“Come with me.” The words shot out of his mouth like a plea, his eyes darting back and forth between my mouth and my eyes. “Please?”

“Can I wear clothes?”

He put his coffee down on the nearby nightstand and pulled me into his arms. “If any man sees you naked like this, I’ll have to kill him, and I can’t have blood on my hands, prison isn’t for the likes of me.”

“For the likes of you?”

“Then again,” he looked thoughtful. “I bet my cousin would bail me out.”

“Your cousin?”

“Keep up, the really distant one, on my grandmother’s side, I think we’re like half cousins, whatever, she used to tease us that he was part of this huge mafia family and said if we didn’t eat all of our spinach she would send us to live with him.”

I laughed. “That’s kind of mean.”

“Right, but it got me to eat, and sometimes, there wasn’t a lot of food, and I was always worried she wouldn’t get enough.” His voice trailed off as a flicker of sadness dimmed his eyes.

“So, have you met this cousin?” I asked, not as much curious as I needed a quick subject change since I knew he’d been doing a lot of sharing about his crappy past.

Zane smirked. “Twice.”

“And?”

“He’s a scary mofo,” he said with a breathy half laugh. Then he released me and moved into the kitchen and started pulling out plates from the cupboard. “When I was little and then the second time was at one of my first worldwide tours, I had a stop in Chicago, and he was backstage afterwards. I thought he was one of my new bodyguards. The guy was pretty big even by my standards.” As if to emphasize his point, Zane chose that moment to flex every muscle in his body and then wink.

I wish I was the type of girl not to be affected by all that masculine beauty, but I’d tasted him, he’d been inside me, so I was more than affected, I was ready to sprint back to the bedroom and lock him in it. I twisted my hands in my lap and pretended to listen when all I could think about was where his tongue had been about three hours ago. “Really?”