Jess Dee - Rhythm of My Heart

Eve came with a loud groan, her pussy pulsing rhythmically. A soft keening filled the shower stall. Eve’s soft keening.

It caught him in his balls, made his dick even harder.

Thank fuck he’d had the foresight to put on a condom before stepping inside the shower, because God knew there was no chance he’d have the strength to stop what he was doing and find protection now.

He let her ride his fingers, ride her orgasm, until her inner muscles eased and her body relaxed against his. Then he took an arm in each hand, leaned her upper body forward and flattened her palms against the wall.

He had to bite back a roar as the position pressed her ass even tighter against his dick, then had to bite back another as he slid clear of her buttocks.

Fuck, she felt good. But not as good as she’d feel wrapped around him, her wet heat enveloping his shaft.

Zachary positioned himself at the entrance to her pussy, and with one thrust, found heaven. Her muscles clamped down on him, holding him inside all that feminine heat.

Once buried inside her, Zachary was forced to stop, to breathe—very deeply—and count to ten. If he thrust again anytime soon, he’d come. Lose his load in her depths.

Yep, they’d made love before, and yeah, it had been good. But this? Now? Sublime. Zachary wasn’t just making love to the woman he’d fallen for over the last few days. He made love to the woman he’d wanted his whole life.

They were one and the same.

He tried to hold himself at a distance, tried to grasp her by her hips and plunge inside her while standing upright. But God help him, he couldn’t do it. How the fuck could any man hold back when the woman he loved stood before him?

He leaned in, pressing his back to her front, and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her as close as a man could hold a woman. He buried his nose in her neck, let the water pour over her shoulders and his, and rocked into his woman, once, twice, a million times.

He heard the music in his mind. He always heard music when they made love, but Zachary didn’t tap out the rhythm on her skin. Tapping meant he’d have to spend seconds not touching her. Every time he raised his hand would be a second away from her flesh.

And for now, hell, maybe forever, Zachary found himself powerless to release her.

“I love you, Eve.” He didn’t whisper. He needed her to hear him over the spray. “Love you so goddamn much it hurts not to touch you.”

The muffled sound that came from her could have been a moan or a sob. Zachary wasn’t sure. What he was sure about was Eve’s response to his words and his actions.

Again gooseflesh covered her skin. Her nipples were so tight they poked at his palms, and as hard as he drove into her, so she rocked back on him, meeting every thrust with a delicious twist of her hips. “Don’t stop, Zachary. Please, God, just don’t stop.”

Loving her? Or fucking her?

The first one she need never worry about. The second? Yeah, he’d be forced to stop soon—but only because the sensation was too damn incredible, the urge too strong. He was going to come.

His orgasm built, sent him hurtling towards his peak. “Wanna stay like this forever. Never want this to end…but…too…damn…good!”

He thrust harder, deeper. His balls tightened at the base of his dick.

“Z-Zachary!” Her cry was breathless.

Harder, deeper still. Shit, he wasn’t going to last.

“Oh, God, Zachary!”

Eve came, her pussy spasming around his shaft. Great tremors ripped through her body, and she sobbed his name again and again.

It was all too much. Sensory overload. Undiluted bliss.

He climaxed. So fucking hard, the force of his orgasm almost knocked him off his feet.

Jesus, he’d never experienced anything like this. Never wanted a woman so much he hurt. Never wanted to make love to a woman all over again, while still coming inside her.

Never wanted to hold onto anyone so tight she never left his side.

Never… Not until he’d met Eve.

When the last shudder of his release had passed and her pussy pulsed no more, when only the sound of their heavy breathing mixed with the splattering of water on the floor, Zachary pulled out of her and spun her around. Without even opening his eyes his lips found hers, and he kissed Eve soundly for a very, very long time.

It was the taste of salt on his tongue that finally ended the kiss. The taste that forced him to pull away.

Tears? Still?

Opening his eyes wasn’t easy. His lids were so heavy, so sated—just like the rest of him—that focusing his gaze was almost impossible.

But when he managed, when Eve’s face finally converged into a solid shape, it wasn’t her tears that had him gasping out loud.

Zachary blinked, hard. Then he blinked again.

Okay, so his vision hadn’t cleared yet. Obviously water obstructed his view. Still holding her tight, he stepped back, out of the range of the spray, and ran his hand over his eyes, drying them as best he could.

But damn it, when he opened them again, his vision was no clearer.

Or maybe it was altogether too fucking clear.

“Eve…” His voice was a hoarse rasp. “Jesus—”

She looked trapped, terrified. Just like earlier, at Hannah’s party, her eyes shimmered with emotion. Only this emotion tore a hole through his stomach and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. There was nothing happy about it.

My scars.

Christ, she’d referred to them in plural, hadn’t she? And all he’d seen was one. How could he not have realized? Not have seen what lay beneath the expertise of her makeup?

What he stared at now was not one scar. Not even close. There must have been forty crisscrossing the side of her face, a crazy network of pink lines, some thicker than others, some longer. Some were bordered by tiny pink dots—leftover marks from stitches?—and some were slim enough to almost be unnoticeable.

Yet they meshed together to form a pattern, as though a child had taken a permanent pink marker and scribbled across her cheek at will.

Shock kept his muscles frozen just long enough for reality to set in. But once Zachary understood what he was seeing, once he knew the exploding glass had not just scarred her chest, he couldn’t control the violent tremors that shook his body.

He dropped his hands, freeing Eve, and stumbled back against the wall of the shower. His knees shook so damn hard he didn’t think they’d hold his weight.

There it was again. That unfathomable depth of emotion he always felt around her. Only now he fathomed it. Now he knew why it ran so deep. Eve was his fate. Eve—and all her scars. Her hurt and pain were his.

Zachary closed his eyes and fought the weakness that claimed his limbs. It took long seconds, long minutes maybe, before his arms finally steadied and his legs solidified. But his shock did not wear off. Pain tore at his stomach, and he wrapped his arm around his waist, uselessly trying to ward it off.

Plagued by what he’d seen, and lacking the lung capacity to express his horror, Zachary rolled his hands into fists and without turning around, slammed them, once, twice, twenty times, into the wall behind him.

Eve did not hang around to watch Zachary beat the walls in disgust. Still dripping from the shower, she tugged the first thing she saw from her suitcase—a sundress that fell down to her knees—threw it on, grabbed her keycard and escaped.

Got the hell out of that hotel room, and ran as far and as fast as she could. She raced down the corridor and didn’t bother with the elevator, finding the stairs instead and tearing down them, taking them two or three at a time.

She charged through the lobby and rammed through the doors of the hotel. Flashes of light blinded her, but Eve paid them no heed. Barefoot and desperate, she sprinted away.

Voices called her name. More lights flashed, but she left them behind quickly. Someone might have followed her. There were footsteps for a while, mimicking hers, but she just ran faster until the rhythmic thud behind her ceased.

Stones and pebbles sliced into the soles of her feet. She didn’t care. A few more scars could hardly hurt her now. She stopped running only when she reached the beach, and then only when she found a protective alcove of rocks to huddle beside.

God knew it wasn’t safe, a woman alone on the beach at this time, but Eve was already damaged. There was nothing that could damage her more.

Twice she’d been rejected after revealing her face to the men she’d thought she might have a future with, and both times the disappointment had crushed her.

But neither of them had taken one look at her scars and been repulsed enough to turn white. Neither of them had clutched their stomachs and pounded the wall in abject horror.

Zachary Pace, with all his vows of love and affection, all his talk of fate and future, had done what no one else before him had done. Been too nauseated by her face to even look at her. He’d closed his eyes and shut her out—completely.

Bree stood in her kitchen trying to get Eve to eat something. After helping her bathe and bandage her feet, she’d set toast and jam on a plate in front of her, cereal with milk, scrambled eggs and finally, in sheer desperation, leftover birthday cake.

Same with the drinks. There were glasses of water and orange juice, a mug of coffee and a cup of tea, all sitting beside a bottle of red wine.

Eve’s stomach turned at the idea of putting anything in it.

She knew she looked terrible. Frightening even. The early-morning jogger who’d lent her his mobile phone had tried not to gawk but failed miserably.

Bree had pulled up beside her fifteen minutes later, bundled her into the car and taken Eve back to the house. It had taken a while, but finally Eve choked out the full story, telling Bree everything.

Her sister’s face still shone with murderous rage.

“Can you get a message to the hotel, Bree?”

“Of course. I can do anything you need me to.”

“Phone them and ask to speak to Delilah Young. If they put you through, great. If not, just leave a message.” They wouldn’t put her through. The hotels had strict instructions to take messages for the band members, not connect the calls.

“And the message is?”

“Tell her I’ll meet them in Adelaide, at the arena. I’ll be there in time to do makeup.”

Bree stared at her. “You’re not going back, are you?”

“I have to. I signed up for a six-month tour. I have a professional obligation. Can’t back out now.”

“Er, yeah, you can. You can back the hell out, and no one will call you on it. Not a single person.”

“My…problem is with Zachary. Jonah.” Her chest closed at the mention of his name. “Not Delilah and Devine. They’ve been nothing but lovely to me.”

“They’re part of Speed, Evie. Part of Jonah’s band. You don’t have to go back. Not after what that bastard did to you.”

“I spent the first few days of the tour without any contact with him. It won’t be hard to avoid him for the rest of it.”

“You can’t evade a man for six months.”

“I won’t need to.” Eve shrugged, a world of pain in that small movement. “He’ll be dodging me like the plague.”

Bree’s hands curled into fists. She let rip with a few choice expletives that made Eve snort.

“Look, Mum.” Hannah’s excited voice echoed through from the lounge room. “Aunty Evie’s on the telly again.”

“Oh, fuck.” Bree gave voice to Eve’s thoughts.

Limbs heavy, she made her way to the TV.

“Jonah Speed’s latest love interest, Bali bomb survivor, Eve Andrews, was seen tearing out of her hotel late last night, looking none too happy.”

And there she was, racing from the hotel lobby, her mangled, tragic face visible to the whole world.

The reporter kept on speaking as images of Eve flashed across the screen. Pictures of her just after the attacks, her face and chest swathed in bandages. Images of her and Bree leaving the hospital arm in arm, a shot of Lochie’s funeral, the video footage of her and Zachary kissing, then pictures of them talking backstage at the concert last night.

And then back to her fleeing the hotel, cameras closing in on her back as she raced down the street.

She didn’t hear what the reporter said. Didn’t listen. She didn’t want to know. Whether it was the truth or not, Eve’s injuries—both her physical and emotional ones—had just been revealed to the entire world. Again.