Chapter 173

Sarah POV

It had been a long day. Zane and I quizzed each other on Ted’s list then burned it. We ate a pasta dinner with the girls without betraying how deeply worried we were about every detail of our lives being online, and Chloe talked with excitement about going to look at some teak in a lumber store that weekend. Evidently, her design was finished, and she was ready to get going.

Grace picked a little at her food, and Zane asked her if she were feeling all right.

She shrugged. “I miss it when Miss Carmen doesn’t come over.”

“Well, you know she’s worried about your voice over the long-term,” he said. “You have athletes at your school, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s the same with them. The coaches have to make sure your schoolmates don’t train too much too soon and injure something. Just imagine if you wanted to be a basketball player more than anything, but then you hurt your knee, and that was the end of your career.”

Grace’s eyes grew big. “That would be awful.”

“Exactly. So, we’re just making sure you don’t do that with your voice. Your body makes your voice, just like a basketball player’s body plays the game. You need to take care of it.”

“But what about my inside-me voice?” she asked.

Zane stilled, but then he smiled gently. “Your inside-me voice?”

She giggled. “Not inside you. Inside me.”

Zane seemed a little lost.

“What voice is that, honey?” I asked as gingerly as I could.

“Sometimes when I’m singing, there’s another voice there, and we sing together.”

Zane and I glanced at each other.

“Have you asked Miss Carmen about your inside-you voice?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“And what did she say?”

“She said I shouldn’t worry about it yet.”

“Well, she’s probably right, I mean, she’s the expert, right? But we still want you to worry about the voice that comes out of your throat, and we want to take care of it.”

Grace nodded at me and then looked at her sister. “You’ll take care of your body too, right?”

Chloe shrugged and ate a rather large bale of pasta before saying with her mouth full, “’Course, silly.”

I read to the girls that night without Zane, who was working in his study.

“The sea became restless, and a moaning, grumbling sound could be heard beneath the waves. Still the little mermaid remained by the cabin window, rocking up and down on the water, so that she could look within. After a while the sails were quickly set, and the ship went on her way. But soon the waves rose higher, heavy clouds darkened the sky, and lightning appeared in the distance.

“A dreadful storm was approaching. Once more the sails were furled, and the great ship pursued her flying course over the raging sea. The waves rose mountain high, as if they would overtop the mast, but the ship dived like a swan between them, then rose again on their lofty, foaming crests. To the little mermaid this was pleasant sport; but not so to the sailors.

“At length the ship groaned and creaked; the thick planks gave way under the lashing of the sea, as the waves broke over the deck; the mainmast snapped asunder like a reed, and as the ship lay over on her side, the water rushed in.”

I stopped reading at a sudden feeling of dread in my stomach. When I looked, thankfully, the girls were asleep. I put the book down and made my way into the hall. I could feel my blood rushing into my ears like a personal ocean.

I didn’t even think of going into my own room, but when I got there, Zane’s study was empty. I turned immediately and all but ran to his room before I opened the door like a thief wary of raising the alarm.

He wasn’t in his bed, but in a minute he came out of his bathroom dressed only in his pajama bottoms. I stared at his chest, its strength and curves now familiar to my hands, and with a few steps my fingers were raking between the curls there.

“Sarah?”

“Yes, please, Zane. I need you to hold me. I need you to keep me from drowning.”

“I don’t—what do you want from me? Back and forth with you, Sarah. Please.”

“Yes, please,” I gasped it out before giving into a desire it felt I’d had for years, even though that made no sense. If I couldn’t literally burn silver in the moonlight, I wanted to burn from this devotee of the moon.

In a moment, we were on the bed, and he had rolled me on my back and kissed delicate passion across my forehead, down my face, and then further down my neck. I was struggling out of my clothes, and I must have managed to get the top parts of because then he rolled me on my stomach and kissed down my back, up over my shoulder blades, and then back down over my buttocks, which had become almost magically made bare to him.

I was lost. Everywhere he touched her felt better than anything, and yet this was the clearest my mind had been in my life. I rolled back over to run my fingertips over Zane’s strong legs, tracing patterns on his chest with my tongue, nipping lightly at the skin whose taste and scent she remembered so well.

“Don’t turn me away,” I begged.

“I want you all the time,” he said. “I could never deny you, never leave you.” With each syllable he was pressing his body, so warm and real and strong, against my own.

“So unbelievably lovely,” he whispered. “Don't stop touching me. Please don't ever stop touching me.”

I gasped his name, wanting to scream it but still clear-headed enough not to wake the house. Then I forced her eyes open and clear. “I love you so much. Make me believe I can have you, that I can keep you.”

His body stilled, and I wanted to cry in anger, but then his arms gripped me more tightly than ever and his teeth closed on me neck, and I arched in a pure wave of pleasure that washed through me more powerfully than the sea. I lost my ability to be gentle, to restrain the desire that pounded the fire in my blood. Irrationally, I wanted to bite him back, but my head was craned back and up, as though I were about to howl.

We joined then, rocking together, closer and closer, until we reached the crest together only to fall deliciously back, arms wrapped around each other, to drift off to the safe shores of sleep.