Zane (Alluring Indulgence) Read Online Free PDF

Jake had planned it all out and somehow
the man had gotten away with what he’d done, which had another jolt of anger
bursting free inside of him.
    Zane
would admit that he hadn’t been happy when he found out that V had tried to take
all of the blame on herself. He’d wanted to talk to her, to shake her until she
understood that nothing she did caused it to happen. But seeing her now, seeing
the absolute anguish on her face broke his heart. The self-induced guilt was
eating her alive.
    “Are
you ok?” Sitting the water bottle on the table beside him, Zane moved an inch
closer, his knees nearly touching hers.
    From
the moment he woke up in that damned hospital bed two months ago, Zane had
wondered how she was holding up. Both physically and emotionally. From the
outside, V looked just as radiant as always, but he knew her better than she
thought. She was notorious for pretending all was great and perfect, but when
she didn’t know he was looking, there had been plenty of times he had seen her
with her guard down.
    It
hit him that he didn’t even know whether she had sustained any injuries that
day. His memory had taken a little time to come back to him, but as soon as he
recalled the way one of those bastards had shoved V, sending her slamming into
the ground, he’d damn near walked out of the hospital that day. That one push
had distracted Zane enough, giving those fuckers exactly the opportunity they
needed to catch him off guard.
    “I’m
fine. Why?” Her nonchalant attitude pissed him off sometimes. She acted as
though nothing fazed her, but he knew better. He could see it in the way she
forced a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
    “Did
they hurt you?” He had to ask the question because he had to know. No one
seemed to know exactly what happened right after Zane had been knocked out.
Well, no one but V.
    “They
didn’t hurt me,” she said, sounding for the first time, like she was trying to
reassure him. “They weren’t there for me, Zane. Jake just used me to get to
you.”
    “He
didn’t use you, Vanessa. Jake came after me . It just happened to
take place at your house. There’s a big difference.”
    The
words came out a little harsher than he intended, but it was more than obvious
that she was layering the blame on herself. He wanted to reassure her that it
wasn’t her fault. He knew they needed to talk about what happen, but Zane was
hesitant to relive those memories so soon after he was released from the
hospital.
    He
knew full well what it would do to him mentally. That black hole of fury was
pulling him under, and if there was anything Zane knew about himself, it was
that his temper bordered on out of control. He’d become intimately familiar
with it during the few conversations that he’d had with that damn psychiatrist
– or whatever she wanted to call herself – that his mother insisted he talk to
in the hospital.
    V’s
eyes lowered. “I’m so sorry.” Her whispered words broke his heart and pissed
him off at the same time.
    “You
have nothing to be sorry about, V.” This time he lowered his voice, trying to
reassure her as he leaned closer, reaching out for the first time to touch her.
Tilting her chin up so she had to meet his eyes, he smiled sadly, “Nothing that
happened, that day or any other, was your fault.”
    “No?”
V stood suddenly. Her abrupt shift had Zane flinching backward instinctively.
    Yeah,
he was clearly going to have to work on that.
    Pushing
himself to his feet, he closed the gap between them, towering over her as she
stood staring up at him. At six-foot-four-inches, Zane was not by any means a
small man. He was still working on gaining the pounds he’d lost while in the
hospital back, along with the strength that was zapped from him thanks to a
month in a coma.
    Standing
next to V, all five-foot-seven or so inches of her, Zane couldn’t help but
remember how well their bodies fit together. She was tall and curvy and
breathlessly beautiful. Even