Belonging to Lust

It was past dinner time when Heath finally crossed his cold well-kempt lawn towards the guest house to check on a very bitter Zaiyia. In his hand was an encased plate with dinner produced by him, a sort of peace offering for how things went down earlier. Normally he’d joke that a grown man such as himself can’t be expected to go without dinner from his woman or cook for himself, but tonight there was no room for amusement such as that. Especially when he spoke out of line. It wasn’t how he handled the situation of discovering Zaiyia in Alan’s company that was wrong, but the words he’d used when he let his temper get the best of him.

No matter what Heath said in the heat of the moment, he didn’t regard Zaiyia as someone’s stupid daughter.

Skipping the part where one was supposed to knock on the front door to enter one’s domain, Heath helped himself inside. Even though he gave the entire guesthouse to Zaiyia didn’t mean that he didn’t own it anymore. The guest house was technically still his. “Zaiyia?”

As Heath entered, he took notice that the whole ground floor was swathed in darkness. Evidently, the peeved teenager wasn’t there. She might not even be awake, he never took the opportunity to look up to her bedroom window to see if any lights were on on his way over. Asleep or not, he wasn’t about to back out of the house and go back to his place…and in case she was asleep he wasn’t gonna call out her name in fear of scaring her. Stepping further inside, he shut the door behind him.

Upstairs by lamplight, Zaiyia was sitting cross-legged on her bed getting her extra credit done. Her ears perked up at the sound of her front door shutting downstairs, but she didn’t make any acknowledgment of it. She knew it was Heath. As he made his way up the stairs, she tried her best to dismiss his presence even when he reached the top and entered her bedroom. With her brown eyes on her schoolbook, she pretended his scrumptious behind never existed in the first place.

Heath was cognizant that Zaiyia was disregarding him and would continue to disregard him if he dared to utter a single word. He wasn’t exactly a person easily ignored not just because of his looks but also because of his large muscular physique. Making himself small enough to overlook was impossible once he hit his growth spurt. Yet, Zaiyia was ignoring him like he was an invisible ghost…and looking breathtakingly stunning by lamplight while doing so. Shaking himself from staring her beauty, Heath stepped forward and lean down over the bed to set the wrapped dinner plate before her open schoolbook. “I made you dinner…you know for wrecking your meal earlier. You could say it’s an ‘I’m sorry’ kind of dinner.”

“It’s fine.” Zaiyia whispered, barely audible. Keeping her eyes down, she embarked on completing her homework. She’d lost her appetite after their argument and hadn’t found it since or else she’d be ripping through that aluminum foil to gobble whatever Heath cooked up for her in his kitchen. Right now she was too hurt and pissed off with him to acknowledge his existence.

Almost missing her faint response, Heath had to nod to himself. Of course, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. His Zaiyia never would. Letting out a sigh, he dug his hands in his pant pockets as his mind raced to calculate out what he could say to make things right between them again. He loathed it when she was mad at him or when they were apart. “Look, Zai…I’m sorry, okay? I never should’ve lost my temper back there with that…kid.”

Finally lifting her eyes, Zaiyia glared up at Heath. She instantly regretted doing so because Heath Sullivan just had to look sexy even when he was trying to appear contrite! It was enough to make her clit twitch between her legs. His rugged influence on her only irritated her further and so it really only served to make it easier for her to stand her ground instead of dissolving like an iceberg under the rays of his sexiness. Keeping her features rigid, Zaiyia drawled out. “And?”

“And?” Heath parroted in puzzlement, his brows furrowing together as he looked down at her. All his insides were experiencing a warm invasion of butterflies just from her cold acknowledgment. It gave his skin a delicious ripple of goosebumps. “And what?”

Straightening up from where she’d been bent over her books, Zaiyia maintained her glare as she helped him along his apology. Him atoning for ruining her lunch wasn’t gonna cut it when the crime he committed earlier went far worse than that! “Apologize for shoving that defenseless kid onto the streets as if he was some crazy person pestering you for your change!”

Wow, she’s gonna make me go that far, Heath inwardly groaned to himself. Subduing a very over-dramatic eye roll from coming on display across his face, he instead helped himself to taking a seat on the end of her bed. He took the liberty of pushing aside some of her schoolbooks so he wouldn’t knock them close and slid them across her comforter safely out of his reach. The distraction of schoolwork wasn’t something he wanted to continue to compete with in order to get her total attention. Staring down at Zaiyia with green eyes as he sat in front of her now, Heath softly opposed her previous demand. “Baby, I was pestered by a crazy person.”

Zaiyia rolled her eyes at Heath’s statement. Alan was not a crazy person…well, he was desperate and didn’t follow directions that well, but that didn’t make him crazy. Fighting to keep her glare game strong, she opened her mouth to defend Alan. “Alan is nothing but a kid! A desperate kid who needed MY help!”

Finally, Heath unleashed the over-dramatic eye roll he’d been holding back that was closely followed by an annoyed groan. “Oh please, not this again…”

“Don’t! I don’t wanna hear ‘oh please’ from you!” Zaiyia reprimanded Heath, not caring for his thoughtless dismissal. “Alan is in love!”

“Jesus, Zai, what would you know about love, you’re only fucking kids for Christ’s sake!” Heath demanded to know, his tone rising to an incredulous level as he threw his tree trunk arms up in the air.

Feeling like Heath just blew her chest open with a shotgun, Zaiyia’s glare finally fell to be substituted with a heartbroken stare. Her throat tightened with emotion, the tears threatening to come to the surface had she not blinked them away. She loved Heath, it wasn’t something she kept as a secret from herself, it was something she proudly embraced and wished to scream from the rooftops…but she couldn’t. She was underage and he’d go to jail for it. They had to have a secret relationship in order to be together but it was times like this where she wished they hadn’t pursued it, that she hadn’t fought to have him. If she ever told him how she really felt, that she was madly in love with him, would he even believe it?

Would Heath throw it back in her face?

The look on Zaiyia’s face made Heath’s heart sink into his stomach. She looked so dejected, so beaten, so…heartbroken. He felt such deep concern for her at that moment that it drove him to react by reaching out to her with both hands only to have her recoil from his touch like he physically sickened her. “Zai, baby?”

“Alan and I clearly know more than you ever will about love.” Zaiyia answered, her tone watery from holding back a need to sob. Without another word, she scooted herself back from him, and rebuilt the wall of school books that had been between them before. Her only intention right now was to go back to her school work until Heath left, and then she’ll scream and cry her heart out.

Heath had no idea that entering her bedroom would leave him feeling a thousand times worse than how he felt before. It’s like she was shutting him out not just physically but emotionally as well. Hell, even her room felt like it dropped several degrees! Once again, Heath had opened his mouth and said something wrong. He didn’t know why but he was frantic to reverse it. In a whisper, Heath said Zaiyia’s name as his mind scrambled to come up with an apology that would finally win her over so they could go back to the way they were before “Zai-”

“We’ve said all we needed to say to each other, Sullivan.” Zaiyia firmly cut in. She was right back to discounting him again, but this time, she had no intention of making the same misstep again by acknowledging his existence. "Now I got homework to do so if you can kindly get lost, I’d very much appreciate it.”

Stunned by how cold Zaiyia’s tone was towards him, Heath found himself reluctantly rising from her bed without a sound. He stood on unsteady feet at the end of her bed, insecure of what he should do now. It didn’t feel right to walk away and call it quits for the night, but that’s where his feet were taking him as he trudged towards her stairs, planning to do exactly what she told him to do.

But unlike his feet, Heath’s heart wasn’t feeling like enacting the compliant slave. Before he went to descend the stairs, he stopped where he was. No way was he going to admit defeat and walk away to leave Zaiyia incensed at him for another minute longer! No, he was gonna do something about it!

But what else could Heath do when he’s done it all?