“Tell me about him.”
Zyah closed her eyes against the sudden wash of sensation pouring over her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed at her skin as if she could rid herself of his touch. “He felt like fire every time he touched me. He could be so gentle and then turn rough and wild, like he couldn’t get close enough to me or get enough of me. I couldn’t get enough of him.” She made her confession in an even lower tone.
Her grandmother remained silent, something she often did to encourage Zyah to continue telling her something important. Zyah swung around to face her, a little defiantly, this time deliberately looking her straight in the eye. She knew there was no getting around what she was revealing. Anat would understand that she was talking about having been with her partner sexually when she barely knew him. There was no judgment, but then her grandmother wasn’t a judgmental person. Throughout her childhood and teenage years, that had always remained a constant trait in her— one Zyah counted on now.
“He was so beautiful. Everything about him was beautiful to me, Mama Anat. His body was covered in scars. So many they made me want to weep. I didn’t ask him about them, or the tattoos he had, which covered quite a few. The tattoos were intricate and intriguing. I just talked with him because he seemed to need to hear the sound of my voice. We laughed so much. He loves music the way I do. He loves working with wood. His voice . . .” She broke off again, waving her hands in the air in despair.
Looking straight into her grandmother’s eyes, she asked the question that mattered the most, the one that nagged at her continually. “How could I have been so wrong?”
Anat regarded her just as carefully, never breaking eye contact. “You were so certain he was the one for you?”
Zyah nodded without hesitation. There hadn’t been any doubt in her mind or heart. Player had connected with her on such a level she felt complete. Soul to soul. She’d been that certain of him.
“I felt his heartbeat. When I danced. I was barefoot. He was barefoot. Something was wrong with him when he came into the room. His heart was straining. His mind was chaotic. His rhythm was off, but we were in perfect harmony. Movements, and the pitch of my voice—we connected, I know we did.” She faltered. “I was wrong. I connected with him, but he failed to connect with me. He didn’t. Not at all.”
“Tell me about him before you tell me what happened.” Again, Anat patted the bed beside her.
Zyah couldn’t help herself. She accepted her grandmother’s comfort. Her grandmother had been through hell, beaten and then robbed by intruders, but it was so like her to think only of Zyah and her anguish over losing what really had only been in her mind—an illusion caused by her reckless behavior. She wasn’t like that with men. She was cautious as a rule. Her last relationship had been two years earlier, and it had been a disaster in spite of the fact that she’d entered into it very slowly, taking her time, waiting to be physical with her partner for weeks. She hadn’t been with another man since—until Player.
She eased her hips and legs onto the bed, careful not to bump her grandmother’s fragile body. She curled onto the bed like a child, her grandmother’s hand stroking her hair just the way she had when Zyah was a little girl. It felt the same, like love.
“I came home to take care of you, Mama Anat, but really, I think I came home because I needed this. You loving me. I needed to feel loved. Maybe I thought he was someone special because I needed him to be.”
Anat continued to gently stroke her granddaughter’s hair, humming softly, the sound filling the room. Zyah closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel her grandmother’s comfort surrounding her, holding her close, enfolding her in loving arms.
“I love you so much, Mama Anat,” she murmured. “I hope you always know that. I hope when I was away working, you always knew it.”
The gentle, loving strokes in her hair never stopped. “Of course I knew, Zyah. You sent me letters every week and far too much money every month.”
“I was so homesick. I wanted desperately to come home, but I wanted to make you proud of me. You were such a strong woman, and I wanted to be strong like you. You came here alone after you lost everyone, with me to raise. I didn’t want to let you down.”
“You could never let me down, Zyah,” Anat chided, making her little trilling noise, this time definitely a small but loving reprimand. “You should know that by now.”
“What’s wrong with me that I can’t find the right man? I was so certain. I felt him touch me inside, soul to soul, just the way you said would happen when I listened to the earth. I heard her talking to me. I felt her move through me to him.”
Anat continued to stroke Zyah’s hair gently. “Gifts are strange things, child. You think the fault lies with you, but perhaps the failing was his. Tell me about him. He must belong to this club. The same club that owns this store you want to work for.”
Zyah sat up slowly and pushed back her hair, facing her grandmother. “Yes, Torpedo Ink. He’s a member. He has the same tree tattooed on his back that’s on their jackets. I need the job, and hopefully he won’t come in and bother me. If he does, I’ll look for another job, but there just aren’t that many around, and they offered the best wages for this area.”
“You are procrastinating, and that’s unlike you.”
She was. Zyah traced one of the flowers in the quilt on her grandmother’s bed. “I don’t want to feel like I’m so shallow I fell for him because he’s so beautiful, but he truly is. He’s tall and has wide shoulders and a thick chest, with muscles that go on forever. His hair is longer than I ever thought I’d like, falling below his shoulders. It’s thick and very unruly, light brown with sun streaks going all through it. I loved his eyes. He has the most striking blue eyes. They’re an unusual shade of blue—icy blue and then dark royal blue, and very piercing, as if he can see right into your soul. He has a short beard and mustache, nicely trimmed. So yeah, gorgeous man physically.”
“You are not a shallow person, Zyah—I will never believe that.”
Zyah gave her grandmother a small smile of thanks. “He’s intelligent and loves music. He has an affinity for wood—for the earth. He’s compassionate. His voice changed whenever he talked about his fellow Torpedo Ink members. He called them his brothers or sisters. I loved the way he talked about them. He clearly loves Blythe. You know her. Everyone does. She’s a cousin to the Drake sisters, you know, Sea Haven’s royalty.”
Anat nodded. She’d lived in Sea Haven a long time. “Yes, I don’t run in the Drakes’ circles, but Inez and Lizz talk of them. Everyone does.”
“Blythe is married to Czar, the president of Torpedo Ink, and Player told me that Blythe is kind of like a mother hen to all of the club members. It was the way he said it, not making fun of her like you might expect; his tone held absolute love and respect. He talked like Blythe walked on water. You just can’t fake that.”
Zyah rubbed at her arms, once again trying to remove the sensation of Player running his hands over her skin. Touching her. Creating flames licking at her. A hundred tongues of fire. She couldn’t get him off her or out of her, no matter how hard she tried.