Zane (Alluring Indulgence) by Nicole Edwards

shock as she looked back at her friend.
    “The
spa?” Kaleb questioned, glancing between the two women. “That’s a fantastic
idea.”
    “I
– I –” V stuttered, but didn’t complete her sentence.
    “You
what?” Zane found himself unable to stop himself from touching her. He let his
right hand slide down, and his thumb sweep back and forth over the silky skin
of her neck, just below her ear, beneath her hair.
    “I
was planning to talk to Kaleb and Sawyer about it myself,” she answered,
glaring at Zoey.
    “As
far as I’m concerned,” Kaleb added, “it’s a done deal. If you want to talk to
Sawyer and Travis, I suggest you do it soon. We’re looking at some applications
that we received in the last few days because we’re hoping to get a jumpstart.
Travis is at the point that he is sparing no expense to get AI off the ground.”
    “When’s
Travis gonna be back?” Zane asked.
    “Should
be today or tomorrow. They had something monumental go down at Club Destiny in
recent days, and the McCoy’s insisted that he come up there.”
    “What
happened?” Zoey’s interest matched what Zane’.
    “He
didn’t go into detail when I talked to him last night, but from what I
gathered, Luke McCoy went off the deep end.”
    Zane
didn’t know Luke McCoy other than the bits and pieces he had gathered from
Kaleb and Travis. Since he never made it to the groundbreaking ceremony, he
didn’t get a chance to meet anyone that his brothers were working with in
Dallas.
    “What
are you going to name the club?” Zoey turned her attention back to him.
    “No
idea.” He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He wanted to talk to Sawyer to get an
idea of what he might’ve been planning for the other club, to give him some
ideas. Truthfully, Zane didn’t see any of it mattering for at least a couple
more weeks, maybe months, so he assumed he still had some time.
    For
the next few minutes, Zane half listened while Zoey and V discussed various
things, most of them related to clothes which made him want to laugh. Zane
wasn’t all that familiar with girl talk, and honestly, even sitting here with V
was different from any other relationship he’d ever been in.
    Admittedly,
Zane didn’t have serious relationships. Not even in high school. The women he
associated with knew not to expect much from him because quite frankly, he
didn’t have much to give. He spent most of his time working, the rest of it
hanging out with either his brothers, or a couple of his close friends, mostly
Beau. When it came to socializing with women, Zane tended to gravitate toward
the horizontal conversations versus anything else. For some reason, the women
didn’t seem to mind. Just as long as he spent more than one night with them.
    He
had spent more time with V in the months leading up to the assault than
probably all of the women from his past combined. He knew she tried to play off
their interactions as only sexual in nature, but Zane knew better. They might
not know everything about one another, but he certainly knew more about her
than she was willing to admit.
    V
wasn’t much on asking questions about him personally, but he knew her well
enough to know she tried to keep her own life as quiet as possible, and as a
result, she didn’t seem interested in getting to know others. Probably because
she was scared they would learn more about her than she was comfortable
sharing.
    Zane
wouldn’t go as far as to say he knew V as much as he wanted to because she had
an uncanny ability to keep herself guarded. There were a few times in the months
leading up to his attack that she had almost opened up. And there were things
he knew about her just because they both lived in the same small town all of
their lives. Like the fact that she was an only child, her mother being one of
the most infamous people ever to come out of Coyote Ridge thanks to her
promiscuous lifestyle. Even to this day, V didn’t know who her father was, and
according to the rumors, Zane