All Chapters of Collide: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

Zane’s jaw was so tight he was sure his teeth were going to crack. Shawna and one of her idiot friends had cornered him. She’d latched onto his arm like a leech and he had yet to figure out how to get rid of her without making a scene in the middle of the event. He’d like to peel her off and spray himself down with Clorox but that was not going to be possible. If Maggie would just get back, he could extricate himself and leave. All he’d been able to think about all evening was getting her back to his place and convincing her to stay the night with him; have her face be the first thing he saw in the morning. He glanced at his watch again trying, without success, to extricate his arm from Shawna’s vice-like grip. He hoped Maggie was okay. She’d looked a little pale when she’d left the table. Suddenly, he saw a flash of pink in his peripheral vision heading for the front doors at a rapid pace. Maggie? Where was she going? “Excuse me, Tom, I see my date. I need to go make sure she’s okay

After Zane left her alone in the guest room again, Maggie slipped out of the dress and unfastened the tiny hooks on the corset, dropping both to the ground. She hadn’t expected the warm hand on her waist and the kiss. That kiss on the top of her spine. She’d thought she was going to melt into a puddle right then and there. She thought maybe he was going to forgive her but then the warmth at her back disappeared along with his hands. He’d left her without a backwards glance. She took a deep, cleansing breath and dug through her big pink tote. She found a pair of soft black leggings and a pink heathered T-shirt that said “BOSS BABE” across the front. It wasn’t something she would have ever bought for herself, but it was a gift from Dani – another of her attempts at affirmation. She usually pulled it out when she wanted to hang around the house and feel comfortable. Tonight, Maggie donned it like armor over the remains of her tattered heart. She moved to the ensuite and scrubbed the pa

Maggie woke to a pounding head the next morning thanks to Dani’s visit with her friend, Jose Cuervo. She knew better than to have more than two of Dani’s margaritas, but she’d needed the escape. Though her head was paying for her lapse in judgment, she had to admit she had come up with a plan of how to right things with Zane. She decided to text him before everything got crazy at the cafe. Her anxiety started rising when she waited several beats and didn’t see the three little dots that would show he was responding to her. She texted him again. Still no answer. She stared at the screen, willing it to answer her but no response came. Her heart sank. ***Zane felt his phone vibrate but whoever it was would have to wait. He stood at the bedside of a twenty-one-year old who had been injured at his job. The boy had been standing on the back of a logging truck bumper directing his buddy in backing the rig out of the woods when the truck hit a large hole in the ground, and he had been bucke

Despite the erotic assault Zane was committing on her body, a small, niggling, negative voice tried to worm its way out of the corner of her mind she had shoved it into. What are you doing? You let him bare you in your office? Under fluorescent lights? Are you insane? He’ll see all your flaws. But then she felt a finger crook deep inside her at the perfect spot. The voice vanished in a puff of sensual smoke. Words completely failed her and all she could do was groan. She felt him smile against her neck where his lips had been traveling back up to her mouth. “Another thing you like,” he whispered gruffly in her ear, before he nipped the lobe. “I love hearing you moan for me. I want to feel that tight pussy come on my fingers.”Before she could register any shock at his dirty words, she found his lips back on hers, his tongue mimicking the thrusts of his fingers in her body. She rocked desperately against his hand, pursuing her release. She fisted the soft material of his T-shirt in he

A few days later, Maggie found herself paying an emergency maid of honor call out to Dani’s house. Her friend had called in a tizzy and begged Maggie to come out to help. Something about plates. Maggie had been helping Sofia clean up after the lunch rush when Dani called. “I need you out here asap,” she said, sounding decidedly distressed.Maggie immediately stopped what she was doing and clutched the phone. “What’s happened? Are you ok? Did something happen to Levi?”“Your mother was just here.” Maggie could practically hear her friend’s jaw clench through the phone.“Oh, my,” Maggie responded, her posture relaxing and her mouth quickly quirking up. Her mother had volunteered to be Dani and Levi’s wedding planner, whether Dani wanted her or not, and was about to drive her to distraction. “What has she done now?”As Dani regaled her with the million tiny decisions that Mrs. Wade was prodding her to make that Dani didn’t care a flip about, Maggie thought of what her mother had accompl