7. Always Been Yours – Zoe
Chapter 7
Always Been Yours
PLAYLIST: ”BACK TO DECEMBER” BY TAYLOR SWIFT
ZOE
Miss Jackson stared at me, wide-eyed and open-mouthed for a long moment. I could practically see the gears grinding in her head as she processed what I’d just said.
“I... what?” She sputtered, reaching up to run a hand through her hair in frustration.
I crossed my arms and kept my expression calm, taking a half-step forward, putting myself between her and Roman. I hoped it would keep her focused on me, and not whatever emotions might be rampaging through her at the moment, if the beet-red flush on her face was any sign of what she was feeling on the inside.
Rick walked by, a bucket of grain balanced effortlessly in one hand and a coiled lasso slung over his shoulder. The rhythmic crunch of his boots against the gravel caught my attention, but it was the way he paused, mid-stride, that held it. Something about the tension in the air must have registered with him, because he turned, his dark brown eyes scanning the scene with quick, practiced precision.
He set the bucket down beside the fence and tipped his hat back slightly, casting a pointed look at Roman. It was subtle—just the quirk of a brow—but Roman caught it immediately. He gave a faint nod, and without a word exchanged, Rick seemed to grasp everything he needed to know.
“Doc,” Rick said, leaning one elbow casually against the paddock rail. His voice was calm, steady, with just enough weight to make it impossible to ignore. “You’re a hell of a vet, but I think you might be confusing bruised pride with something worth getting into a fight about.”
Miss Jackson turned toward him, startled, her wide-eyed look suggesting she hadn’t even realized he was there. Rick didn’t flinch under her gaze. His tone softened, but his words hit their mark.
“A ranch like this? Animals like these? It takes more than money to keep it running. It takes heart, patience, and people who’ll do the hard thing when no one else will. That’s exactly what you’ve got standing right here.”
The air between us seemed to shift, the tension easing just slightly as his words landed. Rick didn’t linger, though. He bent to retrieve the bucket, adjusting the lasso across his shoulder with an easy, practiced motion.
“Anyway,” he said, his tone lightening as he stepped back. “I’ll leave y’all to it. Got mouths to feed and fences to check.”
Before he walked off, Rick gave Roman a quick, almost imperceptible nod. Then he strode toward the barn, his long strides deliberate, purposeful. The gate creaked faintly behind him as it swung shut, leaving Roman and me alone to face the situation he’d gracefully excused himself from.
I shook my head at Rick’s retreating back with a small smile before I cleared my throat, calling Miss Jackson’s attention back to me. “It’s a simple concept, really. Can you, or can you not, set aside your feelings about how Roman handled things with you? Can you, or can you not, behave like a professional in this situation? Are you, or are you not, capable of continuing to care for these animals and do good business with this ranch?”
A muscle in Miss Jackson’s jaw ticked furiously, and she glared down at the ground rather than meeting my gaze. “You’re really calling paying me on a payment plan good business?”
I sighed and shook my head. “Even if we’re behind on our bills at the moment, I can assure you that won’t be the case for long. So you need to decide if you can set your confusion and embarrassment aside, or if we need to take our business elsewhere?”
Miss Jackson couldn’t have recoiled harder if I’d physically hit her, and her pupils dilated so big her irises looked entirely black, giving away just how panicked she really was in that moment. I fought the urge to smile.
She can’t afford to lose our business any more than we can afford to lose her.
“I don’t think taking your business elsewhere will be necessary. I’m just… shocked and kind of thrown off because somehow, nobody around here seemed to know that you two were together these last ten years.”
Roman growled and butted in. “Like I said, I didn’t think I owed anybody an explanation about my private life?—”
I held up a hand, cutting Roman off as I cut a sideways glance at him. “Baby, why don’t you go wait for me at the house?”
Roman pursed his lips and glowered down at me. “Wait for you at the house? What the hell for?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Because I have the feeling you’re going to put your foot in your mouth any second now and make this situation even more awkward than it already is.”
Miss Jackson stifled a graceless, strangled snort of laughter at that, but I chose to ignore it. Considering the amount of confusion and humiliation she’d just been through, I didn’t think it was necessary to make things worse just to drive my point home and mark my territory.
“Fine.” Roman threw his hands up in a sign of defeat and turned around, shaking his head and muttering under his breath as he strode toward the Foreman’s house, which sat roughly at the midpoint between the Bunkhouse and the main house.
I didn’t let my gaze travel as far as the barn. Too many memories haunted that barn, and I couldn’t make myself think about any of them.
Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I turned my full attention back to Miss Jackson, pressing my lips into a thin line before I finally sucked in a deep breath and spoke.
“I’m sorry my relationship with Roman blindsided you. He’s a very private man, but believe me when I tell you, he has his reasons for acting the way he does.”
Miss Jackson’s shoulders slumped in defeat and she stared down at the ground. Her throat bobbed as she struggled to swallow her pride. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Like he said, I should have had the good graces to respect that no means no.”
“Thank you.” Her concession threw me for a loop, but I loosed a sigh and hooked my thumbs in my belt loops. “I can keep things professional if you can. The only question is… can you?”
Heavy silence stretched between us until Miss Jackson finally cleared her throat and nodded, holding out her hand for a handshake. “Yes, ma’am... but I’m doing it for your father and for the animals, not for you, and especially not for Roman.”
“That’s fine by me.” I released the handshake and waved her off, watching her clamber into her rig and disappear down the drive before I turned toward the foreman’s house.
Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I stormed toward the oversized, two-story log cabin’s front door. By the time I shoved the door open, I was moving like a runaway train down the side of a mountain, full steam ahead, and nothing short of hitting an immovable object would stand a chance of stopping me.
“Roman!” I slammed the door shut behind me, hard enough to rattle a framed photo off the wall to my right. Glass shattered when it hit the wood floor, but I ignored it. With no one in sight in the front hall, I stalked forward and glared left into the empty kitchen, then right, raking my gaze over every inch of the living room.
Both rooms stood abandoned as ghost towns and I stormed past the stairs and down the hall toward the back of the house.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up, tingling with the sensation that I was being watched. I stilled halfway down the hall, planting my hands on my hips as I yelled out for him again. “Where the hell are you hiding? I never took you for a coward.”
Out of nowhere, a hand clamped over my mouth from behind, stifling my startled screech, and an arm wound around my waist like an iron band, holding me in place.
Blind with panic, I kicked and squirmed, bucking and clawing at the arm around my waist.
“Goddamn it, Zo, calm the fuck down before the entire ranch hears you and you blow our cover story completely out of the water.” Roman growled the reprimand in my ear and I shuddered, hating myself for the molten heat that rushed straight to my core once I realized it was him.
Seething with barely controlled rage, I reached up with both hands and pried his fingers off my mouth, not caring if I dislocated or broke them in the process. “We’re alone in here, so don’t try to use us needing to keep up appearances for the public as a shield to avoid the fucking conversation we’re about to have.”
Roman spun me around and backed me up against the wall, effortlessly pinning me between the wood paneling and the impossibly hard wall of his body. “I’ve told you once to calm down. I’m not gonna tell you again.”
“Get the fuck off me,” I hissed, shoving at his heaving chest. When that didn’t work, I slapped him.
We both went utterly, deathly still as the crack of my hand hitting his cheek echoed off the hallway walls. Too late, I realized that slapping him was a big mistake.
Roman stared down at me, his pupils dilating until his dark irises were consumed entirely with inky blackness. His expression was too calm, too smooth, too still as blood rushed into his tan cheeks. Frozen with shock, I stared at the bright red handprint I’d left on his cheek, horrified by my temper and my utter lack of self-control when it came to him.
Clicking his tongue and shaking his head like he might at a disobedient child who’d disappointed him, Roman gripped my wrists and pinned them up over my head, using one big, rough hand to pin them against the wall. Dark fire blazed in his eyes as he stared down at me, his gaze devouring every micro-expression on my face.
“That wasn’t very smart, now was it?” Roman’s light, playful tone didn’t match the storm in his eyes... not by a long shot.
“No.” The word came out in a hoarse, strangled whisper.
I flinched as he reached up and gripped my throat with his other hand, nowhere near hard enough to cut off my air supply, but plenty hard enough to demonstrate that he was the one in control of this situation. My breath hitched and my mouth went dry.
The pulse in my throat throbbed against his big, work-roughened fingers as I stared into the bottomless depths of his eyes, not daring to move and barely daring to breathe. Liquid heat pooled between my thighs, answering the fluttering pulse in my neck, and I squeezed my legs together, trying to suffocate the needy ache that threatened to distract me from the issue at hand.
When Roman finally spoke, his voice was soft, and low, and slid over my skin like warm velvet, a testament to his steely self-control in the face of my hot temper.
“Miss Jackson barely swallowed the story that we’re together, and you pitching a hissy fit now will only make things worse. If that blabbermouth Cody saw you stomp in here like some kind of vengeful banshee on a mission to rip my balls off, the whole town is going to know about it before the day is over. Mark my words.”
“Son of a bitch.” I growled the words through gritted teeth, my chest heaving with ragged, too-shallow breaths as I tried to pull my trapped hands free of his grip. “All the pieces are starting to click into place for me, Roman. You came to Miami twice a year every year? Suddenly, it makes sense that every boyfriend I had for the past ten years eventually ghosted me, no matter how interested they seemed at first. You’re the reason none of the relationships I tried to have while I was in Miami lasted more than six months, aren’t you?”
Roman grimaced and squeezed his eyes shut, seeming to deflate in the face of my question, but he still didn’t release me.
“Yes.” The admission came out ragged and hoarse, like he’d swallowed broken glass.
“Why?” My voice broke, and I tried to tug my hands free again, but it didn’t work. “Look me in the eye and tell me why, damn it! Did you think you owned me? Did you think of me as a misplaced object or a piece of property, something you could fucking fly across the country twice a year to lay claim to, so no other man could have me? Did you think you could just treat me like some kind of wayward possession?—”
“Stop!” Roman’s command was broken and raw as an open wound, bleeding with a strange vulnerability I’d never heard from him before. A mix of emotions I couldn’t begin to understand fought a war in his expression as he sucked in a deep breath, forced his eyes open, and met my gaze head-on.
I froze, suddenly unable to breathe through the thick, charged weight of the air between us. He didn’t blink, didn’t move, didn’t breathe for what felt like an eternity. He released my hands and my throat, moving to cup my face between his hands. The heat of his palms seared my cheeks as he leaned in close, his lips almost brushing mine when he spoke again.
“No, it was never about me treating you like you were a possession, baby. It’s you who has possessed me for as long as I can remember. From the first time I laid eyes on you and every second of my life after that, you’ve haunted me. Your name has always been branded on my heart. Like you told Miss Jackson, I’ve always been yours.”
The raw honesty in Roman’s gaze wrenched my heart, clawing it open, leaving it aching and bleeding for him. I opened my mouth to tell him I’d changed my mind about our fake engagement—and about my decision to marry him for real—but no sound came out. In the very next instant, his lips met mine in a searing kiss.
I can’t do this to him... shouldn’t let him shackle himself to a broken wreck of a woman like me. He deserves better, deserves more, deserves the world...
Despite my desperate attempts to cling to sanity and truth, when his tongue swept against the seam of my lips, I opened for him. Melting against him, I wound my arms around his neck, pressing as close as I could get, hungrily matching each stroke of his tongue.
I raked my fingers through his hair, moaning as I arched against him. My nipples pebbled into rock-hard points where my breasts crushed against his chest, and I silently cursed every single shred of clothing between us.
Roman growled in response, drinking in my moan like a man dying of thirst. His hands slid down from where they’d been cupping my face, blazing a trail of heat down my neck, over my chest, my waist, and my hips, until his massive hands settled on my ass like he owned it. He gripped me and groaned, his hands sliding lower until he held a thigh in each hand and lifted me off my feet, pinning me between him and the wall, easily hooking my legs around his waist before sliding his hands back up to knead the soft curves of my ass.
He broke our kiss just long enough to murmur, “You’re all mine, do you hear me?”
I nodded and pressed my lips against his again, losing myself in the sensation, in the heat, and need, and the gloriously hard feel of him pressing against the aching, throbbing heat between my legs as he leaned down to nibble on my neck, just beneath my ear.
“Hold on tight, baby.” His hoarse command sent a shiver of delight down my spine.
My only answer was to do as he said, wrapping my arms around his broad shoulders and gasping out a needy whimper as his teeth scraped against the thundering pulse point in my neck, then bit down hard enough to make me cry out with simultaneous pleasure and agony, leaving his mark on me as he carried me upstairs to his bedroom.
My breathing was ragged and choppy with anticipation by the time Roman laid me down on his bed, and I stifled a yelp of surprise when he climbed on top of me, both of us still fully clothed, and he pinned my wrists to the bed.
“Roman, what are you doing?” I whimpered, squirming beneath him, desperate for friction, needing to feel him inside me more than I needed my next breath.
He let his full body weight rest on top of me, pinned my wrists above my head with one hand, and stroked my hair with his other hand.
Roman nibbled on my earlobe and I thought I might spontaneously combust. “Look at me, baby, because you and I need to get something straight before this goes any further.”
I stifled the urge to cry and scream with frustration, but I did as he asked, looking Roman in the eye and giving him my full attention. “What do we need to get straight, Roman?”
Roman fisted the hand that had been stroking my hair, holding my head still, and the fear and uncertainty darkening his gaze as he stared down at me absolutely gutted me, leaving my stomach hollowed out by shame and mind dizzy and reeling with need. “I saw that damn leaving look in your eyes before I kissed you, and I’m not going to do this... we’re not going to do this if you’re just going to up and abandon me again the second your dad is on the mend.”
He rolled his hips, and I felt his thick, hard cock press into my belly. I trembled with need, pressing my thighs together, squirming beneath him and desperate for friction because if I didn’t get it soon, I was pretty sure I was going to die.
“God knows I want you, and you can feel how badly I do, but I’m not going to go there with you if you’re not really here for good, not really in it for the long haul with me like you said at the hospital. I’m not asking you to love me because I know that’s asking too much for a woman like you to love a man like me. But I am asking you to give me your word as a Brandt that you’re really going to stay and help me save this ranch like you said you would before this goes any further. Can you give me that, baby?”