Chapter 7
Nine days had passed since Delilah held me. Since she kissed me like I mattered. Since she made me come so hard, I couldn’t think straight. Since she knocked my world off its axis.
I thought I’d be over it by now. I’d tried everything. Avoiding her, being a dick, I even downloaded Tinder to try to force it. I deleted it not even five minutes later. None of the women were right. None of them were her.
Every day I watched her. That wild laugh, her easy charm, and gorgeous smile—she lit up the whole damn ranch.
Everyone noticed, stopping what they were doing just to soak up a bit of her light, and she knew it, too.
I used to think she was cocky with unfounded arrogance.
Now I knew better: she was confident, magnetic, and it was devastating to watch.
“Pay attention,” I snapped at Rhett, the newest ranch hand.
He had the subtlety of a bomb with the way his attention lingered on Delilah.
“This is important.” I was explaining the feed for the cattle.
Different cattle needed different food and minerals to meet their needs.
Give the wrong thing to the wrong one, and they could get sick.
“Sorry,” he stammered, coming closer. He ran a hand over his black beard, trying to focus, but his attention bounced between me and Delilah, who was talking to someone by her car.
I forced myself not to eavesdrop and follow my own advice.
It was my job as the ranch manager to train the ranch hands, so any mistakes that happened were on my shoulders.
But then I saw a flash of leg in my peripheral vision, and did a double-take.
Delilah was in shorts designed to ruin me and a navy shirt cropped just enough to reveal a tiny sliver of her waist. She looked too damn good to be so off limits.
But it was her hair that made my chest constrict.
I was obsessed with it. A fascination I couldn’t shake, no matter how hard I’d tried.
Tearing my eyes from her, I continued my spiel, reminding Rhett that he couldn’t give too much protein to the bulls, or it’d mess with their kidneys and could make them aggressive.
“You said that already.”
“Whatever. Just study this, and don’t fuck it up,” I said, pressing the list against his chest. I had to go do something with my hands or I’d chase Delilah up to her office and confess that once wasn’t enough for me.
A little while later, I was working on reinforcing the new corral when her husky voice floated out of the veteran’s lodging. “Finn?” My jaw tightened, but I stayed focused on my task. Or tried to, anyway.
“Yes, ma’am?” Finn was a good guy, a construction foreman Cavendish Academy hired for the renovations.
He was efficient and capable, and looked like me if sunshine and rainbows shot out of my ass.
My hammer nearly slammed down on my thumb when she giggled.
It was her flirty giggle, too. I’d heard it a thousand times over the course of my life, and yet this time, it bothered me that I wasn’t on the receiving end.
I glanced over my shoulder, and she was looking up at him, all doe-eyed and batting lashes. My stomach hollowed out.
This was insane. I couldn’t be jealous. She was my sisters’ friend. She was Delilah for fuck’s sake. Annoying. Reckless. Loud. Distracting…Gorgeous. Caring. Fun.
Goddamnit.
She put her hands on her hips. “I told you not to call me ma’am.”
“Well, you are my boss, and my mama raised me to respect authority. So what am I ‘sposed to call you? Ms. Chase?”
I scoffed to myself. What a crock of shit. Finn was no longer a good guy, and I was ready for him to get the hell off my ranch.
Delilah laughed again. “Can you help me rearrange some furniture in my office? It’s not really the vibe I’m going for, and I need your big muscles.” Something hot flared in my chest. Why hadn’t she asked me for help? My muscles were far bigger than his.
Probably because every time she asks you for something, you say no or bolt, you dumbass.
Finn chuckled. “Sure thing. I’ll be up in a sec, just need to finish this gate.”
“Okay,” she replied, her smile thick in her voice.
I didn’t know what pissed me off more. The fact that our night together seemed to mean next to nothing to her. Or the fact that she’d flirt with someone right in front of me just nine days after moaning my name until her voice went hoarse.
Either way, it shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did.
My hammer met the ground with a thud, and I went over to Finn. “Finish that. I’ll go help her.”
He glanced past my shoulder to the entrance of the building, looking unsure. Like his prize was being taken away. “Aren’t you busy?”
“Less busy than you.” I left no room for debate.
“Okay,” he said, defeated, and got back to work. I silently thanked Finn’s mother for making him too big a wimp to stand up to authority.
I jogged up the stairs to Delilah’s office. “Let’s go—” She froze when she saw me, planting a hand on her desk behind her. “Where’s Finn?” She swallowed, glancing at the door behind me.
“Busy.”
“Oh.”
Placing my hands on my hips, I looked around her office. “What’s the vibe we’re going for in here?” Hopefully, that would ease some of this tension that was making it hard to breathe.
Her lips flattened. “You heard that.”
“Sure did. Hope my muscles suffice.” That was childish of me, but apparently, I wasn’t above stooping to that level when I was desperate. I guess there was a first for everything.
She pursed her lips, looking me over. I wanted to fuck that fake displeased look right off her face. “They’ll do, I guess.”
She went to the empty bookshelf against the wall I backed her into three weeks ago; just seeing her over there sent my heart racing. She grabbed one side of it and paused when I didn’t follow after her. “I know I’m hot, but can you at least help me move this while you gawk at me?”
I bit back a smile. There she was. The Delilah I knew.
I grabbed the other side, and we moved it across the room. “Does this mean I have permission to gawk?”
She snorted. “Like you haven’t been already.”
Resting my forearm on the bookshelf, I leaned in towards her. “So what if I have?”
Her eyes met mine, freezing me in place.
The room grew smaller the longer she looked at me until all I could see was her.
Her and those hazel eyes that tore me up in ways I’d never seen coming.
It was electric. The air. My blood. Her skin.
I wanted to touch it. Her. I wanted to feel that current buzzing between us simmer beneath her silky skin, watch as she arched into my touch for more.
This was insane—these feelings she was stirring inside me. They were pure, unexpected, infectious insanity.
“Just help me move this shit,” she demanded, shattering the fragile thing building between us with a sledgehammer. She left me standing here half-hard and wanting like an idiot.
There was a time in my life—the majority, really—when I preferred Delilah’s silence.
Begged for it at times, even. She annoyed the shit out of me with her carefree attitude, witty barbs, and flirty attitude towards everyone she came across.
But now her silence was deafening. Bothersome.
I wanted her words, her thoughts, her feelings.
I wanted to know everything there was to know about her.
Things she hadn’t told anyone. It was dizzying how quickly things had shifted for me.
I was moving one of her filing cabinets when Delilah’s hiss of pain followed a heavy thud. She was doubled over, clutching her lower leg. I was next to her in two steps. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Tried to move the desk. It slipped out of my hand. The leg scratched my shin. It’s fine.”
The blood slipping between her fingers was anything but fine.
My pulse kicked. Flashes of the past flickered in my vision.
Danny’s blood gushing from his chest, my trembling hands covered in it.
The air in the room seemed to vanish, and my chest tightened.
I flew down the stairs on autopilot and grabbed the first aid kit from the kitchen.
I took the stairs back up two at a time.
She was wiping up the blood with a tissue when I got back.
The cut wasn’t even two inches long, but it was bleeding like crazy.
“Sit on the desk.”
She shook her head, brushing it off. “No, it’s fine. Really.”
“Sit on the damn desk,” I snapped. My grip tightened on the first aid kit, like it was the only thing keeping me here in the now. She looked up at me, ready to tell me off. “Please,” I forced out, my voice strained.
Her expression softened, her eyes darting all over me before nodding.
She sat on the edge of the desk. Blood dripped down her leg.
I dropped to a knee in front of her, flung the kit open, and started tearing at supplies like my life depended on it.
My body moved on autopilot, the objective clear: stop the bleeding, clean the wound, bandage the wound.
Nothing else mattered. Not the spots in my vision, the ache in my throat, the nausea turning my stomach.
Delilah inhaled quickly when I pressed a piece of gauze over the cut. “Fuck, that hurts,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Pressure stops the bleeding.” The words came out clipped. Almost strangled. She winced, and my throat grew tight. I couldn’t bear her hurting like this. I had to fix it. I had to take care of her.
The blood soaked through the gauze fast—too fast. It was warm and slick on my hands, just like Danny’s. Only this was so much worse because it was hers. My hands shook as I tore more gauze packets open with my teeth, tossing the trash to the floor.
“Emmett.” Whatever else she said was muffled under the blood roaring in my ears. Her hands curled around the edge of the desk, knuckles white, when I pressed harder.