Chapter 17
”For fuck”s sake, Cat. I gotta breathe.”
Jamie blew air at the tail laying across his mouth and lifted his loudly purring roommate off his neck. Placing the warm fuzzball in the space between his arm and side, he told her to chill out and grumbled, ”I”m not awake yet.”
Flexing his feet beneath the covers, he squeezed the muscles in his legs and butt before letting go with a long, sighing exhale.
Sunlight streaming through bedroom windows danced on the walls and ceiling. With a grunt, he turned his head to peer at the bedside clock. Seven o”clock was approaching—an unusually late start for him.
Reluctant to leave the warm bed, he remained still—turning his mind inward to connect with his center.
It didn”t help.
Nothing helped.
Slowly moving his arm to not disturb his curled-up cat, Jamie scooted, lifted, and sat with his legs dangling off the side of the bed. Rolling his shoulders, he dropped his chin to stretch the tense muscles in the back of his neck.
Sleepless nights sucked—big time.
Another sigh—this one tinged with remorse.
Two days had passed since his skirmish with Rebecca. Instead of balling up like he usually would and confronting the issue head-on, he”d essentially hidden in his office, toiling on a fabricated workload. When a call from the stable about an issue with one of the animals required medical intervention, he sent his new associate, veterinarian Isaiah Newman, to handle it.
Standing, he strolled naked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. It didn”t take but a moment for steam to build in the enclosure. Spearing his fingers into his hair, he vigorously rubbed his scalp and scraped the scruff on his face.
”No shave Thursday,” he mumbled to his reflection before stepping into the hot shower. In his present frame of mind, every day was a no-shave day.
Washing and grooming routines required little thought. As he went through the motions, his mind was assaulted by a playback of Rebecca Tate rearranging his emotional furniture—and not being gentle about it.
Awareness of the dance of the sexes—the interplay between the feminine yin energy and the masculine yang energy—was something he grasped. It formed the basis of his comprehension of life. Yet, despite this insight, he found himself unsettled by recent events.
He was bothered by what happened. At no point, before or after he unintentionally interfered in a big way, did he stop and think, ”Hey, maybe I overstepped.”
And he should have because boundaries, limits, and hard lines were part of his world.
His remorse came from knowing he got under her skin and had from the very first time he and Rebecca tangled. He was dumb, not stupid.
Rebecca lived in a world where male dominance reigned supreme. Not any male dominance, though. As happened so often, the dominance she experienced came from toxic men. Disrespect, unwarranted aggression, blatant misogyny—these things and many more visited her every single day.
His first mistake was allowing himself to get drawn into the middle of a work problem. His second was deciding for her—no matter how innocent or well-intentioned. What he did put Rebecca in a terrible situation. She viewed it as him being above her on the respect scale because he was a man, and men had all the power.
Jamie was no amateur when it came to the dynamics of control and the nuanced power exchanges between two people. This was, however, the first time he”d experienced them in a real-world setting where feelings were involved. He”d stolen her power without her consent, and that was all there was to it.
Rebecca was special. She affected him differently than anyone else. There was so much about their connection that he wanted to explore. Getting past her general distrust of men was never going to be easy, and it had, in fact, just become ten times harder.
Somehow he had to find a way to approach her without poking the bear, but he didn”t have a lot of options. They weren”t cell phone buddies, so texting was out. So was calling her outright—avoiding a face-to-face was a display of weakness on his part.
Accidentally—on purpose— running into her would be too public.
Sticking his face into the spraying water didn”t bring forth a viable alternative to clenching his ass and taking the direct route.
It was the only way. The honorable way. The dominant way.
Lingering in the shower wasted water. He finished up, toweled off, brushed his teeth, dried his hair, and dressed quickly.
While waiting for a bagel to toast, he messaged the front desk at the clinic to let them know his schedule had changed. At the very least, he needed the entire morning to deal with his personal shit, so Jamie told the receptionist not to expect him till late afternoon—if at all—and instructed Isaiah to hold down the fort.
The bagel popped up in the toaster at the same time the countertop gadget he used to make runny eggs dinged. Removing the lid to let the steam out, he carefully lifted the sectioned dish holding two perfectly cooked three-minute eggs and dumped them into a bowl along with bite-sized pieces of the bagel slathered in butter and ripped apart.
”Regular guy breakfast,” he told Cat as she wound around his ankles.
Standing with his backside against the kitchen island, he spooned the eggy concoction that some might call disgusting into his mouth. He preferred to think of it as a smart protein fix. When the bowl was empty, he muttered, ”Might have to increase my egg intake.”
Gulping coffee, he scooped cat food onto a fancy saucer for his roommate. She liked him to watch her eat—cats were weird like that—so he stayed put and finished his morning mug of caffeine.
When she finished, and he could move around again, he narrated how he hoped things worked out while gathering his stuff for the day.
”I”m stepping off the gangplank,” he told Cat.
The purring feline sat on the back of the sofa—swishing her tail as she watched him moving about.
”Apologies are hard. It”s a guy thing. You probably wouldn”t understand.”
Showing his emotions wasn”t easy; it was asking a lot. But he knew he had to ball up and take whatever she threw at him like a man.
”Anyway, I don”t know when I”ll be home. You”ve got plenty of fresh water and some kibble.”
He picked her up for a fast cuddle—then it was time to go.
The drive from his door to the Villa”s barn and stable complex took a few minutes. He parked next to Rebecca”s aging van.
Right away, he noticed the half-constructed pavilion. Unless he had a shit memory, the structure appeared much more extensive than what had been there the other day. A hump of dirt ran alongside the concrete pad indicating the addition of a trench. The solar panel setup that caused so much trouble sat on the ground beside a small shed-like building holding the system”s mechanical.
Casually strolling from his truck to the stable, he said a silent prayer—hoping he didn”t make things worse.
* * *
Becca”s stomachtwisted into a knot when she overheard some of her ranch hands engaging in a profanity-laced rant about the cunt in charge.
With Stephanie out of the picture, she was the one in charge; ergo, she was the cunt.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
If only this was an aberration or something totally out of character, but it wasn”t. She”d worn the cunt-in-charge label ever since the male-dominated U.S. Military put her in a position of authority.
It shouldn”t bother her, but today it did.
Hurrying to her office, she tried to distract herself by picking through a stack of stable equipment and supply catalogs. For a few minutes, the ploy worked—until it didn”t.
Where was her hard outer shell when she needed it?
Gah! Crushed beneath the weight of a particularly savage period cycle, that”s where—a cycle that currently had her in the clutches of a hormonal overload.
And because having her period and feeling boo-hoo-ish over a rude comment wasn”t enough, her lower back ached, she was bloated as fuck, and goddamn it, but her boobs were super sensitive too. That last bit mattered because she wore the world”s most uncomfortable bra.
Snaking her fingers beneath her cotton shirt, she pulled at the side of the itchy bra and readjusted the elastic around her armpit.
She wished she was a no-bra type of a gal, but walking around with her boobs swinging wasn”t Becca”s style. During her overseas deployments wearing a sleep bra was a must because getting caught without proper boob restraint if the shit hit the fan was not ideal.
Spying her reusable water bottle on the corner of her desk, she reached for it, flipped the cap, and pointed it at her mouth.
Then . . . she took a shower as the stream of water hit the corner of her mouth and most of her chin before dripping down her front.
”Goddammit,”she muttered.
Exasperated that the front of her shirt was soaked, she slammed the water bottle onto the desk and tried to mop up her chest with some tissues.
”Can this day be any worse?”she thickly muttered when her mouth wobbled and tears clouded her eyes.
”I don”t know,”a gruff voice answered. ”Depends on where I fall on your displeasure meter.”
Shocked, Becca gasped as her head whipped around. She found Jamie Hunter standing in her doorway, hat in hand.
He was the last person she expected or wanted to see right now—not while her emotional state was rocky.
”Oh god. Just go away,”she grumbled. ”I don”t have the bandwidth for your crap right now.”
And she meant it. Unfortunately, her voice trembled slightly. He noticed and hurriedly entered her small workspace, placing his Stetson on her desk. His presence sucked the oxygen out of the room.
”What”s wrong? Why are you upset?”he demanded to know.
His concerned manner and rough voice were her undoing. The tears she fought to hold back spilled from her eyes. She tried to turn away before things worsened, but he touched her arm, and she stopped.
”Rebecca,”he murmured. ”Tell me what”s wrong.”
Angry at herself for showing weakness, she swiped at her tears and growled, ”It”s nothing. I”m fine.”
He made a sound of disbelief. Gently but insistently, he guided her to the chair behind her desk and pushed her into it. Then he perched on the desk”s corner and stared her down—easy to do once she realized they were almost touching with his knee in her field of vision.
Clearing her throat and sniffing, she glanced away and gave herself a moment.
He didn”t move a muscle, and when she finally felt composed enough to look at him, his face was shadowed by emotions she couldn”t pin down.
”I”m not budging, and we are going to talk,”he emphasized with an overpowering authority in his voice. So don”t bother trying to get me to leave.”
Feeling vulnerable and needy, Becca searched for a way out. She noticed the door to her office was open and used it as a lifeline to shut him down.
”Not now,”she muttered. ”And not here.”
He looked over his shoulder at the door. Then, to her absolute horror, his eyes dropped to her workbag, sitting open on the floor at his feet. Visible right on top was the plastic pouch she”d stuffed with tampons and panty liners.
The answer to her earlier question of if the day could be worse was a resounding yes.