Chapter Twelve
MARC
Delaney laughed and rolled her eyes at me. Her hands rested loosely on my waist. Everything about this moment felt right. Like we’d been leading up to this all along.
I cupped her face and stared into her piercing, green eyes.
I said nothing, wanting this moment to last just a little bit longer as I cataloged the features that had been imprinted on my brain for so long: the tiny scar just above her right eyebrow, the flecks of brown and gold within her irises, and how her eyes crinkled when she chuckled.
I couldn’t find the words, so I tried to communicate without them that I didn’t want our time to end just yet.
“Stay,” Delaney whispered.
Her invitation echoed in my head.
I wanted to, but something told me we didn’t have long.
She leaned forward and licked a path along the side of my face, nudging against me hard enough to make me stumble. This aggressive side to Delaney seemed off somehow. Strange in a way I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Her cold, wet tongue dipped into my ear next.
What the hell?
My eyes flew open, and I screamed.
A high-pitched, undignified scream, that if it made the rounds online, it would absolutely become a meme.
A shaggy face and wet nose was only inches from my own. Two unblinking hazel-brown eyes with dark, vertical pupils focused solely on me with profound indifference.
He gave off the vibe that he had places to be, and I was merely in his way.
“Seriously?!” I sat up and grabbed the furry menace by the collar I’d barely wrestled onto him yesterday. I almost lost a shinbone in the process—a fact I had chosen not to disclose to anyone because it would require explaining, and explaining would admit he was winning this battle of wills.
This was the third time this goat had broken into my house. I still hadn’t figured out how he got in or how he escaped the barn.
“Chaos! Get off my bed!”
He stared at me, then turned to nibble on my comforter, clearly unperturbed by my distress.
I’d strong-armed him into a bath yesterday morning before work.
Grace had somehow managed to trim the remaining matted areas of fur when she and Wyatt stopped by to babysit my newest roommate.
More than likely, she only showed up because she’d been getting play-by-play texts from Glamma, and Wyatt wanted his gossip in real time.
They’d both stayed until I got home from her house like some kind of intervention committee.
“You can’t keep breaking in,” I told him, because apparently, I now tried to reason with stubborn goats.
He looked away as if I bored him.
Pale morning light streamed through my windows, letting me know it was after 6:00 a.m. I stood, shut the bedroom door to at least contain the destruction to one room, and walked into my en suite.
I’d already relocated all the chewable and breakable items to the guest room the last time he Houdini’ed his way in here.
I started the shower, stripped, and stepped under water hot enough to scald me.
Faint memories of my dream were tangled up with everything from the dinner at Glamma’s two days ago.
Twenty years. Twenty years of a perfectly functional antagonistic relationship, and now things were different in a way I didn’t know how to categorize.
Delaney Hart, who had hated me with the consistency and dedication of a professional, was now someone I was making eye contact with at the end of the evening, sharing camaraderie, and feeling …
I ran a hand through my curly hair.
I liked control. That part wouldn’t shock anyone. What most people didn’t know was the other side of that. And last night, for just a moment, I’d let it show. Let the certainty surface. Hadn’t taken back what I said.
And the way she responded?
Fuck me.
The pink color that spread across her cheeks. The way she pulled her bottom lip into her mouth. How her eyes had darkened before she laughed it off, covered it with a smile. Her body had known exactly what I meant, even if her head hadn’t caught up with it yet.
Desire hit me fast and without warning, the way it had every time I’d thought about her for the last forty-eight hours, which was an inconvenient new development in my life.
My cock jerked, aching at the thought of her and sinking into her wet heat.
Fuck.
I gripped my cock at the base, giving it a tight squeeze, making me groan before I began pumping my fist up and down.
Thoughts of Delaney circled through my head.
How she might look naked fueled my fantasy.
Her thick thighs wrapped around my waist, her tits bouncing as I pushed into her, and the sounds she’d make as she begged me to let her come.
Each stroke brought me closer to the release I chased.
I shook when the tremor came. I was like a prepubescent boy. All it took was the thought of her, and my dick was ready to explode after just a few rough pulls and my vivid imagination about what I’d do with her.
My other hand slammed down on the tiled shower wall as I pitched forward and my orgasm barrelled towards me. My legs shook enough that I needed the extra fucking support. My balls tightened, and a shot of lightning zipped down my spine.
Fuuuck.
I let out a muffled groan as I came. Cum spilled out across the floor of the shower. I thrust further into my hand as my release shook my body with thoughts of Delaney milking my cock, making sure I spilled every last drop.
Fucking hell.
If just thinking about her made me this hard, how the hell was I supposed to get through the practice yoga session tonight?
I pulled into the parking lot of the animal shelter at 5:03.
Three minutes. Which was three minutes more than I had ever been late to anything in my adult life.
I’d had a plan. The plan had been sabotaged by a small goat who had wedged himself behind my driver’s seat at the last possible moment and refused to move, and whom I had decided was less dangerous here than loose in my house for another four hours.
A loud, impatient bleat sounded from the back seat.
“Your name is becoming increasingly accurate,” I muttered.
I grabbed his leash and hurried him inside. He pranced beside me with the gait of an animal who appeared far more well-behaved than he actually was.
“You aren’t fooling anyone,” I said.
He ignored me.
I pushed open the door of the room we’d arranged for yoga and stopped short.
The space had been completely transformed.
Mats were laid out in evenly spaced neat rows. Soft instrumental music filled the air, something slow and calming that immediately lowered the tension in my shoulders. The long windows along the wall with their shades drawn up, and early evening sunlight fell in long rectangles across the floor.
The room felt surprisingly peaceful.
Which was impressive given that twenty-four hours ago it had held mismatched tables and chairs, two dozen boxes of unknown contents, and a filing cabinet someone had decorated with motivational cat stickers.
A water station was set up along the back wall with a neat row of chairs beside it. Everything had a place.
Delaney had done this.
She and Cheryl stood at the far end of the room.
Neither had noticed me yet. Delaney’s head tipped back, laughing at something Cheryl said, the sound warm and unrestrained, completely different from the carefully controlled way she’d laughed at Glamma’s dinner table while deciding how much of herself she was willing to expose.
It caught me somewhere in my chest, and I stood there longer than I should have, just watching.
She wore black leggings and a soft lavender tank top, and her dark hair was pulled up in a high ponytail.
The purple ends caught the light when she moved, and I fantasized about how it would feel to grip her hair in my fist and pull.
She lifted her arm to tuck a loose strand behind her ear, revealing the small star tattoo on the inside of her elbow. I had apparently spent the last twenty years observing everything about Delaney Hart. Yet this week was the first time I’d noticed that.
Delaney shifted her weight from one foot to the other, demonstrating something with her arms, stretching them overhead and leaning to the side in one fluid motion. Easy. Coordinated. Graceful. Like her body knew exactly where it was in space at all times.
Tonight she looked relaxed.
Chaos bleated again. Loudly. Clearly not liking the lack of attention on him.
Delaney’s head snapped up in our direction. Her gaze immediately dropped to the goat. One eyebrow lifted. “Well,” she said. “I see we have another animal guest today. So we meet again, little goat.”
“He’s not—” I started, stepping into the room. “I apologize for being late.”
“You brought the crazy goat to yoga?” Cheryl asked, staring at Chaos. Her whole face said: I have questions and I don’t think I want the answers. “I thought you said you needed this to go well.”
“Leaving him at home was more dangerous than bringing him here. Right, Chaos?” I was aware of how that sounded. I had no better explanation.
Chaos bleated, which seemed to confirm my statement.
We made our way over to the two of them. Delaney crouched down and scratched behind his ears. Chaos—who had demonstrated nothing but chaos since his arrival in my life—went temporarily still and leaned into it with the boneless contentment of an animal who had forgotten all its grievances.
I’d tried to scratch behind his ears, and he tried to bite me.
“Hi, Chaos,” she cooed and then looked up at me. “Is that his official name?”
I shrugged. “It’s the only one he responds to.”
“Fair enough.” She stood. “You’re only five minutes late. I’ll allow it.” A sassy smirk tugged at her lips.
“I appreciate your generosity," I said, letting a little sarcasm bleed through, enough so she’d know I was kidding.
She tilted her head slightly, studying me the way she’d been doing since dinner. “So what—”