Chapter 1 - Emmett
Gunfire split the night open like deadly rainfall. My ears were ringing, my heart pounding with adrenaline, but it was all drowned out by Mercer’s breathing, wet and thick, like he was drowning in my arms.
“Stay with me, Merc,” I demanded, pressing my hand harder on the holes in his chest. My fingers slipped, his blood slick like oil. My gaze darted around, everything in a night vision green. “Where the fuck is the medic?!” I roared over the crack of bullets flying into the walls.
Mercer choked, blood spilling out of his mouth. I ripped the night vision goggles off and propped his head on my lap. “No, no, no,” I chanted through gritted teeth. But the blood just kept coming. “You stay with me, Danny. You hear me?”
His eyes found mine. Wide. Scared. It turned my blood to ice.
“Hayes!” Remington came running, dodging bullets between blown-open concrete. He fell to his knees next to us, rummaging through the med kit. “Walker’s dead. I came as fast as I could.”
I just started grabbing gauze, my hands shaking so bad that it fell on the rubble beside us. “Look, Merc, Rem’s here,” I forced out, my voice unrecognizable in its panic. “We’re gonna patch you up, and you’re gonna walk out of here. Chels is gonna think the scars are hot.”
I nearly choked on the lie.
“Yeah, girls are into that kinda shit,” Rem said with a forced smirk. But the look in his eyes when they met mine was one of knowing; Merc wouldn’t even live another five minutes.
A bullet hissed past my face so close the heat of it warmed my cheek. I ducked, throwing my body over Danny’s. He smelled like sweat and iron and my failure. Rem fired in bursts into the dark, covering us. “We gotta move!”
But I couldn’t. My knees wouldn’t work. My best friend was bleeding out beneath me. He had a wife at home. A baby on the way. And me, the idiot who made the call that put him here.
“Don’t you fucking dare leave me, Danny,” I begged in his ear, voice breaking. “I can’t do this without you.”
It was like a gas valve being slowly opened. His last breath. It came out slow, broken, barely there. And then he was still. Cold.
Gone.
“Emmett! Now!” Rem’s hand clamped around my vest, yanking me up and dragging me. My throat burned as I screamed into the smoke, emptying my magazine at enemies closing in.
The last thing I saw before we rounded the corner was Danny’s body lying in the rubble. Blood pooling around him. Soaking the ground, and staining me forever.
I shot upright, choking on smoke that wasn’t here. My legs were twisted in the sheets, sweat clinging to my skin. My heart pounded in my chest like a jackhammer, as if I were still there. Like Danny was still bleeding out beneath my hands with Jack yelling at me to move.
But I wasn’t. I was in my room thousands of miles away in dark silence.
I ran a shaking hand over my face, tired of this routine. I didn’t know how much longer I could take it.
I swung my legs over to the side of the bed, curling my toes in the carpet to let it ground me, my breathing slowly steadying.
The clock read 3:45. I sighed. There was no going back to sleep for me.
I slipped on some shorts and headed to the gym in the stables.
Well, they weren’t stables anymore, but lodging for the ranch’s veteran outreach program—Freedom Reins.
A program I wanted nothing to do with. Not after the clusterfuck of my sessions with Delilah, anyway.
God, Delilah. What was I gonna do about that?
My feet faltered, and I gripped the railing on the porch.
Just the memory of her face, the look in her eyes when she offered to sleep with me last week, had me pausing.
My eyes drifted shut. I hadn’t been able to get it out of my head.
If I thought hard enough, I could still smell her perfume, could hear the want in her voice, could feel the heat of her body.
Shaking my head, I forced myself forward because that was the only option. The only one I’d been allowing myself since everything fell to shit.
By the time I reached the indoor gym, my body ached with the need to move, to get rid of all this restless energy tearing through me.
I threw myself into it. Bench presses, pull-ups, burpees until my arms shook and I couldn’t hold myself up any longer, anything to escape the shit in my head.
Between memories of deployments and Delilah ripping the rug beneath my feet, there was a lot to run from.
I was mid-sit-up when I froze, hearing something.
Then it came again, the subtle creak of a floorboard from the second story.
For a second, old instincts took over, and I nearly reached for a gun that hadn’t been there for two years.
I got to my feet slowly, making sure I was silent as I climbed the stairs and crept towards the light coming under Delilah’s office door.
My breath came out low and smooth before I kicked open the door with a grunt.
There was an ear-piercing scream. Delilah jumped from her seat, her drink flying and splashing against the wall behind her. “What the hell?!” she screeched, clutching her heaving chest.
My jaw bobbed, momentarily speechless. “What-What are you doing here?” I forced my breathing to steady.
“What are you doing here? It’s four in the fucking morning!”
I straightened, feeling guilty for scaring her. And admittedly uncomfortable after avoiding her for a week. I cleared my throat. “Working out. I heard you up here…didn’t know it was you. Sorry.”
“Say that to my last Diet Coke, you asshole,” she grumbled and grabbed some tissues off her desk to clean it up.
My eyes raked over her body with her back turned. She was wearing yoga pants and a tank top, her hair piled on top of her head. My mouth went dry. “You didn’t answer my question.” My voice sounded deeper than I’d intended.
Fuck me. Would I ever be able to act normally around her again?
“Didn’t know this was twenty questions.” She bent over to get the last drops on the floor, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
She’s Savannah’s best friend, I repeated over and over again. And I was a god-fucking-awful brother for wanting to know what it’d feel like to have her pinned beneath me. To see a woman like her cave and beg, to have all that fierceness at my mercy… It reminded me of breaking a stallion.
So fucked.
“If you must know, I’m going over applications for Freedom Reins.”
I opened my eyes at that moment. I didn’t know what she would say, but it sure as hell wasn’t that.
She was sitting back at her desk now, rifling through papers.
I moved further into the office, frowning.
“You’ve been here all night?” I hadn’t even noticed her Jeep when I walked over from the house.
“Yep. I was actually pretty tired and thinking of going home until you nearly gave me a heart attack, so thanks, I guess.”
“Uh-huh,” I replied absentmindedly, coming towards her desk. I couldn’t believe it. I knew she was dedicated to this program she was starting, but I didn’t know it was like this. As confusing as it was, I…admired her for it. It made me wish I had something I cared about like that.
She glanced up at me, doing a double-take. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets, my spine snapping straight. “Like what?”
She leaned back in her chair, her eyes narrowed at me in challenge. “Like you’re shocked.” That wasn’t how I’d describe grappling with the fact that I wanted to bend her over the desk, but okay, call it shocked for all I cared.
“No reason,” I lied. I needed to leave right fucking now before she started something I wasn’t sure I could finish. I spun on my heel. “I’m gonna—”
“You’ve been avoiding me all week.”
I froze. My jaw tightened. Shit.
I turned back around, my heart in my throat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She rose from her chair, a gleam in her eyes that shouldn’t make my pulse kick, but it did. Light from her desk lamp spilled over every curve of her body as she stood. The body I’d been desperately trying and failing not to think about for days.
I needed to leave. Nothing good could come from my staying.
But I didn’t want to go, no matter how much staying terrified me.
“I call bullshit.” She rounded the desk, her fingers trailing along the oak. “You’re freaking out about what I said, aren’t you?”
There was humor in her voice, and it pissed me off that she found amusement in my situation.
It was exactly why I hadn’t told her. But there was something about her that got under my skin easier than anything else.
Maybe it was the amount of time we’d known each other, so she knew exactly what button to press and how hard to press it to get me to snap.
She was pressing a lot of them right now. Ones I didn’t even know I had.
I swallowed roughly. “You say a lot of shit, Delilah. I’ve learned to tune most of it out over the years.”
Her eyes ran over my body slowly. A brazen perusal if I’d ever seen one.
But it wasn’t just my body she was stripping bare.
It was every weak spot she knew I had, every secret I tried to bury.
I shifted on my feet, hating feeling this exposed.
I couldn’t even hide how badly I wanted her, and worse, I couldn’t hide how badly I wanted to give in to it, just this once, and forget everything else.
She crossed her arms over her chest, looking downright tickled. “How about the part where I offered to let you fuck me?”
I choked on nothing. I didn’t even know that was possible. “I hate how blunt you are sometimes,” I said, voice strained. It was admirable yet disastrous the level at which Delilah Chase did not give a fuck about things.
She chuckled. A low, rasping, sexy thing, and I wanted to die for thinking so. “Bet you didn’t tune that out.” She planted her hands on the desk, leaning back with a pleased smirk. “Bet you’ve been thinking about it all week, and that’s why you’ve been hiding from me.”
The fraying restraint I had unraveled a little more. She flicked her hair off her shoulder, lifting her chin with an air of triumph. But I refused to let her think she had the upper hand on me—even though she absolutely did. If she wanted to play this game, then fine, I’d play.
I took a step towards her. “And if I have?” That victorious glint in her eyes wilted a little. Her hands curled around the edge of her desk. Another step. “What then?” She swallowed, her head tilting back slightly as I closed in on her.
There was that perfume again. My blood pumped faster, my breathing quickening.
Her eyes darted between mine, pupils large.
I felt drunk with the heat that poured off her.
It was heady and exhilarating. A feeling I’d been missing for what felt like forever.
And for Delilah of all people to be pulling it out of me?
I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. But I’d spent so much time in my head, trying to straighten it out, and I was tired—so fucking tired—so I didn’t try to straighten this out. Instead, I went with it.
My body hummed with the energy flowing through my veins. That flowed between us. “Hm?” I tilted my head, took in every inch of her beautiful face. “What if I have been thinking about it?”
“I’d wonder what’s stopping you,” she whispered, her attention falling to my mouth. “I guess you’re too scared. Figures.”
I knew the comment was meant to egg me on, but it was the truest thing she’d said in weeks, maybe in all the years I’d known her. I was scared, the kind of scared that people grew addicted to. That fear meant something big was around the corner. Something life-changing.
I placed my hand beside hers on the desk. “You want it right here, Delilah? On your desk?” I didn’t even recognize my voice, or the need coursing beneath my skin. I moved my hand to her hip. Her lips parted with a shaky breath, her body shuddering beneath my grasp.
Three years. It had been three years since I touched a woman, and now I was touching my sister’s best friend.
The most terrifying part of it all was that I didn’t want to stop.
Her skin was warm, almost scorching, through her clothes.
I wanted to feel every burning inch of her, consequences be damned.
“Yeah,” she breathed. “Give it to me right here, Emmett.”
Jesus Christ. A low groan escaped my lips. My grip tightened, and my hand trembled. I knew she could feel it too.
My mind screamed to stop, but my body roared louder to keep going. I needed to do this, needed to get over this fear of closeness. I wanted it. But more than that, I wanted her. I reached for her face, her hair soft as I tucked a piece behind her ear. She leaned into my touch, her eyes fluttering.
“Don’t move,” I ground out, leaning in.
I could hardly breathe, hardly think, past the need to consume her.
But that fear that’s been stopping me for years lingered in the back of my mind.
The one that told me if I got too close, I’d let her down.
That I was too fucked up to keep anyone safe.
That I’d hurt her, whether that be emotionally… or physically by accident.
My eyes squeezed shut, trying to force the thoughts away, but they were planted firm, relentless in their intent. “Goddamnit,” I hissed, my forehead meeting hers like the contact alone could hold me together, but I was unraveling.
For a second, I almost let go. Almost let myself believe I could take this—take her—and not destroy it. But the guilt, the ghosts, they were louder than my need. I tore myself back, voice shredded, “I can’t do this.”
“What?” Her voice cracked on the word.
I staggered away from her, the ground caving beneath my feet. “I’m so sorry,” I managed to choke out before leaving her standing there. The same way I’d abandoned Danny in the rubble. Running when I should’ve stayed. Fleeing like a coward.