Chapter 7 #2
Wordlessly, I replaced the gauze. My heart pounded so hard my ribs ached. The bleeding finally slowed enough to clean it. I twisted the cap of the saline syringe off with my teeth, spitting it out.
“Emmett, you’re strangling my leg.”
“Have to stop the bleeding.” My voice was hoarse, breathless. Shaking. “That’s the first step. The most important. Stop the bleeding.”
“Look at me.” Hands cradled my face, tugging upwards. I shook my head, my lungs burning with how fast I was breathing. “Please, baby, just look at me.”
That one word snapped on my mind like a snare, yanking me back to her. My eyes flicked to hers in an instant. My breath stuck in my throat. She’d never called me anything like that before.
“You’re here with me. In my office. Safe,” she said softly. I knew that…didn’t I? I wasn’t so sure now. Her expression was tender and warm, but concerned. “Breathe with me.” She brushed my hair back. The gentle caress sent chills down my spine and warmth pooling in my spasming chest.
There wasn’t time for me to breathe; I had to take care of her. “But your leg,” I rasped.
She kept caressing me with delicate, loving touches. I didn’t care how it looked; I leaned into them, soaking each one up. “I’m okay. It’s just a little cut. It’s not even bleeding anymore.”
I swallowed thickly. “It’s not?”
The corner of her mouth curved upwards. “No, Em. You fixed it.”
She was okay. I could breathe again. My gaze darted around the floor.
Trash, bloodied gauze, and the turned-over first aid kit were scattered all over.
A shaky breath slid past my lips. I leaned forward, resting my forehead on her knee.
God, I was so fucking embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” I rasped, catching my breath. “That hasn’t happened before.”
Blood had never been a trigger for me. I knew all of them at this point, and managed most of them well or had no reason to cross paths with them, like the smell of burning trash and C-4 residue, or the sound of a helicopter.
So I didn’t understand why blood, all of a sudden, two years after being home, had become a trigger for me.
“It’s okay,” Delilah said, still running her fingers through my hair. “Don’t be sorry. Everything is fine.” The light graze of her nails along my scalp made my eyes drift shut.
I stayed kneeling at her feet, broken and humiliated, while she unknowingly put me back together with her gentle touches and words.
She said the sweetest things in her soothing voice.
Reminding me that I was safe and where I was, thanking me for taking care of her, that she was proud of me, that she admired me, that she trusted me.
It destroyed me and built me back up all over again in a confusing, amazing cycle.
It was easily the most intimate thing I’d ever experienced.
Eventually, the tension in my muscles slowly unfurled, my breathing steadying.
My hands slid around her calves, no longer shaking.
Her skin was so soft. A dream to touch. I breathed her in, and her sweet scent infiltrated my lungs.
My blood. Embedding her in my system when I’d just managed to scrape her out.
Her hand stilled in my hair when my nose ran along the inside of her knee. “You smell so good, sugar,” I breathed, unable to stop it. Not that I really tried. And I refused to cover it up like I had last week in the stables. Nothing about this was a slip-up.
I was tired right now. Weak. Overwhelmed by feelings I didn’t understand. I didn’t have the strength to pretend I didn’t want her.
Her shaky breath pierced the air like a bullet. And that jittery, light feeling that I got the first time we kissed sprouted in my chest. My fingers tingled as they slid up her legs. When I looked up at her, her eyes were hooded, lust-filled. Her chest heaving.
She was breathtaking, and she just pulled me out of an episode faster than I ever had. Something about it only made me want her more.
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I admitted. “That night.”
“Emmett.” Her voice quivered, the warning in it brittle. “We agreed only once.”
I rose to my feet, my knees weak. Her legs spread around me when I braced myself on the desk, caging her in. “I know. Trust me, I know.”
I brushed her hair behind her ear, letting my fingers tangle in the strands as I cradled the back of her head. “Once wasn’t enough.”
She opened her mouth to respond when footsteps came up the stairs, and I dropped to the floor and started picking up my trash.
“Hey, Delilah, I was—oh!” Tess’s eyes were wide, bouncing between us.
“What are you doing here?” Fucking sisters and their terrible fucking timing.
I’d be cursing her out in my head for months, maybe years, for this.
“Delilah hurt herself.” I glanced over my shoulder at her. Her cheeks were flushed. “Just keep it clean, and it should be fine,” I told her, my voice cracking.
“Yeah, okay,” she replied, breathless. Shit.
“What happened?” Tess asked, her voice full of suspicion. I couldn’t even look at her. This was exactly why I had agreed to only once. So things like this didn’t happen.
“It was so dumb,” Delilah chuckled. I inwardly cringed at how shitty of a liar she was. “We were moving furniture, and I thought I could move the desk by myself, but I couldn’t, and the leg of it scraped my shin when I dropped it. Emmett patched me up. Good as new!”
She was absolutely terrible at covering things up. She was way too peppy. But if I’d had a better grip on myself, she wouldn’t be in this position, lying to one of her friends again because of me..
I threw the trash away, pretending I was anywhere but here. “Gotta get back to work,” I murmured, and got the hell out of there before they could see what a mess I was.
I couldn’t let myself lose control like that again. It was too risky. I needed to act like nothing happened, like I didn’t want her with every breath I took. I had to go back to how I’d always been—it was the only way we’d get past this.
Even if the thought of losing control with Delilah made me feel alive in a way I never had before.