CHAPTER SIX
Sierra
Sierra had fashioned a sling across her body and carried Chupa against her chest like her very own newborn babe. She walked the shared road to Ezekiel Evers’s place with her knapsack on her back and a slightly heavier than it had been when she’d left the freaking house peace offering for him.
“I’m telling you, Chup, this is a good plan,” she said as she wiped rivulets of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, listening as Chupa responded with either excitement or warning. Sierra was trying to decipher which was which.
“In my experience, it’s best to talk through things instead of letting them fester,” she told Chupa.
“And though you’ve been sweet as morning dew with me, you and our landlord seem to share a similar fiery and vindictive nature.
But it’s a good thing I’m here. I usually have a calming effect on others; it comes from being an earth sign, you know.
Plus, working in nature om’s me out. And I’m good at getting along with super difficult people...
it’ll be fine,” she assured for the third time.
“Shit it’s hot out here!” she snapped, fanning her face to try and cool down.
She would’ve waited until the naked sun wasn’t trying to actively kill anyone foolish enough to walk around in its heat, but she’d wanted to get out here early enough to do some more unpacking before getting ready for her open mic karaoke night outing.
Plus, she needed to get used to Florida weather; more days than not she’d be working outside.
“The early morning coolness lured me into believing that a late morning walk would be safe. The lies! And now I’m half a mile into this journey about to die from heat stroke.”
Chupa peeked out from the shaded comfort of the sling and looked to the left chattering. Rounding the slight bend, a house came into view. Oh thank God, I’m saved, she thought, as more of the land the house sat on came into view.
Where Sierra’s house was on the right side of the road, her landlord’s house was on the left. His house was bigger, the front porch wider and deeper, and there was no white picket fence. His house was also an older build but looked more newly renovated.
As they drew closer, she could hear the faint echo of drums. And chickens. She held Chupa tightly so the pup didn’t jump free and slaughter more.
“The scene of the crime,” she whispered, seeing an enclosure farther back and to the left of the house. “The dreaded chicken pen.”
Chupa was strangely silent.
“It’s fine, Chupa. Everything’s fine. This’ll all work out. Really it will,” she assured uncertainly.
“I can say this, the man owns a beautiful stretch of land.”
It was diverse with groves of trees, open spaces, plains, and lush green areas. The front and back yard around her current home seemed a bit neglected, which is why she’d ordered some plants, planter boxes, seeds, and soil when she went to town earlier.
Despite last night’s fear-laced landing, she knew she could love it here.
Different flora and fauna from home but there was a wildness here that spoke to the girl literally born in the wilds of the Sierra Mountains. When her mother died and her father raised her in wild places all over California.
Sierra’s life took a second dramatic change in the sixth grade when she and her father moved back to Oakland at the urging of her paternal aunties. She needs to learn how to fit into the real world, they’d argued.
She never fully did.
Drawing closer to her landlord’s house the drumming grew more driven, more intense.
It was the kind of drumming where bare hands struck skin stretched over a hallow wooden opening.
The rhythm pulled her forward as she stepped onto the porch.
It made something inside her DNA pulsate with remembrance, familiarity.
The drum beats guided her along the wraparound porch to the back of the house where Ezekiel Evers sat on a log with a beautiful djembe drum positioned between his thighs.
His hands struck the treated animal skin with rapid fierceness, with reverence.
He played the drum completely nude, well almost. He would’ve been nude if not for the beige boxer briefs and black scrunchie that bound his vibrant red hair in a loose ponytail.
Sierra’s breathing became erratic. So chaotic she just stopped, stopped breathing, stopped wanting to feel the crisis this man was putting her body through. She pressed Chupa against her chest as if the kit had the power to stop the drum’s vibrating resonance from shaking her senseless.
A menacing growl stilled Ezekiel’s hands.
Burning amber eyes shifted toward her.
Her skin was on fire, his gaze burned her in a way the Florida sun could never. This man was trying to incinerate her on the spot, to transform her into something new, something she was afraid of being.
Ezekiel rose from his seat, loomed over her, blocking the sun.
A large inky black shadow moved to his side; it was the growling thing. Its head dipped and it bared its teeth, the growl growing louder. She froze. It was as if the man had conjured some kind of hell demon.
She felt a vibration against her chest and realized Chupa was growling in response. Sierra took a deep breath and kissed Chupa’s crown, silently promising the pup that she’d keep her safe even though it felt like they were facing off against two beings that were dangerous and destructive by nature.
“We come in peace,” she breathed out, praying the peace she spoke of would descended over her body which burned as if it had been dunked in hell fire.
And she tried, Lord did she try, to ignore how the front of this man’s boxer briefs was filled with a density of flesh that could not be fucking ignored.
Sierra held out her peace offering, allowing the bag to block the sight of his groin, his dick...his bulging briefs.
And he wasn’t even hard. Jesus.
Anyway!
“Me and Chupa, we wanted to come by and offer our deepest apologies for the death of your chickens.”
He frowned at the bag in her hand but took it.
“It’s a few pea sprouts, some leafy greens, pumpkin seeds. Chickens love them. I also ordered five hatchlings that’ll be delivered sometime tomorrow. They’re Cochins, I hope that’s okay.”
He remained silent as he sifted through items inside the bag.
“I know I promised Chupa would be gone today but the vet wouldn’t let her heal at his office,” she rushed on. “And I can’t let her go back out into the wild injured.”
“You can,” he said, placing the bag beside the djembe.
Her brow rose.
“I won’t,” she challenged, then softened. She was here to smooth things out so he wouldn’t shoot Chupa on sight.
Her eyes, on their own accord, traveled back to his groin.
“I um...I know I caught you in a private moment...and your drumming is very powerful. I literally felt it move through me.” She tried to look away from him, his eyes, his groin, but couldn’t. “I don’t mind if you want to go inside and say, put on some pants, or shorts, or even a wrap?”
He continued to stare at her, and her nipples—against her will—tightened into painfully aroused turgid little pebbles.
His lips... Ezekiel‘s lips... Zeek’s lips tilted up as his eyes burrowed into hers—knowing, taunting, tempting.
“Nah, I’m good the way I am,” he said, voice as deep and resonant as his drum.
Her skin tingled with what felt like thousands of fiery pinpricks. Maybe she was experiencing heatstroke. Or maybe she’d ignored how her body craved a man’s touch too long. With this man, her body wouldn’t allow her to ignore shit.
Focus Si.
Zeek rubbed his hand over his midriff drawing her attention to the way the fire tattoo on the left side of his torso reached for his corrugated abs.
“You’re doing it on purpose!” she snapped.
He laughed, deep and unrestrained.
His body, his eyes, his laugh, were a gravitational force she couldn’t pull free of. “You called me here on purpose. With your drumming. I didn’t even intend to come over here until tomorrow.”
“Thanks for the offerings,” he grinned, lifting her gift bag in one hand and his djembe in the other.
He moved toward the back door. “Come on inside, Ms. Rowan, I want to discuss how you can help me out, and in return, if the kit doesn’t kill any more of my chickens, you can keep her for as long as you want. ”
Sierra exhaled in relief and kissed the top of Chupa’s head, everything’s going to be alright, she thought as she followed Zeek to the door.
She knew she shouldn’t enter his house alone, especially when he had a reputation for being volatile. Especially when her body didn’t give a damn about any of that.
Something in her trusted him. She’d trust that.
As she moved forward, Chupa sat up rigidly and looked toward an area shaded by dense trees. As Sierra got closer to the hellhound standing beside the door, Chupa leaped from her sling and attacked the dog like she was deranged.
Sierra lunged for Chupa, fearing her baby fox would be torn apart with one bite from the cane corso’s massive jaws.
That’s when all hell broke loose.