Built

by Jay Crownover

  “You’ve had a lot of sleepless nights since Zeb finished all the work on the house. You seem . . . unsettled.”

  I wanted to roll my eyes in exasperation with myself but held it back. I shouldn’t seem any way to anyone. My cracks were starting to show and that unnerved me to no end.

  Was “unsettled” another word for horny enough to climb the walls? Because if so, then yes, I was most definitely unsettled. And I felt ridiculous for it. I’d never had the mere thought of a man distract me or cost me much-needed shut-eye before. I was supposed to have more restraint than that.

  I dumped the broken glass into a plastic shopping bag and tossed it all into the trash. It took a few more minutes to wipe up the wine that was on the floor and that had splattered on the cabinets and bottom of the fridge.

  “I guess I got used to living in the chaos of construction. Everything seems so neat and tidy now. So new. I’m sure I’ll get used to it. This is my dream home, what I always wanted. I think maybe the fact that I finally have it is still settling in. That’s all.” I had grown up in a home where what I wanted or needed wasn’t permitted, so the fact that I had something that was mine, that was tangible, solid, and real, something that was untouched from the taint of the past, still took my breath away when I thought about it.

  I made sure everything was back to being spotless and snatched a bottle of water out of the fridge before turning back to Poppy when she quietly said:

  “I thought maybe you were missing having Zeb around. He’s kind of hard to ignore.”

  He most assuredly was hard to ignore.

  Tall, tattooed, and built like a guy who hauled heavy stuff around and swung a hammer like Thor should be, Zeb was impressive, to say the least. But it went beyond the work-hardened muscles, low-slung tool belt, and the flirty charm he liked to throw around so effortlessly. There was something rock steady and so certain that shined out of his dark green eyes when he looked at the world around him and the people in it. There was an inherent confidence and assuredness that poured off of him when he looked at a person, like he knew without a doubt whatever he was bringing to the table was a thousand times better than what anyone else in the room had to offer. God, I could hardly handle how hot it was when he smiled and rubbed his hand over his neatly trimmed beard. Especially when that smile and knowing smirk was directed right at me.

  I had never been into beards, and I always thought I preferred a well-groomed, well-dressed man. A man who looked great in a suit and tie and knew all about expensive cologne and hair product in the proper amounts.

  As it turned out, what really flipped the switch on my usually inactive libido was a guy who looked like he could cut down a tree with one swipe and had unruly dark brown hair that looked like it rarely saw a comb or brush, let alone any type of product. It was a guy who made a sweaty T-shirt and torn jeans look like high fashion who kept me awake all night long while I fantasized what those work-toughened hands would feel like sliding across my naked skin.

  I didn’t know what Zeb Fuller had done to me or to my common sense. All I knew was that he was keeping me up at night and making me resent every single time I turned icy and cold when he flirted with me. I hated that I couldn’t act normal around him because all I wanted to do was rip his clothes off and climb all over him. I wasn’t familiar with any of those emotions, so as a defense I locked them all down.

  My awkwardness and ineptitude in the face of Zeb’s overt masculinity meant that I could never find any words beyond polite pleasantries, clichés, and platitudes, which I had no doubt gave him the impression that I was nothing more than a stuck-up bitch. I never intended to treat him like the hired help, but somehow that’s exactly what I had done, and now the job was finished, Zeb was long gone, and I was having phantom orgasms simply thinking about having his hands and mouth on me while I tossed and turned in my very empty and very lonely bed.

  So yeah, I missed having him around. I missed watching him, hearing him, and even smelling that unique scent that all men who worked hard for their money seemed to have. Sweat and accomplishment mixed in with something that just screamed hard work and sex appeal.

  I pushed my long hair back over my shoulder and raised my eyebrows at Poppy in a questioning expression similar to her own.

  “You didn’t seem to mind him roaming around the house while he was here,” I said casually.

  Poppy had had a horrible experience with her abusive ex-husband, and in the aftermath the beautiful young woman had shied away from all physical contact with the opposite sex, including my brother, with whom she had grown up. It was crippling, and when I started work on the house I worried how Poppy was going to handle having so many strange men in and out of the place that had been her sanctuary since she started to recover from her abduction.

  Initially she handled Zeb and his crew banging around the Victorian by never leaving her room. She spent all day locked in there with a dresser in front of the door until one night when I was supposed to get home early to look at paint samples with Zeb but was running late. When I finally got there, I was stunned to find the bearded giant and the fragile flower with their heads bent together while they looked at paint samples in my torn-apart kitchen. I was so stunned that when Zeb mentioned that Poppy really liked an unusual shade of reddish orange for the walls, I blindly agreed to the choice, even though neutral and serene was much more my personal style.

  After the shocking splash of color made it onto the walls I was surprised at how much I loved it. It took me a few days beyond that to realize it was the same shade as a field of poppies, and then I loved it even more. When Zeb left, I tenderly prodded Poppy about how the big man had coaxed her out of her fortress.

  It was simple really. He told her he needed a woman’s opinion. He wanted to make sure he was in the right wheelhouse and gave her the choice and the control. If I hadn’t already wanted to kiss him, his simple understanding of how Poppy needed to take back the reins of her life would have made me want to jump him on the spot.

  Zeb Fuller was a nice guy. Ugh . . . a nice guy I couldn’t stop thinking about or picturing very naked. He had tattoos on either side of his neck and ones that peeked out of the collar of his shirt. He had ink that decorated the back of each hand and wild swirls and designs that covered every inch of both of his arms. I wanted to see what else marked his skin and then I wanted to drag my tongue across every single inch of it.

  Poppy cleared her throat and walked over to get her own bottle of water out of the fridge. She leaned next to me on the island with its fancy marble top and sighed softly. Even the noises she made sounded like a fragile flower fighting to stay upright in the wind.

  “I like Zeb. I was surprised that I did, but I really do. He reminds me of Rowdy and he didn’t look at me like I was broken. Not once. Eventually I’m going to have to leave this house, go back to work, and I know that means I have to stop thinking every man out there is going to hurt me. Zeb is huge; I mean, he’s just so BIG, but nothing about him is threatening or scary once you get to know him. I think he was good practice for me, and I love how the kitchen turned out. I would’ve died if it ended up looking terrible considering it was the first decision I’ve made on my own in a really long time.”

  Rowdy was my younger brother, who I didn’t know existed until a year ago when my father died leaving his secrets printed in black and white in his will. Rowdy had grown up in entirely different circumstances than my own, with Poppy and her older sister, Salem. After some time and some tragedy, Rowdy and Salem had figured out they were always meant to be together, which meant he cared even more for Poppy and her current state of mind than he normally would. She was family and now that I’d found Rowdy, had dropped every part of my old life, and moved halfway across the country to get to know him, so was I. My father’s final stab in the back, his last cruel act of manipulation, had actually been the best and only gift he had ever given me.

  I reached out an arm and wrapped it around her thin shoulders so I could give he
r a squeeze. Unlike her older sister, Poppy was missing any kind of curve or thickness on her frame. She was a waif and sometimes I thought she was going to disappear right before my eyes. I also wasn’t terribly surprised when she wiggled out of my grip. She wasn’t the biggest fan of touching even if it came from a safe place.

  “I can call him back to . . . I don’t know, I’ll ask him to build a deck or a fence or something, if you want more practice.” I was only half kidding. I would love an excuse to have him back within ogling distance.

  Poppy laughed and it was such a rare and precious sound it made my heart squeeze tight. I’d never had a roommate before, never shared my space with anyone so closely, or had anyone else to give my time to aside from my clients. I cherished the time I had with this young woman so much that I often wondered if Poppy was healing more than just herself on her journey to take her life back. I refused to acknowledge the scars and wounds etched deep in my psyche and that festered all over my soul from growing up in the care of my father. But occasionally Poppy would say something, or reach out and touch me, or my little brother would call just to check up on me, and old injuries I purposely ignored would tingle as they fought to knit themselves together despite my persistent denial that they existed.

  “No, but thank you for the offer. Rowdy calls me every Thursday night when Salem goes out with her girlfriends and asks me to have dinner with him. I always say no because I panic at the thought of being alone with him and going out in public around all those other people, but I think next time he asks I know can say yes. I can do this.”

  I nodded and tried not to seem overly excited. I didn’t want to pressure her in any way. “That will make him very happy and I think it’ll be good for both of you.” I nudged her with my elbow. “And if you need me to get off work early or want me to come because it’s overwhelming you, just say the word and I’ll make it happen.” Rowdy would understand if she needed me as a buffer. He always understood.

  She gave me a tiny grin that looked like a baby bird trying to figure out how to fly for the first time in its hesitancy.

  “Thank you. That means a lot.” She walked around the giant island and headed toward the room that was hers at the very back of the house and as far away from my master suite in the converted attic as it could get. She knew her screams of terror carried and had made it clear she wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible while she recuperated in my home. “Good night, Sayer. Sweet dreams.”

  There was a note of humor in her voice that made me think that maybe I hadn’t been as coy about what—or rather who—was keeping me up at night as I thought. I sighed and made my way up to my own room.

  Zeb had transformed the abandoned and decrepit attic space in the house into a retreat that anyone would love. It was modern but still had the vintage charm that came with an old house. The colors were all pale grays and soft blues. It was a place where I could shut out the rest of the world after a rough day in court or when I had a client and a case I couldn’t let go of. He made me a paradise in my own home, and the only thing that would be even better was if he would strip and climb into the massive, four-poster, king-size bed with me.

  I called myself every kind of fool I could think of as I took in the tangled sheets and the pillows tossed in every direction. My imaginary Zeb got more of a reaction out of me and out of my body than my very real ex-fiancé ever had. I had been involved with Nathan for years and not once had he made my entire body quake, bow up, or tremble from head to toe on the verge of an explosion that had every kind of sweet heat imaginable in it. That was why I had stayed in the relationship for as long as I did. There was no passion, no overwhelming rush of lust and desire that I wasn’t equipped to deal with. Nathan was safe, easy, and I didn’t have to pretend not to feel anything because I legitimately didn’t feel anything other than the bland security that being with him offered.

  There was nothing wrong with Nathan. He was kind. He had a good job. He looked good in a suit and liked all the same things I did . . . well, all the things I had been convincing myself I liked up until my father died and my life turned upside down. And I truly believed that Nathan loved me even though I wasn’t very emotionally responsive and worked way too much. He cared about me a lot even though we both knew I was never going to rock his world in the bedroom and that he was never going to be my top priority. It had taken the passing of my father and the discovery of my brother for me to realize that no matter how much effort Nathan put in and how accepting of my frosty personality he claimed to be, ours was ultimately a relationship I didn’t choose for myself. It was a relationship I chose in order to make my father happy and to keep him off of my back. I picked Nathan because it was what was expected of me.

  I knew Nathan deserved better than someone who was only putting forth the bare minimum in order to keep the relationship alive, so despite his protests and his assurances that I was all he wanted, no matter what that looked like, I ended the engagement and packed up and moved to Colorado in search of a new life and a new family. I got both in spades and also a startling wake-up call when a filthy, unapologetic, and ruggedly handsome Zeb Fuller had sat down across from me at a tiny bar table while I was talking to Rowdy.

  The way Zeb affected me was one of the main reasons I wasn’t going to back out of the semidate I had arranged with Quaid Jackson tomorrow. Quaid was the kind of guy who seemed to like reserved blondes who were more comfortable in front of a judge than they were between the sheets, and it didn’t hurt a thing that he was also disgustingly handsome and over-the-top suave. The term “lady-killer” had been invented for guys like Quaid, and the way I felt around him, pleasant, warm, but generally unaffected was a reaction I was familiar with. Quaid didn’t make me panic or want to strip naked and throw myself at him. Quaid was safe.

  He was a criminal defense attorney who had a legendary reputation in Denver. We had gotten to know each other when my firm handled his very messy and very public divorce not too long ago, so I was really hoping all he had in mind was a friendly get-together because there was no way the man could be ready to jump into anything serious after the kind of train wreck he’d just endured. I was hoping time and attention with the handsome blond attorney would force my hormones to get their shit together and stop screaming Zeb’s name. After tonight, I wasn’t so sure it would work, but for the love of God, I needed to get some sleep and I was desperate.

  I straightened out the bed, put the pillows back where they belonged, and hit the lights. I stared up at the ceiling and prayed that the rest of the night would be Zeb free. Of course, as soon as my eyelids got heavy and sleep began to beckon, I began to wonder what it was like to kiss a mouth that was hidden in a beard, and this, of course, led to thoughts about what that facial hair would feel like as it rubbed against other parts of my body. My eyes popped open wide, so I groaned and gave up. It was either a cold shower or battery-operated-boyfriend time. Neither sounded as pleasurable as the thoughts that were keeping me up in the first place, but a girl had to do what she had to do, and sadly I had been taking care of my own needs far too much lately.

  Stupid, illogical crush. This was torture and the only solace I had was that in the past, I had always been too cold, too distant from my emotions to ever feel anything like this. It was my first crush in my entire life and it felt like it might kill me.

  CHAPTER 2

  Zeb

  I turned my head when one of the guys from my crew called my name, and immediately regretted the lapse in concentration. Behind the filtered mask I had on to protect my lungs from all the deadly things that came out of the walls in these old houses, I dropped a litany of filthy words as the hammer I was in the middle of swinging came down and smashed mercilessly onto my thumb. It happened in my line of work, but lately stupid, preventable accidents were becoming more and more frequent because my head was up my ass and rooted firmly on my last job—or rather the stunning blonde that had hired me to do it.

  One of my younger crew guys, Julio, gulped when
he noticed the murderous look on my face and the way I was shaking out my hand. He held up his own hands in a gesture of surrender before I even said a word. My temper had been on a shorter fuse than usual lately and the guys that made up my crew had obviously taken notice. It made me feel like a dick, but there was nothing I could do about it. My head was all wrapped up in Sayer Cole and her endless legs and chilly demeanor, and nothing I seemed to do could pull it away from her.

  “What?” I pulled the safety mask off my face and forced myself to ask the question in a level tone instead of barking it out like I wanted to. I flicked my throbbing digit with my index finger and swore as it burned like it was on fire. I nailed the sucker good. It was going to be a lovely shade of black and blue when I took my work gloves off and I would be lucky if the fingernail didn’t fall off.

  “There’s a lady out front looking for you.” Julio’s heavily accented words took me a second to process. I lifted my eyebrow and put my hammer in the slot that was made for it on the leather tool belt that hung low on my waist.

  “Looking for me for what? Is she with the city? Or one of the neighbors?”

  Permit people were always dropping by to make sure everything was in order when I started tearing apart historic homes in order to return them to their original glory. I was also pretty good at turning them into something completely new and fantastic, but I still had to have the right licenses and permits in place in order to do so.

  Julio scratched the back of his neck and flushed a little. “I didn’t ask. She’s real cute, though.” The kid was young, not even out of his teens yet, but he was a hell of a hard worker and really good with his hands, so even if he wasn’t always the brightest member of the team, I knew he had plenty of time to learn and grow. He just needed a shot and someone not to give up on him.