Built

by Jay Crownover

  That was another thing I would never have been willing to do in my life before Denver. Spontaneously leaving town to spend time with people who loved me and cared about me was such a foreign concept. Almost as foreign as having the best sex of my life up against a wall with a guy covered in tattoos and paint. I didn’t recognize the parts of me that were changing now that I had a new life, and that made me nervous. It felt like the new parts that had been unleashed were all about being spontaneous and out of control. It felt like every risk that was presented was worth taking and that any repercussions were incidental. I hated that. I knew that repercussions could kill.

  When I finally did make it to the shower an hour or so later, it was much more difficult to scrub him off my skin than I thought it would be. I had fingerprints and tiny little abrasions from his beard all over my chest and across my shoulders and neck. I could still feel him all over me and it made that place between my legs that had been focused on him from the get-go feel all achy and needy. I was used to the hollow feeling of desire that nagged at me when I thought about Zeb; what made me slightly frantic and almost violent as I tried to wash him away was the lingering pulse that throbbed in my chest, low and insistent, right where my heart was at.

  I could work through wanting Zeb on a physical level, could handle being attracted to him in all his masculine and unrefined sexiness. There was no getting around the fact we had a physical attraction happening no matter how ill-advised it might be. What made me want to turn tail and run back to Seattle was the idea that I wanted more. I didn’t want to want more. I didn’t want my heart to trip over itself when I watched him with Hyde. I didn’t want to feel scrambled and out of sync every time he called to talk to me or anytime I had to be in the same room with him. I didn’t want to compare every other man I saw to Zebulon Fuller and find them lacking because, come on! Who could really compare to all that brawn, beauty, and genuineness?

  Zeb was too vibrant, passionate, and real to allow for anything other than an equal give-and-take. When he realized how dead on the inside and untouchable I was, he was going to have no choice but to walk away from me because he deserved someone who could give him everything and more. I had a feeling that watching him walk away would shatter my poor, brittle, and underused heart into a million, irreparable pieces. I really, really didn’t want that. With Rowdy’s help I had just started letting the rusty thing work again after so many years of keeping it shut off.

  Of course, I suffered through a sleepless night and was less than enthusiastic when Rowdy and Salem showed up to pick Poppy and me up on Saturday morning. Rowdy nudged me with his elbow when I stopped by the trunk to toss my weekender bag inside and looked at me with lifted eyebrows.

  “Everything okay? You seem pretty quiet this morning.”

  I helped him shut the lift gate and leaned a hip against the bumper of his SUV. There was no one else on the planet I would rather talk to than my little brother, but considering that everything that had me all twisted up revolved around one of his closest friends, I wasn’t sure how much to share. Old fears that he might judge me, or look down on me for my recent choices, raised their ugly head and made me stiffen next to him. Rowdy had never been anything but accepting and loving toward me after the awkwardness of our first meeting was out of the way. But the thought of someone else I loved, someone else who was supposed to love me, finding fault in me and my actions was almost crippling.

  “Just worried about court on Monday. I care about all of my clients and their cases, but it’s a little different when it’s someone you know on a personal level as well.” I did what I always did when I felt my feelings start to slip. I slapped on my professional mask and locked everything down in a deep, dark place where no one, not even me, could touch it.

  A crooked grin pulled at his mouth as he clapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’re the best, so everything will work out the way it’s supposed to.”

  He was always so optimistic, so go with the flow. It was an inherent difference in our personalities and it always made me slightly envious that, even though his childhood hadn’t been any kind of picnic in the park, he still had escaped the soul-crushing existence of living under my father’s roof.

  “I hope so. I don’t think I can even beginning to wrap my head around failing Zeb or that little boy. You should see them together, Rowdy. They belong together.”

  He started to move around the side of the car and I followed suit. He looked back at me over his shoulder and his expression was knowing. “Then you’ll make sure they end up together, Sayer. That’s all there is to it.”

  If only it was that simple. I let the subject drop and climbed into the backseat so I could sit next to Poppy. She was chattering on and on to Salem about something from when they were younger, so I dug my phone out of my purse and couldn’t decide if I was relieved or crushed that there were no missed calls or messages from a certain bearded contractor.

  Swearing under my breath, I turned the device off and put it back in my purse. When I lifted my head back up I noticed Rowdy’s gaze, the exact same blue as my own, watching me intently in the rearview mirror. Salem had also turned her head to the side and was looking at me curiously. To complete my humiliation, Poppy was also gazing at me with curiosity bright in her tawny-colored eyes.

  “What?” I know I sounded surly, but I couldn’t help it.

  “Why don’t you tell us what?” There was humor in my brother’s voice, so I did the only adult and mature thing I could think of and kicked the back of his seat. He grunted at me, which had the Cruz sisters laughing at us.

  “It’s a work thing.” I grumbled the lie out and Poppy laughed softly at me.

  “Sure it is. Just like you coming home covered in paint last night was a work thing.” I frowned at her and slumped down in my seat.

  “That was work. Not my work exactly, but still work.” At least it had been until I ended up naked and fucked. I sighed a little. I’d never ever actually been fucked before Zeb. Seattle Sayer had never dated men that were the kind to fuck, and again I could kick her for all that she had missed out on. I sure as hell had never had sex up against a freshly painted wall with my ass sticking up in the air and now I knew what I was missing.

  I wanted to be numb to it all. Wanted to chalk it up to raging hormones that had hummed around Zeb since the beginning. I wanted to be detached and calm so that I could tell him it was a mistake that we shouldn’t make again. I wasn’t any of those things.

  Nope, despite my best effort to keep a lid on them, my feelings, where Zeb Fuller was concerned, were leaking out through every crack they could find in my icy exterior. They were oozing, flowing, liquid, and as hot as lava all over me.

  I was heated up and flushed thinking about it and annoyed that he had seen all of me on display and I had gotten only a fleeting glimpse of his wide, tattooed chest, his narrow hips, and the line of dark hair that dusted below his belly button and pointed right at his cock. That was something else I wanted to see. He felt huge but I wanted to touch it, put my hands and mouth on it, and see if my impression was correct or if it had just been the position he had me in. I wanted to know him inside and out the way it felt like he now knew me. All the guys before him had been careful, deliberate . . . boring. Just like I was. They didn’t fuck and neither did I . . . well, neither did I before last night. Another new part of me to be terrified of and that I needed to try and control before she got me into trouble.

  I sighed and fought the urge to fan myself with my hand. I was supposed to be working on forgetting about last night, not reliving every caress, imagining every growled sound of satisfaction over and over again. Working my way out of this problem was proving to be particularly difficult and it was putting me in a bad mood. I’d spent a lifetime having no moods and here I was turning into a basket case because of a boy. My father’s scorn would have whipped across me like a thousand lashes if he could have seen me now.

  I wondered if Rowdy could tell because I saw him exch
ange a look with his beautiful girlfriend and then he dipped his chin down in a little nod at whatever unspoken communication passed between the two of them. That kind of connection, that tie to another person, seemed so dangerous to me that it made my heart squeeze painfully tight in my chest. They could hurt one another with such ease.

  “No work this weekend. We wanted everyone to get together so that we could all celebrate.” Salem’s voice was husky with emotion, so I sat up straighter in my seat and looked between her and Poppy.

  “Celebrate what?” I assumed it was the fact that Poppy was out and about in the world, well on her way to reclaiming her life as her own, but the spark in Salem’s dark eyes and the tender way Rowdy reached over to put his hand on her leg spoke to something larger than that. I felt my mouth fall open and my hands clapped together as soon as the words “We’re having a baby” came out of her scarlet-painted mouth.

  “I knew it!” I leaned as far forward as my seat belt would allow to try to hug her, and settled for smacking Rowdy on the shoulder so he didn’t wreck the car if I strangled him in my excitement. “I knew it was coming and I’m so excited for you guys.”

  I looked over at Poppy and felt the smile on my face dull slightly at how pale and panicked she looked as she huddled in the corner. I reached out a hand and immediately pulled it away when she flinched. “It’s great news, right, Poppy? We’re going to be aunties!” I loved kids. Loved their innocence and joy. I loved that for the most part they hadn’t been tainted by the atrocities the world could level at them. It was part of the reason I went into family law against my father’s very clear wishes. Kids who didn’t have the luxury of being innocent didn’t have a shot because the adults around them were twisted and broken. Those kids needed someone to fight for them. They needed an advocate . . . just like I had when I was little and alone with a mentally unstable mother and an emotionally unavailable father. I had no one, so I was going to be that someone whenever I could for any child who came my way.

  The young woman nodded woodenly and I could see the sadness start to engulf the joy in Salem’s midnight-colored eyes as she watched her sister’s reaction to the happy news.

  “Poppy . . .” Poppy jerked at the sound of her name and I watched her gulp a few times and suck in a few deep breaths. She put a shaky hand on her chest and looked away from her sister so that she was staring right at me instead.

  “It’s okay. I’m okay. I just need a minute.” A tumultuous smile moved across her stiff mouth. “I’m happy for you, I really am. It’s just a big change and it reminds me of . . .” She trailed off and Salem gave a stiff nod.

  “I knew it was going to be a little rough for you to hear. That’s why Rowdy and I wanted to do it with just the family and someplace that wasn’t tied to any bad memories. I know you’re happy for us, Poppy, even if it hurts you to feel that way.”

  Poppy could only nod stiffly and I watched her drift back inside herself and the memories that weighed her down, which was heartbreaking considering how far she had come in the last few months. I didn’t know every single detail of Poppy’s past beyond the abuse, abduction, and extremely violent and physical end to her own personal nightmare at the hands of her ex-husband. From her reaction to Rowdy and Salem’s news, there must have been other tragic chapters to her story that I wasn’t aware of. It made the fact that she was making so much progress even more impressive and the fact that she had shut back down and folded in on herself once again that much sadder.

  We made the rest of the trip in relative silence. I decided it was for the best to let Poppy work through what she was thinking and feeling on her own while Salem and Rowdy carried on a low-voiced conversation in the front of the vehicle. Feeling the oppression of everyone else’s emotions made my skin too tight and the air in the car thick and heavy. I turned my phone back on and gave an audible sigh because even though I didn’t want to feel, I did, and I was relieved that there was a missed text message from Zeb on the screen. All it said was:

  See you on Monday.

  But it was enough to loosen the tightness in my chest and to have the air trapped in my lungs moving more freely.

  I couldn’t decide what to send back to him. Everything I thought of seemed too personal, too involved, so I decided on:

  Yes you will.

  I left it at that and focused on spending the weekend with my family and appreciating the fact that we were growing and getting more people to love and protect. It took Poppy the rest of the ride, checking into the swanky hotel and spa, getting settled into the room we were sharing, to break free from the zombielike state she had been in.

  Once we were alone in the room she sank to the edge of the bed, looked me dead in the eye, and told me about the baby she had lost when she was just a teenager. I knew she and Rowdy had been close when they were younger, but I hadn’t known my brother fancied himself in love with the wrong Cruz sister for most of his youth. He was so convinced that Poppy was the one that he followed her to college and then had lost his scholarship when he attacked the father of Poppy’s unborn baby because the guy had hurt her and caused her to miscarry. After Rowdy left her and school, she moved back home to her parents because she was alone and afraid, which then ultimately led to her ending up in the abusive hands of her ex. The poor thing had been abused by more than one man who claimed to love her, which made her hesitation around the opposite sex all the more clear to me as the words came pouring out of her.

  It all came out in a rush that was flavored with hiccuping sobs and a torrent of tears. I knew she was shaken up when I sat next to her on the bed and she actually allowed me to put my arm around her shoulders and comfort her. I wanted to cry, too, but instead I made soothing noises and told her everything would be all right. I offered comfort to my clients in a professional capacity all the time. This was the first time in my life I wanted to open myself up and offer comfort and reassurance on a personal level. I wanted her to know I was there for her beyond a roof over her head and a safe place to stay. I wanted her to know I cared, and that stunned me so much that we were both shaking as we huddled together and let our emotions run their course.

  I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that, but when it was all out of her she pushed her caramel-colored hair out of her face, took a deep breath, and told me she needed to get cleaned up so she could go and tell Rowdy and Salem she really was happy for them. I nodded and took a minute to get myself back under control.

  Poppy seemed weak and fragile on the outside, but she never stopped fighting, never gave up when all the bad things from the past tried to drag her down. She felt everything so fully, so intensely, that it paralyzed her with the force of it and I had to admire that. Instead of dealing with the entanglements and thorns that pricked at me from before, I denied feeling anything. I shut myself down and closed myself off so that there wasn’t the kind of pain Poppy was dealing with. She was a thousand times stronger than I would ever be.

  Rowdy and I decided to leave Poppy and Salem alone to have a heart-to-heart, which meant we ended up in the bar with a couple of frosty craft beers and some tortilla chips and green chili in front of us. It took exactly five minutes of small talk before Rowdy laid into me about what was really going on with Zeb.

  “So you want to tell me what’s really up with you and Paul Bunyan? I mean I know you’re helping him out with his kid but there’s more going on there, isn’t there?”

  I snapped a chip in half with my teeth and narrowed my eyes at him, and only partly because he called Zeb by such a ridiculous nickname. Sure the guy was big and looked like he could fell an entire forest with one swing of his ax, but he was far too handsome and far too well-spoken to get saddled with the silly moniker. “What makes you say that?”

  “Besides the fact that you were checking your phone every five minutes in the car, how about when I called him last night to see if he wanted to go get a beer at the Bar and he told me he couldn’t because you were coming over to help him work on his latest flip. You aren�
�t exactly handy, Sayer. You had to call me to come hang all the pictures and curtains up in your house when he was finished with the remodel, so that tells me ‘work’ probably means something else.”

  I groaned a little and picked up my beer. “I don’t know what I’m doing or what any of it means. I’m deeply invested in helping Zeb get full custody of his son and that’s all it should be. Anything else involving me and him is a terrible idea. Honestly, I have no clue what to do with him outside of the courtroom, so I’m pretending nothing is going on in between bouts of throwing myself at him and running away.”

  He snorted at me and picked up his own beer. “How’s that working out for you?”

  I scowled because there was humor laced liberally through his tone. “Not very well.”

  “Because it’s been brewing from the very beginning. Zeb has been interested in you since day one; it just took you a while to recognize it. Once you did there was no way in hell that he was going to let you ignore it.”

  Oh, Zeb had no idea how good I was at ignoring things. I was a master at denying I felt anything. It was my second greatest skill next to practicing law. He wasn’t going to get a choice in the matter if I really put my mind to pretending nothing was going on between the two of us.

  I tucked some of my hair behind my ears and looked at Rowdy unwaveringly. “I’m not good with passionate people, Rowdy. I don’t know how to deal with someone who acts on what they feel, or how to handle someone who takes what they want with no regard for the risks. The fact that he jumped both feet in with Hyde even before knowing if the kid was his petrifies me. That kind of investment in another person, that level of unconditional love . . .” I shook my head sadly. “I don’t think I’m wired to return those kinds of feelings, and that will ultimately lead to a disaster. Someone will end up getting hurt and I lived with enough hurt when I was younger to last a million lifetimes. I don’t have room inside for anything else, which means I’m immune to all the things he stirs up, and that isn’t fair to him. He should have someone who is just as passionate and invested as he is.”