And now Zeb Fuller was not only threatening to melt the icy shroud that made me feel safe, he was also making it impossible not to feel things. So many hot, bright, and addicting things. It was no wonder I was equally terrified of and obsessed with the man.
The rest of the evening passed with easy camaraderie and friendly banter about the legal system. I wasn’t lying. I really did like Quaid and I appreciated his quick wit and effortless flirting even though I didn’t return the interest, but it was when my phone buzzed with an incoming text message as I was walking in the front door that all the attraction and lure I wanted to feel for Quaid flared to life because Zeb’s name flashed on my phone.
He sent a message asking if I would be home on Saturday. I was so frazzled for a second I almost typed back YES in big, bold, shouty caps. When I calmed down I sent him back a reply that I had some work to do but he could swing by around lunch.
I didn’t even think to ask why he needed to see me and he didn’t elaborate, responding back with a brisk See you then.
At two in the morning the night before he was supposed to swing by, I gave up trying to sleep and went into my office to see if I could at least use my restlessness to get some work done, which really meant I sat at my desk and watched hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix without accomplishing much of anything besides wondering what Zeb could possibly want with me. It only took a few episodes before I decided that I was absolutely team Spike. I mean, hot, British bad boy, how could I not pull for him and Buffy to get over their obvious differences and find everlasting love?
I didn’t have high hopes for getting any kind of sleep, but when I finally dragged myself to bed around five, after some stern nudges from Poppy, as soon as my head hit the pillow my body gave out and my mind finally shut down on me. There were no visions of a handsome bearded man and no endless fantasies of all the things I wanted that man to do to me . . .
or fantasies of all the things I really, really wanted to do to him. There was just darkness and finally blissful, dense, consuming sleep. I had hit the wall and there was nothing left for my psyche or body to give.
When a soft hand landed on my shoulder sometime later I could have sworn that my eyes had just fallen shut. I jerked up in the bed and blinked at Poppy while I tried to figure out what was going on. I was confused for a second because the entire room was flooded with sunshine and she was dressed for the day. I was also surprised she was in my room and that she had voluntarily touched me.
“What time is it?” I pushed a messy handful of hair out of my face and stretched my arms up over my head. I groaned as every bone in my neck popped at the motion.
Poppy nervously fiddled with the end of her long braid and told me, “It’s twelve-oh-five. Zeb’s been downstairs for the last ten minutes waiting for you. I told him you haven’t been sleeping very well and he offered to leave and come back another day, but I didn’t think you’d want that, so I decided to come wake you up.”
At first I just stared at her like she was speaking Spanish, then I swore and threw the covers off of me.
“You’ve got to be kidding me? I finally fall asleep after months of sleepless hell and I almost miss the visit of the person keeping me up in the first place? Un-freaking-believable.” I never normally would have admitted that Zeb was the reason for my insomnia. That’s how unsettled I was. There went those pesky emotions again.
I scrambled out of bed and paused when I caught sight of myself in the full-length mirror that was mounted on the closet door. My hair was a wild mess around my head. It looked like an entire family of squirrels had moved into the mess overnight. My face was scary pale and my eyes were way too big in my face, making me look startled and almost frightened. I had on the stretchy tank top and comfy yoga pants that I always wore to bed, but it was the last outfit I wanted Zeb to see me in. I didn’t want to keep him waiting any longer than I already had, so I decided the sleepwear was going to have to do even though the idea of appearing as anything other than perfectly groomed and put together in front of him made me want to vomit. It felt like I was going into battle without armor.
Frantically throwing on a loose T-shirt to cover up the points on my chest that were also apparently excited to see him, I dashed around until I found a brush in the bathroom and ripped it through my hair until the tangled heap was smooth enough to put up in a ponytail. I wrapped a bandanna around my head and hurriedly slapped on some blush so I didn’t look so much like an extra from The Walking Dead.
Poppy watched the frantic spectacle with a smile on her face while she shook her head at my antics. “Sorry. I would’ve woke you up sooner, but I was talking to my sister on the phone and lost track of the time. I didn’t realize how late it was until the doorbell rang. I panicked for a second thinking it was a stranger that I was going to have to open the door for and try and talk to until I remembered you said Zeb was coming over. If it helps calm your nerves, he looks as uptight and stressed out as you’re acting right now.”
That gave me a moment’s pause as I was headed out the bedroom door. I looked at Poppy in question where she was perched on the edge of the bed. “He does? Did he say why he’s here?”
She shook her head. “Nope. He just came in and said it was nice to see me and that I looked pretty as a picture, but he did it without smiling at me. When I told him it would just take me a minute to go and get you, he muttered that he would just wait in your office.”
That was odd. Zeb was always charming and laid-back. He was quick with a grin and one of his booming laughs. He typically went out of his way to put Poppy at ease and never seemed ruffled or keyed up about anything. If he was being abrupt and distant with her, then something was definitely off and this wasn’t a friendly visit at all.
I took a deep breath and ran my sweaty hands over the thin material of my pants. “Okay. Well, I guess I’ll go find out what’s up with him, then. Thank you for waking me up.”
“No problem. You look better. You obviously needed the rest.”
No, I was pretty sure what I needed was to let the man waiting for me downstairs to fuck my brains out so I could stop dreaming about it, but I would rather have my tongue cut out with a dull knife than admit that.
I took the stairs two at a time and practically jogged across my living room into the room at the front of the house that Zeb had converted into an office for me. The door was propped open slightly, so when I hit it going full speed it flew open and crashed into the wall behind it with a loud bang.
The sound made Zeb whirl around from where he was looking out one of the big windows behind my desk. I flinched when I saw his reaction and told myself to calm the hell down. I plastered what I hoped was a friendly smile on my face and made my way much more slowly across the room. I shivered when his dark green eyes settled on me and felt secret places in my body get tight and start to tingle.
“Hey, Zeb. How are you?” It sounded forced and strained to my own ears and I could tell he heard the tension in my tone as well when his dark eyebrows dipped over his leafy-colored gaze.
“I’ve actually been better.” He sighed and I saw his gaze slip from the top of my head to the tips of my bare toes. I wiggled them involuntarily when his gaze seemed to stay stuck on the brightly colored appendages. Since everything I wore was typically black, taupe, or gray with an occasional neutral color snuck in, I liked to have my pedicure be as loud and as outrageous as possible. My toes were hard to miss, but when they made the corner of Zeb’s mouth twitch inside of the facial hair that surrounded his mouth, it made my heart rate kick up. Even his smile was rugged and tough looking.
“Poppy mentioned that you seemed a little tense when you came in, so I figured this isn’t a social call. What can I do for you?” I kept my tone level and as professional as it could be considering I wanted to purr and rub up against him. Professional I could handle. Heated and aroused just by being around him I had no clue what to do with.
He heaved a sigh and walked around to the front of my des
k. He propped his backside on the edge and crossed his arms over his broad chest, pulling the thin material of his T-shirt tight and making his biceps bulge. It was an eye-candy feast that I would have appreciated much more fully if I hadn’t noticed the muscle ticking in his cheek under the facial hair that covered it and the emotion in his eyes that darkened them from a deep green shade to one that was almost black. Sensing things were going to get serious really fast, I walked over to shut the door I had just thrown open and then took a seat in one of the cream-colored chairs I had bought to match the rest of the sedate decor in the office. I had to look way up at him when I sat down and I could see his struggle with whatever it was that had brought him to my door stamped clearly across his strong features as we watched each other silently.
“I didn’t mean to rattle Poppy. I know she’s sensitive and has every right to be. I thought I was holding it together better than I am, but something about actually admitting out loud what I’m about to tell you really has me on edge.” He blew out a long breath and looked me straight in the eyes. “I fucked up, Sayer. I mean, I really and truly fucked up and I think you are the only person that can help me fix this mess that I made.”
Startled by both his harsh words and the rawness with which he poured them out, I leaned back in the chair and curled my hands around the arms. “Are you talking about my professional help?”
I was asked for legal advice all the time, so I would gladly hand over any knowledge that I had that might benefit him in any way. In fact, it made me want to breathe a sigh of relief. Business, the law, cold hard facts, I could handle with ease. It was anything that required dealing with someone on an emotional and personal level where I tended to fall apart and drop the ball. When you shut your emotions off to survive, it is nearly impossible to turn them back on, even for someone you care about.
Zeb chuckled, but there was absolutely no humor in it. “Yeah, I need your professional help and maybe your personal help, too, considering you know what it’s like to find out you have a long-lost family member that no one bothered to tell you about. You know what it’s like to have your world turn upside down in the space of a few seconds.”
I reared back a little and took a minute to get my thoughts in order before asking, “You have a sibling your family never disclosed to you, too?” It seemed highly unlikely, but I was missing a piece of the puzzle here and he didn’t seem to be in any hurry to hand it over. I couldn’t believe he’d found himself in a similar situation to the one I was in when my father died and his will revealed that I had a brother. The bastard couldn’t even be bothered to tell me himself. Ever the consummate Svengali, toying with the people he was supposed to love like we existed for nothing more than his amusement. His games and ploys had been exhausting, but his last one had failed. Thank God. I was so lonely growing up, so sad and isolated, that when I found out about Rowdy, I dropped everything in my old life in Seattle and hightailed it for Colorado as quickly as I could. It was the one time in my life when I acted without thinking. It was the one time I had let myself feel . . . until that fateful day I met Zeb.
I made it no secret that I considered Rowdy to be the greatest thing that had ever happened to me, so if that was what Zeb was talking about I could walk him through the ups and downs of it all.
He pushed off the desk and started to pace back and forth in front of me. I was trying to figure out what exactly was going on as he brooded before me, but I couldn’t stop my eyes from tracking the way the muscles in his shoulders and back bunched and flexed under his T-shirt each time he reached the end of the rug and turned around to walk back the other way. The man was hot even when he was troubled and it made me feel a little bit like a pervert for not being able to control my fascination with him.
“Not a sibling . . . a son.” He stopped in front of me as the words dropped like a bag of bricks between us. “There is a possibility I fathered a child as soon as I got out of prison. I might have a five-year-old son out there.”
I felt my jaw drop a little and I was glad I had taken a moment to add some artificial color to my face because whatever heat had worked into my cheeks by being around him had surely leached out with his revelation.
“A possibility, but you don’t know for sure?” It was what I would ask any client in the same situation. “Is someone coming after you for child support?”
He shook his head and picked the pacing back up. “No. It was a one-night deal and the mother didn’t even know who the father was until the baby was born. She passed away recently and the little boy is currently with Child Protective Services. The woman’s friend tracked me down claiming I’m the boy’s dad and begging me to keep him out of foster care. I don’t really remember the girl or the sex, but I do recall the day since it was the day of my release and the timing fits. The little boy just turned five according to the friend that found me.”
I frowned and fought the urge to get up and grab his arms to get him to stop moving so that I could talk to him without having to crane my neck.
“So a stranger dropped all of this on you with the mother out of the picture and you just bought the story at face value?” He had to be smarter than that.
My skepticism finally brought him to a halt as he stopped in front of me and looked down at me. I sucked in a surprised breath that whistled through my teeth when he bent down slightly and held his phone under my nose for inspection.
“No. I thought she was nuts and threatened to throw her off my jobsite until she showed me a picture of the boy.” I stared in shock at the image on the phone of the mini Zeb. “That kind of proof made me listen to what she had to say.”
Without thinking, I snatched the phone out of his callused hand and touched a finger to the adorable little face looking back at me on the screen. “He looks just like you.”
Zeb snorted. “I noticed. Which is why I’m here.”
I couldn’t stop looking at the little boy, so without looking up, I asked him, “There are no other relatives? No grandparents or aunts and uncles who could take him in while we figure out paternity?” I winced when I realized I said “we” like this was a problem we were going to find a solution for together. For all I knew, Zeb just wanted some advice or the name of another good attorney. The thought of anyone else helping him navigate the tricky family court system made the hair on the back of my neck rise up.
“According to the friend that brought the information to me, the mom was living a pretty dangerous lifestyle. She hadn’t been in contact with her family for years. The little guy has no one, and if he is mine then I need to do the right thing by him and I need to do it as quickly as possible.”
I gulped and handed the phone back when he stuck his hand out for it. I put my own hand to my chest because my heart was beating so fast I thought maybe he could see it through my skin and layers of clothing.
“That’s very admirable, Zeb.”
“No, it’s not. If he’s mine I should’ve been taking care of him all along. He shouldn’t be in this situation because I was too drunk and disgustingly miserable to use a condom one time. It’s not his fault that his mom was an addict and made terrible decisions. No kid should have to suffer because of the shitty choices the adults in their lives might’ve made. He deserves better than this.”
I agreed with him, but I also thought he was being kind of hard on himself. I knew far too many men who, were they in the same situation, would have ignored the revelation of a child they fathered and pretended like nothing had happened.
Since the conversation had turned serious so fast I no longer felt comfortable sitting down while Zeb loomed over me. I got to my feet and took up his original pose leaning against the glass-topped desk. I set my hands down next to me so I could rap my fingernails against the surface. It was another unconscious habit I had that my father had abhorred. He hated it so much that I had a burning memory from when I was fourteen of him scolding me, chastising me, and sending me to sit in my room during the middle of a fancy dinner party he had hel
d at our house when his firm won a major case. It was mortifying to do a walk of shame in front of his colleagues and their families over something so small, something so seemingly insignificant. My father had ignored me, glowered at me for days on end. He told me I wasn’t fit for company, and that I had no manners and that he had raised me better than that. His disapproval crawled all over me like angry bugs whenever I did something he didn’t like. I learned to behave like nothing he said or did bothered me. I shivered a little as the image of his sneer and scowl whispered across my memory. I immediately stopped tapping my fingernails.
“So what do you want to do here, Zeb? Do you want to find out for sure if the child is yours, and if he is do you want to try to appeal to the state for full custodial rights? What’s your plan?”
He moved so that he was facing me and we stared at each other for a long, silent moment. He took a step forward until the tips of his worn Red Wings were almost touching my brightly colored toes. He dipped his chin down so we were eye to eye, and I stopped breathing as he reached out and put his hands on top of mine. He towered over me, but my breasts still hit the center of his chest and he was bent just enough that all the parts of him that I dreamed about in the dark were pressed tightly against me. I could see a thick vein on the side of his neck throbbing. This was the closest I had ever been to him and I could tell the proximity was going to do nothing for my sleeplessness. He was everywhere and yet not close enough.
“My plan is you, Sayer.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again. I felt my eyebrows shoot up and a flush start to work its way up my throat. His eyes were so dark now it was almost impossible to see the pupils and every breath he exhaled I took in. I could taste his tension and my own across my tongue. The flavor of each was very different and had its own tang.