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.
“What does that mean exactly?” My voice was thin and shaky and there was no real hiding the way my body reacted to his nearness. I longed for the layers of my professional garb, but instead the thin material of my bedtime outfit put the way my entire being flushed and the way my nipples tightened into noticeable peaks on full display.
He noticed.
Zeb took a step closer and ran his rough hands up my arms until they curled around my shoulders.
“I want you to help me, Sayer. I need you to get me through this. I need you to help me help this little boy even if it turns out he isn’t mine.”
His eyes drilled into me and I felt like I was being welded to the spot. I nodded slightly. “Of course I’ll help you, Zeb. I’ll get started on the paperwork we need to file to figure out paternity on Monday. You’re going to need to get a DNA test and we’ll have to petition the state to get one done on the little boy.” I did a lot of pro bono work for families in the community and this was a case I would be happy to handle free of charge even though I knew Zeb made enough to afford my regular rates.
He sighed and I was stunned when he dropped his forehead so that it rested against my own. I could feel the brush of his beard against my face and I wanted to whimper at the surprising softness of it. I also wanted to rub my face against it like a cat.
“No, I don’t think you get what I’m asking you. I want you to help me because it’s me, Sayer. Not because it’s your job and what you do.”
His deep voice rasped across my skin and I felt like I had been thrown into an alternate universe all of a sudden, a universe where all I could do was feel things. I tentatively put a hand in the middle of his wide chest and was surprised to realize that his heart was racing and pounding just as erratically as my own.
“Obviously the fact that it’s you and we know each other makes things more complicated on a personal level. Why would you think otherwise?” I was having a hell of a time concentrating because he took another step closer so that we were pressed even more tightly together and moved his hands up so that he was grasping either side of my face. His palms were rough and I wanted to lean into them.
“How about the fact that you spent three months dodging every move I tried to lay on you, or maybe it’s the way you laugh off or ignore any kind of compliment I toss at you. You went out of your way to keep things between us strictly professional the entire time I was working on this house, but you can’t deny that there is something there between us when we get close to one another that is completely unprofessional. I want your help, Sayer, but I want you, too.”
I frowned at his words and lifted my hands to wrap around his wrists. I wasn’t at all surprised when my fingers barely touched. Everything about him was so big and hard. He really was the epitome of what a man should be, and I had no clue what to do with any of it or the fact that he had just come out and told me I wasn’t the only one suffering from what felt like a fatal case of lust.
“I thought you were just being friendly. You flirt with everyone. I thought it was habit, and I didn’t want to make things awkward since you had so much work to do on the house.” Not to mention I didn’t want to try to explain to him my baggage and my chronic case of overthinking every move I made. Zeb was a nice guy. He wouldn’t fuck me without getting to know me, and it made my stomach turn to think of him knowing any part of the real me, the me that walked on eggshells every day, the me that was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, the me that spent her entire life praying she had finally reached the level of expectation set out by the very man she hated most. He wouldn’t like her very much. No one did.
He pulled his head back and his eyebrows snapped down low over his eyes in a fierce scowl. His mouth pursed into a tight line and I could see his jaw twitching under his beard.
“You thought I was trying to get you into bed out of habit? That I have no control around a pretty girl and just want to nail whoever happens to be in the vicinity? Jesus, Sayer, what kind of asshole player do you think I am?”
I dug my fingers into his wrists and scowled right back at him as his pulse kicked into my touch. “I don’t think you’re an asshole or a player at all, Zeb, but I also have no experience with men like you.”
“Men like me? What does that mean? What kind of man am I?” He was getting angry and frustrated and I couldn’t blame him. It was hard for me to explain why he was everything I wanted but everything I could never have. We were on two different levels when it came to our personalities and I knew there was no way someone as passionate and expressive as he was would ever be interested in someone as reserved and closed off as I was. Where I was the frozen tundra when it came to emotional availability, he was the blazing heat of the desert. I could see the fire of his annoyance in his gaze as he waited for my shaky explanation.