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.