Built - Jay Crownover

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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 desk. 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

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