Jay Crownover - Built

I cleared my throat before trying to speak. My head was still spinning from his assault on my senses and my libido was trying to take over my common sense.

“Zeb …” The word squeaked out even though I tried for collected and cool. “I like you and I think you’re incredibly attractive, but you don’t know me and I don’t really think you would be interested in me if you did. Obviously there is an attraction here, but I can’t act on chemistry alone. I’m not built that way.” Even though I wished sometimes that I was. “I can still help you out with your situation with the child. We’ll figure everything out together, so don’t worry about things being weird. We can forget about this kiss and focus on what’s important.”

I would never forget that kiss … not ever.

He growled at me like an animal. He put his hands on his lean hips and narrowed his eyes, which had lightened back up to their normal mossy color.

“Sayer, do you want to go on a date with me?” I opened my mouth to tell him of course I did but that it wasn’t a good idea with all the other things he suddenly had going on in his life. I also didn’t want to bore him to death and risk having him find out just how unappealing I really was. Before I could speak he held up a hand and pointed his finger at me. “Don’t give me a bullshit lawyer answer or tell me what you think you should say. Just tell me yes or no if you want to go out with me?”

Put that way, real and on the spot, there was only one thing to say to him without lying through my teeth. “Yes, I want to go out with you, Zeb.” Even though I knew it would almost certainly end up a disaster.

He grinned at me and I felt my knees get weak.

“Okay, then I’ll make it happen. We’ll go on a date and you’ll see you can totally handle a guy like me … I think I’ll enjoy that part of it.” He took a step toward me and I was startled when he pulled me into a one-armed hug. I instinctively wrapped my arms around him and squeezed back as he told me, “Thank you. I knew you were the person that was going to save me.”

That was a lot of pressure and I had a moment of panic wondering what would happen if I let him down in court or on a date.

“We’ll figure it out. I’m really good at my job and the reason I got into family law in the first place was to help kids.” Because no one had been there to help me. “By the way, what’s his name?”

“Hyde. His name is Hyde.”

Of course it was. A mini Zeb wouldn’t have anything but a cool and unusual name.

“I’ll take care of you, both of you.” My voice was muffled by the fabric of his shirt, but I was sure he heard it because his arm tightened around my shoulders.

I was already getting too close, melting a little bit into him. I was making promises I couldn’t keep. That was what happened when emotion started to bleed through the cracks.

I was out of my damn mind.

I was supposed to be begging her for help. I was supposed to be trying to do the right thing. I was supposed to be full of dread and embarrassment at the consequences of my past actions. I wasn’t supposed to feel the burn and sharp twist of desire that blazed through me every time I got near Sayer. That hadn’t been part of my agenda when I went to her for help. There simply wasn’t any stopping it.

Maybe it was the fact that it was the first time I had ever seen Sayer outside of her typical, severe-looking work wear. If there was such a thing as being tragically flawless and ferociously immaculate, then those were conditions that she definitely suffered from. She was always so tailored and put together. Sometimes she didn’t seem real, more like a life-size doll without a hair out of place and a face full of perfectly subdued makeup still intact after a full day’s worth of work. She was intimidating not only in her carefully crafted beauty but also in her consummate perfection.

Seeing her standing there with messy hair and dressed in rumpled clothes that she obviously slept in had pulled my head from all the cloudy thoughts about the possibility of impending fatherhood and immediately launched it into all kinds of filthy and sexy thoughts that involved putting her in even more disarray with my mouth and hands. God, I wanted to touch her, to taste her. I wanted to know if she felt as cool as she looked and just what it would take to get her to melt, to thaw her out and turn her into nothing more than liquid and want in my hands.

The kiss had been a solid start.

Hell, the way she kissed me back, arched into me and got all soft and pliable at just the touch of lips to lips, let me know she would have zero trouble rolling with anything I wanted to lay on her. Even if it was clear she had her doubts about that. As perfect as Sayer appeared to be on the outside, it was becoming obvious that all of that perfection cracked and splintered a little bit below the surface. She had a shell around her, but it was much thinner and more brittle than I think she was aware of.

Now that I had admitted the truth to Sayer, which felt like jumping off a cliff without knowing what was waiting below me, I had a few more people to tell about my current, questionable situation. I knew my sister and my mother would support me no matter what the outcome of the paternity test was, but I dreaded seeing the look of disappointment in their eyes when I came clean. They would be frustrated and exasperated that I had once again made a rushed, drastic decision that led to an outcome that could stick with me for the rest of my life.

I watched my mom’s heart break in half when the judge laid down the sentence after I pled no contest to the aggravated assault and additional charge of child endangerment. She cried harder than I had ever seen her cry and that included the night my dad walked out on us for good when I was just a kid. I never wanted to put her through that again, and depending on the outcome of the looming test, my guts twisted into knots at the idea that I could cause her that kind of pain and disappointment more than once in a lifetime. All I wanted to do since getting out of prison was make my mother proud. That was why I worked six days a week and made sure to keep my nose clean and my easily ignited temper in check.

My sister, Beryl, was a little different. When I went to jail she had wanted to fight harder to keep me out than I had. She was in court with a broken nose, black eyes, and her arm in a sling, and was recovering from a head injury that had put her in the hospital for a week. She was ready to tell anyone that would listen that the only reason I was in trouble in the first place was because her boyfriend at the time, my niece’s deadbeat father, had nearly beaten her to death. There was no way she could stop me once I learned how badly she was hurt, and I hadn’t stopped to think for a second about what it would mean for me that I had attacked her abuser in plain sight of not only her but of my then three-year-old niece. Beryl couldn’t believe I was the one facing a prison sentence while that asshole she used to be involved with got to walk free. She also couldn’t believe that because her daughter, Joss, had witnessed the beatdown I had delivered, I was the one looking at a child-abuse charge. Beryl felt that it was all unjust and disgustingly unfair, but there was nothing she could do to help me when I decided that instead of dragging everything through court and subjecting her and Joss to a trial, I would just take my punishment and serve the time. I was going away regardless of any argument put forth, so I wanted to do it as quickly and painlessly for those that I loved as possible. Maybe it was guilt and remorse for losing it so drastically in front of Joss, or the fury that I hadn’t known what was happening to my sister, but I just wanted it all to go away. It was the hardest decision I had ever had to make until Echo showed up on my jobsite claiming I fathered a child.