Resting my forearm on the bookshelf, I leaned in towards her. “So what if I have?”
Her eyes met mine, freezing me in place. The room grew smaller the longer she looked at me until all I could see was her. Her and those hazel eyes that tore me up in ways I’d never seen coming. It was electric. The air. My blood. Her skin. I wanted to touch it. Her. I wanted to feel that current buzzing betweenus simmer beneath her silky skin, watch as she arched into my touch for more.
This was insane—these feelings she was stirring inside me. They were pure, unexpected, infectious insanity.
“Just help me move this shit,” she demanded, shattering the fragile thing building between us with a sledgehammer. She left me standing here half-hard and wanting like an idiot.
There was a time in my life—the majority, really—when I preferred Delilah’s silence. Begged for it at times, even. She annoyed the shit out of me with her carefree attitude, witty barbs, and flirty attitude towards everyone she came across. But now her silence was deafening. Bothersome. I wanted her words, her thoughts, her feelings. I wanted to know everything there was to know about her. Things she hadn’t told anyone. It was dizzying how quickly things had shifted for me.
I was moving one of her filing cabinets when Delilah’s hiss of pain followed a heavy thud. She was doubled over, clutching her lower leg. I was next to her in two steps. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Tried to move the desk. It slipped out of my hand. The leg scratched my shin. It’s fine.”
The blood slipping between her fingers was anything but fine. My pulse kicked. Flashes of the past flickered in my vision. Danny’s blood gushing from his chest, my trembling hands covered in it. The air in the room seemed to vanish, and my chest tightened. I flew down the stairs on autopilot and grabbed the first aid kit from the kitchen. I took the stairs back up two at a time. She was wiping up the blood with a tissue when I got back. The cut wasn’t even two inches long, but it was bleeding like crazy.
“Sit on the desk.”
She shook her head, brushing it off. “No, it’s fine. Really.”
“Sit on the damn desk,” I snapped. My grip tightened on the first aid kit, like it was the only thing keeping me here in the now. She looked up at me, ready to tell me off. “Please,” I forced out, my voice strained.
Her expression softened, her eyes darting all over me before nodding. She sat on the edge of the desk. Blood dripped down her leg. I dropped to a knee in front of her, flung the kit open, and started tearing at supplies like my life depended on it. My body moved on autopilot, the objective clear: stop the bleeding, clean the wound, bandage the wound. Nothing else mattered. Not the spots in my vision, the ache in my throat, the nausea turning my stomach.
Delilah inhaled quickly when I pressed a piece of gauze over the cut. “Fuck, that hurts,” she ground out through gritted teeth.
“Pressure stops the bleeding.” The words came out clipped. Almost strangled. She winced, and my throat grew tight. I couldn’t bear her hurting like this. I had to fix it. I had to take care of her.
The blood soaked through the gauze fast—too fast. It was warm and slick on my hands, just like Danny’s. Only this was so much worse because it was hers. My hands shook as I tore more gauze packets open with my teeth, tossing the trash to the floor.
“Emmett.” Whatever else she said was muffled under the blood roaring in my ears. Her hands curled around the edge of the desk, knuckles white, when I pressed harder.
Wordlessly, I replaced the gauze. My heart pounded so hard my ribs ached. The bleeding finally slowed enough to clean it. I twisted the cap of the saline syringe off with my teeth, spitting it out.
“Emmett, you’re strangling my leg.”
“Have to stop the bleeding.” My voice was hoarse, breathless. Shaking. “That’s the first step. The most important. Stop the bleeding.”
“Look at me.” Hands cradled my face, tugging upwards. I shook my head, my lungs burning with how fast I was breathing. “Please, baby, just look at me.”
That one word snapped on my mind like a snare, yanking me back to her. My eyes flicked to hers in an instant. My breath stuck in my throat. She’d never called me anything like that before.
“You’re here with me. In my office. Safe,” she said softly. I knew that…didn’t I? I wasn’t so sure now. Her expression was tender and warm, but concerned. “Breathe with me.” She brushed my hair back. The gentle caress sent chills down my spine and warmth pooling in my spasming chest.
There wasn’t time for me to breathe; I had to take care of her. “But your leg,” I rasped.
She kept caressing me with delicate, loving touches. I didn’t care how it looked; I leaned into them, soaking each one up. “I’m okay. It’s just a little cut. It’s not even bleeding anymore.”
I swallowed thickly. “It’s not?”
The corner of her mouth curved upwards. “No, Em. You fixed it.”
She was okay. I could breathe again. My gaze darted around the floor. Trash, bloodied gauze, and the turned-over first aid kit were scattered all over. A shaky breath slid past my lips. I leaned forward, resting my forehead on her knee. God, I was so fucking embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” I rasped, catching my breath. “That hasn’t happened before.”
Blood had never been a trigger for me. I knew all of them at this point, and managed most of them well or had no reason to cross paths with them, like the smell of burning trash and C-4 residue, or the sound of a helicopter. So I didn’t understand why blood, all of a sudden, two years after being home, had become a trigger for me.
“It’s okay,” Delilah said, still running her fingers through my hair. “Don’t be sorry. Everything is fine.” The light graze of her nails along my scalp made my eyes drift shut.
I stayed kneeling at her feet, broken and humiliated, while she unknowingly put me back together with her gentle touches and words. She said the sweetest things in her soothing voice. Reminding me that I was safe and where I was, thanking me for taking care of her, that she was proud of me, that she admired me, that she trusted me. It destroyed me and built me back up all over again in a confusing, amazing cycle.
