Page 47 of Severed Heart (The Ravenhood Legacy #2)
Chapter Twenty-Eight
T YLER
“S LIPPIN’” BY DMX croons from a nearby speaker playing background to Sean’s latest philosophical rant. One I’ve tuned out of from where I sit in a child-sized bean bag on Dom’s bedroom floor.
“You’re missing my point, man,” Sean argues while pinching the joint between his fingers. Ankles crossed, his dirty boots hang over the edge of Dom’s decades-old twin mattress. Perched against the wall at the head of it, Dom flips the page of the book in his lap.
“I don’t think you have a point,” I grumble, peering through the gap of Dom’s bedroom door to the vacant room across the hall.
Tobias’s recent extended absences are more notable since he gambled his way into becoming a millionaire and forming Exodus.
That power play starting a pendulum swing, its underside serving as the chopping blade now gradually lowering toward Roman.
With Sean stepping up and my current army positioned, I’m as comfortable as I can be leaving.
Aside from the guttural ache for the woman somewhere in this house, that has me mentally pushing back the departure date further and further away.
I’ve exhausted myself in the days since our fight to give her space.
Continually running past my recruiter’s office to avoid the signature, pulling extra shifts at the garage, upping my workouts, as well as wearing my fucking wrist out in the shower— the usual.
Growing more and more anxious to get to her with every hourly chirp of my watch, my hope rides on that if we can work things out, I’ll be stationed close.
Luckily enough, there are plenty of bases within driving distance, so I can keep a close watch on the club while lengthening our growing roster.
Hopefully, while still earning the woman I’m growing desperate to claim.
That is if I can get her to give in. Aside from the physical, it’s been surreal to get so close to her.
If the attraction wasn’t so fucking brutally apparent now, I might’ve been able to settle for our friendship alone.
Now that it’s out there, I can’t let it go.
The torture is evident in my obvious agitation in these last few days and only made more apparent when Sean brings his Zippo to the end of his newly rolled joint.
“Don’t light that shit while I’m in this room,” I snap.
Dom flips another page without looking up. “Don’t be a dick. You know his piss has to sparkle.”
“Is secondhand smoke a myth?” Sean quips with the click of his Zippo, running the flame teasingly along the joint. “Shall we find out?”
“Fuck you.” I stand to make a quick exit while giving him a withering look. Closing his book, Dom, too, glares at Sean, no added words necessary.
“Jesus, I wasn’t going to light it,” Sean says, ducking under our wrath-filled stares. “I was just fucking around.”
“Remember the last time you fucked around and ended up with a piss puddle in your panties?” Dom clips, rubbing salt in the long-healing wound between Sean and me, his brand of brash far worse than his aunt’s.
“Jesus, Dom,” I expel on exhale, shooting him a cutting look.
“Sorry, man,” Sean clips toward me, eyes lowering.
“It’s cool, brother,” I assure, after noting his long swallow. “I’m just in a shit head space tonight.”
His stinging eyes lift at my tone, holding mine for a beat before he nods.
“I think I’ll go for a run,” I give in an excuse to make my exit.
“Don’t stray too far,” Sean says, “we shouldn’t be long.”
Their mission tonight is to do recon for their upcoming heist. One I had a major hand in devising but am not allowed in any way to participate in. An order doled out by both King brothers because of how close I am to marching.
“I’m good. I’ll just catch up with y’all tomorrow.” As I start to make my exit, I spot the plastic-wrapped cap and gown hanging on the back of Dom’s bedroom door and glance at him. “Tobias coming?”
Dom lifts a shoulder without looking up. “Wouldn’t know. You talk to him more than me these days.”
Sean catches my gaze, giving me a subtle shake of his head that the subject of Tobias is off-limits. While Tobias might skip the ceremony to keep a low profile, I know he’ll be here to celebrate after in some way.
Closing the door of Dom’s room as they spark up, I stalk through the house, following the drift of French music to spot Delphine’s boom box on the ledge of the open kitchen window—a tape playing, pouring a melody through the open screen.
As I approach the sliding glass door, I spot dozens of drafts of the maps I requested on the table.
The sight of what looks like endless hour’s worth of effort has my insides rattling.
Confirmation that she’s been thinking of me since the night I scooped her from the kitchen floor for the first time in months.
Gutted that I was the reason for her overindulgence that night as I tucked her in and whispered my promise.
Knowing she heard me, her eventual return whisper saying as much as she called my name in summons just after I reached her bedroom door.
It was all I could do to continue to give her the space she asked for.
It was both brutal and beautiful to watch her realize her feelings for me.
So much so it’s been a different kind of fucking hell delaying whatever decision waits for me on the other side of the glass door.
A door I’m stopped just outside of by the view that greets me.
The tiny soldier that’s utterly captured me—mind and heart—sways in the middle of her yard, arms wrapped around her as if she’s self-soothing.
Hands gripping her hips, her head is tilted skyward, and I quickly burn the vision of her into memory as I have so many others.
All images of the formidable, temperamental woman I knew now erased by the sight of her running off the pond dock and jumping into the water while plugging her nose like an eight-year-old.
Another image of her drip drying on the dock, just after, hand propping her head as my eyes traced the curves of her body a second before she turned back and beamed at me.
The animation on her face as she watched her first movie in a theater.
Telling stories across the firelight at the orchard.
Playing Battle. Sharing snow cones while watching the sunset on my tailgate.
Filling our days with simple things and enjoying simple pleasures as our feelings became anything but.
Years of memories between us now. Years together where we went from mentor and pupil to friends and to whatever she decides we are now.
Following her line of sight, I take in her view.
Lightning flashes in the distance, defining the silhouette of the trees hovering over the wooden fence.
A faint littering of stars twinkles just next to a looming storm cloud.
Just below, a luminous half-moon sits nestled between the branches of a large oak.
Thunder rumbles the ground for a few lingering seconds, and Delphine doesn’t so much as flinch.
Lost in thought or some memory, she continues to sway, hugging herself in the middle of the yard.
The wind kicks up slightly as I, in turn, get swept away by the sight of her. And fuck, how I love the look of every inch of her. My attraction only amplified by the darkness she camouflages, which, to me, feels like a jagged turnkey, a key that lines up perfectly with my inner lock.
A turnkey who’s harnessed everything that resides inside me, which, by the second, feels on the brink of coming undone.
Leaning against the brick to the side of the door, I fall further with every sharp inhale of want, contented enough by simply watching her as the tips of her dark hair dance across the expanse of her small back. She’s dressed in white shorts and a tube top—both her shoulders and feet bare.
Even as I decide laying eyes on her is enough for now, I both feel and see it the second she senses me and looks over her naked shoulder.
“Tyler, it’s the perfect night!” she declares, subtly wiping her eyes, her voice tearful, which has my chest cracking wide open, confirming what I already know. It’s me she’s thinking of, and my imminent departure causing her tears. Certain of it, I also know it’ll be hell in making her admit it.
“Come, dance with me,” she urges.
“It’s about to storm,” I point out uselessly. She waves away my objection, but I stay where I am, knowing how dangerously close I am to my breaking point.
“Come,” she whispers. “Come dance with me, Soldier,” she urges, reaching out for me. Blowing out a breath of defeat, I push off my heels, head and chest buzzing with the feelings already bouncing between us.
“I’m not much of a dancer,” I admit, gripping her offered hand and halting her movement by pulling her into me.
The impact of her hits me harder than I expected as I allow her to decide where my free hand will go.
As she situates us, her hand grips mine before she rests our now threaded fingers against my chest and draws the other to rest on the small of her exposed back.
When she begins to sway, I mimic her movement, inhaling her light musk, which catapults my thirst into overdrive.
Kicking myself in the ass for indulging her, I shadow her lead as light rain starts to fall.
It’s the sight of Dom’s bedroom light going dark, and the rumble of his Camaro seconds after that permits me to get lost in her.
The feel of her in my arms negates all fucks I have left to give in that respect as she hums, her light, airy voice vibrating along my chest. My entire body ignites as I press my splayed fingers into her silken bare skin and pull her tighter to me, stroking my thumb lightly down her spine.
“What is this music?”
Her sigh is breezy before she speaks. “A song I used to dance to with my papa. In the wildflowers.”
“It’s catchy,” I tell her, “I like it.”
She laughs lightly. “No, you don’t.”
“I’m listening. I’m trying to understand what the fuss is about.”