Page 37 of Owning Emma

Chapter 17

ROMAN

“We need to talk.”Shaw barged into my office, shutting the door behind him, not even waiting for me to give him the go ahead. I was in here thinking, trying to strategize but more so, thinking about that damn brunette.

“Can it wait?” I rubbed at my eyes as I leaned back in the chair.

“It can, but I don’t want it to.” He stalked to the chair on the other side of my desk and plopped down, crossing his arms like he was preparing for a fight.

I laid my head on the back of the chair. “If it’s more bad news, I don’t want to know.”

He wrung his hands as he casually laid his elbows on his knees, an unfamiliar action for him and one that caught my eye, making me wonder what the precise reason for his intrusion. He cleared his throat before stating, “It’s about Emma.”

My heart sped up, my palms grew clammy. What could have possibly happened to her when she always had one of us a few feet away? “Is she sick? Did something happen? If someone spiked her drink, too, I swear I’ll go after them myself right now.”

Hell, I would do more than just go after them. I would call in every damn favor I could think, enlist all the help I could, and I wouldn’t just murder the mother fucker, I would disintegrate their bodies so that nothing and no one would be able to identify their remains.

He blew out a breath. “She’s fine.”

I felt the tension I had been holding instantly deflate from my shoulders. She’s fine. The two best words I had heard all damn night. But if she’s okay, what exactly was he bothering me for? “She’s fine, but?”

“She um . . .“ He cleared his throat. “She touched me today. Like . . . a hug.”

I felt my eyes go wide at the information. “You let her?”

He bit his lip. “Yeah.”

Well, I’d be damned. He let her touch him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like touches or anything. But, as long as I knew him, he had to be the initiator. He had to be the one doing the touching, the feeling, the petting, whatever the hell he wanted, not the other way around. Anything else threw him off a bit and although he would never be rude about it, he would put some space to avoid it. It’s why he liked to watch. At least I thought so, but he never fully admitted it to me and I thought it rude to pry.

“So . . .” I struggled with what this meant. On one hand, this was good. It was amazing really because in the whole time we’ve been friends, rarely had someone earned his trust enough to touch him without preamble. But on the other hand, why did it have to be Emma? Why did it have to be Shaw? “So you let her touch you.”

“I didn’t let her do anything. She just did it,” he clarified.

“But you didn’t stop it.” I pointed out and his hazel eyes found mine, smoldering and intense.

“I didn’t want to.”

I felt the confirmation like a sharp jab to the heart. The fact was, if they wanted each other in any capacity, I couldn’t . . . no, I wouldn’t stop it. Not when it came to him. Anyone else and my word stood firm, but Shaw, I was man enough to admit that he was my secret weakness.

I leaned forward, placing my elbows on my desk. “So what does this mean?”

I knew what it meant. It meant change. It meant loss. It meant the two people I couldn’t keep my eye off the last few weeks were gravitating toward each other, and I was left as an observer. “It doesn’t mean anything. Not now, not yet.”

My stomach tightened. “But, you want it to?”

He pulled his lip into his mouth and sucked on it, and like the fool I was, my eyes followed. “If it was something she decided to pursue, I won’t stop her.”

“So what you are saying is, you’re breaking the rule I set down from day one.” Shit, why was this whole situation so hard?

He brought his hand up and rubbed it over his eye. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

I wasn’t fucking sure what he was even talking about at this point. If he planned to keep her, he needed to just fucking do it already and stop fucking around with me, with the sudden emotions I felt. “Do whatever you want, you’re going to do it anyway.”

I waved a hand dismissively, but he didn’t move. “I said it didn’t have to be that way.”

“What exactly does that even mean? If she decides you’re the one she wants, I can’t stop either of you. And you know what, I fucking hate to admit it, but you deserve something good for once in your damn life.”

I hadn’t meant to raise my voice, but I did and when I stopped speaking, I looked up to see his gaze solidly on me. “It was just a hug.”

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