Page 11 of Deadly Oath

By the timeI wrap up my first half of the day’s work the next morning, however, I can feel that urge to see her again, already scratching at the back of my mind. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since the first time she opened her door to greet me, and after last night, that urge only seems to have intensified.

I’ll stop by on my lunch break,I tell myself, tucking some files away as I power down my computer for the next hour or so. That seems like a perfectly natural thing to do. After all, it was just yesterday that I saved her from possible death from a rattlesnake’s bite. I’m just doing the gentlemanly thing by swinging by and making sure that she’s holding up alright.

I drive over, feeling a tightening in my gut the closer I get to her driveway. The memory of how it felt to watch her through her window is still very close, and I feel a twinge of arousal, remembering the thrill of it. The kind of thrill I’ve never felt before.

I’ve never spied on a woman like that before. I’ve never felt the urge to. And I didn’t go over to Sabrina’s house with the intent to do what I did. I didn’t have any plans other than to look in on her, toreassure myself that she was home, safe, and where she was supposed to be.

I never thought I was the kind of man to lose control like that, watching a woman take her clothes off. Hell, I’ve never even been all that crazy about strip clubs. Something about the manufactured nature of it, the fact that the womenhaveto be there, taking off their clothes for the men watching and paying them, has always been a turnoff to me.

But Sabrina didn’t know she was stripping for me. She didn’t even know I was there. And the throb I feel at that thought tells me clearer than anything else could that that was the reason why I couldn’t stop myself.

I liked spying on her. Liked taking that from her. There’s a flicker of shame in my gut, thinking of it like that, but I push it away. She doesn’t know. And I have no intention of doing it again?—

I slam on the brakes as I pull into her driveway, my train of thought abruptly derailed by the sight of smoke pluming out of the back window of Sabrina’s house.

Shit.

I jump out of my truck, yanking the keys out of the ignition as I jog up the driveway to Sabrina’s front door. I grab the knob, but it doesn’t give—unlike everyone else in this town, Sabrina seems to lock her doors.

“Shit!” I growl, pivoting to head to the back of the house. Maybe she hasn’t locked the back door, or at the very least, she’ll hear me knocking. I can see the smoke billowing out of what is definitely the kitchen window, and I feel a flare of unexpected panic.

It’s followed by relief, as the back door opens. I rush in, directly into the kitchen, to the sight of Sabrina throwing a flaming pan into the sink, reaching to turn on the faucet as she tries to dodge the heat of the fire. The burner on the stove is flaring, too, and I shout abruptly, worried she won’t hear me over the panicked sounds she’s making.

“Sabrina! Don’t turn that faucet on!” I have no idea if she started agrease fire, but it’s entirely possible she’s about to make it all so much worse. “Where’s the fire extinguisher?”

She pivots to stare at me, her blue eyes round in her pale face. “I—I?—”

It’s clear she has no idea. I look around the kitchen, spying a small pantry at the far side, and bolt in that direction, yanking the door open so sharply it almost comes off the hinges. A fire extinguisher is in the back corner, coated in such a thick layer of dust that it’s clear no one has touched it in some time. I reach for it, half expecting to be bitten by a spider as I yank it out.

“Get back!” I snarl at Sabrina, not bothering to moderate my tone. Her house is far too close to going up in flames for me to worry about how I sound to her.

Her eyes somehow go even rounder, but she jumps back, skittering back to the kitchen table, her hands curling around the back of one of the chairs. I aim the fire extinguisher at the flaming pan and flaring stove burner, the foam erupting over the entire space in a mess that’s going to take some time to clean up.

Better than the house burning down, though.

Breathing hard, I set the fire extinguisher down, turning to look at Sabrina. She’s staring at the mess of foam and ruined food with a look of such utter despondency that it makes something twinge in my chest, as unexpected as the feeling of panic that I had earlier.

“What the fuck were you doing?” It comes out unnecessarily sharp, as much a reaction to that twinge of sympathy that I felt as frustration. “You almost burned your house down.”

Her eyes well up instantly. “I—I was trying to cook something for lunch. I don’t actually know how to cook, and—” She gestures helplessly to the mess in the sink. “I bought some chopped chicken, and I thought I’d cook it and mix it into some mac and cheese. I don’t know—Marie mentioned it to me as an easy meal. Something she makes for her kids. So I thought it would be a good place to start.”

With every word, her voice wobbles a little more, her eyes welling up until the tears spill over. “I don’t even know how I managed to set the pan on fire. It just started smoking, and then?—”

Her voice collapses then, her hands clutching the back of the chair so tightly that her knuckles are white, and I feel that twinge in my chest build into a pang of sympathy that I didn’t expect to feel. Before I know what I’m doing fully, I find myself crossing the kitchen to where she’s standing, enveloping her in my arms, and pulling her close against my chest.

Her nearness feels like a shock. For the briefest moment, she seems to forget the suspicious chill that she’s had towards me as she leans into my chest, her face pressed against the rough polyester of my uniform shirt. Her hands press against my shoulders, and I can feel my body tense at how close she is. My muscles wind tight, my cock swelling against my zipper, and I grit my teeth, willing it to calm down. The last thing I need is to freak Sabrina out even more by grinding my erection into her thigh.

I need her to trust me. I need her to look at me as a protector, not a predator.

Then you probably shouldn’t have jerked off outside of her window last night.

I shove the thought away, before it makes my burgeoning hard-on even worse than it already is. But Sabrina is still curled against my chest, letting out soft whimpers as she tries to get her tears under control. They’re far too close to other sounds that I can imagine coaxing from her.

She starts to push herself away, her chin tipping up as she does, and her gaze catches mine, blue and luminous. She goes very still, and I feel her fingertips curl ever so slightly against my shoulders, see the moment that her gaze flicks down to my mouth and back up again, so quickly that I could almost miss it. Her lips part, and I wonder if she’s ever been kissed before. From the tremor that I feel run through her, I’d bet that she hasn’t been.

I could be her first kiss. The first man to ever claim that soft, full mouth. The thought is so swiftly intoxicating that I feel as if I’m in a haze for a brief second, and it takes everything in me not to act on it.

Not yet.Sabrina affects me in a way that I hadn’t expected, but if I push too fast, she’ll panic and run. That’s not what I want from her.

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