Page 50 of Burned & Bound

“Okay,” he said, slow and pointed. “What do you need? It’s late.”

His annoyance set my already frayed nerves on edge.

“Is that… is your…fuck.” This shit fucking sucked. It felt like admitting I couldn’t do this without him.Maybe I couldn’t.That stung even more than the fact that he wanted to help. “Is your offer to stay here still available?”

And there it was… the thing that felt like a low moment.I needed his fucking help, and now he knew that I knew that I needed it. And that endless blue stare was nauseating. My pulse threatened to explode from my neck as I waited for him to say something.

Fucking anything.

Shit. Just put me out of my goddamn misery if that was what he planned to do. The waiting was torture.

“Yeah, it is,” he said finally. He nodded down at my small duffel bag. “Is that all you have?”

“I got my truck and my bike, but I don’t think you want those in your fucking house.” He made me fucking grumpy.

“No, I don’t,” Jackson agreed, but that didn’t stop the pitiful look he gave me as he weighed my words. Jesus fucking Christ. I didn’t need his pity on top of his help.

“Don’t start pitying me because I don’t have a house full of shit,” I growled. I wouldn’t know what to do with all that shit anyway. “I’m fine the way I am.”

“I never said you weren’t.” He stepped aside and held the door open for me. “Tess, stay.”

One step. I could do this.

I grabbed my bag and went inside, my legs heavy like lead. This was a good thing.This was supposed to be a good thing.

Stability. I just needed stability.

This was better than buying a house in a fucking town I wanted out of, and it wasn’t like rental properties were a thing around here. The town was too small for that shit.

“Come on.” Jackson snapped his fingers and Tess hurried after him as he walked across the house. He waved lazily for direction like maybe I wouldn’t remember the house he grew up in.Truthfully, I didn’t remember much.“Kitchen, living room, back door. You can figure it out. Your room is on the first floor this way.”

I welcomed his silence as I followed him through the house. Tess trotted happily between us, stopping at least twice and almost tripping me in the process. I gently nudged her along to keep the process going. I didn’t feel like being fucking stuck in a hallway with Jackson and his dog.

“Fuck,” he muttered as he opened the door. He pointed to the floor, ordering, “Stay.”

So, I stayed.In reality, I knew he wasn’t talking to me, but I didn’t know what to do with myself. I dropped my bag to the ground and just stood in the doorway with Tess at my feet while Jackson flipped on a side lamp. I lost sight of him as he moved around the room.

Yellow.

So much fucking yellow.

The color made my pulse jump anxiously. I couldn’t handle yellow, and it was fucking everywhere. Pillows, bedding, and three stupid sunflower paintings on the wall.

Fucking everywhere.

“I don’t have guests often,” Jackson said, his voice foggy in my ears. I tried to focus on him, but it was hard to do so when the walls were fucking vibrating.Were they vibrating?Or was I imagining it? “Tess listens well. If you let her, she’ll sleep with you, but she’s a bed hog. Snores too.”

Dog bed? Had I taken his dog’s bed? Fuck. That was pathetic.

“I can sleep on the fucking couch if that’s easier,” I said under my breath. I blinked hard, doing whatever I could to focus on how he struggled to put on a new sheet.

“It’s fine. It’s not much, but it’ll do,” he replied. Something painful clawed at my chest, and I sucked in a sharp breath.

I would not panic.

I would not panic.

I would not fucking panic.

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