Page 4 of Crushes to WHAT

My eyebrows furrow as I try to remember details of times that I’ve mostly blocked from my memory to save myself from the mortification of the way I acted, not realizing I’d need the memories stored to review the way he acted.

Still, even without concrete memory proof… surely not. Surely he has not ever once acted like this. Surely I would have noticed if the man I have been ceaselessly crushing on for forever were so… this in our interactions.

“Have you always been so…” I can’t very well end my sentence with this, can I? “This?” I very well end my sentence, no other words presenting themselves.

“I have not always been so this,” he answers readily, confirming I haven’t gone totally insane. “I’ve recently decided the lack of this has been a mistake on my part. You can expect me to be a lot more this going forward as I rectify my mistake.”

There’s going to be more of this? A lot more?

I whimper.

“You’ll be okay,” he whispers, warm breath coasting across my ear. “I’ll take care of you.”

That is not helping.

“I need my studio renovated!” I blurt. I jolt out of his arms, leaping from the couch and nearly toppling over the coffee table. I catch myself in just time and go around it, putting distance between us while I ramble. “Or, you know, maybe it doesn’t? Maybe it just needs a couple of fixes. I don’t know. It seems like a big job to me, but I don’t do construction work. I just cut hair. And dye hair. And craft haircare routines. And… Well, I do admin work for the salon, too, obviously, but none of that involves hammers. Usually. Sometimes I do hang up artwork, and I use a hammer for that, except for that time I used the heel of a pair of stilettos because I couldn’t find my hammer because I rarely use it because, like I said, I’m not a construction worker. Are you considered a construction worker? Or should I call you a contractor specifically? What’s the difference? Is there a difference? My studio is through there.”

I point to the hall that leads to an additional part of my home that was added sometime after the house was built but before I bought it. The addition is why I bought the house at all, actually. I needed somewhere to live, and I needed somewhere to work, and the opportunity to have them on the same property was too great to pass up, even if the workspace needed a bit of work. Or a lot of work. Maybe?

The man who would know sits on my sofa like a conquering king, eyes half-lidded as he waits patiently for me to give him a sliver of room to answer any of the questions I’m asking.

I inhale shakily, smile through a wince, and shut. Up.

Emerson stands and closes the distance I put between us. His hand rises to caress my cheek, and I bite my lip to keep from interrupting his soft perusal of my face with another long-winded ramble. Is it torture? Sure. Yes. Of course it is. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted and everything I’ve ever feared. To stand here, still and silent, while he touches me? With his fingers? Which are attached to his hand? Which is attached to his arm? Which is attached to… him?

I am not going to survive this moment, let alone the lot more he has planned.

“I would be classified as both a contractor and a construction worker,” he says, dragging his finger to my nose, then over, to my other cheek. “It’s like how you’re both a hairstylist and a business manager. One job is doing the work, the other is managing all of the moving pieces to make the work possible.”

“Ah.” I manage no other response, partially because I can’t think and partially because his index finger dips lower, to my lips, and I’m afraid if I say more, he’ll take it away.

Or worse, he’ll like the way my speech feels on his fingertip, and he’ll leave it there forever.

“And you don’t need to know how to use a hammer, because I know how to use a hammer. If you need something fixed, I know how to fix it. If you need something built, I know how to build it. If you need something hung, I know how to hang it.” His hand leaves my face, and I battle the relieved disappointment for only a moment before his fingers are back on me, at my wrist, pulling my arm up until my own hand faces him, aloft in front of his face. “Your skin is soft,” he mutters. “It should stay that way. Even with these scars, from your scissors?” He glances at me for confirmation, and nods when I give it. “Still. So soft.” He lays a kiss on my palm, then presses it to his bearded jawline. “And they’ll stay soft,” he vows, gentle but no less convicted for it. “If you need a rough hand, baby, you’ll use mine. Won’t you?”

Forcibly, I inhale.

This is…

“This is a whole lot of this,” I say weakly.

His lips tilt, and his head turns. He kisses my palm again. “This is only the beginning of the this I want to give you.”

“Oh my.”

Emerson’s head turns back toward me, and his eyelids lower. “Yeah,” he murmurs, and I get the feeling he’s talking more to himself than he is to me. “We’re barely scratching the surface of this.”

Oh my freaking my.

Chapter Three

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Safety is such a precious commodity.

Almond

Twenty minutes later, I shakily lift a hand to point at yet another dent in the wall of the hair studio at the back of my house. “And this is from my chair.” I wince. It’s the third bump I’ve shown him that’s been directly caused by me sliding about recklessly, unable to stop my runaway chair before the wall halts it for me. Grace, I am not.