Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 61190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 61190 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 306(@200wpm)___ 245(@250wpm)___ 204(@300wpm)
Chapter 15
Brianna
Iexpected to see victorious grins and a pissed-off dictator when the guys returned from their mission, but all I saw were disappointed frowns and bloody clothes. My heart hammered as fear gripped me, prompting me to hurry over to them as they shuffled into the cottage.
“What happened? Is everyone okay?” I asked as my wide eyes swept over all of them. That was when I saw Bowen guiding Emmett inside, who had his hand clamped down on his bleeding shoulder.
“It’s just a flesh wound, but it still hurts,” Bowen told me.
Emmett didn’t even look at me. He kept his eyes trained on the ground by his boots, his jaw clenching as his nose flared. He was upset. Even more upset than all the rest of them as they shuffled toward their rooms or the kitchen to either undress or get something to drink.
“Dimitrik escaped,” David explained as he walked over to me. He kissed me on the head before nodding to Emmett. “Could you patch up his shoulder? There’s a first aid kit in the main bathroom.”
“I don’t need any help,” Emmett muttered.
David narrowed his eyes at Emmett.
“You will let her patch you up,” he said in a firm voice that made my heart skip. I’d only heard such a dominant tone from him every once in a while, and the fact that he was saying it out of care really made my heart flutter.
“Yeah, come on, man. Just let her,” Elijah said in a quiet voice.
Emmett shot his brother a sharp look, but his expression simmered down a little when Erick stepped closer to Elijah. They were a united front, pushing their other brother to stand down.
Today was a failure, which was easy to tell by all of their frowns and heavy shoulders, but they didn’t need to fight among themselves. Tense silence rang throughout the room as everyone waited for Emmett to either relent or fight back.
Finally, Emmett gave David a curt nod, but he definitely didn’t seem happy about it. Was he… mad at me or something? He barely acknowledged me earlier, and it seemed like he didn’t even want to be near me right now.
I passed the others a small smile, hoping that they didn’t beat themselves up over this too much. They would get another chance to catch Dimitrik. I believed in them with everything I had, so I needed to fix whatever this random divide that was between Emmett and me.
Once Emmett and I walked into the bathroom, I shut the door behind us and dug around in the cabinet for the first aid kit. It was more complex than standard first aid kits, so I had plenty of medical supplies to choose from to patch up his shoulder.
“You were shot?” I asked in a quiet voice as I watched him strip off his shirt. Seeing his bare chest made me think about last night and all the fun we had together. I thought he enjoyed it too, but that might not be the case since he could hardly look me in the eyes right now.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” Emmett replied as he leaned his back against the bathroom counter.
I sighed and met his eyes.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him.
Emmett held my gaze for a moment before shaking his head and looking away.
“Nothing. Just frustrated that the mission failed,” he said.
“No, you were upset before you even left,” I told him before gently placing my hand on his cheek, directing his eyes back to mine. “Did I do something wrong?”
Emmett let out a dry laugh.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” he muttered.
I frowned as I carefully cleaned his wound with a sanitary wipe. It wasn’t bleeding much any longer, but I still kept it clean until I could press a layer of gauze against the wound. Luckily, it was a flesh wound that would heal fairly quickly if it was taken care of.
“But you regret last night,” I said, taking a guess.
“I don’t know. I don’t regret it, but it’s just hard… being intimate with a woman again,” Emmett admitted in a quiet voice.
“Who broke your heart?” I asked, able to hear the pain lingering in his voice. He was a scarred man, and those scars were opened up because of last night.
Emmett sighed and shook his head in disappointment.
“This girl named Anna. We got married right out of high school and after I enlisted,” he told me. “She cheated on me during my first deployment, and we went through a terrible divorce. Just awful.”
“I’m sorry, Emmett,” I said sincerely. Heartbreak was hard for everyone, including tough guys like him. No one was immune to the pain of love. “You didn’t deserve that.”
“I thought she was the one. I just felt so stupid afterward when I found out she was banging another dude while I was risking my life so that we could have a good, secure future,” Emmett replied, his shoulders slumping. “I just don’t want to go through that again. Getting close to anyone, even if it’s just intimacy, scares the hell out of me.”