Yes, Masters (Book 2 of Desire's Den)

Chapter 7 - Callan

Something about her wasn't right.

The thought plagued me as I stared at the door Emma had exited only a few minutes ago. Something about her felt off, but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. Maybe it was the way she'd shut us out, not letting us see what was going on behind her façade—how she seemed so calm and collected when I knew our girl was anything but. She had big emotions, and she usually sucked at hiding them. She'd been easy to read since we'd met, but tonight...I could tell she was sad, though even her sadness was reined in so tightly that I had to search to see it. 

It felt wrong; she'd never hidden herself from us before. Still, maybe I was overanalyzing everything about tonight because I didn't want to face the fact that she wanted a break. Perhaps I was reading into everything she'd said and acted because I wished for it not to be true.

Fucking hell, even as strange as she was acting, it had been good seeing her. She'd looked so beautiful where she sat, with her minimal makeup and a simple black dress. It had taken everything in me not to act on my desire to touch her.

"What are we going to do now?" Mateo sighed, dragging his fingers through his hair and looking exceptionally bummed.

For once, I didn't know what the correct answer was. With how my latest fuckup blew up in our faces, I was less inclined to take the lead on this one.

"We'll give her her space," I said, not sounding too happy about that. The last thing I wanted was to give her space. I had become addicted to her presence—to the feeling of waking up with her next to me, to her sweet smiles as we took care of her, to her conversations and her strange thoughts. 

I'd come to love being with her, and we all knew I didn't do well with distance from those I cared about, thanks to my parents and the issues they caused me.

Emma...she'd taken over my mind–—and if I was being honest with myself, she'd taken over my heart too. The thought of not seeing her again damn near broke me. But even as I knew that we had brought this on ourselves, I had meant what I'd said; I regretted that our actions hurt her, but I didn't regret bringing her into our lives, no matter how she got here. 

I knew that if I hadn't gone to the lengths I'd done, we wouldn't have had these last weeks together; we wouldn't have gotten to know her or made the memories we now had. Honestly, I would rather be heartbroken than never have experienced what it was like to know her.

"You can't be serious?" He gave me a disbelieving look. "Are we really going to stay away from her? I mean, come on, even her best friend said we had to fight for her."

I shook my head helplessly. When I'd gone to check in on Emma on Tuesday at her apartment, Kevin had been there instead, packing a bag for her. 

After he'd nearly broken my nose and helped me with a panic attack, he'd told me we had to fight for her, and if we didn't, then we didn't deserve her. Kevin had said the same to Mateo after Kevin had punched his nose as well. Too bad Gideon hadn't swung by; I would've loved to know how that would've turned out.

"What do you want me to say, Mateo? Do you think I want to step back from the girl I'm falling for?" I spit out, frustrated by this entire situation. His eyes widened at my admission, but I ignored it as I kept going. "I don't. Fuck, I can't stand the fucking thought of not seeing her, or holding her, or even talking to her, but what can we do? I won't risk losing her for good. The last time I acted on my own wishes, it backfired, and that can't happen again. So, if you got any ideas on what we should do, I'm all ears."

"Shit, man, you're usually the one with the answers. Maybe we should wait to talk to Gideon about this? See where he stands on this?"

"Yeah, let's do that." I didn't know how long we sat in silence after that, both lost in our thoughts. I couldn't get over how strange Emma was acting tonight, my mind going over every move she'd made during the meeting, every word, even her tone as she talked.