Tried for Love (TSATD)

Chapter 4

Leah

Faded thuds, barks, bangs.. They echoed and repeated.. My ears buzzed in the thick silence. The sounds swirled repeatedly in my head. More thuds, more barks, more bangs. It was blankness that dominated my mind and numbness that mastered my body.

I tried moving.. The noises only got louder. And my mind somewhat came to that subtle awareness of my own surroundings. I turned in bed, rolled on the side, pulled the covers up.. Another turn, another roll.. The noises didn't stop. Goodness.

A sharp groan vibrated through my throat.. Saturday.. It was Saturday. I was dead tired, I was - the thuds continued.. Hell, I was clearly not alone.

My eyes fluttered open.. The noises now loud and echoing in my head with each thud, each bang, each bark. The white canopy that hung over the bed was the first thing my gaze focused on as my blank mind was slowly flooded by those pictures of the previous night.. A deep voice and simple words echoed in my head.. Make yourself comfortable, he had said..

The tall robust figure of the mysterious man that welcomed me in the lake house, somewhere in the middle of nowhere.. It was now the first thing that swirled through my mind. Eyes of forest greens that held me glued to my spot, unkempt inky hair, and an arrogance of a damned king..

Gabriel Valentine. Of course. Only a wall separated our bedrooms that night. The very god of irony and charm, proving it through every ignorant and shameless word he said. He knew exactly how to win every little argument, didn't he.. Through a simple look or a grin.. A straightforward statement or a some cynical question.

The thuds continued, almost rhythmically. I found myself glancing towards the downside of my bed just to find it empty. Berry. It was probably him that barked. And once I managed to gather enough will and energy, I sat up on the edge of the bed.

Taking the hair tie from the nightstand, I pulled my hair up in a bun before glancing at my phone. Almost ten thirty.. Not so bad for a Saturday. But the week had been long and tiring.. Twelve hours would've been nothing to make up for the exhaustion my body throbbed with.

Another few bangs were heard alongside Berry's faded barks.. I stood up and walked towards the window. Slight panic crawled up my stomach with the thought of Berry alone outside.. I didn't even allow him to roam around without me. And pulling the small curtains aside, I saw exactly that.

Berry, running over the fresh emerald grass, pulling his stuffed rabbit toy along with him as he circled and jumped around the dark haired man. Valentine.. He was wood splitting. And the simple sight left me glued to my spot; it seemed to had knocked all air from my lungs for a second there.

He was facing the lake, so it wasn't hard to focus on just how well the white shirt gripped the keen muscles on his back as he chopped one wood after another.. The man was drastically taller than me, therefore I had always been very much aware of his height.

But it was the suits and the ties that made him who he was. Gabriel Valentine. The master of classiness. Yet I came to the conclusion that such clothes had poorly illuminated the brawny figure he was gifted with, compared to how that simple shirt and gray sweatpants outlined his body.. Sharp and so ideally chiseled.

With each rising of the axe, every single muscle on his wide back got edged, sharpened and lined, having me gulp down my dry throat and follow how he finished yet another piece of wood.

  I had never seen Nick chop wood, as he didn't do such things, nor did any other man in my life. There were people hired to do that, but I had never really witnessed the process of it..