by Amelia Wilde
“Yes,” she says, her voice soft. “I’m being very bad.”
I take her ass cheeks in my hands with a firm grip. This is a relatively new development, but it doesn’t surprise me. Emily always liked to be held, strongly, while we were fucking. She wanted me to be in charge. It looks like she still does. “Be a good girl,” I growl into her ear, squeezing tight, and she lets out a little gasp and aligns me with her opening. “That’s better.”
Emily works the first inch of me inside of her, taking her time, and for a minute I let her. This isn’t some drunken fuck in the cab of my truck outside the bar. I want every single moment of this seared in my memory.
But it’s too good. She’s too welcoming, tight without any resistance, and I need her now.
I pull her down hard, taking all of her in one stroke, and she arches her back with a little cry. When she opens her eyes, she tries to lift her hips—but I have her pinned.
“Not yet,” I tell her.
Her hands tighten on my skin. “Not yet?”
“First I’m going to watch you come on my cock.” Emily arches again when I press my thumb against her clit, closing her eyes. “No. Look at me.”
She keeps her green eyes locked on mine as I push her right up to the edge of ecstasy.
“Come,” I tell her.
Em explodes around me, her muscles working, head thrown back, and it’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.
Chapter Sixteen
Emily
Once is never enough.
Here, behind closed doors, away from every possible pair of prying eyes, all the walls between us come tumbling down. I’m ravenous for him. He’s the only thing that can fill me.
And Jesus, he does.
The first round leaves me breathless and panting, tangled up in the sheets.
“God, Em,” he whispers hoarsely against my neck, and then his breathing settles. He might be falling asleep, but I’m a live wire, every nerve singing with pleasure. But it doesn’t sate me. I only want more, and more. It’s never felt this good before. Is that because—
Finn lets out a low growl and pushes himself up on one elbow. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“Thank God,” I say, and then he’s thrusting his hardness into me again, my fingernails digging into his back, and I never want this to end.
At some point, Finn turns off the lamp on his bedside table, throwing the room into a moonlit haze that makes everything stand out in sharp contrast. The line of his jaw. The curve of his muscles.
It drives me wild.
Two rounds, and I’m still not done. In fact, being here with Finn is stripping me down to my animal core.
I have no shame.
I want him to take me. To claim me. To make me his on an entirely different level. I don’t have the words to ask him to do it, but it doesn’t seem to matter.
He makes me come with my face pressed against his pillow, ass in the air, taking me from behind, his hands steady on my hips. Hands dominating. How does he know? How does he know that I like to have my hair pulled, just a bit, just enough to make me even wetter? How does he know that I like it when he pulls both my wrists behind me and pins them to the small of my back with one strong hand?
We spent plenty of time doing naughty things in the cab of his truck our senior year, but nothing approaching this. How could we have? We were always pressed for time, always wondering if the next car coming around the curve was going to be the cops. I was willing to be bad for him, but not so bad that it got in the way of my plan.
Now, there are no such boundaries.
We have all night.
“Come for me,” he demands, hand grazing my hip as he reaches for my clit, pinning me down on the bed. “Do it, Em. Now.”
That’s as far as I make it, quaking around his length, and his own orgasm answers mine.
Then, like a tidal wave, the creeping tiredness I’ve been feeling all day sweeps over me. I tumble to the side, my head pressed against a cool section of the pillow.
I can’t keep my eyes open.
Finn gently runs his fingers through my hair, pushing it back from my face. “I take it you’re not going home tonight?”
“Mm-mmm,” I say. I can already feel my mind starting to drift into a dream that’s suspiciously close to the reality that we just lived.
“Fine by me.”
The bed dips and rebounds as Finn gets up, and I follow the sound of his footsteps to the hallway. A door closes, and then I hear water running. I lose track of time, but the next thing I feel is his weight pressing down on the mattress. It stirs me from the sleep I’ve fallen into, and I turn over onto my left side, the way I always sleep.
Finn folds himself around me, slipping his hand around my waist, and I can feel all the long lines of him relaxing. Did he put on boxers? It feels like it, but I’m too tired to reach back and check. Besides, if I did that, it’d put us right back to square one, and my legs are still trembling from coming so hard. Overdoing it would probably be a mistake.
He’s silent for so long that I’m sure he’s fallen asleep, but through the sounds of my own dreams beginning, I hear his tender voice. “I missed you, Em.”
I slide my hand down his arm until I can wrap my fingers through his. Words are beyond me now, but I squeeze his hand, and then slide fully into fantasy.
I wake up in the night.
My mind is perfectly clear, and I can’t figure out why I’m awake at first. I’m stuck in that space between sleeping and waking, where things could go either way. I’m at Finn’s. There he is, sleeping beside me, a moonbeam lighting up his cheekbones.
I have to pee.
That’s it.
I slide out from under the covers and pad across the hall to the bathroom. In the moonlight, I can see myself in the mirror. Do I look different? I look different.
Or maybe it’s just a trick of the light.
“You have to go back to work after the holiday,” I tell my reflection sternly, and then laugh. That girl, the one in the mirror, already knows there’s no deviating from the plan. Not now that I’ve invested so much time into law school, into job interviews, into the kind of achievement that most of our classmates at Harbor Hills High could only have dreamed of.
Even in light of the circumstances, I can’t give that up.
Finn’s going to have to come with me.
Of course he is.
He’ll do it, too.
Convinced, I walk back across the hallway and slip under the covers. Finn’s left a space for me, and my heart twists at the sight of it. Has he been sleeping on one side of the bed all along?
“Not tonight,” I whisper, planting a kiss on his temple. The moment my head hits the pillow, I fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. How could I not? Everything, in this moment, is perfect. Nothing could possibly disrupt it. Nothing at all.
Chapter Seventeen
Finn
Emily is not an early riser.
I didn’t expect that, given that she has a high-powered job at some law firm. Most people I know who work long hours still wake up early even on their days off, but not Emily.
Eight o’clock slides by, and then nine.
I have a fierce debate with myself about waking her up.
No. She’s on vacation. She wants to sleep in, so let her sleep in.
But I miss her.
She’s in your bed.
There’s a silver lining, though. Emily didn’t bring a change of clothes with her, so the first thing I do when I get out of bed is gather up all of our things from last night and throw them into the wash. I dig out a pair of flannel pajama pants and one of my fresh t-shirts and put them at the foot of the bed. Before too long, I switch the laundry into the dryer. She’s still sleeping.
Finally, when I’ve exhausted all my other options, I start cooking breakfast.
The first thing to get started is the bacon. I’ve taken Em to enough diners to know that she likes it crispy, but not burned, and you can b
et your ass I know how to make that. It involves baking it in the oven. When I have eight strips on a plate, the heat trapped by the lid from my biggest pot, I make the biscuits.
She had about a million pancakes yesterday. It’s time for a change.
I take my time mixing the batter, and while they’re baking, I make the gravy. I bought a damn good sausage at the grocery earlier in the week, and this is the ideal occasion to use it.
Emily appears in the doorway to the kitchen just as I’m pulling the biscuits out of the oven.
“Hey,” she says. “I found the clothes. Thanks.”
“Aren’t you precious,” I tell her with a laugh. All of it is too big on her, and one of her cheeks is still pink from where it was pressed against the pillow. “Sleep well?”
“Better than I have in a long time.” Emily stretches her arms above her head. “What time is it, speaking of which?”
I shoot a glance at the clock on the stove. “Nine forty-five.”
Her mouth drops open like I’ve told her the most shocking fact in all of the universe. “Are you serious? You’re not serious. What time is it, really?”
“Em, why would I lie to you about something like that?”
“It’s really almost ten?” Her voice squeaks a little on ten. “God.” Her hand goes to her chest.
“Is everything okay?” Did she tell me she had plans this morning? Last night was pretty intense. It wouldn’t be a crime to have forgotten, unless it was really important.
“Deep breath,” she says, almost to herself, and pads into the kitchen. Em drops into a chair at the table I made myself and takes her own advice. “You know that horrible feeling when you wake up and realize your alarm didn’t go off?”
I do.
“I used to feel that way if I got up late for school. Not that I loved school.”
“You hated school.”
“I didn’t hate school. I hated the bullshit they were always forcing us to do. But I did it anyway, if you recall, because you wanted me to.”
“You’re welcome for your degree,” Em says primly, then laughs at herself. “For some reason, my mind always thinks I should be working at the firm.” She tilts her head back, brushing her hair away from her face and into a messy bun that she secures with an elastic tie from around her wrist.
“Okay.” I open one of the cupboards above the stove and take down a plate. First, biscuits. Two of them, still warm from the oven. “You constantly live in fear of being late for work. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Of course,” she says to my back. “I haven’t made partner yet. Those who come in last will be voted off the island.”
It’s a joke, but I hear the seriousness in her voice. “Can I ask you something?”
“It seems like you’re already doing that.” Gravy. Bacon. Her plate is ready. I get another plate. Two biscuits. Gravy. Bacon. “Anyway, last night was good enough that I think you can ask me anything.” I turn around from the stove to meet her impish smile. When she sees what’s on the plates, her eyes go wide. “You’re serious.”
“About breakfast? Damn right I am.”
“Why did you let me drag you out to the Short Stack yesterday?” I put the plate in front of her and she leans back in her seat, fanning herself.
“I didn’t want to put all my cards on the table at once. Orange juice? Water?”
“Juice,” she says. “And a fork.”
“My, my,” I tease. “Impatient much?” I get her a fork from the silverware drawer before I pour the orange juice. I’m not a monster.
“What did you want to ask me?” Emily asks, around a mouthful of bacon, as soon as I sit down
“If it was worth it. Constantly being afraid you’ll slip up.”
She looks down at her plate, remaining quiet for a long time. Long enough that she has time to take a bite of her first biscuit. “I don’t know.”
I pick up one of my slices of bacon. “I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m—” I don’t know if I should go this far. “I’m a little worried, hearing you say that.”
“Why?” Em cocks her head to the side. “It won’t be like this forever. Eventually, I’ll make partner, and then…” Her voice trails off.
“And then?”
“Then it’ll be different,” she says resolutely. “Totally different.”
“I have to say, Em, I’m not convinced.”
She sighs. “I’m not either. But what’s the alternative? Give up on my life plan? Declare law school a waste?” She shakes her head. “I can’t do that. That would be letting everybody down.”
“What? Who would possibly be let down by that?”
“My parents, for one.” Emily purses her lips. “And me. How can I betray Past Emily like that?”
“For Future Emily’s sake.”
Chapter Eighteen
Emily
Finn has a point, but I don’t want to admit it.
I don’t want to admit that all along, I had no idea what my life plan would look like when it actually made up my life. Yet, on top of all of it, these were my choices. Complaining about them isn’t going to make things easier.
“I’ll get back into the swing of things,” I tell him. “Everyone must have times like this, where they question their careers.”
He glances at me while he cuts into a biscuit with the side of his fork. “Did you really get this many vacation days around Christmas?”
Oh, shit.
“Yes.” I leap up from my chair. “But I don’t know what I was thinking, leaving my phone in my purse like this. I’m supposed to be on-call.”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“We’re always there for our clients.” I say the words over my shoulder as I’m hustling toward the door.
There are no client calls, but there is one from my mother. She’ll text if pressed, but otherwise she’s a voice call girl through and through.
I listen to her voicemail with relief surging through me. “Hey, Em, it’s me. Happy Christmas Eve! I’m so thrilled that you’re in town. Bring Finn with you for brunch, okay? Love you! Bye!”
The blush starts in my cheeks and goes all the way to my toes.
It’s no secret that I was going to see Finn yesterday. And, of course, I texted Mom to tell her that I wouldn’t be home last night. I might be an adult, but I’m not thoughtless. It’s not even the fact of her knowing that’s making me blush.
It’s the fact of everything we did last night.
I’ll never be able to say with a straight face that I slept well.
Maybe that’s not true. I did sleep well…once the sex marathon was over.
In the kitchen, I find Finn rinsing the plates. “There’s been an invitation.”
“An invitation to what?” He stacks them one by one in the dishwasher, and I see all at once how meticulous he is. The kitchen looks as clean as it did when I first walked into the house, and he cooked an entire meal in here.
He’s just that meticulous in bed, too. No inch of me was left undiscovered. Or…re-discovered.
“Brunch.”
He shoots me a look. “Is this another day-long adventure you have planned for us?”
“No. It’s at my parents’ house.”
Finn’s face darkens. “Em, there is absolutely no way that I’m going to—”
“They’re different now.”
He closes the dishwasher and runs a hand through his hair. “How different? Because last time I had anything in common with them, they turned out to hate me.”
“They didn’t hate you.” I take a deep breath, my heart already beating harder. “They thought I should get out and see the world before I made any commitments.”
“How’d that go for you?” He looks out the window, and when he looks back at me there’s such an intensity in his eyes that it makes me feel like this borrowed outfit has fallen to ashes on the floor.
“Not how I thought it would.” My voice is soft, quiet. This is true on so many levels.
> Finn shakes his head. “I’m not a bitter asshole, but can you see how we might have had a chance if everyone—including your parents—had kept their mouths shut?” His hands ball into fists at his sides, then release. “We’ve spent a long time apart because of that.”
“And because of life in general. My parents can’t take all the blame for that. We could have—” I don’t know how it would have worked. I’ve been working nonstop for years, at school, then law school, then the firm. My visits back to Lakewood have been sporadic at best. “We could have done a lot of things differently. I’ll admit that. But honestly—” Tears spring to the corners of my eyes. What is with all the crying? God. I’m going to need to get a handle on this. “I didn’t think you’d forgive me.”
Finn steps closer, and all at once, we’re not on opposite sides of this thing anymore. It’s just the two of us, standing in his kitchen, alone at last. He bends and kisses the place where my neck meets my shoulder, sending tendrils of pleasure streaking all the way down to the base of my spine. “What makes you think I’ve forgiven you?”
He kisses me again, leaving a hot trail where his lips meet my skin. “You seemed pretty forgiving last night.”
Finn stands up, frowning a little. “Speaking of last night…”
My heart stops, then crashes into my rib cage. Oh, God. Should I have told him? Is he about to call me out on this entire mess?
“…it wasn’t quite enough for me.”
“What?” I shriek, pushing against him playfully. “Not enough for you?”
“Not enough to convince me to go to Christmas Eve brunch with my mortal enemies.”
I roll my eyes. “You are so dramatic.”
“It’s the truth.”
“What would convince you, Finn?” I run my fingertips down the front of his shirt, feeling the ridged muscles underneath, until I make it all the way to his waistband. I pull his pants away from his skin and slip my hand inside.
