by Tessa Layne
She makes a needy noise in her throat.
I lift my head, and our eyes lock. “I want you to know, this is the first time for me, too.” She gives me a wide grin and shimmies her hips. I bring the wand to her puckered little rosette and circle the opening, prodding gently. “Breathe and let go.” She does, and the wand slips in past the first ball.
Emmaline’s eyes go round, her mouth making an O.
“Everything okay?”
She nods, and I push the wand in a little farther. “Ooooooh,” she gasps and lets out a long, low moan. “Ohmygod I’ve never felt anything like this.”
“Do you like it?”
She nods. “Yes, oh yes.”
I slip a finger into her channel and she immediately squeezes around me. I can feel the vibrations coming through her vaginal wall. My cock is slick from pre-come. My balls are so tight with arousal, it’s hard to concentrate. “Do you want it deeper?”
“Yes,” she pants.
I push the wand in to the hilt.
She lets out another long, low moan. “I’m not sure I can take it, it’s so intense. So good.”
“Say your word, and I’ll stop.”
“Don’t stop,” she begs. “I want it. Want you, inside me.” She spreads her legs wider.
She’s gorgeously flushed, body slick with sweat. Her pussy is creamy with arousal, and I tease at her entrance, coating the head of my cock with her. I slowly push into her channel, and the second I’m inside her, I’m surrounded by the vibrations. “Fuck,” I mutter, slowly pushing in further.
“It feels so full,” she says in between breaths. “So good.”
I can’t even begin to describe the sensation of tight, wet, heat, coupled with steady vibrations. I wind up fast, so fast, I have to slow my breathing. She starts to move first, gentle, tiny rocks, little pulses that drive me wild. I hold myself motionless. If I even twitch, I might explode into a million pieces. But I make myself stay still, and it’s the most fucking incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.
“Look at me Emmaline.”
Her eyes meet mine, and she cups my cheek. “I love this. I love you,” she says. Her hip rolls become deeper, lengthier. Her mouth open. Watching her face change as her orgasm builds is captivating, knowing that I’m giving her this deep, deep pleasure satisfies me in the deepest part of myself. Her voice sounds otherworldly as she shatters, and I go with her, unable to hold back any longer when she bears down on me. I’m wrecked. Dead. Launched into another dimension. Somehow, I have the presence of mind to reach between us and turn off the vibe, and gently remove it. I put it aside to take with me when I clean up, then I pull her into my arms. “Are you doing okay?”
She smiles like it’s Christmas. “Never better.”
We lie, tangled together, snoozing in a state of half bliss, half sleep. I never want to get up from this bed.
“I could stay here forever,” Emmaline says on a satisfied sigh.
“If we get up, we can do it over again another time.”
“I’d like that.”
I drop a kiss to her forehead, then take myself and the toy to go clean up. When I emerge a few minutes later she calls out from the bed. “Your phone rang. Big Mike?”
“I’m helping him with his brewery. He must need something.”
She’s stretched out on the bed like a happy, languid cat. “I think it’s wonderful you’re helping him. He’s a good guy.”
I listen to the voicemail he left. There’s been an issue with the inspection, and can I pop over for a quick chat. I sit on the side of the bed. “I’ve got to run out and check something with Mike. How about I bring back lunch and we can spend a few hours working before I peel your clothes off again?”
“Mmm,” she purrs. “I like the sound of that.”
I dress, and give her one more kiss before heading downstairs with a spring in my step. My mind’s already whirring about dinner. I think I’ll take her out to Gino’s tonight, and let her know that the bungalow I bought is the one she grew up in.
Mike’s pacing in front of the warehouse when I arrive. “Come around back. Let me show you what we found.”
The back of the building is listing slightly and will need to be shored up before any other remodeling can happen. Mike’s beside himself, but unfortunately this kind of thing happens all the time in real estate. But my quick thirty-minute visit turns into an hour, and I send a quick text to Em. Running late - call if you need anything. I hate running long, but Emmaline could walk over here if she needed to.
By the time I climb up the stairs with lunch from the diner, it’s been almost two hours. “I brought burgers and pie,” I holler up the stairs. Usually that would generate a squeal of delight, but the upstairs remains ominously quiet. “Emmaline?” I call when I reach the top, scanning the room.
She’s not here.
My heart thuds ridiculously. She probably got tired of waiting and ran to the grocery store. I drop lunch on the cutting table, looking for a note. But I don’t see one.
I head to her desk, but it’s hopeless looking for anything in the chaos that rules that surface.
“Em?” I call again, even though I know it’s futile. Emmaline is gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Panic is not productive. Panic is not productive.
There’s got to be a simple explanation for this. She ran down for a piece of pie at the diner, and we just crossed paths. Someone called with a dress emergency. It is Saturday, and I vaguely recall she had a bride with a wedding this afternoon.
But she hasn’t picked up her phone, nor has she answered my texts, which she’s been good about since we shared our secrets. It’s this alone, that makes my skin crawl with worry, that feeds my imagination with the worst possible scenario.
I’m not a stalker boyfriend. Emmaline can go wherever she wants. If she wants to meet a friend for coffee and forgets to tell me, that’s her right. I trust her. Maybe she ran out of lace and needed to drive to Manhattan. Cell service is sketchy between here and there, and she’d only just be arriving now. I need to calm the fuck down. I decide to head back to the lodge and grab my laptop. On the spur of the moment, I decide to stop by the bungalow where Austin’s staying. I pull up to the curb and notice the garage door is standing wide open. His Pagani is gone.
I hop out and jog up the walk to the door. “Austin?” I rap hard. Nothing. “Austin.” I rap again. I try the door. Unlocked. Since when did he go soft, leaving his door unlocked like everyone else in town? I push open the door and stick my head in. “Hey, Austin.” The house is ominously silent. Where the fuck did he go?
Probably for a drive, dumbass. He’s a big boy and can take care of himself. My concern jumps back to Emmaline. I hate it, but the best thing for me to do is try and get a few hours of work in while I wait for her call.
By late afternoon, I’m crawling the walls. Everything inside me shouts that something happened with her mom. I open my laptop and spend the next couple of hours researching and calling every nursing facility within a two-hundred-mile radius of here. Half of them aren’t even called nursing facilities, but “memory care” units. God, what an awful euphemism. Memory care. For the people who have none left. Who go there to waste away until their bodies give out.
But not one of them has a record of Ingrid Andersson.
After the final disappointing call, I hurl my phone across the room where it clatters to the floor by Emmaline’s desk. I don’t know what else to do. I am not going to sit around ‘wringing my hands’ waiting for Em to come home. Not this time. “Danny.” Fucking Danny. I’d give even odds that he knows something. I make my way across the cluttered floor to search for my phone. I find it on the far side of the desk on top of a pile of red lace. Next to where Emmaline’s phone cord is still plugged into a power strip. Motherfucker. Her battery has got to be dead by now. She has a habit of letting it run low, it could have died twenty minutes outside Prairie. I shut my eyes and squeeze my temples. I snap up my phone and dial
Danny. “Where is she?” I bark when he answers.
“Who? Emmaline?”
“Who else, asshole? She’s disappeared.”
“If you’ve fucked with her…” his voice turns dark.
“I love her for chrissakes,” I shout. Exhaustion snapping the last of my control. I feel like I’m hanging onto my sanity by a thread. “And I think something happened to her mom. She left suddenly yesterday without a word. She didn’t even grab her phone charger.”
Danny mumbles an expletive I don’t quite catch.
“Tell me you know where her mother is.”
“Emmaline hasn’t told you?”
“Tell me, Danny,” I snarl. “You owe me.”
“I’m not so sure I do.”
“You sure as fuck owe Em, and she shouldn’t be alone.”
“How do you know what’s good for her?” he snaps.
“I don’t, but I love her, and if I have to search half of Kansas building by building until I find her so that I can hear from her that she wants to be alone, I will, goddammit.”
“Give me your word that whatever she asks, you’ll do.”
“I swear.” It will kill me if she sends me away, but if that’s what she wants, I’ll do it. I just want her to know she’s not alone.
“The facility is called Hidden Valley Memory Care. It’s just west of 435. Same place we put her dad.”
“We? Jeezus, Danny, what the fuck?”
“It’s a long story. At least two bottles.”
Once this has blown over, I’m gonna ask a helluva lot more questions. “I’m taking you up on that.” I double check my laptop. “I called Hidden Valley.”
“You were probably looking for Ingrid Andersson. It’s Nilsson. She kept her name.”
Jesusfuckingchristonapopciclestick. I can’t catch a fucking break. And even though I’m pissed as hell about this latest disclosure, I have what I want. For now. I jam my keys and my wallet in my pocket. “I’m on my way.”
“You’ll be sleeping in the parking lot, then. They won’t let visitors in past nine p.m. You won’t make it in time.”
I cover a curse. At least she’s not dead in a ditch somewhere. “Thanks, man. You won’t regret it.”
“I better not,” Danny growls. “If I do, you’ll be eating my knuckles.”
I’m waiting outside the diner when Dottie unlocks the door at five a.m. She gives me a once over and shakes her head. “Declan Case, I don’t want to hear that you’ve been out carousing and you’re on your way home. You look like you got chewed up and spit out by one of those broncos my son-in-law rides.”
“That bad, huh?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t even think coffee’s gonna help you. But come on in.” She waves me over to the long countertop and bustles to the coffee machine. “It’ll be a few minutes. Even my gal isn’t here yet.”
I can’t hold it in any longer, I’ve got to tell someone. And since Austin won’t answer my calls either, I have to rely on the countertop confessional at the diner. “I can’t reach Emmaline. I think something’s happened with her mother.”
Dottie’s face falls. “Oh dear, that poor girl. She’s endured so much.”
“I’m headed over to Kansas City to check on her now.”
“Take her a pie.”
“A pie?”
Dottie looks at me like I left a few braincells on the barroom floor. “Pie fixes everything, honey. I know you know that.” She moves with surprising speed to the kitchen and comes back with two slices of apple pie. “I’m going to join you here, before it gets too crowded. I have a chocolate cream pie in the back. You take it to that sweet girl and tell her it’s from me.”
I can only nod and dig in, because why shouldn’t one have pie for breakfast in a crisis?
Chapter Twenty-Four
I pull into the parking lot and double check the address. This is the place, a dreary, single-story stucco building with hotel style landscaping. So this is where people go to die. To languish, forgotten. Fuck me. Take me out to the woods and shoot me. I’m never going into one of these facilities. Never.
I grab a bouquet of flowers from the passenger seat and the pie Dottie sent, and step out of the car. The oppressive heat cocoons around me like a suffocating blanket, wet and sticky.
I march inside and stop at the desk. “I’m looking for Ingrid Nilsson’s room?”
The young man behind the desk scrutinizes me through his hipster glasses. “Are you family?”
“A friend.”
His fingers clack on the keyboard and he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, her orders say no visitors but family.”
“But I’m a...” what am I? Her boyfriend? Partner? Lover? We haven’t discussed the official state of our relationship, we’ve just been… together. “I’m a friend of Ingrid’s daughter,” I finish lamely.
“I’m sorry, sir. I can’t let you in.”
Oh fuck me. “Look, I’ve come a long way. I… I need to speak with her daughter… Emmaline. She’s back there, yes?”
He gives me a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, I can’t say. You’re welcome to wait.” He motions to a row of plastic chairs.
“I’ve been waiting for ages,” I burst out, fisting my hand on the counter.
Hipster boy raises an eyebrow. “Sir, do I need to ask you to leave?” he says, a note of condescension entering his voice.
I’m not above begging right now. “Please? I just need to talk to her.”
I must look really fucking pathetic, because he lets out a little sigh. “How about I bring her a message? It’s the best I can do.”
I’ll take it. Anything. “Tell her the man who loves her is waiting in the lobby.”
The wait takes forever. It feels like eons have passed when the doors finally open, and Emmaline’s pale hair comes into view, peeking out from behind the front desk guy. My heart cracks to pieces when I see her face. She’s aged years in the span of twenty-four hours.
She pauses in front of me. I want to reach out, pull her into my arms and kiss all her pain away. Instead, I wait. “Why are you here?” she asks softly.
“You forgot your phone cord.” I retrieve it from my pocket and offer it to her. “And Dottie sent pie. A whole pie.” I hold up the bag. “She said pie makes everything better.”
Her eyes shimmer with tears, but she manages a small laugh and a smaller smile. Our fingers brush when she takes the cord, and even through the heartache, I can still feel the current that connects us, that binds us to each other. “Why are you really here?”
I swallow, my throat suddenly tight. “Because I love you,” I rasp. “And I wanted you to know that no matter what happens, you’re not alone in this world.”
She stares at me, blinking rapidly, putting up a valiant effort to fight the tears that threaten to spill down her pale and sunken cheeks. She loses, and the tears slide out. “Thank you,” she murmurs and closes the gap between us, slipping her arms around my waist and holding on for dear life.
My eyes sting as I wrap her in my arms, holding on just as tight. Relief floods my senses, and I lock my knees to stay standing. She didn’t send me away. That’s all my brain can register right now. She didn’t send me away.
“She’s dying, Declan. She’s awakened once in the last two days.”
“I’m so sorry.” I stroke her hair over and over again.
“How did you-”
“Danny.”
She nods against my chest. “I’m glad you’re here,” she mumbles.
Butterflies flutter against my chest. “I’ll stay for as long as you want.”
She lifts her head, eyes clearer, yet still deep with soul-wrenching sadness. I feel her pain deep in my bones. She stands on tiptoe, and I bend to receive her kiss. “Thank you,” she whispers with a little catch. She steps back, taking the flowers I’ve brought, and entwines the fingers of her other hand with mine. As she leads me back to the ward, I mouth a silent thank-you to the young man. Together, we walk silently down one
hall, turn a corner, and walk halfway down the next. The door stands ajar. “Come in,” she says and leads me into a small room with a twin-sized hospital bed, a small dresser, a couch and two chairs. “Mama,” she calls gently. “I want you to meet someone.”
I’m struck speechless. I’m staring at Emmaline twenty-five years into the future. The woman in the bed is beautiful. Stunning. White blonde hair like Emmaline’s, so it’s hard to see any gray. Her face is somewhat plump, and the wrinkles around her eyes tell me she must have smiled a lot. There’s a tube of oxygen at her nose, and she sleeps peacefully, as if the cares of the world have been lifted from her shoulders. Even her hands lying at her sides have few wrinkles. She’s so young. Somehow in the back of my mind, mid-fifties seemed ancient. But Ingrid is so, so young. Too young to be leaving this world.
Emmaline brings me to the bed, still holding my hand. “Mama,” she says with a tremor in her voice. “This is Declan.” She swallows and blinks rapidly, then takes in a deep breath through her nose. I squeeze her hand, because what can I say? There’s nothing to say. There is nothing easy or pleasant about letting someone you love go. That much is clear as day to me, and the fact that for whatever reason, Emmaline has invited me into this sacred moment is as humbling as it is heart-wrenching. She wipes the back of her hand across her cheek. “Do you want to see the pictures?” She motions the photos lining the top of the dresser.
“Sure.” I let her lead me back to the dresser.
She hands me the first one, a framed selfie taken in this room. “I snapped this the last time I visited before she forgot me.” She attempts a bright smile, even as a sob escapes, and her tears spill freely.
I pull her close. “Sweetheart, we don’t have to do this if it’s too much.” Her tears wreck me. I don’t even know if I have the capacity to grieve. She’s got an endless supply.
