by April Lust
They did. It was easy, so easy, to just curl up with him and disappear into a movie. At some point she did eat, and later she found herself curled into his arm. She could almost forget this wasn’t real, that it was all temporary.
“I think I’m going to go to bed.” Emma shoved herself off the couch as the credits rolled.
A hand, tattooed and callused, wrapped around her wrist. “Emma, you don’t have to talk with me. I mean, I am not going to beat it out of you or anything like that, but if something is wrong—”
“Are you sleeping with Samantha?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. They were stupid, and she knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop them from happening.
“What?” He dropped her wrist.
She shook her head and held up her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, forget I said anything. I don’t even know where it came from. I don’t think I’m feeling very good tonight.”
He stood up. “I’m pretty sure I’ve made what’s between Samantha and me pretty clear. I’ve told you I’m not sleeping with her, and even if you and I weren’t doing whatever it is we are doing, I still wouldn’t be sleeping with her.”
“What are we doing, Kellan?” she asked. “I mean, honestly, what is this? I don’t…I don’t think it’s normal.”
He took a step towards her, and even Emma could see he was barely holding onto himself. “What isn’t normal about it?”
“I want you to touch me. I want to touch you.”
“Seems pretty normal where I’m standing.”
She shook her head once, hard enough to make her head spin. “The hell it is. I’ve touched guys. I’ve had them touch me. From time to time it’s been all right, but this….this isn’t that. I wake up and the first thing I look for is you. I kiss you and it’s like I’m breathing for the first time. And when you are inside of me, I feel alive. It’s just…it’s just ridiculous.”
He grabbed her and pulled her to him. She was buried against his chest, surrounded by the scent of him. She let herself sink against it.
“I don’t know what to do.”
He put a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face. His kiss was like butterfly wings on her lips. His tongue brushed along her lower lip, caressing ever so lightly, an invitation to be let in. She welcomed it.
Her arms slithered around his neck as her toes lifted her up. It took only the press of his body against hers to have her blood humming inside of her skin.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered.
He swept her up and, rather than taking the left and going into her room, he went right and took her into his.
# # #
She looked like a goddess who had gotten lost on the way to somewhere important and landed in his bed. All that golden hair haloed out on the dark blue of his pillow. Blankets were bunched up around her as her bare feet kicked them out of her way.
“Touch me, Kellan,” she begged, opening her arms to him.
He was going to, by God, he was going to touch her everywhere she’d let him. Her jeans were better than all the expensive panties that high price stores could toss at him as he popped the button and slid the zipper down.
She was wearing simple white cotton today, and it drove him crazy. He’d seen all kinds of women in all kinds of frippery, but nothing made him go quite so wild as Emma the Brain in white cotton panties.
Emma was right, he realized, this was ridiculous. It was insane. The scent of her as he slid the fabric down her thighs drove him wild. He didn’t know if he wanted to possess her or roll over and let her possess him; the truth was probably somewhere in the middle.
It was easier to get her shirt off. She’d taken her bra off at some point, he didn’t know when, but his eyes fell on the softness of her breasts and he knew he was done for.
She fell back against the mattress and spread her arms out like she’d make a snow angel out of his sheets. Her long legs were stretched out, showing off the curves she got from walking the dog every damned time he barked. They were good curves. He bent and laid a kiss in the inside of her knee, tasting her skin there. “You’ve got great legs for a nerdy chick.”
She rolled her eyes and poked his shoulder with her big toe. “How do you think nerdy chicks are supposed to look?”
He ran his tongue along the inside of her thigh and felt the skin twitch. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know they ought to taste like you.”
He let himself get lost in the feel of her against his lips. The creamy satin of her thighs, the softness of her belly. He took his time when he got to the full underside of one breast, and again when he took the rough peak of her nipple between his lips.
She made the most delicious sounds. He never had to wonder if she was enjoying herself. It was all breathy moans and hungry sighs. Every time he laid his hands on her she rose to greet them. He’d never had a woman respond to him so willingly.
When he slid into her, he knew he was done for.
When she had fallen asleep, curled into a protective ball around a happy dog, Kellan decided he had to do something.
“Yeah, no, I’ll be there in a minute.” He ended the phone call.
“Who was that?”
“Samantha,” he lied.
“Oh, you are going to meet her?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. He had fully intended for her to be angry. He had grown used to the way she could snap at people. The wildfire of her. Instead, her voice sounded soft, almost broken.
“Yeah, I mean, you are done with me, right?”
“What?”
He shrugged into his leather vest; it felt heavier today than it should. “I mean, you said it was just about relaxing. You seem pretty relaxed to me.”
“Are you kidding?” she demanded. “I mean, yeah, I said that—”
“And you say what you mean, right? That’s what you told me. You don’t play those kinds of games. You were pretty sure about it.”
“That’s so not fair. We’ve been…I thought—”
“You thought what?” He kept his voice low and even. He could see every word hurt her, slapped at her. Something inside him broke to do it. “You thought it was special? That you were special? Emma, I am not going to lie. You are hot, and you were a sweet little honey pot, but it wasn’t anything more than that.”
“Liar!” She flicked the stove top off, leaving the eggs sizzling in a cooling pan. “You are a liar. I am not stupid. I know it wasn’t…that what happened was…different.”
He laughed, and even to his earls it was cruel. “Different? Please. I mean, you were sweet, but you were a little…I dunno…naïve.”
“Naïve?” she demanded. “What? This wasn’t just one night, Kellan. This was weeks. This was something else. I don’t know what you are doing here. I don’t know if you are so damn scared of being in a relationship that you are pulling away. You are, aren’t you? You are being deliberately cruel.”
“Am I smart enough for that?”
“Yes,” she snapped back, pushing past him and into the room beyond. She hadn’t spent much time in it since their first night together. God, he’d been living with her, really living with her. “You are great with handling people, and you are trying to handle me. Right here and right now.”
“Where are you going?”
“What do you care?” she demanded. “If you are going to Samantha, it is actually over, isn’t it? It shouldn’t matter where I am going. I mean, you don’t care, right?”
“I am supposed to protect you.”
“Then why are you hurting me?” She opened one of her drawers and deposited the contents in a bag. It wasn’t her typically neat and orderly packing. “Why are you doing this?”
Her shoulders were shaking. He wanted to go to her and that made him angry. She needed to understand that this wasn’t serious, this was temporary. Emma deserved better.
“I told you what this was, from day one I told you. It’s not my fault you got caught up.”
“I didn’t j
ust get caught up, Kellan. I love you.”
“What?”
She whirled on him. Her eyes were like glass. “You heard me, damn you. I love you. I don’t know when it started or how it started or even why but I love you. I love how you lead people, how you keep them all at arm’s length, but you are there if you need them. I love that you took care of my dad. I love that you named your ugly dog Rocco. I love so many things about you and you are an idiot, a goddamned idiot if you pretend otherwise.”
He couldn’t say anything, so he didn’t. His throat was tight, and his skin felt too hot. It itched like the lie was infecting him. He clamped his fists and waited for the feeling to pass. She continued to glare at him, this small woman filled with so much passion. She was an intoxication.
“I’m going to go to Samantha’s. I’m going to fuck her. If you wanna keep saying you love me after that, I’m not the idiot.”
He turned on her and left. The last thing he heard was a desperate sob, but it didn’t drown out the sound of his own heart breaking.
Chapter 12
“He said what?” Hannah pushed another glass of wine into Emma’s hands. It was a dark liquid, smelling vaguely like apples, or spice, or something vaguely sinful. Emma took a long sip of it, letting the flavor linger on her tongue. The taste of the wine matched Hannah’s living room. The space was all decorated with rich dark woods and elegant prints of artwork. It seemed to match her friend, and not.
“Before or after he said he was going to sleep with Samantha?” Emma curled on the lush sofa. A comfortable pillow was snuggled up against her back. A soft throw blanket was curled over her legs. Everything around her was comfortable. Everything inside felt broken.
A soft clink of Hannah’s wedding ring tapping glass drew Emma’s attention to her own blank finger. She sighed softy. Maybe it had all been some stupid fantasy, a dream she was never meant to realize.
“Oh, honey.” Hannah reached across the space between them with her ringless hand and clutched Emma’s. “That sucks.” Hannah’s hair was coiled around sponge curlers. The wet locks smelled of some sort of chemical, the kind a woman used when she wanted to give her locks an extra bit of oompf. It wasn’t a bad smell, but it was strong.
“Were you getting ready to go somewhere?” Emma asked. She took another long sip of wine.
“Rudy and I were going to try to do date night.”
Emma suddenly felt guilty. “Oh god, I’m so sorry, Hannah. I’ll leave you be. I shouldn’t have come over I just—”
“Now you sit down right there,” Hannah commanded. Her big eyes were filled with concern. It nearly broke Emma’s heart. “Rudy and I both care about you, Emma. You know that.”
“I know, but—”
“I’m going to sound like my mother when I say no buts, but I’m going to say it anyway. No buts. No nothing. My friend is having a crap night, and if that means I have to put off a date to help make her feel a little better, I’m going to.”
“I don’t deserve you.” Emma smiled.
“Well, as much as I’d like to blame it all on you, that man you are angry with started it.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he called about ten minutes before you did, told Rudy to meet him at The Saloon.”
Emma felt her heart do a confused clench. He hadn’t gone to Samantha’s? Was he going there later? Or just not at all? Why was he being so mean?
“I don’t understand.” Emma looked into her wineglass. Her morose face stared back at her. Was she such a terrible woman that a man like him would be deliberately mean so he didn’t have to see her anymore?
“Don’t you?” Hannah asked gently. Her voice was filled with maternal affection. “He’s pushing you away.”
“I managed to figure that out, thanks.”
“Not because he doesn’t care, sweetie. He cares too much.” Hannah took another hefty drink and then set her glass aside. “He’s being all kinds of uppity because he’s afraid of ruining things on accident.”
“So, what? He’s doing it on purpose.”
“Yes.” Hannah laughed. “He’s the kind of guy who likes to be in control of pretty much everything.”
“Usually,” Emma admitted. Her mind flashed back to a few choice moments during their more sensual moments. “He doesn’t always need to be in control.”
Hannah made a lascivious sound. “Oh really? Do tell.”
“I don’t want to talk about that now.”
Hannah shrugged her shoulder. “Yes, you do. It helps.”
Emma rolled her eyes. It sounded like the biggest load of…well…she had ever heard. “Talking about the sex I am not going to be having anymore is somehow supposed to help?”
“You know nothing about breaking up with someone, do you?”
Emma blinked. It was true. She didn’t. The closest she had ever come to a boyfriend growing up had been Rudy, and that relationship had been fairly awkward from beginning to end. It had been a blessing when it ended. There had been several very short dating stints after him, but school had always come first, and nothing had really started, let alone ended.
“Oh god,” Emma gasped. Anger and sadness and fear surged up inside of her chest. Her hand started to shake. “I haven’t. I’ve never been in a real relationship. This wasn’t supposed to be real either. It was just supposed to happen and then everything got all…oh god.”
The shaking got worse. Droplets of wine splashed over the rim. Hannah took the glass from her. Emma dragged the blanket up her chest. It offered warmth, but no comfort. She clutched the edge of the fabric until her knuckles turned white.
“He broke up with me.”
Hannah wrapped an arm over her and pulled Emma down until her head was resting in Hannah’s lap. With the gentle care of a mother Hannah tugged the golden hair out of a slap-dash tail and spread the locks out. She combed her fingers through Emma’s hair and shushed her gently.
The kindness broke her. She started to cry. Her tears were bright and hot. They spilled out of her eyes and down her cheeks so fast they almost hurt. She curled her legs up on the sofa and tightened herself into a ball.
“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Hannah shushed.
“It’s not,” Emma sobbed, “it’s not okay at all!”
“It will be. I promise.”
Emma didn’t believe her. She wanted to. It was a nice thought that in a little time, and with a little effort, she might feel better. It seemed, at this moment, impossible. Her heart felt like it was breaking into a hundred pieces, each one smaller than the last. They all ached.
“It hurts,” she whispered, not sure if she was telling Hannah or herself.
“I know.”
The sound of a baby crying came out through the monitor. Emma sat up.
“Stay right there. I’ll be right back.”
Emma drew her legs up on the couch and rested her head against the arm. Her bones felt too heavy inside of her body, as if she suddenly weighed too much to sit up on her own. When Hannah came back she was holding her little one. The child’s face was red and puffed up with a hard wake up.
“Oh gosh, look at you, sleepy face.” Emma smiled sadly as the baby flopped its head against his mother’s shoulder.
“Do you want to hold her?” Hannah asked, offering up the squirming child.
Emma had to think about it. She liked children, though she wasn’t particularly familiar with them. She had no siblings and no cousins. There hadn’t been a lot of children wandering around the college campus either. Even so, the idea of holding something so small made her feel a little better.
“Yes, yes, I do.” Emma held out her arms.
Hannah tenderly deposited the child into her arms. The little one felt heavier than she would have thought. There was so much weight in such a small amount of space.
The baby looked up, the sleepiness sliding away from a pair of eyes as dark and vibrant as the mother’s. There was a definite touch of Rudy, too, around the nose and the way the ears
stuck out. “There we go,” Hannah said.
Emma felt a small smile touch her lips. “Did you always know you wanted to be a mother?”
Hannah shrugged. “Not really. It was more of the idea that if I got pregnant, I’d be okay with it. If I didn’t, I’d be all right with that, too.” There was a short pause before Hannah asked, “Do you want to be a mother?”
