Tethered

by L. D. Davis

  My mom hadn’t relaxed on her rules about Emmet staying the night in our apartment, so he stayed in one of Felix’s penthouse rooms when he visited, whether Felix was around or not, and Felix wasn’t around often. He was very busy filming and promoting. One Chance, the movie I had a part in, came out at the end of summer. Emmy came to New York to attend the premiere with me and finally got a chance to meet Felix. I was amazed that she was well behaved and didn’t once throw her underwear or bra at him.

  My mom’s health deteriorated so quickly, if I sat and watched her long enough, I would have literally seen her withering away. She grew weaker as the cancer ravaged her body, and she could no longer hide her pain like she used to. Before Felix went back to California, he hired a housekeeper and a nurse to help out while I was working, but my mom always managed to chase them away, saying she didn’t need anyone to take care of her. When there were more days spent in bed than not, I fought with her until I convinced her to go back home to New Jersey, to the comfort of her own home. She was less than thrilled about leaving me to my own devices, so just for show, to ease her dying mind, I asked my cousin Kera to stay with me in New York and to travel with me if I had to go somewhere. She was only a few years older than me and had just graduated from college. She hadn’t found a job yet, so she was more than willing to spend some time in Felix Hunter’s apartment and follow around her somewhat famous cousin.

  I had Kera’s mother, one of my dad’s sisters, track down and call my mom’s siblings. She had been so stubborn about calling them just because she was dying, and I thought that was stupid. To my surprise, her sister Candy that she had been estranged from all of those years dropped everything and flew to New Jersey to be with her. My uncle Roger was a little bit slower at getting to the states, but when he arrived, he arrived with his wife and their three children. I forced the issue and made time to be there with them all for a few days. Even my dad’s sisters who hadn’t been helpful or very kind at all the years before had a change of heart and everyone came together.

  I managed to make it to Louisiana for a few days at the very end of the summer. One of Emmet’s southern cousins was getting married. I had been working nearly nonstop, and it was never a good idea to turn down work in this industry for something as unimportant as a wedding, but I hadn’t been down south in over a year, and that big home in the hot swamps of Louisiana was my comfort place.

  Emmet and I flew down together out of New York. On the plane we shared entirely too much time with public displays of affection, but we knew that the opportunities for alone time would be very few while we were with the family. We still weren’t ready to tell them about us – well mainly I wasn’t ready. Emmy was still making well placed statements about how gross it would be, and on more than one occasion Fred reiterated Emmet’s place as my big brother. Point taken.

  I sat between Emmet and Emmy at the wedding. Very discreetly, Emmet held my hand between the seats and stroked my ring finger throughout the ceremony. You might wonder why, after his proposal in California, he had not made it official and given me a ring, but I didn’t wonder at all. I had Emmet’s word that he wanted to marry me, and I had no doubts. I never even considered getting an engagement ring. I wore my charm bracelet every day, and anytime I could get away with wearing it in a shoot, I did. That was confirmation enough for me, but day after the wedding, hours before we were supposed to board a plane back to New York, Emmet surprised me.

  In the dark hours of the morning, I met Emmet outside by Fred’s truck. I was excited because we were going to squeeze in a couple of hours of fishing at our old fishing spot. Though I was disappointed Fred was sleeping in instead of coming with us, I was happy that I’d have some time alone with Emmet in one of our favorite spots. Often when I daydreamed about Emmet and I sharing a romantic moment, the fantasy took place there at the water’s edge, surrounded by the swampy woods.

  “Try not to fall and hit your head, baby,” Emmet teased as we walked from the truck to our spot.

  “Hardy har har,” I said dryly. Visions of Emmet finding me and pushing my hair off of my forehead while he held my hand swarmed my mind and made me smile. “Did you love me back then?” I asked him.

  “I think that’s when I began to understand what was wrong with my brothers when they were around certain girls,” he said with a chuckle. “I was too young to really formulate into words what I felt for you, but I know now that it was love. You made me feel weird and it pissed me off.”

  “Clearly. You teased me mercilessly,” I reminded him. “What about when we were younger?”

  I remembered one of many incidents when Benny had pushed me down. Later that day Emmet had walked me home and he had told me I was special to him and I remembered how good that made me feel to hear that from him of all people.

  “Again, I was too young to understand what I was feeling, but I guess you could say that it was love,” he said as we reached the fishing spot.

  He put everything down carefully, and took a few steps to close the distance between us. He pushed my hair off of my cheek and dragged his knuckles over my skin.

  “Donya,” he said my name with such intensity that my breath hitched. I stared up into his eyes, mesmerized. “I’ve always loved you. I think I loved you the moment you were born into this world even though I didn’t know who you were yet. The moment you were born, our bond formed. We were meant to be together. The force holding us together is bigger than us; it’s bigger than the entire universe. No matter what, baby, I was meant to be yours and you were meant to be mine.”

  He reached into his pocket and produced a small black velvet box. My eyes grew so wide that it hurt. When my beautiful Emmet dropped to one knee, my breathing went haywire. My lungs forgot how to function. My heart pumped and stopped and pumped and stopped and stopped and stopped. I was light headed and I was crying. I had said that Emmet’s word had been enough, but as he opened the black box and presented me with a beautiful cushion cut diamond ring, set on white gold, I was moved beyond words. This was the perfect proposal in the most perfect place by the most perfect man.

  “Donya Elisabeth Stewart, will you marry me?”

  I managed a half laugh, half sob and a bit of a snort as I nodded frantically, totally unable to find my words. Emmet smiled warmly and pushed the ring onto my finger. It fit perfectly, like Emmet. He fit me perfectly, too.

  Before he could stand up, I dropped to my knees, threw my arms around his neck and kissed him hard. He chuckled against my mouth as his arms snaked around me and he held me close.

  “I love you,” I whispered to him when our kiss finally broke.

  He pushed my hair off of my forehead again and kissed it. “I love you,” he said tenderly.

  He grabbed the back of my head and dipped his tongue into my mouth. He tasted sweet and fresh and like…Emmet. I met his strokes with my own, tasting him as my tongue slid over his. His teeth grazed over my tongue before he pulled my bottom lip between his lips and dragged his tongue over it. His teeth sunk in and I moaned at the sharp but pleasurable pain.

  “I’m going to make love to you, right here,” Emmet said hoarsely as he kissed across my jawline. “Right now.”

  I groaned when he nipped at the sensitive skin just below my ear.

  “You always smell so good,” he whispered. “Like wild flowers after a rain storm.” His nose ran over my clavicle. “And vanilla.”

  Gently, he pushed me backward until I was lying in the soft grass a few feet away from the shoreline. His knee pushed between my legs as he leaned over me. He held himself up on one forearm so he wouldn’t crush me as his other hand began to slip the straps of my tank top and bra off of my arm. He kissed me across my sternum until he reached my other arm and pulled the straps down that arm, too.

  “You’re everything I want,” he said, pulling my shirt and bra down, freeing my breasts. As if he couldn’t wait another second, he dropped his head and pulled a perk nipple between his lips. My hips automatically lifted off of the
ground as I moaned his name. When his tongue flicked over the hard peak, fire ignited there and raced through my veins and ended in a near explosion between my thighs.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Emmet said and flattened his tongue between my breasts. “So, sexy.”

  Emmet moved slowly down my body, trailing his fingers down my sides until he reached the waistband of my shorts. He hooked his fingers inside and slowly began to pull my shorts and panties down over my hips. His wet tongue slid from hip bone to hip bone, making me squirm and bite my lip.

  Donya SGL was creeping onto the scene, whispering in my ear to grab Emmet’s head and make that tongue lick me lower. Sensible Donya blushed and dug her nails into the grass and dirt. Donya SGL scared me sometimes. She made me feel like a slut even though the only person I was with was Emmet, but she made me want to do things I’d only read about in romance novels and caught glimpses of on the internet. She made me want to behave in a way that made me want to cover my face with shame. But hell, Donya SGL’s ideas turned me on. Imagining Emmet doing any of DSGL’s suggestions increased the moisture between my legs and made my nipples swell.

  As Emmet pulled my bottoms off and tossed them aside, I came out of my haze long enough to remember that we were outside in the open. Though the area was secluded and rarely did we see another soul, I felt vulnerable lying on the ground with only my shirt and bra bunched up around my ribcage and nothing else on my skin.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” Emmet asked, trailing a finger down my sex.

  “I never thought I’d be one for public sex,” I said nervously.

  He chuckled softly. “What public, babe? It’s just you and me.”

  “What if someone is in the woods watching?” I asked, suddenly frantic and searching the trees. The sunrise was nearly complete, but the woods were still rather dark.

  “No one is watching us, I promise,” he said soothingly, rubbing the inside of my thigh.

  I gave him a look of doubt.

  “I guess I’ll have to take your mind off of people in the trees spying on us,” he said dramatically.

  I looked towards the trees again. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

  I pushed myself up on my elbows and let my eyes scan the circumference of our fishing hole. The only movement I saw was the swaying of leaves in the light breeze. I started to sit up so I could pull my shirt and bra back on, but suddenly Emmet was hovering over me, nearly nose to nose with me. When I saw tanned flesh out of the corner of my eye, my eyes jerked down to his bare chest and followed his tasty abs down to his naked lower half. My eyebrows raised and my mouth formed an O.

  “Lay back, Donya,” he quietly demanded.

  Yes! DSGL shouted and did a fist pump.

  I dropped back onto the grass. My head had barely touched the ground when Emmet was on me, kissing me deeply as his erection ground into my slick sex. Groaning into his hot mouth, I thrust my hands into his hair.

  “Emmet,” I whispered harshly after he broke the kiss to suck and nibble on my earlobe.

  He adjusted his erection with one hand until the head was pressed against my slit. He looked me in the eyes and used one hand to stroke my cheek.

  “Tell me you love me,” he commanded in a whisper.

  “I love you,” I breathed.

  Emmet slammed into me, to the hilt. I cried out, but it was cut off by Emmet’s mouth taking mine. As his mouth ravaged my own, his cock slid out until just the very tip was barely inside of me, and then he slammed into me again. He was so hard, long, and thick. It felt like he was trying to stretch me, to break me, but my moist channel clung to him, wrapped tightly around him like a suctioning sheath.

  As Emmet’s thrusts became more forceful, I felt myself sliding across the dewy grass. I tried to find purchase, digging my heels into the ground, but I only succeeded in taking his rigid member impossibly deeper. My hands slid out of his hair, down his neck, and across his strong, muscular back. He put a hand under my knee and lifted my leg. He slipped his arm under the leg and maneuvered it until it was over his shoulder. I tore my mouth away from his and screamed into the humid air.

  This new position had Donya Sex Goddess and Lover screaming with joy. The pain was exquisite as his hard shaft rubbed against sensitive areas inside my body that I didn’t know were there. Before I could even understand what was happening, I was sobbing through a hard orgasm that made my entire body shudder and shake and more moisture coated Emmet’s member.

  “You’re so damp,” Emmet growled, pounding into me. “Fuck, Donya. You feel so good.”

  He moaned loudly as his pace increased and he seemed to lose all control. Sensible Donya was in pain and had the urge to put her hands on Emmet and make him stop, but DSGL cheered him on. The pain made her wetter, made her nipples more sensitive and made her curse dirty things into the air.

  “Oh god,” Emmet groaned through a clenched jaw.

  I fell over the edge again, crying out his name, and my body bucked violently.

  “Donya,” he moaned long and low and then suddenly pulled out of me. He shouted curses as he shot his load onto the grass between my legs. DSGL wanted me to sit up and help him stroke the rest of his orgasm out, but I really felt that DSGL had taken me far enough for the day. She made me blush and feel a bit ashamed as I lay there breathlessly watching until he had spurted out every last drop.

  Exhausted, he collapsed beside me and pulled me into his arms and kissed me gently on my temple.

  “Are you still worried about people watching us?” Emmet murmured in my hair.

  I laughed lightly, but the Sex Goddess piped in with an answer. “If they were watching, they sure got one hell of a show.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Death didn’t come easily for my mom. She didn’t just stop breathing in her sleep or go out in a drug induced coma. It was nothing like I saw on television and in the movies. She struggled, gasping and choking for air on her final breaths. I knew she was ready to go, but she couldn’t help her body’s automatic response to try to get oxygen into her lungs. Her eyes were wide with fear and they stayed that way until my Uncle Roger closed them for her.

  Her hand in mine was still and already cold. I gave her cold, dead hand one last stroke of my fingers and then gently placed it on the bed at her side. I stood up and moved away from my sobbing aunt and teary uncle and my dead mother. I left the bedroom only to come face to face with the rest of my family that had been mostly absent up until recent months.

  “Is it over?” Kera asked, already clutching a tissue.

  I nodded and then held up my hands to fend off any form of physical contact as my cousins and aunts tried to hug me. I didn’t answer their sympathetic commentary. I quickly left the house of death and hurried down the sidewalk.

  It was late in the fall. The warm, summer weather was gone and replaced with cool breezes and lower temperatures. It was cool enough to wear a jacket, but I had forgotten it and didn’t want to go back for it. I speed walked through the streets until I reached the Grayne house. I let myself in and headed into the dining room where the family was gathered for dinner. They all looked up at me with surprised expressions.

  “What are you doing here?” Emmy asked in a high pitched voice.

  “Why aren’t you with your mama?” Sam questioned, even as she got up to no doubt get me a plate.

  “She’s not going to notice that I’m not there,” I said flatly, taking a seat beside Emmy and across from Emmet who had a school book and notebook open on the table next to him. He looked at me knowingly. He felt what I felt and I felt his need to take me into his arms, but instead he sat there and stared at me.

  “Is she…” Emmy started, but couldn’t finish.

  Sam put an empty plate in front of me and sat back down, but stared at me also, waiting for an answer.

  “Yeah, she is,” I said, scooping a tiny bit of potatoes onto my plate. “Pass the pepper.”

  “Pass the pepper?” Emmy asked. “Pass the damn pepper, Donya? Y
our mom just died!”

  “Which doesn’t change the fact that my fucking potatoes need fucking pepper, Emmy,” I snapped at her and held out my hand expectantly.

  Under normal circumstances, Sam would have chased me around the house trying to slap the taste out of my mouth for dropping the F bomb, but the circumstances weren’t normal. She sucked in a breath and looked at me with pity. Fred and Emmy also looked at me with pity. The only one who wasn’t giving me a piteous stare was Emmet.

  I took a piece of chicken, a big scoop of peas, and poured myself a glass of iced tea. I was about to reach for a biscuit when I remembered that I hadn’t washed my hands after touching my mother’s dead hand.

  “Gotta wash my hands,” I muttered and pushed away from the table.

  I went into the powder room near Fred’s office and thoroughly washed my hands. When I returned to the dining room, it was obvious a hushed conversation halted at my appearance.

  “Please, don’t stop talking about me just because I’m back,” I said dryly, putting a napkin on my lap and reaching for that biscuit.

  No one spoke. Everyone but Emmet ate in silence, but eyed me carefully. Emmet picked at his food with his fork as he watched me.

  “How is school?” I asked him. He only came home for the weekend because he knew my mother was about to die. I told him I didn’t want him to disrupt his schooling for me, but he insisted.

  “Donya,” he sighed. “Stop.”

  I was chewing chicken that I was sure tasted delicious since Sam had made it, but it was like cardboard in my mouth. I had to chew an extra few times and force it down with half a glass of tea.

  “Stop what?” I asked after I was sure the food wouldn’t get lodged in my throat. There wasn’t much room for swallowing with the big knot in there that had been there since my mother’s last breath.

  “Stop,” he said in a tone that would normally have me halting whatever action I was doing.