“Why does it have to be all that? Why can’t we be what you can give, what I can give. It can be casual. Why can’t we just try?”
“Because I don’t do this,” he said, motioning between us. “I’ve wanted to kiss you from the second I saw you, Cooper, and I figured I’d have your legs on my shoulders and your head hitting the wall that first night in New Orleans.”
I swallowed, heat rushing from somewhere in my core up to my cheeks.
“And I don’t say that out of disrespect,” he added quickly. “Because I realized almost immediately when you got in my car that you aren’t that kind of girl… You aren’t like any kind of girl I’ve ever met.”
Some of his anger slipped away then, his eyes brighter, voice softer.
“I also realized that none of the rules I’ve set in relationships before you would work anymore. Not with you. I can’t disconnect from you, and I can’t treat this like it’s casual because it’s not. You’re not. And I can’t—“ His voice broke, his eyes shutting tight as he shook his head before they popped back open again. “There are so many things I want to do to you, Cooper.” He said it quietly, like it hurt, like it was ripping him apart from the inside. “Things you’ve never experienced, but I can’t. Because you deserve more than that, more than what I can give you.” He pushed back off the wall, his eyes falling to the floor. “More than me.”
Emery’s back was to me, one hand covering his mouth as he looked out the window across our room.
“But I want you,” I whispered, pressing my hands into the wall behind me. I used it for leverage to stand taller before crossing the space between us. Hesitantly, I wrapped my arms around him from behind, my forehead burying into his back as he let out a pained sigh.
“You don’t know me,” he countered, voice rough. “And if you did, you’d be running right now.”
His journal entries flashed in my mind, and I shook my head against the warmth of his back. If only he knew.
“How do you know that if you don’t give me the chance?”
I moved around him, my hands sliding from his waist to hook behind his neck. I pulled him down into me, our eyes closing together, foreheads touching like they had the night of our first kiss.
“Try, Emery. That’s all I’m asking. Let me in on the bad days, in here,” I said, tapping his temple before my fingers trailed down over his chest. “And maybe, in time, here, too.”
“And if I can’t?”
I swallowed, but then pulled back until he opened his eyes, faking my next sentiment as best I could and punctuating it with a shrug. “Then you better at least give me the best damn casual sex of my life.”
He smirked, but the curve on his lips died quickly, his eyes igniting with a mixture of passion and warning. My fingers tangled behind his neck, and I took the last step, closing every inch of space between us as I looked up at him.
“Kiss me,” I whispered. “And this time, don’t stop.”
Emery blew out a breath, hands moving to frame my face. I closed my eyes as soon as his skin hit mine, mouth falling softly open, chin tilted up, waiting. His thumb brushed my jaw line before the pad of it skated across my bottom lip, and he groaned, making my eyes flutter open.
His honey eyes were locked on my lips, his brows bent together as he shook his head like he was about to commit a crime that would put him away for life. He swallowed, catching my eyes for just a second before he caved, a guilty man accepting his punishment as his mouth fused with mine.
And though I would have sworn it was impossible, he tasted even better the second time.
The room pulled away and snapped back in a rush, my hands flying into his hair as he lifted me. I wrapped my good leg around him, hiking the other thigh as high as I could before his hand slipped under it for support. He was still scolding me with hot, unapologetic kisses as I rolled my body into him, doing everything I could to get closer, to get more.
When my back hit the puffy comforter of his bed, my hair fluttered out around me, every inch of us sinking deeper into the bed as Emery kissed my neck. His hands were hard on my hips, gripping with a force that made me gasp his name. He told me he wanted me with that grip, confessed his sins with another kiss, and with a groan low in his throat and a roll of his hips against my middle, he threw every reason he should stop out our window and down to the Vegas strip.
Emery slid my dress up and over my hips, exposing the simple thong I wore underneath, and when his fingers ran along the lacy fabric, he paused. His forehead hit mine, a frustrated grunt leaving his lips. I thought he was going to stop, but he simply slowed, his fingers more gentle as they traced the edge of my panties, his kisses softer on my lips.
“Wait here.”
In the next second, his warmth was gone, and I lay alone on the bed. I pulled my dress back down a little, my breaths as loud as a train while I watched Emery take his phone from his pocket. He pressed a few buttons, connecting to the speaker on the night stand, and then a soft acoustic song flowed out.
He seemed to be catching his breath as he removed his wallet from his other pocket next, and his eyes were on mine as he pulled out a condom, setting it next to his phone on the table. Then, he crawled back in between my legs, and with our eyes still watching, he kissed me.
With that kiss, everything slowed down — his lips, our hands, my breaths. Emery balanced above me on unsteady elbows, his eyes connecting with mine between each long, soft kiss.
It was my first time, but his shaky hands brushing my hair back told me he was just as nervous as I was.
My heart was the only thing still hammering, beating wildly, thoughts of what was to come rushing through me like a rip tide. He was going to touch me. He was going to touch me where no one had ever touched me before.
Emery pushed up from the bed, his arms stronger now as they held him up on either side of me. He watched me there for a moment, chest heaving, before he took a steady breath and leaned back until he was on his knees. His throat tightened as he swallowed, hands reaching down, palms flattening against the hot skin of my thighs before he pushed up. His wrists caught the hem of my dress, bringing it up with them, and I lifted my hips, my back, my neck, helping him until the dress was gone, discarded somewhere behind him, his eyes raking down my exposed body.
He wet his lips, fingers popping the buttons on his shirt loose one at a time before he tugged it off his shoulders. I’d seen that chest naked before, seen him in nothing but a towel after a shower, but it was different this time. This time, he was exposing that chest for me, for my hands, for my lips.
I sat up, my own hands trembling slightly as I unfastened his belt, the top button of his pants, sliding his zipper down with my eyes crawling up until they found his again. Emery towered over me, his pants undone now, and I traced every ridge and valley of his abdomen with my eyes first before my hands followed suit.
I’d never felt a man, not like that — not hard and hot and bare, not that close. Emery placed his hands over mine, guiding them up over his chest before he pulled my fingers to his lips. With a kiss to each hand, he pulled them up until they were above my head, and then his fingertips skated down my ribs, igniting another wave of chills. He pulled my small bralette over my head, my hair falling out of it in a waterfall down my back before he laid me down again.
I couldn’t grasp a single thought before it was knocked out by the next, my brain on overdrive as Emery kissed me. I felt him kick out of his shoes, and he balanced easily on one elbow and then the next as he maneuvered out of his pants, all the while pressing his wet lips against my skin. When it was just his boxer briefs against my thong, the hard length of him pressing into me, I inhaled a loud, sharp breath, shuddering beneath him.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
I nodded, arching into him. “Don’t stop.”
Emery pushed up again, sliding a hand down my left thigh until my leg was hooked over his arm, and then he slid his other hand down to the ankle of my prosthetic leg. His thumb pushed the
black pin with a pop, his brows furrowed in concentration, chest moving steadily with the rhythm of his breaths. His touch was soft as he gently removed the limb, the socks, the liner, placing each of them to the side with care before his thumbs hooked under the lace of my thong. And when every layer was gone, he sat back on his heels, shaking his head as his eyes roamed every inch.
“Goddamn, Little Penny.”
I blushed, fighting a smile as I reached for him, pulling him back down.
Emery granted my wish with a single, quick kiss before his mouth was moving down. He sucked the skin of my neck between his teeth, eliciting a hiss from me before his mouth found my breast next. And down he went, until the backs of my thighs were on his shoulders, and his lips were brushing the sensitive skin that no one else had ever seen.
My breath picked up speed then, having him below me, the sight of his mouth just inches from the most private part of me. Suddenly, I wondered if it would hurt. I wondered if the stories I’d heard were true. Would I bleed? Would it even feel good at all? But the thoughts were fleeting, muted in the next second by the tender, velvet skin of Emery’s lips on my skin.
His kisses were featherlight on my inner thighs and hips, each one moving closer and closer to where I ached the most. I rolled my hips, squirming under the touch, and when I thought I would spontaneously combust with anymore foreplay, Emery cast one last heated gaze up my body.
And then his mouth was on me, hot and wet and new, and all the pent-up energy left my lips in a loud, pleading moan.
I squeezed my eyes closed, fists tightening around where I gripped the sheets, hips rolling of their own accord. A flurry of foreign emotions blew through me as his tongue worked, my breaths coming so hard I felt lightheaded. There was some sort of heat building low in my stomach, a numbness lashing out from it like the tips of fire, reaching down to my toes before it would retract again. For some reason, I wanted to catch that fire, but it was just out of reach.
Emery slowed, his tongue flat and hot against my core as one of the hands gripping my thighs snaked under his mouth, instead. He gazed up at me, eyes wide and worried and on fire all at once, and then the tip of his finger brushed my entrance. It tickled the wetness there, and when he slipped it slowly inside me, centimeter by centimeter, a burning rush of pleasure seared from the point of contact through every nerve in my body.
I gasped, back arching off the bed, and Emery withdrew the finger slowly, pressing it back inside with careful measure.
“Are you okay?” he asked again, and I could barely creak an eyelid open long enough to nod before my head was back on the pillow, my knuckles white from twisting the sheets so hard.
He worked me gently, and I was stretching for him, opening in a way I’d never been opened before. I didn’t understand it, how he knew how to touch me there, in a place never touched before — not even by me. It burned at first, a strange, almost numbing fire that faded more with every push inside until I was okay, and then I was more than okay, and then I was chasing that feeling again — one I couldn’t quite understand, but that felt closer and closer with every second.
Emery withdrew his finger all the way before his middle finger joined the first, and I peered down at him, my eyes as wide as his this time as he gently slipped them both inside. The burning was back, but more fleeting this time, the sensation only there for a moment before it was gone again. And when he pressed them a bit deeper inside me, the tips of his fingers curling, his mouth lowering to the sensitive skin above his fingers again, I whimpered.
My breaths were loud and tight, my eyes squeezed shut, and I was reaching for that fire again. It was so close, the lashes coming closer together now until all of a sudden, the flames caught, and my entire body burned in a rush. I moaned so loud one hand flew to cover my mouth, but Emery ripped it away, his mouth relentless on the part of me that seemed to be the source of the fire, the spark that ignited it all.
And I realized then that this was it, the feeling I’d always wondered about, the forbidden and foreign rush that came with a man touching me the way Emery was. I rode out my first orgasm, legs shaking and heart racing. It was an out-of-body experience and yet I was present for every blazing second of it.
It seemed to give me every ounce of energy available in my body all at once before it washed away, quickly and fluidly, and my legs fell lax, hips opening, hands releasing the sheets. I panted, a sore awakening touching each muscle as Emery withdrew his fingers and kissed me once more, light and tender, before moving his way back up.
His shoulder shook as he leaned his weight on it, his lips fusing with mine as my breaths evened out.
“Oh my God,” I breathed into his mouth. “I think I… did I just…”
“You came,” he said, his teeth nibbling at my bottom lip. “How did it feel?”
“Incredible,” I breathed the word on a laugh, and Emery smiled, kissing me softly.
He pushed back carefully until he was standing, and when I saw the red stains on his fingers, my eyes shot open for a completely different reason. Emery followed my gaze, holding up his clean hand to stop me from speaking. “It’s okay, it’s fine, it’s normal,” he assured me. “One second.”
He slipped into the bathroom, my heart still thumping hard and loud in my chest until he returned with a damp wash cloth and clean hands. Emery crawled onto the bed again, one forearm sliding under my shoulder, hips resting between mine. With careful movements, he reached his free hand between us with the cloth, the warm wetness of it running the length of me gently as he watched me.
“You are so, so beautiful, Cooper,” he whispered as he cleaned me, and then his lips were on mine, the cloth gone and dropped somewhere on the floor. He rested between my hips again, the hardness of him pressed against me, and though I’d felt it the night we’d kissed in Colorado, this was different. He wanted me. He wanted me so badly his body was reacting to me chemically, in a way he couldn’t control, and it filled me with an unexplainable yearning to make him feel what I’d just felt.
“I want you,” I whispered, a bit unsure of my own voice. “I want you inside me.”
Emery swallowed, his arms shaking again, forehead pressed to mine. I’d felt so spent, but when I bucked my hips up to meet his and he pressed against the tender center of me, want took over. My hands ran the length of his shoulders, fingertips digging into the flesh as I pulled him closer.
It was like I was a precious vase, historic in nature, beautiful and regal, and he was the handler. He was so afraid of marking me, of leaving fingerprints or worse — breaking me. But I had faith in his steady hands, in the way he watched me, and I rocked into him again, my lips finding his.
He kissed me in return, then just as he’d worked his way out of his pants, he did the same with his briefs, eyes on mine the entire time. Our lips were still connected as he felt for the condom on the table, and I tasted myself there, a sweet and tangy mix of him and me that fueled the fire in my stomach again.
The song changed on the speaker just as Emery settled between my hips, his eyes searching mine, a new acoustic melody filling the room. One hand slipped between us, positioning him at my entrance, but he paused.
God, the two creases between his brows were enough to kill me in that moment. He was looking at me like his next move would kill me, and maybe it would. But I wanted to die in his arms that night.
So, with the heel of my right foot, I pressed into his backside, and he took the cue, eyes fluttering shut along with mine as he filled me. Slowly, inch by aching inch, until we were together in every way we physically could be, in every way I’d never been with a man before.
Emery groaned as he retracted before pressing into me again, this time hitting me a little deeper, the searing pain I’d felt before back again. I opened for him, nails digging into the muscles of his back as I adjusted to the new sensations. I was full, so full, every flex of his hips rocking me with a new rush of all-consuming pleasure. It was born where we touched, spreading through my entire
body in waves all the way to my toes, to my breasts, escaping as little pants from my open lips before a new wave followed right behind it.
“Still okay?” he whispered, kissing me softly as he rocked into me again.
I cracked an eyelid open. “Mmm.”
“Are you in pain?”
He rocked in slowly again, and I squeezed my eyes tighter.
“A little, but I’m okay.”
And I was. I was more than okay. I understood why he kept asking, and in a way, it made me want him more. He was so gentle, so reverent, like being the first man to touch me was the highest privilege he’d had his entire life.
Just like with his fingers, every new thrust opened me more, the pain fading slowly until it was just the sensation of being full. More than anything, I felt overwhelmed with pleasure — like there truly was just too much of it. It was everywhere — on his lips when they kissed me, flowing from his hands where they touched me, in the air around us. I’d never experienced anything like it, and I never wanted it to end. It was all consuming, the indulgence that came from him being inside me. I never understood before, I never could have comprehended it until I’d experienced it for myself.
I would never be the same again.
Emery’s lips fused with mine again as he found a rhythm between my thighs, and I tried desperately to hold onto every sensation, every memory of my first time. I listened to the song playing, the roughness of the artist’s voice, the sultry notes from his guitar. I tasted Emery’s lips, his tongue, felt the weight of him on top of me, inside of me. I cataloged each and every moment, saving them for later, forever.
“You have no idea how hard it is for me to take this easy,” he groaned in my ear, another thrust hitting even deeper as I gasped from the feel of it.
Summer Romance Box Set: 3 Bestselling Stand-Alone Romances: Weightless, Revelry, and On the Way to You Page 73
