Finding Emma

by K. Ryan

  When he finally found the top of my underwear, he pulled the material down and kept kissing each new area of skin exposed to him until he finally slipped my shorts and my underwear down my thighs and sent them both flying over his shoulder.

  I wanted to laugh at the gesture to lighten the mood a little, but I could feel myself tightening up, pulling back just enough to suck in a hard breath. My body tensed underneath his touch and Finn didn’t miss a beat, lifting himself up to hover over me again to kiss me.

  “Em,” he whispered. “Look at me.”

  My eyes lifted up to him and found him smiling down at me, his thumb brushing the side of my cheek again.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. You’re sweet and funny and kind and I…” he swallowed tightly as he trailed off, looking down in between us. “I’m so lucky I found you...did I mention that you’re sexy as hell?” he shot me a sly grin and a breathless laugh escaped my lips, “I’m not gonna let things go too far tonight, but there is one thing I wanna do. Do you know what that is?”

  I think I had a pretty good idea and so I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice to work properly right now.

  “Good,” he nodded down to me and pressed a quick kiss into my lips. “I wanna make you feel good tonight, Em. It’s not wrong to feel that way and we’ve got all night. We don’t have to rush and I wanna spend my whole night right here if you’ll let me. Is that okay?”

  How in the hell could I argue with that? Because my voice died out on me, Finn must’ve taken my silence as answer enough and he grinned at me. Suddenly, I was wondering what that scruff would feel like on places other than my face. He wouldn’t get any protesting from me.

  The rest of my night rolled out in a Finn-fueled haze. True to his word, he dipped his head back down and my eyes just about rolled into the back of my head. Little tremors of warmth pricked the entire length of my body, starting up at my ears and snaking all the way down to curl my toes into the mattress.

  Complete ecstasy. That’s what this was. It coiled and twisted, turning tighter and tighter until my head fell back against my pillow and I gripped the sheets, finally letting out a low moan in response to his ministrations. Even just letting that noise free felt good.

  I didn’t care that he was seeing everything up close—everything those pictures had shown him just a few hours earlier—and I didn’t even care if anyone heard me as another low moan sighed from my lips.

  When my finger tips tangled in his overly-long hair to keep him right there, it was brazen and wanton and everything I hadn’t let myself feel in so long, but it just felt so good. I could feel myself beginning to let go and finally, something else I’d been needing for too long coiled tight and flung free.

  My whole body seemed to shatter underneath his touch, splintering right across the room. Part of me was on the pillow, another part landed at the foot of the bed, and I’m pretty sure the rest of me scattered around the carpet.

  I’d sort that out later because right now I was free-falling, slipping down into the hazy fog Finn created for me, pulsing over the edge, and spreading my arms out wide across the bed to take it all in.

  I was still coming down from that high when Finn fell back against the bed next to me. Seeing him in my bed, still fully clothed even after what he’d just done for me...it just wasn’t right. In fact, I needed to rectify that problem immediately and reached out to tug on the waistband of his shorts, but his hands shot out to my wrists to stop me.

  “What—”

  “Em,” he murmured. “I don’t need you to do that for me. This was about you. I already got everything I needed tonight.”

  My laugh came out breathlessly and I suppose that was just because I didn’t have much air left in my lungs. “Tomorrow night then?”

  He flashed me a wolfish grin. “I think I could handle that.”

  “Will you at least take off your shirt? I feel really exposed right now and I think it’s only fair you get at least a little naked too, don’t you?”

  “You know if you wanted me naked all you had to do was ask,” he smirked and promptly tugged at his T-shirt’s neck to pull it over his head.

  As soon as bare skin and hard muscle appeared on my bed, my fingers just had a mind of their own. There was no stopping it. They trailed up and down the hard planes of his chest before finally drifting down to the defined six-pack I found on his stomach. I loved the way my touch had his breath coming in harder, faster, and the way his smooth skin jumped at the contact—I was the one doing that to this gorgeous Browning Adonis...

  “I can see this is going to be a problem for you tonight,” Finn pushed out hoarsely. “Maybe I should put my shirt back on.”

  “You put your shirt back on and I kill you.”

  Even in the darkness, I could still see Finn’s eyes widening playfully and he crossed his index fingers in front of him as if that would somehow save him from my touch tonight. I was still laughing as his arms wound around me, tucking me against his bare chest, and smiled into his skin when his lips found my hair.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Two Weeks Later

  Pandemonium. That was the only word my brain could latch onto. I just couldn’t believe this many people showed up to see a bunch of guys running around in tight pants, kicking, and throwing balls to each other. Let’s not forget the tackling and all the slapping each other on the butt on and off the field. But who was keeping track?

  Our little caravan parked about three blocks away from Lambeau Field right on some random family’s lawn. They had a whole system down too—someone, decked out from head to toe in green and gold, stood at the end of the driveway waving a sign that read, $15 Parking, and after you pulled in to pay, another person, again decked out in assorted Packer gear, waved you in and directed you which way to go, and then yet another person met you at your designated lawn space to make sure you parked where they wanted right down to the inch.

  With two hours until kick-off, the modest-sized yard was already almost packed full. These people seriously had to make a killing every season. I guess there had to be some sort of silver lining for living so close to such a crazy, mob-infested part of Green Bay.

  “I still can’t believe you’ve never been to a game before,” Finn murmured in my ear as he draped a jersey-clad arm around my shoulders and led me off the random stranger’s lawn.

  “I guess I just never got around to it,” I laughed.

  “Well,” Slinger chimed in from behind us as we stepped out onto the street. “Someone had to pop your Packer cherry. Might as well be Finn.”

  Finn jerked around to smack Slinger on the chest with his free hand and pointed a finger at him. “Watch yourself.”

  Slinger’s hands flew up in the air, but that knowing smirk didn’t slip off his round cheeks as he put an arm around Mara, who was just shaking her head at the whole scene. We fell into step with the rest of our party—all the friends I’d met at Finn’s party two weeks earlier—and I finally took in the festivities surrounding me.

  The houses that weren’t capitalizing on their close proximity to the stadium were still packed full of people. Some lingered on the sidewalks, high-fiving people that walked by, others camped out in driveways, lawns, garages, some wore face paint, most sported various Packer jerseys, others proudly donned green and gold striped bibs, and a few brave, chubby souls ran around the street shirtless with numbers like 12, 52, 27, and 87 painted onto their chests to correspond, I assumed, with popular players.

  Of all the celebrating and tailgating around us, they all had a few very important things in common: the smell of charcoal and grease wafting from the driveways, beer bottles clanking, pre-game shows and/or loud music blasting through their speakers, and everyone, I literally mean, everyone, was celebrating and the game hadn’t even started yet. I could only imagine what the mood would be like post-game if the Packers won, or heaven forbid, if they lost.

  Wasn’t there a study done once about how domestic violence always i
ncreased in Wisconsin right after the Packers lost?

  Probably not the time or place to think about something like that.

  Besides, focusing on my surroundings rather than the eyes boring holes into my jersey-clothed back was a welcome distraction. Throughout our entire journey from Milwaukee to Green Bay, the majority of which was spent stuck in traffic on Highway 41, I’d had the misfortune of also being stuck in a car with Chase, Finn’s friend and the same friend who’d eyeballed me at the party two weeks ago.

  From the moment we got in the car, I’d felt his eyes on me, snaking over me, penetrating me. Little pricks of awareness slithered down my spine and caged me in. Even sitting in the passenger seat right next to Finn, who’d been our driver, wasn’t enough to create any semblance of safety for me. I’d tried to busy myself with listening to the small talk around me and even participating in it every once and awhile, but nothing worked. Those two hours on Highway 41 felt like the longest two hours of my life.

  Up until now, these last two weeks had mostly been spent basking in my new relationship with Finn. It was just so easy, so fun, and he was everything I’d always hoped I would find. We spent most of our nights sitting on my patio with Oliver in my lap, listening to music, drinking Matthews Brewing Co. beer, and talking until the sun went down.

  After righting the great wrong I’d committed when I’d left Finn’s family business without a tour of the brewhouse, we’d made the most of our time together. Finn had even treated me to a trip to the Milwaukee Public Museum to ‘indulge my inner history nerd and visit with local historical heroes’, as he called it and together, we’d discovered the joys of Drunk History, binge-watching every episode in just three days and laughing our asses off together. Sometimes we’d have a movie night with Slinger and Mara, sometimes we’d even go out to dinner with them too, but every night since the night I’d divulged the full details of my past, Finn slept in my bed.

  Everything hadn’t snapped back to the way it’d been before I left my hometown, but in some ways, my life was better. I was better...happier, calmer, and more at peace, which was a two-week miracle in the making. Life with Finn, and Oliver, too, wasn’t something I’d ever planned on, but I couldn’t imagine either of them disappearing.

  So, I hated the paranoia creeping its way into my happiness now. I hated that Chase couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from me, even if that was all in my head. I hated that the fear of being discovered, of being recognized, of being shamed all over again threatened what was supposed to be fun. After all, I was about to get my Packer cherry popped—wasn’t a girl’s first time supposed to be something she’d never forget?

  Here I was, ruining my first time. The story of my life...implosion after implosion by my own doing.

  It was one thing for Finn to know…but his friends? I wanted them to like me and to approve of me and because of that, they’d never know, at least not if I could help it.

  Ear-splitting hollering filled my ears and yanked me right from those dark thoughts. Thank God.

  “Whoo!” some random person decked out in Packer-themed pajamas yelled out as he proceeded to high-five every single person that passed by.

  Finn didn’t hesitate, jerking forward to slap hands with the crazy drunk guy, and then the guy held his palm out to me, waiting and yelling, “Go Pack!” I didn’t have much choice and tapped his hand with my open palm. When in Rome, you know?

  We made our way to Kroll’s, an old-fashioned restaurant where we would commence our true tailgating festivities and meet up with Noah and Cris. According to Finn, Kroll’s was a Green Bay institution, known just as much for its location as its greasy cheeseburgers and fries and as Finn paid my cover to get us inside the packed parking lot, I could see why: the restaurant was located directly across from Lambeau Field, a prime, no-brainer location for a pre-game blowout.

  The whole parking lot was fenced in and we had to push our way through the throngs of tailgaters, the majority of who, let’s face it, were already shit-faced at 10 o’clock on a Sunday morning. A band played “Don’t Stop Believin’” on a makeshift stage in the far corner of the parking lot and we had to weave around a few booths of people, naturally decked out in green and gold, selling everything from overpriced jerseys to cheap Mardi Gras beads. Somehow, in between getting some beers and finding a place to camp out, I caught sight of two long arms waving at us.

  “Oh, hey!” I tugged on Finn’s sleeve and pointed. “There’s Noah and Cris!”

  Cristina was already practically stampeding towards us, sidestepping through the pack, pun intended, of tailgaters and she threw her arms around me when we met her in the middle.

  “Em!” she yelled in my ear above the music. “I’m so happy to see you! I never get to see you this much!”

  “I saw you two weeks ago,” I laughed. “I wouldn’t exactly say that’s a lot.”

  “Oh, whatever,” she batted a hand at me, but then her attention moved to the action next to us, where Noah and Finn were interacting for the first time.

  This was the real moment I’d been dreading: the inevitable meet and greet. For obvious reasons, I legitimately feared for Finn’s life. The way I saw it, this could only play out one of two ways. Noah would size Finn up, gruffly shake his hand, and make small talk for the rest of the day, barely tolerating who he would undoubtedly view as a guy who could potentially hurt me. Or Noah would take one look at Finn, hate him on sight, and spend the rest of the day shooting not-so-subtle daggers at Finn’s unsuspecting and well-intentioned head. Either way, I didn’t necessarily see this ending well for anyone involved.

  That was why when Finn thrust his hand out for Noah to shake, I had to fight the urge to watch the whole encounter through my fingers. Noah, in full alpha-peacock mode, glanced down at the outstretched hand and then back up at Finn with calculating eyes.

  “Hey, man,” Finn greeted him good-naturedly. “It’s really great to finally meet you.”

  My brother eyed my boyfriend carefully, sweeping his gaze over every inch of Finn’s face in search of some sign of duplicity from him, but nothing about Finn was fake or dishonest. Noah had to see that and sure enough, not even a moment later, he thrust his hand out to shake Finn’s still-outstretched hand.

  I blew out the breath I definitely knew I was holding and even Cris exhaled loudly next to me. Then she reached around me, laying the charm on thick to make up for her husband’s frosty reception, and smiled wide at Finn.

  “Hey! I’m Cristina!” she told him as Finn shook her hand. “You have no idea how excited we are to meet you! Em’s told us nothing but great things.”

  At that, Finn’s eyes flew to me and even in the presence of my family, that lopsided grin crinkling his sky-blue eyes hit me right in between the legs, sending hot tingles all the way down to my toes. This was probably a bad time to reminisce about the night before in bed when he’d...Finn winked at me as if he knew exactly where my dirty mind went, right in front of my brother and sister-in-law no less, and it was right about then that my eyes flicked back to my brother in a panic.

  Noah had observed our entire exchange with narrowed eyes, but when Finn threw an arm around my shoulders and tucked me in a tight, protective embrace, that stormy expression gathering in his eyes lightened considerably. Cristina, on the other hand, looked like she was having a hard time keeping from clapping her hands together in glee.

  Thankfully, the rest of our tailgate experience flew by with a few more beers, more loud music and unfortunately the return of “Green and Yellow” by Lil’ Wayne blasting from the speakers, and Slinger and Cristina grooving their hips in ridiculous unison with each new song leading up to our departure from Kroll’s. When it was time to head across the street to the stadium, we waited our turn to cross the street with the help of our friendly neighborhood Green Bay police officers waving the traffic through.

  I didn’t even really have much time to let all the people I was literally rubbing elbows with needle any anxiety because there was just so
much going on...so much to look at, so many drunk people to laugh at. Because of the sheer size of the clusters of people flocking towards the security line, I’d even been able to put Chase’s lingering ominous presence out of my mind, which was really saying something. Any jitters I might’ve had flew to the wayside because here in Lambeau Field, all you had to do to blend in was wear the home colors.

  As we stood in the snail-paced security line, Cristina treated our entire group to the latest pictures of my beautiful little niece and I could feel Noah’s eyes on us the entire time while Finn, hopefully none the wiser, stood behind me with his hands resting over my shoulders.

  “Oh, Em,” Cris called out to me when she swiped past a recent picture I’d sent her of Oliver. “How’s your little kitty doing? Is he feeling okay?”

  “Is everything okay?” Heather asked.

  “He’s gonna be fine,” I told them firmly, telling myself that if I said it enough times, I would have to convince myself it was true.

  “What was that thing he has called?”

  I knew Cris meant well, but referring to it as Oliver’s ‘thing’ ruffled my feathers a little. Luckily, I had some backup.

  “It’s FIV,” Finn answered for me from over my shoulder and when Cristina’s eyes widened in melodramatic horror, he jumped to the rescue yet again. “It’s not as bad as it sounds. I mean, it’s not great, that’s for sure, but he’s got a great owner who’s watching him like a hawk, so he’ll be absolutely fine.”

  Cristina’s gaze flipped back to me for just a second and then her eyes settled on her husband, who still observed in scary silence.

  “I’ve never heard of that before,” Heather mused as we moved a hair up in line. “Is he gonna be sick all the time though?”

  This time, I jumped in to answer. “The vet said he needs to stay stress-free as much as possible, but as long as I bring him in immediately when I notice something’s not right, keep him on a good diet and give him his multivitamin treats, and make sure he’s healthy, he should be okay.”