Passionate Rivals

by Radclyffe

  “Do yours,” Emmett ordered, rolling off and pushing down her jeans in one motion. Whatever she’d had on underneath the denim disappeared. She chucked her T-shirt behind her. Nothing under that either. For an instant, Syd could only stare. Emmett naked was a glory.

  “Syd.” Emmett’s tone was impatient as she tugged Syd’s shorts down.

  Galvanized, Syd yanked off her tank and her bra and grasped Emmett’s shoulders. She pulled Emmett down, needing to cover her nakedness with Emmett’s skin, needing to drown again.

  Emmett was there, every firm, hot, glorious inch of her, demanding Syd let down the barriers between them and take her in. Syd couldn’t say no. Not now, not when the need was so hard on her.

  She opened for her, found Emmett’s hand, and drew it down between her legs. She arched when Emmett’s fingers found her, cried out when Emmett stroked her, and came apart when Emmett filled her.

  So deep, so hard, so unexpectedly fast she couldn’t breathe.

  Emmett was everywhere, around her, inside her, kissing and stroking and soothing. The need only coiled again, tighter and deeper than before. Syd came again, for once not thinking, not remembering, not holding back a single emotion.

  Syd took a deep breath, felt it shudder in her lungs, took another, pressed her cheek against Emmett’s breast. Her face was wet. Emmett’s heart beat hard and fast.

  Emmett brushed away tears with trembling fingers. “Syd. Hey, baby. You okay?”

  “Sorry,” Syd whispered. “That was…unexpected.”

  Emmett sucked in a breath and let out a strangled laugh. “I’ll say. You’re amazing.”

  “I’m something,” Syd said unsteadily. “I don’t…I don’t usually…I never…not like that.”

  “I want to make you come again,” Emmett murmured. “About a thousand times. That’s how beautiful you are.”

  “I don’t think I’ve got too many more like that in me,” Syd said.

  “Oh,” Emmett said, that arrogant note back in her voice. “I bet we can find a few hundred or so.”

  Syd tilted her head back, focused on Emmett’s eyes. “I’m not altogether sure I can take that again.”

  Emmett took a long breath. “Okay. For now.”

  “Emmett…” Syd began.

  Emmett kissed her. “Let’s not talk.”

  “Mmm. Let’s not,” Syd whispered. Emmett’s kiss was a reprieve, permission to go on not thinking for at least a little while longer. A moment later, Syd braced her hands on Emmett’s shoulders, pushed her back, and murmured, “Thank you. Thank you for this.”

  Astride Emmett’s middle, she framed Emmett’s face and kissed her mouth, her neck, and the hollow between her breasts. Moving lower on the soft worn wool, she nestled between Emmett’s thighs and rubbed her cheek over the soft skin of Emmett’s thigh. She found Emmett’s hands, linked their fingers, and took her with her mouth, drawing out their pleasure as long as Emmett would let her. When Emmett exploded, she drank her in. Drowning again.

  For endless moments, Emmett was everything.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Syd smiled as Emmett’s fingers drifted over her breast, tickling one second and sending electric shocks of arousal through her in the next. The bedroom had warmed as the afternoon sun slanted in, and she might have dozed a little. Or maybe she’d just turned off for a while. She had no idea of the time.

  “I didn’t snore, did I?”

  “Not once,” Emmett murmured.

  “Oh, good. I thought maybe I fell asleep. Sorry.”

  Emmett laughed. “No complaints here. If I wore you out, I must be doing something right.”

  Syd rolled her eyes, the only part of her body she currently felt like moving. “Ego much?”

  “Mmm. Just highly motivated.”

  Emmett’s fingers were definitely not tickling her now. Syd’s nipple hardened and her thighs tensed. She couldn’t argue with the results. “I’d say coma is more accurate.”

  “Even better.”

  “We should probably get dressed,” Syd said.

  “Why?” Emmett asked lazily, tracing Syd’s navel and making her shiver. “It’s really nice just like this.”

  “We’re naked in the middle of the floor,” Syd said.

  “I know. Sorry about that.”

  Syd finally got up the strength to turn her head. Emmett leaned on an elbow, grinning down at her. Syd frowned. “What are you sorry about?”

  “The part where we’re on the floor. You can’t be too comfortable.”

  Syd stretched. “You know, I actually feel great. I don’t know why. I ought to at least have blanket burn.”

  Emmett shifted over her, sliding one bare thigh between Syd’s legs. “We could work on that some more if you want to. I ought to be able to deliver another episode of brain melt.”

  “No doubt, O spectacular one.” Laughing, Syd pushed Emmett up and off. Emmett didn’t go too far, and she was glad. She liked touching her even more than she liked Emmett’s hands on her. She laced her fingers with Emmett’s. If they started again, she wasn’t sure she’d want to stop, and they might not be alone much longer. “I need a bit of a rest.”

  “Later then.”

  Syd sighed. Saying no was hard, especially when her body was saying yes. Loudly. “We really should get dressed. Someone’s going to come home sooner or later.”

  “We could put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door.”

  “Oh yeah, that would be subtle.”

  Emmett shrugged. “Do we care?”

  When Syd didn’t answer, her grin disappeared and a serious look came into her eyes. “Do you care?”

  “I don’t generally like to make announcements about my private life,” Syd said quietly. And she really wasn’t up for Zoey walking in on them. Maybe there was nothing going on between Emmett and Zoey, but she doubted Zoey would be overjoyed to see them together. And besides, they weren’t together. Why send the wrong message? Why complicate everything when everything was already so damn complicated?

  “You mean you don’t want anyone to know we’ve been together.” Emmett’s tone was cool and flat. The accusation Syd expected to hear, and probably deserved, was missing, and she had a momentary twinge of remorse. Damn it. Why did everything have to come apart so quickly? Her fault. Again.

  Syd sat up, found her tank top in the pile of clothes on the floor, and pulled it on. Somehow, she felt better having a serious conversation when she wasn’t naked, and it looked like serious was about to happen. She shouldn’t be surprised by that. She and Emmett had just had sex. They could hardly pretend nothing had changed, and she couldn’t just walk away without saying…something.

  “I can’t think of any reason why we need to tell our friends that we had sex.” There, that was neutral enough. And slightly cowardly.

  “Is there some reason to pretend we didn’t?” Emmett pulled on her jeans and leaned back on the blanket, her arms braced behind her. She hadn’t bothered with the shirt, and Syd instantly forgot what had seemed important to discuss a few seconds ago.

  Irritated at her lack of focus and plain old good sense, she shook the haze from her brain. “What is it you want, Emmett?”

  “I thought I made that pretty clear,” Emmett said. “I want you. A lot.”

  “I got that part of it.” Syd couldn’t help the quick smile. “And it was wonderful. You were wonderful. We had sex. It was great. I think you could probably tell.”

  Emmett smiled for an instant. “I thought so too.”

  “But? What else?”

  Emmett was quiet for a long while. Eventually, she pulled on her T-shirt and sat forward, her arms resting on her knees, her hands dangling loose.

  Anyone who didn’t know her would think she was relaxed, but Syd knew better. Emmett radiated the calm stillness that came over her when she was waiting for a trauma to hit the admitting area. Syd knew because she felt that way too. Every muscle tight and vibrating, set to snap into action.

  Finally Emmett said, “I
t wasn’t just sex.”

  “How could it be anything else?” Syd said gently. “The way our lives are right now, we barely have time to do anything except work. The toughest year of our residency is coming up soon.”

  “It wasn’t just sex because I’ve never forgotten you or the way I felt about you five years ago.”

  Emmett’s gaze bore into her with effortless intensity, and Syd’s stomach tightened. She’d known this was coming, of course. They couldn’t avoid talking about what had happened forever. She’d just had hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. “I’m sorry for the way things ended. You deserved so much better.”

  Emmett made a face as if that wasn’t what mattered to her.

  “I never should’ve slept with you then, either,” Syd said quietly.

  “Are you saying you shouldn’t have slept with me today?”

  “No…I don’t know. Maybe.” Syd blew out a breath. “I’m not saying this very well. Sex isn’t simple with you. It never was.”

  “We never needed to have the talk back then.” Emmett grinned ruefully. “We were mostly too busy ripping each other’s clothes off to worry about talking.”

  “I know. And that was pretty much my fault.”

  “Oh, come on, Syd,” Emmett said, the first hint of heat in her voice. “There were two of us there, remember? I was so…blown away by you, all I could think about was being as close to you as I could get. Every time I saw you, I wanted you naked.” She ran a hand through her hair, shook her head. “Pretty much still do.”

  “Okay, so we’ve got some kind of chemistry.”

  “Understatement.”

  “Now is a bad time for chemistry experiments. You know that as well as I do.” Syd rubbed her face. “Maybe not for you. Maybe it’s just me, but making the switch here from Franklin, being in limbo over my position next year, seeing you out of the blue—it’s a lot for me to handle.”

  “Okay then, we’ll go slow.”

  Syd took in the room and gave Emmett a pointed look. They’d mostly gotten dressed except for their sneakers and sandals, but that along with the remains of the impromptu picnic and the rumpled blanket screamed We just rolled around together. “You really think so?”

  “Okay, maybe not slow-slow, but we don’t have to figure everything out right now. We slept together, and I’m really, really hoping we can sleep together again, but we don’t have to know everything that’s going to happen for the rest of our lives right away.”

  “You realize it’s a really bad idea, with the two of us in competition for next year, and everything from before.”

  Emmett sighed with exasperation. “We could clear up the before part pretty easily. All you have to do is tell me what the hell happened. Where did you go? Why didn’t you tell me? And why the hell didn’t you call me once in all this time?”

  “You see? That’s a whole lot of whys.” Syd stared at her hands. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  Syd took a long breath. “Because in order to explain, I have to talk about a lot of things I would just rather not. Things I’ve worked really hard to leave behind me.”

  “I’m not sure where that leaves us, then,” Emmett said.

  “Right where we are now,” Syd said. “Where we probably shouldn’t be, getting involved again.”

  “I was most of the way toward being in love with you back then, you know,” Emmett said quietly. “I never stopped.”

  “Emmett, I didn’t know. Everything—everything—happened so quickly, I didn’t think. I didn’t have time to think!”

  “It’s okay,” Emmett said, a distant expression crossing her face. She stood, gathered up the trash bag they’d filled earlier, and gripped it in one hand. “I don’t expect you to feel the same, and I didn’t tell you to put pressure on you. But I’m done pretending that I don’t have feelings for you. And I’m not going through what I went through before. If you’re not interested, I understand. But if you are, you’re going to have to do something about it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying you need to let me in or we don’t have anywhere to go.” Emmett stopped in the doorway. “I really hope you remember one of these days.”

  Syd closed her eyes as Emmett’s footsteps faded on the stairs. When the house was quiet once more, she folded the blanket, stacked it by the door, and went to the kitchen to attack the boxes. If she kept busy, she could avoid thinking.

  * * *

  Emmett retreated to the back porch after she left Syd’s side of the house. She thought about having another beer, but it was only four in the afternoon and she didn’t really feel like one. A beer was meant for relaxing, winding down, letting go of the pressure and stress. Since she only got home from the hospital every couple of days, enjoying a beer was a pretty intermittent experience. And nothing was really going to relieve the way she was feeling right now, and she wasn’t sure she really wanted anything to.

  Maybe feeling a little bit of the all-over ache, like a physical and emotional bruise rolled into one, she’d felt the last time Syd had pulled away from her would be a good reminder, or an object lesson, or something like that. The message sure was clear. Syd wasn’t over the past and Emmett was part of it. As much as she wanted to help Syd deal with whatever still haunted her, she couldn’t. Syd wouldn’t let her. That’s what she needed to accept. Syd didn’t want her close. And being close was exactly what Emmett wanted. What she’d always wanted with Syd.

  Not just the great sex, but the amazing way everything inside her seemed to communicate, to fit, so effortlessly with Syd’s energy and passion and need and desire. All the things she’d never experienced with anyone else before or after. She wanted those things with a woman. She needed those things. Maybe she didn’t deserve them, but she was willing to try to. She was willing to try.

  Syd wasn’t. Or couldn’t.

  Emmett wasn’t even angry with her. How could she be angry at someone who was hurting? She sighed, watching a robin hop around the base of the big maple, busily, maybe even blissfully, going about the business of living. She’d been crazy to think that either of them, her or Syd, could just go on sleeping together without thinking about the future. She wasn’t made that way. Syd sure wasn’t. Living on sex was a lot of fun, and she hoped that it would be for the rest of her life, but during the in-between times, life was a lot of other things. Quiet moments, challenges, thoughts and feelings and, most of all, connecting.

  The screen door opened and closed and footsteps approached behind her. Zoey sat down beside her and popped the top on a Coke.

  “Hey. How was your day?”

  Emmett laughed. “Interesting.”

  “Did you leave those steaks in the fridge? ’Cause I covet one.”

  “Syd brought them. They’re for anyone.”

  “Oh yeah? Huh. I saw the neighbors had arrived.”

  Emmett tensed ever so slightly. “Yeah, Syd showed up early this morning to start unpacking.”

  “Dani’s over there now too. Haven’t seen Jerry.” Zoey laughed. “Sadie is probably wearing him out.”

  “Good for them.”

  “Yeah. True.” Zoey took a long pull on her Coke. “Not jealous or anything, but I’m glad someone’s getting some.”

  Emmett stared into the yard. The robin was gone. “Your night go okay?”

  “Pretty much.” Zoey closed her eyes and let out a long luxurious sigh. “And I am not on call for the next thirty-nine hours.”

  “Any big plans?”

  “Not really,” Zoey said pensively. “You?”

  Emmett shook her head. “No.”

  Zoey opened one eye and gave her a look. “So, what’s going on?”

  “Absolutely nothing.”

  “Absolutely something,” Zoey countered.

  “No,” Emmett said flatly. “Nothing’s going on.”

  The door behind them opened again. Emmett didn’t turn, expecting Hank. No one joined them, and she held her breath.

>   “Hey,” Syd said quietly.

  Emmett’s heart actually skipped a beat when she started breathing again. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but as long as she didn’t drop dead on the spot, she didn’t care. Syd stood just outside the closed screen door looking uncertain. Syd never looked uncertain.

  “Hi,” Emmett said.

  Zoey lazily glanced over her shoulder. “Hey.”

  “Zoey,” Syd said quietly, “would you mind if I talked to Emmett alone. That is, if Emmett doesn’t mind?”

  “Of course I don’t mind,” Emmett said quickly.

  Zoey’s head swiveled between Emmett and Syd, her eyebrows rising. “I was going to head next door and see if you guys needed any more help, anyhow. Dani still there?”

  “Yes,” Syd said, her gaze on Emmett.

  “See you guys later then,” Zoey said.

  “Thanks,” Syd said quietly. She sat down on the top step where Zoey had been a few seconds before, turned toward Emmett, and clasped her hands around her bent knees. “You’re right. You deserve to know.”

  Emmett shook her head. “You know what, Syd, I don’t. It was a long time ago, and whatever happened was obviously really hard. You don’t have to relive it now.”

  Syd’s smile was pained. “I know—that’s what I tell myself too. But we’re here now, and maybe we shouldn’t have slept together, but we did. For that, at least, I’m responsible. Just like I was then, and I was wrong to walk away.”

  “Maybe, and maybe not. But like I said, either way it was a long time ago.”

  “I’d like to…try…at least.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  Syd gave her a ragged laugh and pushed a hand through her hair. For an instant, Emmett saw her as she’d been a few hours before, open and eager and hungry for her. Just as she had been for Syd. Just as they’d been years before. The distance now was so painful she could barely breathe. But that was then and this was now.

  “Whatever you want to tell me, then,” Emmett said.

  “I’m not even sure where to start.” Syd’s expression grew distant. “I’ve tried and tried to find the moment it all started to go wrong.”