by Vi Carter
Suddenly, Emmett took a massive blow to the face, and I watched him hit the floor. My heart slammed against my chest, as my stomach coiled in on itself. The crowd roared for him to get up, but he curled in, and covered his head, as Bulldog kicked him. Each kick felt so fucking personal. I wanted to stop the fight. Once again, I looked at the suits, and Emmett’s father only watched as someone kicked the shit out of his son, a hint of a smile on his face. This was madness. I joined the rest of the crowd and screamed for Emmett to get up.
But he didn’t, I watched with a shocked detachment as Bulldog continued his assault on Emmett.
It could have been five minutes or five hours before the announcer ended the fight and declared Bulldog the winner. I stared around me as paper was flung to the ground, the crowd protesting, saying the fight had been fixed. I felt emotionally drained. When I turned back around, Emmett was standing. How, I don’t know, but he was hunched in pain. I swallowed the emotion that rose in me just as Emmett looked up, and our eyes met. His face changed, and I froze as panic, anger, and fear played out on his bruised face before he looked away. My heart pounded, my stomach twisted as the crowd around us reacted. Some said he was still the champ to them, others gave their condolences, but I just couldn’t move, and didn’t as he slowly moved through the crowd around him towards me.
When we were shoulder to shoulder, I thought he was going to walk past me, but he stopped. “You need to leave, now.” The urgency in his voice had me wanting to ask why.
“Let me help you.” My voice sounded raw, and he looked at me.
“I don’t need your help. I want you to leave.” His tone was biting, and he walked away, leaving his hurtful words behind. I looked up at the crowd as they moved around me and after Emmett. I needed to leave. I could feel eyes on me, and when I looked up, the man I assumed to be Emmett’s father smiled at me. It was a smile that had me shivering. I didn’t return it but made my way quickly to the door.
Outside, the sun felt too bright, and I couldn’t make out specific sounds. My ears hadn’t adjusted from all the screaming and shouting. I glanced behind me to see two men looking directly at me. I didn’t pause or think. I ran as fast as my legs would allow. Glancing back, I squealed as they followed me. Shit.
I looked back again. They were close now, so I fired my purse at one of the men’s head, missing him completely. The moment cost me valuable seconds, and my wallet hit the cracked tarmac as I ran. A phone rang behind me, and I glanced back to see one of the men talking on the phone as he ran. The other man had stopped and now scooped up my purse. I focused forward and kept moving until the footsteps behind stopped. Looking back over my shoulder confirmed that they no longer followed me. Raindrops started to fall; I wiped the rain from my face and kept running.
My jumper and jeans clung to me from the heavy rain. I pushed my hair that had become plastered to my face out of my eyes. The rain came down in sideways sheets, making visibility hard. My phone buzzed in my hand. I stopped at a doorway, the red neon sign telling patrons that the Chinese restaurant was open. My stomach tightened as I answered the call.
“Where are you?” I wasn’t expecting the calm in Emmett’s voice. It scared the shit out of me.
“I’m in a doorway. Look I’m sorry for following–“
“Amber, where exactly are you?” I shivered as I poked my head out of the restaurant doorway, looking up I read the name on the sign.
“Rose Garden Chinese Restaurant,” I said.
“I know it. Don’t move.” I wanted to ask why, but he hung up. I moved deeper into the doorway as shivers took over my body. I looked out into the rain, no one was around. No one with a lick of sense would be, only me huddled like a homeless person. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to force some warmth into my arms.
“No loitering.”
“Ouch,” I told the small Chinese man, who had hit me with the door.
“No Loitering,” he repeated, in seriously broken English while waving a dishcloth at me, like I was a stray cat.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I folded my arms and he shook his head.
“No loitering.”
I pointed out into the rain, my arm getting soaked. “You can’t put me out in that.”
“I’ll call police,” he told me, he changed to Chinese as he spoke to someone behind the door. “Police are call,” he flicked the cloth at me again, he was asking for it to be wrapped around his neck.
“You’re such a gentleman,” I said sarcastically as I walked out into the rain. It was like stepping into a shower fully clothed. I huddled against it, which was pointless. A laugh bubbled up from my throat and I did something that was on my bucket list. No time like the present and all that jazz. I opened my arms, throwing my head back and I spun in a circle on the deserted street, in the rain.
I danced for all of twenty seconds before looking around me. Across the street stood a man, in a hoodie, his face covered in shadows, but he watched me, his hands dug deep into his pockets. I could pick him out anywhere. My breath hitched as Emmett removed his hands from his pockets and jogged across the road, the closer he got, the faster my heart pounded. A flustering feeling started in my stomach and increased to manic proportions when he reached me.
When he reached me, he stopped, his face visible for the first time. Jesus, he had really taken a beating. My hand moved to his face immediately. Maybe it was the nurse in me, or maybe it was because I cared about him. Either way, I never got to reach him; his fingers moved quickly circling my wrist, stopping me. I knew he could feel my heartbeat drumming, fast and heavy. Would he know what his touch did to me? He studied my face, his free hand moving some hair behind my ear. My breath caught at the intensity in his eyes. At once, he let my wrist go and both his hands disappeared into his hoodie pockets. “Come on, you’re freezing.” I trembled, but not from the cold.
He didn’t speak as we walked back to the hotel. He took me in a back door, and we rode a private elevator to the penthouse, which took up the top floor of the hotel. I stood right now in his marble hallway, shivering while standing in a puddle of rainwater that dripped off me. Emmett had moved deeper into the room, the layout used columns and furniture to separate it. He returned without his hoody, a white collared t-shirt stretched across his broad chest, as he handed me a towel, that I took and started to dry my face with as he watched me. “Do you have a death wish?” His question sounded harsh, but no anger leaked into his perfect features.
“I said I was sorry. It was stupid–“
“Yes, it was. And reckless.” Emmett took a step closer.
“Do you have a death wish?” I fired his question back at him. I was no longer drying myself; his words pissed me off.
When he didn’t answer me, I continued. “You stood and let a man use you as a fucking punching bag. I stood there…” I pushed my hair back away from my face, searching for the right word. “I felt so helpless watching you, knowing I couldn’t stop it.” Tears burned at the back of my eyes, my breath puffed out of me. Emmett still hadn’t spoken. “Answer me,” my voice raised slightly as I fought not to cry.
“You need to shower, you’re freezing.”
My hands trembled again, but this time it was the cold. “Fine. But this conversation isn’t over,” I told Emmett.
“Exactly, Amber. I haven’t even started.” I noticed how he controlled his words and his anger, and I swallowed. He didn’t speak as he led me to his bedroom, a huge bed took up most the room, double doors opened up into a ridiculous-sized bathroom. “Take a shower. Once you're dry, we will talk.”
He left, closing the double doors that led into his bedroom behind him, and I closed the ones into the bathroom. I didn’t wait for a second, but stripped down and got into the shower. The hot water initially made me shiver, but soon my body turned to jelly as it relaxed. My mind was like a freight train of questions and emotions. The biggest one was what was I doing? This world that Emmett lived in—was it really a world I wanted to step into? Yet m
y stomach tightened at the thought of walking away from Emmett. His bruised face filled my mind, and now all I wanted to do was make sure he was okay. I didn’t stay longer in the shower than I needed. Finishing up, I got out and wrapped a towel around me. My clothes sat on the ground, soaking wet, and I had no other ones with me. I left the bathroom and looked at the bed, hoping that a neat bundle of dry clothes waited for me, but the bed sat pristinely made; nothing waited for me. I wasn’t going to call Emmett.
Another set of double doors captured my attention, the frame was different, the wood darker. I opened it and found what I knew I would a ridiculously huge closet. The lights came on automatically. I didn’t linger, and went for the shirts hanging closest to me. I took the hanger off one of the many white shirts and slipped it on, smelling it. I had hoped it smelled of Emmett, but it didn’t. It was fresh from the dry cleaners. The whole closet smelled like it was just out of the dry cleaners. I dropped the towel as I moved deeper into his closet, looking for sweatpants.
“I never thought of clothes for you.”
I screamed like a Grade A girl. My hands clutched my chest, trying to calm down my beating heart. “Jesus, can’t you knock?” I told him while walking out of the closet. I picked up the towel on the way out, bending at the knee. My cheeks heated up with the thought of my nakedness under the shirt, and when my gaze met Emmett’s rueful look, I swallowed.
“Are you ready to talk?” he asked, as if standing in a closet with a girl in just his shirt was perfectly normal. Maybe for him it was, but I was freaking out and feeling exposed.
“Go for it,” I told him, trying to act natural and buy myself a few seconds as I left the closet before turning to face him. He closed the closet doors and when he turned, I examined his face again. My stomach twisted. He really had taken a bad beating, yet I knew his sides would be black and blue and even worse. They took most of the beating. “How are you feeling?” I asked him, conscious of my exposed legs that he was transfixed on. My cheeks heated right back up as his eyes snapped to me.
“I’m angry.”
I gave a snort/laugh. He didn’t sound angry, he didn’t look angry. Shit, I couldn’t even tell you what his angry face looked like. In three quick strides, he stood beside me, wiping the grin off my face.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
AMBER
“THIS ISN’T FUNNY. What you did has put you in danger.”
My chest rose and fell rapidly at the panic his words sent through me. I had craned my neck back to look up at him. “I know...” I said, looking away. He took a step back, and my legs turned to jelly. I sank down onto the bed. “I know...” I repeated as I thought of the two men who had chased me. They had my purse, my ID.
My breath halted as Emmett knelt down on his hunkers in front of me. “You keep saying that, Amber, but yet every time I try to keep you safe, you keep putting yourself in danger.” Butterflies erupted in my stomach at his closeness. My heart pounded at his words. I knew I had a terrible habit of throwing caution to the wind, but nobody except for Grace had ever really cared.
I swallowed a million emotions. “I’m sorry,” I said, but he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were now focused on the inside of my thigh that was very much on display. He used just one finger to push my leg open slightly, so he could get a better look at the tattoo. That one finger, one touch, had me on fire. The large shirt covered my vitals but stopped at my thigh.
“What does it say?” He asked. There was a slight edge to his voice that wasn’t there before.
He didn’t look at me as he continued staring at my tattoo. “My scars are when life tried to break me but failed,” I recited ,while my eyes burned with tears, and my breaths came out in shallow pants. Emmett looked at me now. He seemed uncomfortably closer, his face too close, his arms brushed my thighs.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyes tracing my face, and then settling on my eyes. I didn’t like talking about what nearly broke me, to anyone, but with him, and at this moment, I wanted to.
“I lost a baby.” Surprise filled Emmett’s eyes, his eyebrows raised slightly. He nodded his head, but didn’t say a word.
“She would have been three, now,” I told him, my heart hurting at each word that left my mouth. “I often wonder, would she have looked like me? I was going to call her Lily.” The first tear fell.
“That’s a beautiful name,” Emmett said with a sad smile. He was the first person I had ever told her name to. Not even Grace knew. Telling Emmett made Lily more real, and my throat burned.
“I used to imagine what it would be like when she said Mommy for the first time, or when she took her first step, would she have wobbled and fallen into my arms? Her little body warm and safe in my arms…” I closed my eyes, smiling against the image I had conjured of Lily. Warm hands touched my sides making me open my eyes.
“You are so strong,” Emmett told me, his soft smile and the tilt of his head made him appear vulnerable and young, not something I was used to seeing. It was as though he understood the pain that I had been through, because he had also faced that pain and won.
“I don’t feel it,” I said while wiping away the tears and the fantasy. “What about you, do you have a moment that tried to break you?” I asked, not wanting to talk about what happened to me.
Emmett stiffened. “I have lots of moments, Amber.” I shivered at the way he spoke my name, and I became even more aware of the very intimate position we were in.
“How do you cope?” I asked, searching his face.
“I made a list of everyone who wronged me,” he said. I nodded, I got that.
“Yeah, I did that once too,” I told him, and he smiled at me, my heart flipping, and warmth filling me in places that had my face reddening. I dropped his gaze. “I wrote down the names and burnt it,” I told him looking back up at him. His smile and amusement had fled.
“I don’t burn my list,” he told me, his eyes hooded.
The seriousness had me curious. “So, what do you do with it?”
“I mark off the ones that I kill.”
My heartrate skyrocketed. “We are speaking hypothetically, right?” I knew the answer; it was plain as day on his face.
“Are we?” He asked, and I didn’t want to answer him, so I asked something else.
“Why did you let that man beat you?” My hands once again reached for his face, but this time he didn’t stop me. When I gently touched his bruised cheek, his eyelashes fluttered closed, his head tilted slightly into my touch. My eyes examined his face, while my hands roamed it, his features so perfect, from his cheekbones to his strong jaw. His plump lips, a breath escaped them and when my fingers ran over his bottom one, his eyes flicked open. I stilled, wanting nothing more than for him to kiss me. His eyes lingered on my lips, and I wanted it so much so that I was shocked at the intensity I felt. I wanted Emmett, and finally I admitted to myself what Grace had recognized earlier. I was falling for him. This thought terrified me, but also made me feel so alive.
He moved in close to me, the only thing separating our lips was my finger. All I had to do was move it, so I did. Our lips brushed together. I flicked out my tongue to wet my lips. The contact was like a spark, igniting the fuse.
Fire filled my veins, rushing through my body as Emmett pressed his lips harder against mine, his own tongue flicking out. He moved deeper between my legs, and I opened them for him until his chest was flush with mine. My hands left his face and moved to his shoulders. The hard muscles shifting under my hands had me wanting more; I wanted to touch his skin. My hands hungrily reached for his top, breaking the kiss, and the spell that I was under. Emmett’s eyes were closed as he leaned in placing his forehead against mine. I was seriously trying to control my breathing. I sounded like a smoker who had run a mile.
Emmett finally opened his eyes, and a lazy, boyish grin grew on his face. My heart couldn’t take much more. I didn’t stop the stupid, goofy smile that broke out across my own face, causing him to go from a grin to a smile, too. My
stomach fluttered at the smile. It was what first drew me to him. Yeah, he was gorgeous, but it was more than that. I knew how rare his smiles were, yet he smiled at me.
After smiling at each other for a few moments, Emmett grew serious. “I need you to make me a promise,” he said, leaning away from me. I wasn’t going to say anything, but decided against it.
“It depends,” I told him, electing a small laugh from him that had my stomach in knots. If I told my symptoms to a doctor, they would tell me that Emmett wasn't good for my body.
“I need you to go away for a while.” Not what I had expected. I felt disappointed. Shifting so my legs moved closer together, Emmett sat back further, allowing me to gather my dignity.
“No,” I answered honestly as he stood.
“Don’t be difficult, Amber.” He folded his arms across his wide chest, and I crossed my legs, his eyes flickering along my bare skin like prodding fingers. I uncrossed them and placed my hands on my thighs. There was no way to sit that I wasn’t showing a lot of skin.
“I’m not being difficult, Emmett. I’m just not going,” I folded my arms, now. That felt slightly better.
“It’s too dangerous for you to stay here. You will end up dead and that…” He paused, swallowing.
“That…“ I prodded.
“That I can’t have on my conscience.”
Talk about a kick in the teeth. I stood, feeling like a fool. “It’s not. I’m not your problem.” The sting of humiliation burned across my cheeks.
“I’m trying to keep you alive.” Anger tainted his words.
