by L. D. Davis
“I felt really good about paying you back,” I said, pouting just a little bit.
“Aww,” she said mockingly. “Do you want me to pat your arm?”
“Maybe later,” I said. “I want to talk.”
I wanted to be honest with Emmy. I wanted to tell her how I felt. I wanted to know if she felt the same way, too. I wanted to admit to her that I was panicking inside last night, and made a foolish decision—twice. There was so much to talk about.
“Oh boy,” she said with a nervous smile. “Can I at least have my coffee first?”
“Are you incapable of talking with a cup of coffee?”
“The damn stuff dribbles out of my mouth every time I try.”
I grinned. “Maybe it's best to swallow rather than spit.”
“Are we still talking about coffee?” she asked, as her cheeks turned a little red.
“You're successfully avoiding an inevitable conversation,” I said, beginning to feel a little frustrated.
“You got me,” she said, throwing her hands up. “I'm so not ready for that conversation.”
“I'm not going to let this one go.”
“I know,” she said and bit her bottom lip. “Maybe we can just postpone it.”
I really believed she was biting on her bottom lip on purpose. It wasn’t a nervous bite. It was a come-hither-and-taste-these-lips kind of bite.
“I would need a damn good reason to postpone it,” I said looking at her lips. I already had a damn good reason to postpone it.
I put my hands on her ass and pulled her body to mine. I kissed her, expecting some resistance, but she kissed me back, hungrily. Her fingers were laced behind my head as her tongue swept through my mouth as if only my mouth could quell her hunger.
I released the button and then the zipper on her shorts and pushed my hand into her panties. Emmy groaned and she pushed herself against my hand as I worked a finger into her wet pussy. Suddenly she was throwing her head back, moaning loudly as her orgasm hit her. In a hurry to be inside of her, I pulled her shorts and panties off and quickly removed her shirt. In five seconds, my pants and boxers were hitting the floor and I was already lifting Emmy up and about to slide into her.
It would have been a good time to ask about birth control, but I already came inside of her twice last night. The damage was done.
I rammed myself into her. She screamed like she couldn’t scream the night before as she held onto me for dear life while I pounded her into the counter.
“You’re fucking. Killing. Me.” She said with each thrust.
“Do you want me to stop?” I paused deep inside of her. She had to be sore from last night, after not having sex for so long and then having me bucking into her so hard.
“Are you crazy?” she asked incredulously. Her fingers gripped my ass and she pulled me in deeper with a long groan. “If you stop I’ll kill you.”
“There’s my girl,” I growled and rammed into her.
Her hands were on the back of my head, kissing me again. I held her up with one hand and palmed a breast. Her nipple was hard and grew harder when I pinched it between my fingers. I could feel her sex contracting around my cock. I knew she was about to come again. I released her breast and reached down between us to thumb her swollen clit. She began screaming my name, reflating my ego and sending a warm, fuzzy feeling straight to my chest.
With her body wrapped around mine, I turned to carry her to the bedroom, but I never kicked my pants away and tripped over them. We ended up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and discarded clothing, laughing and moaning. Soon the laughter was gone as I began to move inside of her once again. I moved at a slower pace, just savoring how her soft body felt under my own.
I traced my thumb over her lips and her tongue flicked out for a taste. I groaned and pushed deeply inside of her. I let my eyes take in her features—her cute nose, the delicate curves of her cheekbones, her gorgeous eyes, every freckle, and the scar in her hairline that was not there two years ago. I had asked her about it once before but she blew me off, made it seem a trivial thing, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew in my gut that she got the scar from Kyle, along with so many others.
I was never going to let him hurt her again, regardless of where we went from here, but I wanted to know where we were going from here. I loved her, but honestly, I wasn’t sure if her reluctance was because of her personal demons or if she simply didn’t want me. Or both.
“I really love you,” I said as I moved inside of her. “Do you love me?”
“Always,” she said.
I really needed to hear her say it. I pressed inside of her harder and deeper, desperately searching for what her heart really felt.
“Really?” I whispered.
Deeper, harder, searching for the answers within her.
She looked me in the eyes and stroked her fingers through my hair. “I love you.”
She said it, and I loved hearing it, but there was something missing within the words. They weren’t empty, but they weren’t as full as my own were.
I kissed her hard and slammed into her so hard that she slid backward on the linoleum floor. I held her closer and slammed into her again as my fingers pressed into her skin.
I loved her so much. I wasted so much time trying not to and now I wasn’t sure if it was too late to have her. My heart was in her hands and I had the unsettled feeling she either didn’t know what to do with it or she was going to let it fall.
“You love me, but you don't want me,” I concluded, unable to hide the unbelievable sadness that I suddenly felt.
Emmy burst into tears and it killed me. I held her as tightly as I could hold her, only intending to comfort her. Her legs tightened around me and her hips grinded into mine. She was crying almost to the point of hysteria, but her vaginal muscles gripped me again and I responded by thrusting deeply inside of her. Her body shuddered violently as she began to come, sobbing my name and digging her fingers into my back. I fell apart, coming explosively inside of her as I had the most personal, raw experience of my life.
Breathless and heart sick, I wiped at Emmy’s tears.
“I didn't mean to make you cry,” I said.
She covered her face, trying to staunch the heavy flow of tears, but they kept coming. She sobbed as if whatever barrier that had been holding back her pain all of this time finally broke.
I got up and tried to console her. I had hammered her about Kyle Sterling and said some very cruel things to her over the past year, but she never cried. I didn’t know how to feel. I definitely felt sad for Emmy, but was she rejecting me or did she not know what she wanted from me yet? Did she just want this physical connection or did she want more from me? I needed to know.
My cell rang in my pants a couple of feet away, but I ignored it. It rang again and I ignored it again. I didn’t want to let Emmy go. The least I could do after failing her before was to hold her. When Emmy’s phone rang a moment later, I became concerned that Lucas could be hurt or that there was some other emergency. Reluctantly, I released her and went into the bedroom to get her phone.
“What?” I said to Lena. I was feeling a little perturbed by the interruption.
“Mom’s hurt,” she said.
My mouth grew dry. “What happened?” I demanded.
“I’m not sure,” she answered. My sister doesn’t panic. My sister is like a rock. But I heard apprehension in her voice and that made me very nervous. “All I know is that she’s in the ER. I’m on my way now.”
I asked her what hospital and told her Emmy and I would be there soon. I rushed out into the kitchen where Emmy was leaning against the counter, still naked and still crying.
“My mom was just rushed to the hospital,” I said to her.
Her eyes grew big, and just like that the sobbing stopped. We rushed around the kitchen pulling on our clothes. I made a quick stop in the bathroom and then we were rushing out the door.
“What happened?” Emmy asked in the elevator. Her voice was still t
rembling and every few seconds a shuddering sigh would hit her, the aftermath of hard crying.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said, pushing a hand through my hair. “Lena sounded really nervous.”
“Lena never gets nervous,” Emmy said after a small gasp.
“I know,” I sighed.
She slipped her hand into mine and didn’t let go.
***
“I’m not dropping her off at some old folk’s home,” Lorraine snapped at Lena and me. “She’s not a dog. We can’t just leave her at the pound.”
“The fact that your mind even compares the two is disturbing,” Lena said, shaking her head. “Fine, Lorraine. Why don’t you let her come live with you?”
“I have a very full house as it is, Lena,” she argued. “You know I can’t take mom in. Why don’t you take her in?”
“The same reason you can’t, Lorraine.”
“I think we should stop talking about Mom as if she doesn’t have a brain left to think with on her own,” I said to both of them.
“I’m not even sure if I trust your judgment, Luke,” Lorraine said sourly. “You took off to the east coast without a thought about your aging parents.”
“That was ten years ago, Lorraine,” I snapped. “Kids grow up and move away. Get over it.”
“This isn’t about Luke,” Lena snapped at Lorraine. “This is about mom. The fact of the matter is that mom is getting older and we need to be sure she is safe.” She shook her head and sighed as she checked the time on her phone. “Sam will be flying in in a few hours. We can talk to her and see what her thoughts are.”
“Sam is coming in?” I asked, surprised. “Does Emmy know?”
Lena shrugged. “I don’t know if she knows or not. I called her right after I called you.”
I sighed and pulled my hand through my hair. “Don’t get me wrong, Sam has been…very helpful over the past couple of years, but did you have to call her here? She’s not our mom. Our mom is down the hall getting an MRI. Sam is Emmy’s mom. You can’t just steal her away when you feel like it.”
“Steal her away?” Lorraine snorted. “She hates her mother.”
“She doesn’t hate her,” I said quietly and looked over my shoulder.
Emmy was standing on the other side of the room looking out of the window. She hadn’t moved. I’m not even sure if she blinked. She didn’t seem to be focused on the here and now, but I wasn’t comfortable whispering about her as if she wasn’t in the same room.
“Their relationship is complicated,” I said to my sisters. “You’re not making it any less complicated.”
Lena was quiet for a moment as she studied me. She looked across the room at Emmy for a moment before turning her narrowed eyes back to me. “I will try to be more considerate,” she said quietly.
Lorraine made an exasperated sound and stomped away. Lena leaned in closely and said, “Don’t fuck this up, Luke.”
I stood there stunned. How was she always able to figure out what the hell was going on in my life?
“You both have that just fucked look,” she confirmed with a smile she was trying to hold back. “I’m assuming you just fucked.”
She raised an eyebrow at me when I didn’t respond and walked out of the room. I stood there for a moment, silently looking at Emmy’s form against the bright light blasting into the room through the window. Maybe I misinterpreted her crying. Maybe it wasn’t that she didn’t want me. Maybe I was being selfish and completely introverted by believing it was just about me. Maybe it was about her. I remembered our conversation from a couple of days before. She thought she was too broken to be salvaged. Maybe she was crying for the parts of herself she lost.
I walked across the room and joined her at the window.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “You’ve barely said two words since we left for the apartment.”
She blinked as if she was just waking up and looked around.
“I'm sorry,” she said and turned around to face me. “Are you okay? How are you holding up?”
“I'm okay. I’m having a hard time accepting the fact that my mom is getting so old,” I sighed.
“It's funny. Your mom falls down the stairs accidentally, and I want to shove my mom down the stairs on purpose all of the time.”
I tried to smile, but it faltered and failed altogether. Even though I was very concerned about my mom, Emmy and I needed to talk. I needed to her to tell me how Kyle broke her. I needed to fix her, whether she would have me or not.
“I said I would wait until you were ready,” I said softly. “But…”
“You want to know what is ultimately keeping us apart,” she said with a sigh.
“You are ultimately keeping us apart,” I pointed out. “But I need to know why.”
I pushed her hair out of her face and cupped her face in my hand. I started to withdraw, but she pressed on the back of my hand, holding it to her face. Her eyes closed for a long moment and she exhaled slowly. When she opened her eyes, I was moved by what I saw there. She wanted me. I wasn’t sure how much of me she wanted, but she did. When she wrapped her arms around me and stood on her toes to kiss me, I expected a little peck at best, but her tongue slid across my lips and I gasped lightly before opening up to her and kissing her back. Nothing else mattered in that moment. Where we were or why we were there didn’t exist. Our past problems didn’t exist. Our present problems didn’t exist. The only thing that existed was us, holding each other, and comforting each other with a slow but passionate kiss.
Someone cleared their throat a couple of times, but we ignored it. The third time it was louder and more distinct. I knew without looking it was Lorraine. I reluctantly separated my lips from Emmy’s and glared back at Lorraine.
“Sorry to disturb you,” she said, not even trying to be modest about the big grin on her face. “But the doctor wants to talk to all of us.”
With a sigh, I took Emmy’s hand in mine and we followed my sister out of the room.
“Oh, that's embarrassing,” Emmy whispered.
“No less embarrassing than Lena’s weird sense of what we were doing before we got here,” I whispered back.
“What!”
I looked at her and nodded a confirmation.
“Oh, my god, I’m so embarrassed,” she said, covering her face with her free hand.
I stopped in the hallway about ten feet from where my sisters were standing and put my other hand on Emmy’s neck.
“Don’t be embarrassed. You didn’t used to be embarrassed about these things.”
“The circumstances are different,” she whispered, throwing a nervous glance at my sisters.
“We were together before, Em,” I said. “We made a baby together and now we’re raising him together.”
“But there was a lot of shit in between,” she argued.
“Yeah, there was,” I conceded. “And eventually, we’ll have to hash some of that shit out, but until then, don’t be embarrassed. You love me, don’t you, Em?”
She nodded though her cheeks turned pink at the admission. I knew it was hard for her to say.
“Luke,” Lena called impatiently.
Ignoring my sister, I held Emmy’s face in my hands.
“I love you. You love me, and we both love our son. That’s all that matters right this minute. I don’t give a shit what anyone else has to say about it. Okay?”
Fear and uncertainty blazed in her eyes, but she nodded anyway. “Okay.”
I touched my lips to hers for a brief moment as Lena called me again. I took her hand and led her down the hallway where my sisters and the doctor waited for us.
“I’ll go sit with Grace while you guys talk,” Emmy said and started to pull away, but I held fast to her hand.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lena said, rolling her eyes. She linked her hand into Emmy’s free hand.
I didn’t miss the little smile on Emmy’s face.
Chapter Seventeen
I sat on the couch watching as Emmy c
arried a load of laundry to the small washer and dryer unit next to the powder room. Focused on her work, she didn’t seem to notice me staring at her.
After she put a load of laundry in, she moved to the kitchen. I could hear her putting things away and the faucet running. She was just doing what she did every night, but it irritated me a little. I wanted her to let the dishes sit in the damn sink and not care about a couple of crumbs on the counter.
“Em,” I called to her.
“Be right there,” she called back.
“No,” I said firmly. “Now. Stop whatever you are doing and come here now.”
She didn’t say anything, but I knew that she was probably standing there feeling indecisive. I don’t usually command her to do anything. I sometimes speak firmly, and in the past I was downright mean, but I rarely commanded.
“Now,” I repeated.
A moment later she appeared in the doorway with a dishtowel in her hands. She looked at me apprehensively. I gave her a look that said, “Get your ass over here now.” She stepped back into the kitchen but only for a second and came out without the dishtowel. She stopped by the dining room table, crossing her arms and gearing herself up for a fight, but I didn’t want to fight—or start a fight by trying to have needed discussions.
I crooked a finger at her, keeping my face passive. After another hesitation, she moved to go sit down on the couch, but I quickly reached up and grabbed her arm. She let out a surprised yelp as I pulled her down into an awkward position on my lap. I took a moment to reposition her until she was facing me and straddling my lap. She blew hair out of her eyes when she let out an exasperated sound as she looked at me. She was waiting for me to talk, but I wasn’t talking.