by Karina Halle
Quickly, I push her back until she’s lying on the bed. I’ll never tire of the sight of her beneath me, so perfect, every swoop and soft, plump curve that my lips and tongue and hands are so ridiculously addicted to. Her pussy is a fucking treasure, bare and wet, and for this moment, for every moment I’ve spent with her, I know it belongs to me.
Mine.
I move between her spread legs. It’s almost painful, this desire, this need. Seeing my bare cock hard and ready, herself open, pink and soft—I feel like no man should ever be so blessed.
I want in deep and to never let go.
Slowly, so slowly, I ease myself into her as she raises her hips, pushing toward me herself, wanting that deeper purchase. Her mouth opens wider the further I get, her body stretching around me, holding me so impossibly tight.
Fuck.
I kiss her, melting my mouth into hers, wanting to be as close as possible.
Our faces are just inches apart as I slowly pull out and ease myself into her. Our gaze never breaks. Hers is full of lust and wonder, as if she’s seeing me for the first time. I can only hope she likes what she sees, that I’m enough for her. The real Emmett, not the man on the screen. The one who came from filth, the one she somehow still sees as worthy.
When our hips meet, it makes me still, and I have to suck in my breath to regain control. There’s something about her that makes me want to completely lose it and I’ve been losing my mind since the day I met her.
She confidently wraps her legs around my waist and rocks her hips forward, each movement pulling me further and further into her. Her hands are at my back and pushing into my muscles. Our skin moves against each other like we are one.
“Fuck, Alyssa,” I croak out, sucking along her neck, to her tits. My tongue teases around the hardened peak of her nipple and I pull it into my mouth with one long, hard draw. Her moan is so loud, so uninhibited that I feel unstoppable. I’m in over my head for this, for the warmth, that damn, intoxicating warmth of being really, truly inside of her, of feeling her in every way I can.
“Harder,” she says, arching her back. “Emmett, harder.”
My name on her lips is a drug. I piston my hips to drive into her deeper, my knees burning as I pound her again and again and again. Her perfect tits bounce with each thorough thrust, and suddenly there are no thoughts. No pain. No past. That feeling of falling, of realizing how good it can fucking be when you actually care about someone.
When you love someone.
Shit. Fucking shit.
I don’t know how much more I can hold on.
“Emmett,” she whispers to me but never finishes her sentence. She just repeats my name with reverence, like I’m a prayer on her lips.
I keep working her, determined. The flush on her face spreads to her chest and her legs quiver around my waist. She’s holding onto me like I’m about to fly and she doesn’t want to be left behind.
I go to slip my hand down over her clit but she’s already there and I barely have to trigger her. She cries out loudly, hips jerking upward, body shaking like a earthquake. She’s so unbelievable when she’s coming, this pulsing, writhing woman–god, she’s such a woman–and I’m the cause of all of it. I’m the one who brings this force of nature to her knees, to the edge.
And she does the same to me.
My orgasm sneaks up on me, like being hit from behind. It’s beautifully devastating and I’m loud when I come. I’m groaning and grunting as the orgasm wrings it out of me, but from the way she’s gasping for breath and still holding tight, she still riding the same wave.
I collapse against her, sweat dripping off my brow and over my nose. I can hardly breathe but I don’t care. I’m shuddering on the inside, completely unraveled.
This woman. This beautiful woman that I’ve just come inside of, this woman whose soft, creamy neck I’m kissing because it’s the only thing to do.
She’s my first act and she’ll be my last.
There will never be anyone else for me.
I stay inside her for as long as possible, until she starts to adjust underneath me. When I pull out of her, the loss is deeper than I thought it would be.
I brush the hair back from her damp forehead. “Hi,” I say softly. Because I feel like we’re meeting again for the first time.
“Hi,” she says lazily. Her hands ghost up and down my back, as if she can’t quite believe what just happened.
“I like it when you stay over,” I tell her.
“So do I.”
“I could do that again in five minutes.”
She laughs. Oh god, what a beautiful sound.
“Mmmm, you’re ambitious.”
“Only with you, sunshine. Only with you.”
She reaches up and kisses the tip of my nose, giggling.
Everything inside me warms and blooms.
Chapter 16
Alyssa
“What is that?” Jackie asks as I walk toward their Land Rover. She gets out of the passenger seat and comes over to the take the Tupperware container out of my hands. I give her a grateful smile, slinging my duffel bag up on my shoulder as I take it around to Will who is opening the trunk.
“Cookies and brownies,” I tell her.
“You bake?” Will asks with a grin, taking the bag from me, looking impressed.
“No but my roommate does,” I tell them. “And I’ll just say, Jackie, you’re not allowed to have any.”
“Why not?” she asks, totally confused. “Am I already that fat?”
Will rolls his eyes good-naturedly. “Dream girl, they’re pot cookies,” he explains patiently.
“I can’t believe you’re married and you still call her dream girl,” I tease him.
He shuts the trunk and gives me a stern look. “And I can’t believe I have to spend the long weekend with you.” He glances at Jackie. “Tell me why this was a good idea again? I see her enough at work.”
“Oh whatever, big boy, you love it,” I say as I get in the backseat. We just have to pick up Emmett from his house and then we’re off on a three-and-a half-hour drive to BC’s sweltering interior and my hometown.
Will and Jackie recently got a Range Rover in preparation for their growing family and it still has that new car smell, even though I know their dogs ride in this thing a lot. I actually wish the dogs–Joan of Bark and Sprocket–were coming on the road trip with us, but knowing my luck with animals, they’d probably shit on me while I’m sleeping or something.
“So,” Jackie says, eyeing me in the rearview mirror. “Are you excited? Nervous?”
“Why should she be nervous?” Will asks, his watch glinting in the sun as he drives.
“You don’t understand women at all,” Jackie says.
“Apparently not.”
“I’m not nervous,” I tell her. “I’m good. I’m excited. I think it’s going to do us a lot of good to get away for a few days and just relax. You wouldn’t believe the week I had at work, my stupid boss ran me ragged.”
“Hey,” Will warns. “No picking on your boss this trip. No mentions of the office or the word work either. As your boss, I’m making that an official rule.”
“Or what? You’ll fire me?”
“You’d probably like that,” he says.
The funny thing is, I would. Not the actual firing part, that would suck. But as the end-of-contract with Emmett looms and that forty thousand dollars waves at me from the finish line, I really should start thinking about what I’m going to do next.
But as each day and date with Emmett goes on, as we fall deeper into this rabbit hole that is our quasi-relationship, the less I think about the future. My dreams are still as important to me as ever but I have a hard time focusing on them when Emmett seems to have taken over my life. It’s not that I would dare put it on hold again, it’s just that when I picture committing to the acting life, whether in Vancouver, LA, maybe even London, I see Emmett by my side.
It’s just such a self-destructive thought.
&nb
sp; Whatever we have, whatever this is, half-real, half-fake, it’s going to come apart soon. There’s an expiration date to this relationship, a point where I get paid and we part ways.
God. Just the thought makes my heart feel like it’s coming undone, what once was a brick wall is now slowly crumbling to pieces.
Emmett is waiting at the curb when we pull up to his house, looking sexy as hell in his Timberland boots, his jeans, a faded Guns N Roses T-shirt that’s almost a size too small. His skin is bronzed from the sun, his muscles looking effortlessly strong. Just the sight of him is like a balm on a wound and when he opens the door and sees me, his smile nearly breaks me in two.
“Hey sunshine,” he says to me, throwing his bag in the back.
“Hi sugarbutt,” Will says. He gives Emmett an exaggerated wink over his sunglasses.
Emmett rolls his eyes, nods a hello at Jackie, and then slides in the backseat.
He immediately pulls me in for an impromptu kiss. Quick and sweet.
When we pull apart, Jackie is watching us intently. “Hey. I thought you two hated each other.”
Hate Emmett? That feels like so long ago. I try and put on a scowl but I end up smiling instead.
“Don’t forget I’m a pretty good actor, Jackie,” Emmett tells her as he buckles in. “I only look like I enjoy Alyssa’s company, but the truth is she’s pretty intolerable.”
“I hear that,” Will notes.
“Shut up,” I tell Will, and then smack Emmett on the arm. “And you shut up too. You’re not that good of an actor.”
“Ouch, my bleeding heart,” Emmett says mockingly, grabbing his chest. “So this is what the weekend is going to be like, huh?”
“Alyssa brought pot cookies,” Jackie points out. “So, yeah. That’s the weekend. You’ll all be high and drinking wine by the lake and I’ll be beached up on shore like a bloated whale.”
“Jackie, you’re barely showing and even if you were, so what?” I tell her. “You’re pregnant. You’re going to show. And you’re going to look absolutely beautiful every step of the way.”
“This is what I keep telling her,” Will says.
“You don’t get it,” Jackie says and then launches into a tirade about everything in her life right now that’s falling apart because of her pregnancy. I do know one thing, she’s moody as hell. One minute she’s so in love with Will, her son, the baby, the next she thinks the world is ending. I would have thought a second pregnancy would be easier but who knows.
What I do know is that Will, as usual, has the patience of a saint. Though I often give him a hard time for being too nice, too charming, too handsome, he really is an angel when it comes to her. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a guy so excited and ready to become a father.
I look beside me at Emmett as the car pulls out of the city, heading along the highway that will wind for hours past raging rivers and towering mountain peaks. He might be a self-proclaimed thirty-eight-year-old man-child but I no longer see him as that. In fact, it’s hard to remember how I used to feel about him.
Of course, he’s still a bit of a scoundrel, entirely focused on sex most of the time, with a flippant attitude and a knack for pushing all my buttons, good and bad. I know those parts of him won’t change the more I get to know him. Because this last week alone, I feel like I’ve seen the real Emmett. The man behind the mask, living a life and not a role.
After his arrest in LA, where I spent the night waiting for him at the jail, praying that everything would turn out all right, he opened up in a way I’d never seen before. Every grimy, gritty detail of his life he shared with me, laid it all out on the table. As if that wasn’t vulnerable enough, he then actually showed it to me.
I’ll never forget that night. The east side is no place I would voluntarily go, I’ve been too afraid to face what’s down there, to confront the things that make you question your privilege, the things you’d rather sweep under the rug.
And to think he grew up there. I picture Emmett as a little boy, tall, lanky, with light hair and that same smile, living in that filthy building. Growing up around the junkies and the homeless and the whores, seeing things that no one should ever see. The fact that he found his mother when she overdosed…I can’t even imagine what that would be like.
The man has issues, there’s no doubt about that. I can kind of see why acting became an escape for him. I can also see why he doesn’t get close to many people. It’s not just that he’s got a past he’d rather hide, but that he had to lose the one person he loved in the most horrific way. How can you not fear you’ll lose everyone else?
But that’s Emmett. And that’s man I’m falling for.
He’s shown me his deepest, darkest parts and it’s only made me want him, admire and respect him more.
I don’t even want to put up walls anymore. I don’t want to keep him out. He let me in, I want to let him in, as scary as it seems.
And it is scary. It’s terrifying. I saw firsthand what my father did to my mother, how it destroyed her, us, the whole family. And I’ve been with men just like that, who care about you one minute and toss you aside the next.
Emmett is supposed to be one of those men. He’s supposed to be the player, the playboy, the love you and leave you type. He’s even said so much himself.
As the saying goes, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
And yet part of me doesn’t think that Emmett is the one that’s real.
The one that’s real is the scared little boy with a dirty past and big shiny dreams. The one that yearns for respect, who wants passion over everything else.
But, god, please…if only he could also want me.
Want me, have me, not leave me…
Keep me.
It’s interesting being with Will and Jackie. They’re the only ones who know the truth behind the façade, know why we’re together and because of this, we’re free to just be ourselves. And in the backseat of the Land Rover, ourselves seem no different than the show we put on for the public. I lean against Emmett’s shoulder, he plays with my hair, our arms and hands tangle against each other. We are as physical and intimate as two lovers should be, lovers not bound by rule or arrangement.
The drive passes quickly, maybe because time inside the car seems to still. Summer is coming to a close. It’s already September. It’s a reminder that what we have is coming to an end too. I feel like I’m trying to soak it all up, every single inch of him.
It’s twilight when we arrive in my hometown of Penticton. The town lights twinkle, casting sparkles on the dark water of the lake. I’ve missed home so much, sometimes I forget how beautiful it is.
Penticton isn’t a large town, about 33,000 people, and nearly double that in the summer. But what it lacks in size, it has in beauty. Unlike Vancouver, which is built along the ocean, Penticton is between two lakes, Lake Okanagan on one side and Skaha Lake on the other. Both lakes are pristine and warm and clay hills rise on either side covered in sagebrush and vineyards. It’s hot, it’s dry, it’s fucking heaven.
We’re going to have dinner at my mother’s house tomorrow, who lives up on the hill just outside of town, so we stop at a grocery store for some camping provisions, pick up some booze and then get ourselves settled in.
Will had booked the cabin so I’m not at all surprised that it’s more swanky than it is rustic. We’re along the lake in an area called Naramatta Bench, where vineyards rise up from the lakeshore like verdant forests. The cabin we have is nestled in between a few famous wineries and has its own private beach and a dock with Adirondack chairs and a fire pit at the end. In the fading light, the sky going purple and gold, it’s postcard perfect.
“Ugggh, I want to jump right in,” Jackie says, fanning herself with a magazine she picked up at the store. “Who’s in for a night swim? I think I’m overheating.”
“How about we get settled in first,” Will says, always the sensible one, as he leads us into the cabin.
It’s not huge but it’s
new and has everything you need and then some, including a hot tub on the porch. Emmett and I go into one of the bedrooms, not knowing which of the bedrooms is better. It’s always like Russian roulette in places like this. Whoever goes into whatever room first is the one who is stuck with that room, luck of the draw. And in our case, our room only has a twin bed and a bunk bed. Obviously Will and Jackie snatched up the master bedroom of the two.
“Guess we’ll have to snuggle,” Emmett says with a grin as he starts putting his stuff away in the drawers. “We can do that now because we like each other.”
“You’re such a dork,” I tell him. Then I gesture to his unpacking. “And what is this? You’re unpacking? We’re only here for three nights.”
He gives me an odd look. “You’re an office manager, I thought you’d be all about organization.”
“Only in other people’s lives, not my own.”
“Ah yes, I forget you like things a bit messy.”
“I can’t tell if that’s innuendo anymore.”
“Baby, everything with me is innuendo,” he says. “Including having a little snack before dinner.”
He then grabs my arm and pulls me over to the bed, throwing me down on it.
I giggle as I sink into the mattress and he prowls over me. He runs the tip of his finger down the middle of my forehead, over my nose, my lips, my chin, down my neck, all the way to my chest.
“You could at least close the door,” Jackie says and I look over to see her and Will in the doorway, staring at us with absolutely no shame.
“Emmett’s an actor, dear,” Will tells her. “They’re all exhibitionists.” Then he jerks his chin at Emmett. “Help with dinner, will you? Let the girls relax.”
“I was going to help Alyssa relax in my own way,” Emmett tells him, but with a grunt, he rolls off of me and strolls out into the kitchen, adjusting his pants as he goes.
I sigh and get up, following close behind.
“Sorry,” Jackie says, not sounding sorry at all. “Thank god our bedrooms aren’t right next to each other.”