by Emilia Finn
“No.” Say it. Say what you really want to say. And if it all goes to shit, blame it on shock and adrenaline. “Because we almost kissed.”
His eyes widen.
“Right?” I ask when he stares back in shock.
When he tries to glance away, I grab his jaw, the way he held mine, and drag his gaze back to mine.
“We nearly kissed, Rob. I know we did. I’m not crazy.”
“Did you…” His brows pull together, tight and frustrated, until they almost touch. “EmKat… do you—”
“We could try it, ya know?” I step up onto the balls of my feet. Bring myself closer. “In fact, I think it would be smart business for us to try it, at least once.”
“Business?” His heart pounds heavily against mine. Forget car races and almost crashes. My words might be the most shocking thing we’ve experienced tonight. “How do you suppose?”
“Well…” I step up onto my toes, closer again. I’ll deal with my possible concussion later. “I just think, we’ve invested all of this time into our friendship, right? All of these years, all of that time and arrests, and we keep missing each other, because you date people, and I date people. I know you’re the alpha, and you know I’m the alpha, and maybe it doesn’t really work out when both of us are the way we are, but if it’s the right person…” Please don’t toss me away. Please, please, please don’t toss me away. “We could make room for our other alpha, if it’s the right one.”
“Em…” He brings his second hand up to my jaw, but instead of restraining me, he now holds me, strokes me, comforts me. “Is this like… Are you in shock? Is your brain scrambled, and you’re not thinking clearly?”
“Well…” I laugh, soft and quiet, and dart my tongue out to wet my dry bottom lip. “I think my brains are scrambled, and I may or may not have a concussion. But I also really want to try the kissing thing. Just one time.” I wrap my arms around his shoulders, and use his height and strength to pull myself higher, closer. “If it feels weird, then we never have to speak of it again. But if it feels good…”
“And if it’s the brain scrambling thing that’s making you say this right now?” His voice comes out pained, a groan full of fear. “If you regret this, and we break us?”
“How about we make a promise not to break anything? We could consider this a moratorium on our friendship. Two minutes,” I bargain. “Whatever happens in that two minutes doesn’t count in the real world.”
“I mean…” Rob seems to be in genuine pain. His eyes, his brows, his tight lips, and his racing heart. “‘Moratorium’ is a big word for a chick with a possible concussion.”
I bark out a loud laugh. “So maybe I’m not as scrambled as we thought.” I tug him a little closer. It’s slow-going, hard work, because he’s so strong, so unwilling to take risks when it comes to us. “One time, Rob.” I lick my lips again, and thrill at the way his gaze drops to the movement. “It’s on my bucket list.”
“It is?” He swallows, and his Adam’s apple bobs with nerves. “Kissing me is on your bucket list?”
“Falling in love with my soulmate,” I amend. “Two minutes. One minute fifty-nine.” I pull him closer. “One minute fifty-eight.”
“Moratorium?”
“You have the power to make time slow down.” I grin. “But I have the power to make time stop, for two whole minutes.”
I close the gap for us, hesitantly press my lips to his… and frown.
For just a second – one minute fifty-one – I frown at the lack of… well… anything. Neither magic, nor disgust. No fireworks, nor does it feel like I’m kissing my brother.
One minute forty-six.
I move my lips, and grunt at the lack of feeling.
One minute forty-one.
I tighten my hold around his neck.
One minute thirty-seven.
I open my mouth just a little, slide my tongue over his lips, and growl when I feel something.
Yeah, I feel like I’m kissing Miss Dixie’s plastic lover. Rob holds me, but he gives nothing back. He supports my weight, and lets me kiss him, but he doesn’t reciprocate.
One minute twenty-two.
“Rob!” I pull back and glare with pure venom in my eyes. “One minute fifteen, you stupid ass. You’re wasting time. One minute ten.”
I close my eyes and press my lips over his again. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.
At one minute and five, I slide a hand into his hair and tug.
At one minute and three, I use my other hand to grab his and lower it to my ass.
At one minute and one second… he squeezes.
I groan in response, push aside whatever last strand of insecurity I had, and slide my tongue into his mouth. Before, I touched his lips. Now, I touch his tongue, and when his hand squeezes again, I count one minute twice. Three times.
“Kiss me, Rob.” I nibble on his lip. His jaw. His chin. “If you don’t kiss me back, you will have broken us. We can’t come back from this.”
“You promised!” His breath races, hard and heady, as he studies my eyes. “You said two minutes, no consequences.”
“I lied. What I meant was, two minutes of you kissing me back or else. I’ll never forgive you if you make me do this alone. If I have to carry this alone.”
“Fuck.” He reaffirms his hold on my ass. The other arm, around my ribs. “EmKat, don’t—”
“Kiss me!”
“Fine!”
He changes who holds whom. Who commands whom. Turning us, he crushes me against the body of my car and folds me over until my back molds around the frame, then somewhere around forty-nine seconds, he slams his lips to mine.
Fireworks. Magic.
He’s not careful, not gentle. He’s not slow or shy. He presses his tongue to mine, commanding and mean, giving me his all before our time escapes.
Forty seconds.
“I’ve wanted to kiss you for years.” He attacks my lips, bites, suckles, and demands more. “Fuck, Emma. I’ve wanted you for so long that it’s a sin.”
“You have?”
I bring my leg up to rest on his hip and wrap around. In response, he drops a hand and holds on. And I guess because I’m all about taking risks tonight – all or none – I lift my other leg, and force him to catch me.
Or else.
Instead of speaking, wasting time on such frivolities, Rob uses his tongue for other, much more important reasons. He kisses me with such animosity that my head turns woozy. He swallows my oxygen, deprives me of the opportunity to scramble for more, but I can’t seem to find it in my heart to care. Instead, I feel him. His hands on my ass, my hands in his hair, on his strong shoulders. I feel his heart pound in the space between us. And more, I feel his dick grow impossibly hard and press against my core.
Twenty-five seconds – I think. Though it’s possible I’ve lost count.
Rob’s hand squeezes so tight that it hurts, so I break our kiss with a gasp, throw my head back and pant for life. But he pulls me back in. He holds all of my weight against my car with a single hand, grabs my face, and yanks me closer. “I’m not done.”
“Nineteen seconds. Maybe. I think.”
“Not done,” he repeats on a growl.
He slams his lips against mine, bruising me, forcing my lips to swell, my heart to race impossibly fast.
It’s happening. That’s what I scream in my head. It’s finally happening!
“It’s finally happening.” Rob somehow reads my mind. “Finally.”
“Ten seconds,” I rasp out. “Fuck, Rob.”
“Keep going.” His hands turn impossibly rougher. More demanding. “Keep going.”
Seven seconds.
Six.
“I love you, Fart.”
“I love you too.” He groans and tucks his hand into the back of my jeans so he now touches skin. “Fuck, but I’ve loved you my whole life.”
Five seconds. “No takebacks.”
“No takebacks.”
Four seconds. Three.
“God, EmKat.
”
Two.
“Rob Hart!”
That voice. That voice that I’ve wanted to murder a million times in my life, is like an electrical shot between Rob and I.
He breaks our kiss with a suction-like gasp. His eyes are wild. His hands, punishingly tight.
“Grace?” He kind of sways where he stands, drunk on me. Wild with need. “No. I’m busy.”
“Rob Hart,” she repeats with a definite sneer in her voice. “We need to talk. Immediately.”
“No!” He swings his gaze back to me. “I’m busy planning the rest of my life.”
“Robert!” she screeches. “It’s important.”
“Listen, bitch.” I unwrap my legs from around his hips and drop back to my own feet – shaky as my stand may be. I take a step forward, but Rob loops his arm around my stomach to hold me back. Which is ironic, considering he fought for me not ten minutes ago. “He said no,” I snarl with more anger than I realized I would feel. “That means you need to take your bottom-of-the-pyramid self away. Now.”
Grace snorts like a fucking pig. “You’ve been trying to edge yourself into his life since the dawn of time, little girl. Step aside.”
“First of all, I’ve been in his life since we were both shitting in diapers, stupid. Second, this little girl is gonna rearrange your ugly face if you don’t move along.”
She looks past me, to Rob, and pops a hip. “I wish to speak to you. Now.”
“Grace, just—”
“I wish to speak to you!” she hollers and draws eyes from the crowd. “Now!”
“Grace,” he snaps right back. “Just stop—”
Before he has time to finish his refusal, this bitch struts forward in high heels and a mini skirt, and grabbing his shoulder, she pulls him down and tries to whisper something into his ear. Her glossed lips touch his earlobe, her breath fans his face, her tits brush his chest — and my arm, since I’m still close.
But my temper is frayed, fueled by my hormones and the things I’ve thought about doing to this man for longer than I care to admit, so I grab Grace’s shoulder and shove her back. “He said no!”
I slip out of his hold, and draw more attention from many of the spectators who still mill around.
“Dammit, Risotto, just go away already. You were fun when he was bored, but I’m here now, and he and I were in the middle of discussing something important. Come on.” I whip the car door open and feel mildly guilty when it whacks Rob on the leg, but I’m riding high on the adrenaline of my race, of our kiss, of my potential concussion.
I nudge Rob forward until he takes a hint and drops into the car, then I slip into the driver’s side, but first, I flip off Grace Risotto with a middle finger and a taunting smile. “You’ve been dismissed, Rice-a-roni.”
Dropping down into the driver’s seat, I slam the door shut and hit the button for the engine, then glancing across the dark cab, I stop on Rob’s eyes and feel my stomach hollow out.
His eyes are wild, his hunger palpable.
“Moratorium?” My voice is scratchy, breathy, and dripping with want. “Nothing counts… unless we want it to.”
“What if I hurt you?” he rasps out. “What if you regret this tomorrow?”
I let the car roll forward, and feel no remorse when I have to bump a few folks to move them along.
“EmKat? What if this is your concussion brain, and tomorrow, you freak out?”
I think on his words for a moment as we roll away from the crowd and head in the direction of the exit.
“Emma!”
I glance across to him and smile. “What if I don’t?” I set the car into automatic shift, rather than stick from the race, and reaching across to Rob’s lap, I take his hand and twine our fingers together. “What if your fear makes you miss out on something really important tonight?”
“Emma…”
“If you’re gonna regret something tomorrow, which would you rather it be?”
“I’d rather you not hate me,” he rumbles low on his breath. “I’d rather you have no regrets.”
“Like I said…” The second the front wheels of my car leave the dirt track of Piper’s Lane and hit road, I let my smile break free as I accelerate and head toward town. “Moratorium. No regrets. No freakouts tomorrow.”
“Easy for you to s—”
“Shush. Did you get the keys to your new apartment yet?”
Silence eats us up for just a moment. Hunger. Adrenaline.
I glance across in the dark, and meet hooded eyes that sparkle with feral need.
“Robert?”
“Yes,” he grits out. “I have the key. But there’s no furniture in there yet.”
“Works for me.”
Rob
Ohhhh Shit
We race up the stairs, waking neighbors and making enemies before we even have a chance to truly move in. Emma’s laughter is loud, infectious, and free. Then when we slam against a wall, her grunt and squeak of delight is enough that the person behind the door of apartment number two is gonna remember us – though not fondly.
My hands are rough, despite my sheer terror and not wanting to hurt her. But it’s EmKat, and she knows rough, so when I try to slow down, she pushes us faster. When I try to be gentle, she shoves me against a wall and slams her lips to mine.
And hell, but it’s already been established that I’m only a man. A mortal.
I can’t tell her no.
Em monkeys her way up my body when we reach my floor – the floor my brother and I are moving onto in a matter of hours – and when we get to my door, and I fumble the keys from my pocket, she holds herself up, her legs wrapped around my hips, her arms around my shoulders.
Her teeth marking my neck.
My cock aches, straining against the inside of my zipper, and as I try to get the new key into the lock, my hands shake.
But Emma is sure. She’s so fucking sure of what we’re going to do, that it almost – almost – sets me at ease.
The door across the hall cracks open just an inch. I know, not because I see the door move, or catch a glimpse of the person behind it, but because a strip of light stretches across the floor and up my wall.
I don’t turn, I don’t greet my new neighbor. Because Emma-fucking-Kincaid is in my arms, her lips are on my skin, and I have no clue if I’ll get even halfway to my thirty-pump minimum so that she can at least feign a good time.
I’m not a fifteen-year-old virgin anymore. But fuck… it almost feels like I am.
“Faster, Rob.” Em’s words are heated and breathy. Hungry, and potent. “Move faster.”
I shove the key the rest of the way into the lock, and turning it roughly so that the metal teases a snap, I shove the door open with a bursting breath of relief, and move into the empty apartment.
I take only a second to catalogue the kitchen, void of anything but a fridge and stove. The living room… no furniture, but one milk crate someone else left behind. The bedrooms will be the same; empty, but for whatever trash the previous tenants deserted.
Slamming the door shut again, I turn back and crush Em between it and my chest. Because maybe I want to be gentle with her, I want to be loving and kind and all of those things I wish for her. But it’s difficult for me to slow down.
She’s the woman of my fucking dreams. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted, but she’s been stuck in the friendzone my whole life.
Em unwraps her legs from around my hips and slides down my body until her feet hit the floor, but her arms remain around my neck, pulling my head down until she’s looking straight up, and I’m looking straight down.
Garish red blood sits dried on her forehead, and dirt smudges across her cheekbone the way she might sprinkle a little blush.
My shirt is ripped from my fight tonight, and my blood definitely runs warmer than usual. But as I stare down into Em’s eyes, she makes good on her promise, and proves that she can make time stand still.
“Moratorium,” she repeats, as though finishing th
e conversation we started at the tracks. Sliding her hands over my chest, down my ribs, and onto my hips, she fingers my shirt aside and touches bare skin without fear. “Until the sun comes up, we’re not allowed to freak.”
“Not freaking,” I rasp out.
“Or think,” she amends with a playful smile. “We’re not allowed to think, or freak, or wonder about the what-ifs, or panic about how many times we can make each other come.”
“Come?” my voice squeaks. It fucking squeaks.
Emma sniggers and pushes my shirt a little higher. A little more. “You’re thinking,” she admonishes. “You’re breaking the rules.”
“But…” I dart my tongue out to wet my bottom lip. “Come? What if I can’t get you over the line?”
“Then I’ll tease you relentlessly for the rest of our long, blissful lives together.” She pushes my shirt up until she’s forced to stop at the bottom of my chin. “Help me out?”
I reach back with a single hand, grab the fabric at the back of my neck, and pull it forward until it’s free of my body and balled in my hand. Before tossing it aside, I bring it up and dab at the blood on her forehead. “Does this hurt?”
She snorts, inelegant and brutish; just like she is. Shaking her head, she looks down while I work, and studies my chest, my stomach, my hips. “I honestly had no clue I was bleeding till you told me. And I keep forgetting about it till you remind me.” She reaches out, hesitant and shaking – because she’s far more scared than she lets on. But she’s always been our braver one. She’s always been the one to toss her fears out the window. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“And your stomach?” I ask. “You still feeling sick?”
“Nuh uh.” She glances up at me, and nibbles on her bottom lip. “Does my mouth taste gross when you kiss me?”
I bark out a desperate laugh and step in closer until our hips press together. “I taste nothing but strawberry lip gloss and Independence Day freedom.”
“Weirdo,” she snickers and steps up onto her toes. “Promise? I can go brush my teeth before we—” She chokes on her words. Hesitates. “Um…. Do this.”
“Promise.” I lean in and feather my lips over hers. I wasn’t lying, but even if I was, I’d keep going with it. “You taste like everything I’ve dreamed about for a long, long time.”