by Melody Grace
And desire.
Emerson stops, a step away from me. His body looms in the shadows, dark eyes glittering in the red beam of the safety bulb. “What you said, in your message…” he trails off, “Did you mean it?”
There’s a twist in his voice, full of hope.
I close the distance between us, and place both palms on his chest. I can feel his heart racing through the fabric of his shirt, a wild rhythm that matches my own.
“Yes.” I vow. I look up into his eyes, and feel the sense of pure rightness wash over me. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be. With him.
“I love you.” I say it softly, tracing one hand up to touch his jaw. I run my fingers over his lips, those lips that send me to heaven with the faintest kiss. “I know it seems impossible, but, it’s the only thing that’s real to me. I want you,” I add, my voice sounding calm and sure despite the butterflies in my stomach. “I want everything.”
Emerson’s eyes flash in recognition, but still, he doesn’t move.
“You’re sure?” His voice is hoarse. “Because if we… You can’t take it back.” His body is tight, and full of tension under my hands. All his power, held back, strung out on the most delicate of wires, waiting to be unleashed.
“I don’t want to take it back,” I’m dizzy, inhaling the scent of him. My legs are weak, just from being so close, but I need him to let go, to surrender to the force that is so much bigger than the both of us.
I press closer against him, and Emerson clenches his jaw. “I want to belong to you.” I tell him, clear. “Always.”
I bring my face closer, closer to his, until our lips are just inches apart.
“Take me.” I breathe as my mouth finds his. “I’m yours.”
Emerson lets out a tormented groan, and then his control is gone, all restraint lost as he sweeps me into his arms, his lips crashing down on mine in a searing kiss that shocks right through me.
He slams me up against the cabinet, devouring me with his mouth, his body, his hands. I clutch eagerly to him, overcome by my hunger, to know every part of him; feel everything. He lifts me as if I weigh nothing, and I wrap my legs tight around his waist. I kiss him back with everything I have, already pulling his T-shirt over his head so my hands can roam across the warm skin of his shoulders, his back, his chest. I slide my hands over the smooth planes, marveling at the taut, hard muscles. The beauty of him.
Emerson breaks the kiss, yanking my dress straps down and raking his tongue across my breasts. I gasp, the sensation rippling through me, a thick pull that itches in my veins and pools with an ache between my thighs. I thrust against him, reckless, wanton, loving the feel of his mouth closing around my nipple, teasing and toying until I’m crying out for more.
Emerson lifts me away from the wall, and we fall to the floor in a tangle of limbs and hot, greedy kisses. I lick across his chest, savoring the taste of his skin, and the way his whole body flinches under my mouth. He shoves my dress down, yanking it off the whole way so I’m trapped beneath him in just my lace bra and panties. Exposed.
He catches his breath, looking down at me with a fierce tenderness in his gaze. “God, you’re beautiful,” he breathes, and then he’s kissing me again, hard and fast until there’s nothing left in my mind and all I can feel is the tantalizing thrust of his body against mine and the delicious sensation of his bare chest pressing against my breasts. He tears off my bra, groaning into my mouth as his hand slides between my thighs.
I cry out. I’m wet for him, aching, and I sob with relief as his fingers find me, rubbing gently, searching, teasing me until I’m bucking wildly in his arms.
“Now,” I gasp, pulling away to grip his face in both my hands. I stare at him, panting and desperate for something I’ve never even known. “I want all of you, I need to know…” I break off, helpless. There are no words to explain how I feel, how this desire is consuming me, and I’m lost in the glorious flames.
But I see it, in the dark intensity of his eyes, Emerson feels it too. He rolls off me, just for a moment, and pulls a condom from his pocket. Then he strips off his jeans and underwear, returning to lie beside me, his body hot against my skin. He kisses me again, tender, and slowly moves me into position.
I lay beneath him, and catch my breath. He settles between my thighs, the look on his face so strained and focused, I can’t help but smile.
“What?” he whispers, reaching to stroke some hair back from my face.
I smile up at him. “You.” I whisper, suddenly shy. “It’s always you.”
A look comes over Emerson I’ve never seen before. A quiet joy that takes my breath away.
“I love you,” he whispers, and I feel his body surge to meet mine. I gasp, taking him into me, feeling the sharp ache and then, oh, the glorious fullness. I stop, our eyes locked, something so precious and true passing between us, I know my life will never be the same.
“I love you,” Emerson breathes again. He starts to move, and I move with him, moaning, lost in the fresh wave of sensation pulsing through me. “It’s you, Jules. It’s always been you.”
He shifts, pulling me closer, angling deeper, and I cry out in pleasure. The fever is taking over me now, pulling me down, every thrust sending me closer to the edge. Emerson is gasping, wild against me, and it’s all I can do to hold on tight, answering his body’s every demand with my own. The tide rises, building, every muscle in my body pulled tight with desire, but somehow I can’t break, I can’t surrender.
“Don’t hold back,” I gasp, writhing under his touch. “I want all of you. Everything you are.”
Emerson’s eyes flash, and then he’s slamming into me, harder, deeper, everything I need. I rise up to meet him, sinking my nails into his back, throwing back my head in abandon. I feel it come, closer, closer, and then Emerson’s face changes and his body goes stiff, and I’m crying out as the wave finally crashes over us, sending me spinning, broken, into the depths of pure ecstasy.
I finally surface, limp in his arms. Emerson is heavy on top of me, his delicious weight pressing down. I take a shuddering breath, my heart racing. Pure gold is shimmering in every cell of my body, an afterglow of peace and breathless pleasure.
“Hey, baby.” Emerson blinks his eyes open, and rolls off me. I open my mouth to protest, but then he pulls me against him, spooning me so I’m tucked, tight against his chest. I relax into his embrace, feeling the race of his heartbeat, and his labored breath.
“Hey yourself.” I sigh, resting my head back onto his shoulder. “That was…”
“Mind-blowing, life-changing, fucking perfection?” Emerson finishes for me.
I laugh, twisting to kiss him. I place my hand against his cheek, still dazed from the storm of sensation. “If that’s what it’s like, how does anyone get out of bed?” I tease.
Emerson grins. “It’s not like that, not with anyone else.” he answers. “Not ever.”
“Oh,” I feel a glow of pride, and snuggle closer. “Just us.”
“All you, baby.” He kisses my sweaty forehead, and I lay back, yawning. “Will your mom be looking for you?” he asks softly, tracing down my naked body.
I shiver under his touch and shake my head. “She went to bed early, she’s still got this flu.”
“So we’ve got all night?” Emerson asks, smiling wide.
“We’ve got forever.”
EMERSON
I laid there in her arms until morning, feeling the softness of her body, pressed against me, the heat of her skin against mine. I held her, safe in my arms, and knew that now we’d found each other, nothing could break us apart.
We would be together forever, in love, just like this. We would make it work somehow. I knew it with every atom in my body, every dream I’d hardly dared to think. We belonged to each other now, our lives together were only just beginning.
I was wrong.
THE END… FOR NOW.
Emerson and Juliet’s story continues in the USA Today Bestseller UNBROKEN. Read on for more
info and a look at Chapter One!
**AFTER UNTOUCHED….COMES UNBROKEN **
Emerson and Juliet’s story continues in the USA TODAY Bestselling novel, out now!
Mom always told me there are two kinds of love in this world: the steady breeze, and the hurricane. Emerson Ray was my hurricane…
Juliet McKenzie was an innocent eighteen-year old when she spent the summer in Cedar Cove—and fell head over heels in love with Emerson. Complicated, intense Emerson, the local bad boy. His blue eyes hid dark secrets, and just one touch could set Juliet ablaze. Their love was demanding and all-consuming, but when summer ended, tragedy tore them apart. Juliet swore she’d never go back, and she’s kept that promise… Until now.
Four years later, Juliet’s done her best to rebuild the wreckage of her shattered life. She’s got a great boyfriend, and a steady job planned after she graduates. Returning to Cedar Cove to pack up her family’s beach house to prepare it for sale, Juliet is determined that nothing will stand in the way of her future. But one look from Emerson, and all her old desire comes flooding back. He let her go once, but this time, he’s not giving up without a fight. And Emerson fights dirty.
A heartbreaking history. An unstoppable passion. Torn between her past and future, Juliet struggles to separate love from desire. But will they find a way to overcome their tragic secrets—together? And after so much damage has been done, can a love remain unbroken?
BUY NOW FROM AMAZON
**FOR A SNEAK PEEK OF CHAPTER ONE, READ ON….**
CHAPTER ONE
I’m doing eighty on the highway with all the windows down, my dirty blonde hair whipping like crazy in the wind. I’ve got my Ray-Ban sunglasses on, and the radio playing country classics as loud as my beat-up old Camaro will go, trying to drown out the whispers of memory that started, the minute I took the freeway exit onto the familiar coastal road.
45 miles to Cedar Cove.
45 miles to Emerson.
I shake it off. We were coming here for years before I met him, I remind myself sternly. Every summer when I was a kid. Months filled with playing in the surf and reading out on our shady back porch. I should have other, better memories of this place without him.
But you haven’t been back here since.
I block out the treacherous voice in my head, yelling along with the radio instead.
“Gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday…”
The song is right, I decide. It’s gone. That summer is so far behind me, I couldn’t see it in my rearview mirror if I tried. I’m a different person to the screwed-up, headstrong girl I was the last time I drove down this sandy road. I’m twenty-two now, just a month away from graduating college and starting out a whole new life. I’ve got a perfect boyfriend back in the city, and a great career all lined up. Despite everything that happened here that summer, I made it out—made myself into the person I wanted to be—and even though coming back to Cedar Cove makes me feel sick and dizzy, like I’m about to jump out of a plane in total freefall, this weekend won’t change any of that.
It can’t.
Besides, I tell myself, trying to calm the shiver of nerves in my stomach, I don’t even know if he’s still here. I don’t know anything about Emerson anymore. My idle midnight searches online always come up blank. He could be half-way around the world by now, trekking in the African jungle, or knocking back beers on some beach in Australia with a tall, stacked bikini model at his side.
Tucked under his arm, the place I used to be…
I crank the radio even louder, the country twang ringing so hard I don’t even hear my cellphone, I just see the screen light up from where I tucked it in the cup-holder on my dashboard. Lacey. My best friend. I answer, struggling to turn the volume down and keep a hand on the steering wheel. I know I shouldn’t talk and drive, but way out of the city out here, I won’t see a cop for miles.
“Hey Lacey, what’s up?”
“Are you there yet?” She demands.
“Close.” I check the clock again, “About a half-hour away.”
“I still can’t believe Danny boy didn’t go with you.” There’s a muffled noise as she gets comfy, and when she speaks again. I can just picture her, curled up in our student apartment in Charlotte, looking out of the window over the bustle of downtown. “Isn’t this the kind of thing future fiancés are legally obligated to do?” she asks, “Packing up the summer house you haven’t stepped foot in since… Well, you know.” she trails off.
The silence sits in the air between us, heavy with grief. Emerson isn’t the only ghost lurking in this town. The pain he caused me was only half my broken heart.
I gulp a lungful of fresh, salty air and force the demons out of my mind. “First of all, we don’t know he’s planning to propose.” I shift the phone to a more comfortable position under my ear.
“Please.” Lacey snorts. “His parents love you, you’re moving in together after graduation, and he’s been dropping not-so-subtle hints about your taste in jewelry for months now.”
“You didn’t tell me that!” My stomach kicks, but this time, it’s with a whole different kind of nerves.
“It’s been kind of hilarious,” Lacey adds. “So, do you think Juliet prefers modern, or art deco styles?” she mimics Daniel’s careful East Coast voice.
“What did you say?” I ask, curious. Even though Lacey is right—I’ve figured this was coming for a while now—it still feels strange to talk about it like this. Marriage. The future. Forever.
With someone who isn’t Emerson.
Lacey continues, oblivious to my thoughts. “Princess-cut, classic setting, nothing under two carats. Duh.”
“Lacey!” I flush.
“What? You said, you wanted to build a life with him,” Lacey reminds me. “That you could picture growing old and grey together.”
“I did. I mean, I do,” I correct myself quickly. “Daniel is great. He’s kind, and sweet, and smart—“
“—and perfect, I get it!” Lacey cuts me off. “So I don’t get why he’s not going with you. Not just for all the heavy lifting and packing, I mean. If my girlfriend was going back to see her ex—“
“I’m not here to see Emerson!” My protest comes way too loud, and I flinch, swerving wildly on the road.
Lacey whistles. “Easy there. I’m just saying, Danny boy must be super-secure in your relationship if he’s not even curious about the first guy you ever loved.”
I catch my breath, trying to calm myself. The last thing I need is to wind up dead, crashed in a ditch before I even reach the county line. I slow my speed, and focus on the road ahead. “Daniel isn’t coming because I told him not to. I said I need the space to study in peace. And… he doesn’t know about Emerson.” I admit in a rush
“What?” Lacey’s screech makes me swerve all over again. “You said you told him ages ago!”
“I did,” I protest weakly. “I said there was a guy I dated, before college. But I didn’t say he was here. Or how serious it was.”
“Serious?” Lacey’s voice is dripping with sarcasm. “Try, like a fucking anvil.”
“What was I supposed to say, Lace?” I sigh, feeling that familiar wash of guilt that always settles over me whenever I think about the half-truths I’ve told my boyfriend. “That I had my heart broken so entirely, it took everything I had not to slash open my wrists just to make the pain stop?”
My voice is light now, but the words are true. For the longest time, it felt like I was teetering on a precipice, like one wrong step could send me tumbling into the darkness. The worst part was, there were moments I wanted to take that leap, to just end the pain for good.
“Oh, babe…” Lacey’s voice softens. She knows what it was like for me: as my freshman roommate, she had a front-row seat to the damage that summer left behind. The days when all I did was curl in a ball, weeping; the weeks I barely ate, or left my room at all except for classes. She was the one who finally sat me down and staged a one-girl intervention: dragging me o
ut to parties and coffee-breaks and the campus therapist, who prescribed me a whole list of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds.
The pills helped—too much, I think sometimes—but Lacey was my real lifesaver, forcing me to fake at being OK long enough that I finally began to believe it for myself. I didn’t meet Daniel until my junior year, and by then, I could almost believe that those dark days were behind me for good. The only scar I had left you could see was the tiny blue jay tattoo on my right shoulder blade. I’ve thought about getting it removed, wiping the slate clean completely, but something makes me leave it there to glimpse in the mirror every time I step out of the shower. A lasting reminder of all my dumb, fucked-up choices, and the road I swore I’d never take again.
Until now.
“It’ll be fine.” I say firmly, as if that old fake-it-til-you-make-it strategy will work now, all over again. “I’ll pack up the house for the realtor, and be back by Monday. I picked up groceries in the city, so I won’t even need to go into town.”
“If you say so.” Lacey’s voice is doubtful, but she doesn’t press. “Call me later, babe.”
“Love you.”
I hang up, and grip the steering wheel determinedly. It’ll be simple: I’ve got a plan, just like I said to Lacey. I’ll get the beach house packed up, hand the keys over to the realtor, and leave town for good this time—no mess, no fuss, and damn well no moping over old memories.
I head around the next bend, and all of a sudden, the familiar sign comes into view.
Welcome to Cedar Cove. Population 5,654.
Despite all my good intentions to leave the past in its dark, deep grave, I can’t help it. One look at that peeling wooden board is all it takes for my mind to go racing back, four years ago, to the last time I drove down this road.
The day when I met him.
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