No, we can’t leave it like this! Not again! With her going, and me feeling just as lost. As I’m about to call out, she does a one-eighty degree turn. She leaves her bag to stand alone as she stalks towards me. Her expression is a storm, and hope starts to rise within me, as the sea would in her wake.
“Are you really going to let me walk away?” She’s toe to toe with me, and her eyes are on fire, and I never knew a color like hers could be ablaze. “It’s been months, and I haven’t heard a word. Not. One. I thought you might need time after, you know ...” Her cheeks are hot iron red.
“You left ...” I supplied.
“Yes, but I thought at least I’d get a text, an email, a letter at the very least, but nothing.” She looks straight ahead into my chest and shoves me. When I don’t budge, a sound of distress strangles from her throat, and she does it again with both hands.
Capturing her third attempt, her eyes jerk up to mine. Tears brimming, angry, talking nonsense, and yet she is so beautiful. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I release her hands, and she watches with weariness as I bring one of my own to her face. My thumb traces across her cheek, her skin as soft as I remember it. Her eyes flutter shut, her long lashes dusting against her cheeks before they open to find mine again.
Leaning in, her lips part, her breath warm as it starts to speed up, her pupils dilate as she shifts between my eyes and lips. She smells as she always does, sweet as honey.
My own breath sticks in my throat as I lean in further, but there is enough in my lungs to ask her, “What’s your full name?”
“What?” She jerks. Her brows crash down at the same time her mouth twists. “Right now? You’re asking me that now?”
Looking at her mouth, “Answer me, Emma.” Fuck, I want her. I want to steal the sense from her body and make her weak enough she can no longer stand to escape, but I first need this one thing. My eyes shift back up.
She’s shaking her head, her eyes screwed shut, tears sliding down her cheeks.
“Tell me,” I say in a firm tone, which has her eyes popping back open. “The next time I … ” I move my hand so that it’s gripping her chin, and I swipe the pad of my thumb against her plump bottom lip. It comes away from her bottom teeth, and her breath whooshes from her lungs. “... take this mouth, I will know the name of its owner, so the next time I need to search for her, I’ll find her.” My eyes meet hers.
“But ...”
I close my eyes on a sigh.
“Emma …” My eyes shoot open, expression is unsure. “Christine … ”Her brows crease. “Baker …” She searches my face, her face still showing unease. It could be abou giving me her name or of me, but now that I have it, I can worry about it later because I can’t wait another second.
She sighs and melts into me the moment my lips connect with hers.
Kisses before this, were a product of what we needed at the time, an escape from the storm, our realities, and of convenience. In this moment, all that is between us, is each other—coming together because we no longer could stand being apart.
In this kiss, there are no ulterior motives. I also know there will be no other like it. In the twist of our tongues and her tears touching my cheeks as we shift to get closer, I know the words that had evaded me, the words I’d been too scared to admit glares inside my mind like a beacon. It’s blinding and obvious that I’ve been an idiot. I love Emma Christine Baker.
I woke up this morning convinced that I could let her go, whatever this is between us, forget the girl that causes such turmoil and calm inside me. No, I’d been a fool to try and convince myself for a second that I can let this go. Something this consuming is what people write songs about, bleed on paper for, and I squeeze her tighter, never willing to let her go again.
Someone clears their throat, and by the obnoxious way they’ve done it, I know it’s not the first time they’ve tried to get our attention. I'm reluctant to let her go. I release Emma’s mouth, but not her body, as I look around and find a stout man in a uniform glaring at us. His name tag announcing him as Ted, Emma’s bag gripped firmly in his meaty grasp.
“What can we do for you, Ted?”
Emma giggles and covers her mouth before hiding her face in my shirt. I bring her closer to my side. Ted isn’t a threat, but I’ll use any excuse.
“We don’t condone such public displays of affections.” His face screws up as if he’s sucking on a lemon as he says affection. “If you could please take it somewhere else … outside of our airport perhaps?”
Holding out a hand, he transfers the bag into my custody, and as soon as I nod, he pulls away. Looking down at Emma, a smile already playing on her lips, it takes nothing to have us both laughing.
Emma touches her cheeks that are scarlet red. “That was embarrassing.”
“Oh, I don’t know. If we’d been in a movie, it would have been called romantic.”
She smiles and looks up at me, letting her cheeks go. “One for the books.”
“So, do you really need to go?” I offer her her suitcase, and she takes it from me.
“I do, but I don’t see why they can’t wait another day for me to get there.”
“Really?” I’m scared to hope, but I want nothing more than to spend as much time as I can with her before she goes again. However, this time I’m going to make sure there is no threat of that being a permanent condition.
She bites her lip and nods. I grab her waist and bring her towards me for a quick kiss. Well, it had meant to be a quick one. When she molds into me and bites my bottom lip, I find myself growling and finding it hard to remember the reason we stopped kissing a few minutes ago.
But then she’s pushing at my chest, “We should stop before we do get kicked out.” I let her go, and I gestured to the exit doors.
“How about we kick ourselves out and find somewhere else to gross people out with our PDA,” I smirk as she laughs.
“Good plan. My car is in the car park.”
“I’ve got one better. I’m parked in the visitor lane a few meters from here.”
“That is better. So where are you taking me?”
“Hungry?”
“For food?” She looks me up and down. If I wasn’t before, that look made me painfully hard.
“For now.”
She bites her bottom lip and takes one last look before nodding. “I actually know a great place not too far from here.”
“Wendy’s is not what I had in mind.” I laugh, but I pull into the drive-thru anyway.
She shrugs. “Their spicy nugs are great when you dip them into your milkshake.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Before this meal is finished, I will have converted you,” she promises.
I’d picked a nearby park that I knew of and parked us under the shade of some trees. After a minute of watching her dip those nuggets into her frosty, I'm convinced that frosties aren’t only for fries even before she had me try them. Though damn it, after she had, she's right.
The way she laughed with victory made me wish it's the only thing we were going to do today. However, as the car settles back into silence and all the food is gone, my heart speeds up, and my palms grow sweaty in anticipation of who would ask first.
Taking a deep breath in, I prepare what I want to say. “Em ..”
“I regret not giving myself an option to get a hold of you.” She peeks over at me, and when I say nothing, she looks back out the windshield and continues. “The way I left, I thought you might never want to talk to me again, and that's why you hadn't reached out.” She looks down, and her fingers start fidgeting with her shirt. “After my trip, I was going to try and find you, but I didn't know how.” She shrugs.
“How was I supposed to reach out? You'd think in a digital age you'd at least give me your number!”
She looks up and jerks back, “What do you mean? I gave you my number.”
I shake my head. “No, you didn’t.”
“I did.” She bends over
and reaches for her purse. I could feel my brows furrow as she digs in, searching for something. What could be in there that would explain something that didn’t happen?
“Ha!” She exclaims and swings something that hits the light, blinding me.
Squinting, I reach for it, and she hands it over. Turning it in my palm, it’s a keychain, hard and smooth, with the initials ECB in big letters. I have to squint again to read the smaller print that says, “We Entertain, Celebrate, and Bashmen to all your needs”. Below the slogan reads a physical and email address, then a phone number.
“What is this?”
“I put one of these into your bag. It’s printed with my logo and contact information. Did you not get it?”
“No!” I pause and think for a second. When I’d emptied my duffle bag, I’d cut my finger on something, and at the bottom, found some glass scattered. At the time, I couldn’t place it or how it had gotten there. No thoughts had entered that it could have been the key I needed for my search. I’d thrown away the pieces in the trash, bandaged up my thumb, and moved on.
I close my eyes and lean my head against the headrest. “God, damnit,” I say through clenched teeth.
“What?” Her tone is soft, and when I open my eyes and move my head to look at her, she’s biting her lip, looking nervous.
“I got it, but in the form of pieces.” Her face twists in confusion. “It broke in the bottom of my bag,” I explain. “Didn’t think it was anything, so I threw it away.”
Her face smooths out. “So, if you did … ” She says each word in slow motion--as if she’s creating the thought as it’s forming around her beautiful mouth. “Would you have called me?”
“Not for a while.” Some of the bitterness stains my tone.
She nods, her lips turning down even harder in thought.
“Why did you leave?”
She chances a look at me before heaving a sigh. “I thought it was the right thing to do.” Shrugging, she goes on. “It was too late when I realized that I was making choices for you, and … ” Her cheeks heat, and I’m paying closer attention to her next words. "According to my family, I have a tendency of sabotaging anything good in my life.”
Those words aren’t what I expect. I’m something good in life? “Sabotaging, huh?”
She nods sheepishly. “I’d already texted to let them know I was bringing someone, but when you didn’t show up, I got the third-degree shakedown. Mom accused me of always getting in my own way. Any sign of trouble--I run for the hills, making up excuses if I have to.”
“Think that’s true?”
“After my brothers chimed in with their two cents, I have to admit, I took it under consideration.” Her cheeks are even brighter now, and her fidgeting intensifies on the fabric. “At the time, I didn’t think I was doing it to you.” She chanced a glance my way, and before she could look away, I hit the release on her seatbelt. Her body goes stiff as it retracts back to the start position. Gripping her arm with one hand, with the other, I pull the release on my seat, and it slides back as far as it can go on the track.
“Get over here.” Holding out my now free hand for her to take.
Biting her lip, she takes my offered hand, and I help her straddle me in my seat. Her hands squeeze my shoulders. She opens her mouth, but when I grip her chin, she closes it again. Her eyes grow large in her face, but she doesn’t jerk away. “Now, you can’t hide from me.” I can’t deny the fact to myself that part of the reason for doing this is so that I could touch her. I’ve been deprived of her touch for too long.
Her brows furrow and she nods. “I’m sorry, I’m just nervous.”
I let her chin go, and she lets a big breath out. “Okay.” Her eyes never leave mine. “I did sabotage us by not giving you a choice, but I don’t regret letting you go home.” Her expression grows pensive. “Did it turn out to be the right thing?” Her question asked slowly as she scans my features waiting for her answer. Her fingers are tentative as they play with the collar of my shirt, and my hands tighten on her waist.
As soon as my head starts nodding, her expression softens, and a smile inches on her lips. Nothing beats this woman's smile, except for maybe her moaning underneath me. Swallowing hard to get my mind back on track, I start to talk about my decision on staying with my family, eventually getting my own place down the road to stay close, and then the most basic question pops into my mind.
“Do you live here?”
“Here, as in Georgia?” When I nod, she continues. “Yep, my whole life.”
I shake my head. “So, you’ve been a drive away this whole time.”
She laughs, “I guess I have.”
“I want to know how close.” My hand glides down and rests on her ass, bringing her closer to me.
“Forest Park,” she gasps, and her fingernails bite into the skin under my shirt, the pressure of it spiking my blood.
“Fuck, you can’t be serious.” I can feel my eyes grow wide, and for a moment, I’m too fixated on the coincidence to appreciate her hips shifting, though it doesn’t stop my body from responding.
“What?”
I bypass her question and ask another. “Which street?”
“Oak,” she says, her brows furrowing.
“Cypress.” I point into my chest.
“Shut up,” she says, and she smacks me on the bicep.
I nod, and her expression shows what I'm feeling.
“Which house?” she asks.
“The white one that sits off the road a bit more than the rest.”
She sighs. “I’ve always loved that house.”
“We have only been two streets from one another this whole time. How is that possible?”
"Divine circumstance?" She shrugs. Her fingers tangle in the hair that meets the back of my neck.
“Or something. Which house on Oak is yours?”
She starts to shake her head. “Technically not mine. I’m back living with my parents. I could no longer afford the rent where I’d been living in Atlanta.”
“What happened in Atlanta?” I say offhand, but admittedly I’m starting to care more about what was happening inside this car.
“Oh, the company I was working for was downsizing. When I was let go, that’s when I decided to start up ECB. Right now, it’s me and my best friend, Sherry.”
“That was a big decision.” My hips surge up, and a smile tickles her lips.
“Not really. I’d been considering it for a long time.” She bites her lip, and when her tongue comes out to soothe it, I’m transfixed by the action.
She sighs and grinds down the moment my dick jerks, wanting out. My hands grip her harder through her yoga pants. “Glad it worked out.” My tone's strained.
“Mhmm.” My eyes go to her mouth. I’ve dreamed of my dick being inside that mouth as she hums around me.
Her mouth parts and I catch myself leaning in. It's all the permission we need. Our mouths come together, her hands delve further into my hair, mine grip into her ass, and soon our mouths aren't the only thing trying to find a way to get closer.
My dick is so hard that the layers of clothing keeping us from each other's skin doesn't matter. I'm so close to blowing like a teenager as we move our hips to create the most friction.
Her hands start to travel down, and once her fingers hook onto my belt buckle, she leans back. She’s assessing me as she slides the leather from my belt loops. “I want you.”
I start to nod, and my hands start to travel up under her shirt. “I want you too.” Her hand grasps the button of my jeans. Expecting her to snap it open, I’m surprised when her fingers pause. I’ve taken about as much teasing as I can take.
‘What?”
“It’s not as if I should ask, but …” She’s biting her lip again, but this time her brows are pensive.
“Ask.” I couldn’t see what's so important. We were together; we wanted each other, everything else could be worked out later.
Her gaze meets mine. “Since me, I mean us
…” Her hand comes up to her mouth as she twists to look out of the window.
Gripping her chin, I bring her back. “If there was room, I’d already be giving you a red ass. Now, spit it out before I find a way.”
She drops her hand, letting it rest on my shoulder. Desire pinkens her cheeks, but too soon, her eyes clear. Whatever she’s trying to ask is important to her. “Have you … Fuck it, have you been with someone?”
“Been with someone?” I repeat with a raised brow.
“Yes. You know, fucked someone else. I can’t blame you if you have, but I ...“
Wrapping my hand on the back of her neck, I bring her to me, our mouths come together. The moment she sags into me, letting out a sigh, I swipe my tongue inside. When we’re both out of breath, I pull her back by the grip I have in her now messy hair.
She looks at me through hooded lids, her lips swollen, her breath panting from her lungs, and fuck; if I don’t want to look at her wild like this every minute of every day.
“No. Even if I had wanted to, you are in my blood.” In my heart too, but I’d just found her again. It was one of those things that we could get to later.
She closes her eyes, and her elongated neck shows her swallow.
A loud rapping has her eyes popping open, and both of us look towards the sound. A blurred figure stands on the other side of the steamed-up window. Releasing her hair, my heart is hammering in my throat as I lean over and grab the gun in my glove compartment. Emma’s eyes grow like saucers.
“What are you doing?” She squeaks.
Looking at her, I put a finger over my mouth. She looks between me and the gun and nods.
“Yeah?” I shout to the person on the other side.
“Sir, roll down the window.”
Sir? With my forearm, I clear the steam, and an annoyed Robertt looks back at me. Blowing out a breath, I tuck the gun between the seats and roll down the window.
“Robertt,” I say.
His eyebrow arches and his mouth twists.
Cramming down the smile that’s trying to make an appearance on my mouth, I say, “Sorry, Officer. What seems to be the problem?”
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