David smiled and nuzzled the softness of her hair. “But what if it feels amazing?”
She nodded and closed her eyes. Sought inside herself. Through the passages that made up her precognition. Into the veins and arteries that made up her empathy. And in the center, she found it. The source of her power, the foundation of her being, the core of her powers.
It was well guarded. Years of distrust surrounded it. Miles of hurt glances and remembered shuns. Echoes of people being afraid of her.
But it was her fortress. Her castle. And damn it, she was going to lay siege, drop the gate, and let David in.
She kissed him, keeping her eyes open, and dropped her guard.
At first, it was only a small stab of pain. A pinprick, really. Hardly noticeable. But then —
A dam burst inside her and a Cambrian explosion of emotion burst through her, shaking her to the core. A burst of power so strong it weakened her. Previously discordant notes turned into melodies. The melodies lengthened into symphonies and washed over her.
This was love. It was so beautiful, it made her cry.
Wave after wave of color crashed like waves across the surf. There were the reds, oranges, and yellows of passion and love. The tranquil blues and greens of easy skies and devotion. The vibrant verdant shades of green that proved their trust would grow and blossom. And finally, just as she was sure she had absorbed them all, the pale shades of pink — true love.
She gasped as she reached for air, not realizing she had stopped breathing. as the pleasure-pain washed over her. Releasing her into the bonds of love.
“Do you feel that?” she asked, massaging a spot on her chest.
He nodded, rubbing the matching spot on his own. “What is that? I’ve never felt anything like that before.”
“Neither have I. But it feels like—”
“Love,” he finished.
Their kiss was softer than before. Reverent. Deep, with an openness that tore at them, leaving them both gasping at the raw beauty of it.
She had no idea how long they sat there in her very ordinary living room in her very ordinary house and kissed the most extraordinary man in the world. A minute? An hour? However long it was, anything less than a lifetime was too short.
And this was definitely less than a lifetime.
His hair was thick and soft and smooth in her hands before she moved on to the planes of his beloved face. “This is too much,” she gasped, taking a breath by burying her face in the crook of his neck.
“It’s perfect,” he contradicted with a smug sensual grin.
“I need to make love to you,” Emma said, still not looking at him. “But I feel. Too much. Afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Yes. No. Maybe? Just. I feel like this is bigger than just us here, David. Please, tell me you feel it, too.”
“Anxious?”
“Yes.”
“Eager?”
She smiled. “That’s the word I was looking for.”
He nodded and waited for her to take the lead. This was her show and she had to cross the chasm. She had to come to him. He’d been chasing her for two years and there was simply no other way to make sure. The decision to come to him, fully, as his woman, had to be her own.
She rose and took his hand. Her smile grew wicked as she gently pulled him into her bedroom. He sat on the edge of her bed and watched as she took her clothing off. One piece at a time.
First her shirt, button by button. David’s fingers itched with the need to strip her and see her laid out before him. Hints of her skin teased him and he longed to caress each exposed inch with his hands and breath and adoring kisses.
She shimmied out of her jeans with an embarrassed little laugh. “You’re so damn beautiful,” David whispered, hoping it was the right thing to say.
Apparently, it was.
She approached him in her modest bra and boy shorts and hugged him. “I need you,” she whispered. “I’ve missed you.”
He reached around her and unfastened her bra with a soft click in the muted sounds of the bedroom. She shrugged out of it, leaving only the soft cotton of her underwear.
He slid those down and stopped to simply admire the curves and dips of her body. The rise of her breasts. The nip of her waist. The smooth slope of her hips and ass.
She was beautiful and she was his. Finally.
He laid down and she curled against him. Skin against skin.
She straddled him and he felt her heat rub against the hard rise of his dick beneath his jeans.
“One of us is slightly over dressed for the occasion,” she teased.
But his mouth was too busy, touching and feeling and loving the sensitive skin of her breast. He played with one nipple and then the other, coaxing her into a heated response. “You’re like honeysuckle and roses,” he said in the intimate heat of the bedroom. “Sweet and tender. Softly scented. Delicious. With a delicate resiliency that brings me to my knees.”
With an impatient groan, she tugged at his jeans and undid the snap. He laughed a little before he spun her and placed her in the center of the bed.
She laid against the backdrop of the quilt in wild abandon. All smooth pale skin, chestnut hair, and wild untamed blue eyes.
He stripped and stopped, letting her gaze fall over his body. He wasn’t big and buff like many American men but he was strong. Lean. Wiry. He needed Emma’s adoration and desire.
It came to him in full strength. This was it. This was love.
He climbed next to her and settled himself into the crook of her legs.
“Not yet,” she said softly. “I want to taste you.”
He nodded and got on his back, his desire rising above his body like a beacon. Calling her.
She knelt next to him and simply stroked his warm, silk covered length. Her index finger traced a gentle path along the shaft until she reached the tip. She licked the broad head of his cock, her tongue a gentle teasing butterfly against his skin.
His neck arched with pleasure and his hips rose in response.
“Somebody likes that,” she teased. Her tongue followed the path of her index finger and teased him.
“I don’t know about somebody, but I sure as hell like it,” he said through gritted teeth.
She giggled with feminine power and brushed her cheek against his length, like a cat. “Are you sure?”
She wet him down again with her tongue, her mouth a warmth she kept just out of reach. Anticipation built tension in him until he arched and growled at her every touch.
“Please,” he finally said. “I need your mouth.”
“Like this?” She sucked the just the tip in, careful not to go any further. The flat of her tongue beat a pattern against it and he gripped the sheets with his restraint.
“Yesss,” he hissed.
“Do you want more?”
His curse was deeper this time. As heated as the love that grew between them. As heated as the welcoming warmth of her mouth.
She got into a rhythm. Long strokes down. Gentle tugs using the suction of her mouth as she risked losing the delicious fullness of his cock.
He groaned and tugged on her, pulling her away. Her tiny moue of displeasure made him smile. “I need you, love,” he said and turned her on her back.
Her pout turned to a smug Mona Lisa smile. “Like this?” she asked innocently while wrapping her legs around his lean hips.
She grasped his cock. Stroked him with her soft cool hands.
Cradled his body with both her arms and legs.
“You’re perfect,” she whispered against his lips.
He entered her in one long slow exquisite stroke. “We’re perfect,” he corrected.
“Together,” she said as she arched into him. Demanded more of him. Demanded his body. His essence. His soul.
Everything he ever was and will be.
“I love you,” he said as she clasped around him, held him as though she would never let him go.
“I love you,” she cr
ied as she hit her first peak.
He groaned at the sensation of her tight body pulsing with pleasure around him. “More,” he uttered, deep and guttural.
She cried out as he pulled out and began pounding into her body in earnest. “Everything,” she begged.
And that’s exactly what he gave her.
~~~~~
The night grew cold. David snuck out from under the covers and lit a small fire in the fireplace. It came to life, popping and hissing with warmth and romantic light.
“That was perfect,” Emma whispered on a sigh. They were spooned together, as close as two people could be. Close enough that barely a shadow from the fireplace could slip between their love warmed bodies. The fresh scent of pine filled the air and the only sounds were the occasional pop and hiss of the burning wood.
“But if it was perfect, we’d have nothing to work on improving,” David said with a devilish smile.
She laughed and conceded the point.
“When I was little, my parents had me memorize poems in Vietnamese. I wasn’t very good at it and I fought against it. They finally stopped making me go.”
“Why?”
David shrugged his broad shoulders and Emma nuzzled against his smooth chest. She pressed a brief open mouth kiss against his flat tan nipple. “Tell me.”
“I wanted to fit in. I was tired of being different all the time. Tired of going to Vietnamese school in Akron while my friends were playing video games. Tired of eating spring rolls and noodles while my friends ate peanut butter and jelly.”
“Did you want peanut butter and jelly?”
“Not really. I missed the taste of my mother’s banh bo nuong.”
“What’s that?”
She felt him grin. “A kind of dessert. A cake made from panden and honeysuckle.” He sighed and smacked his lips. “Maybe I can see if Honor can make one for me.”
Emma pushed at his shoulder. “I can cook, too, you know.” She straddled David’s lean hips. “Maybe I’ll surprise you and make one.”
His dark chocolate eyes lit with pleasure. “I’d like that very much,” he said, brushing a butterfly kiss against her lips.
“Maybe when she visits, you can ask her to make all your old favorites. I’d love to try them,” she said, her voice a soft echo in the night.
“Maybe,” David said. He pulled her against him and grew quiet and reflective.
“Did you ever fit in?”
“Not really. I wasn’t Viet enough for my grandparents. I wasn’t black or white so I had a hard time making friends in school. I didn’t go into the family business. I didn’t stay in the Navy long enough to retire. I feel like my whole life, I’ve been looking for a place to belong.”
“You belong here,” Emma said without embellishment. “You fit in Harper’s Mill. Like a glove. You could have been born here. And I’m so glad you’re taking on old Ray’s Hall with Gloria Hamilton. She bit off more than she could chew with the old theater but I think you’ll make good partners.”
Emma sighed and reached for the night light near her bed. The low wattage allowed them to see without completely ruining the intimacy of their moment. Her voice was quiet in the shadows of her bedroom and her warm, slim hand traced patterns on his chest. He wondered, briefly, if she minded his lack of chest hair. Men of European descent usually had far more than men of Asian heritage.
“It’s hard being different,” Emma said, sitting up so she could look into his dark chocolate eyes.
“How would you know? Your family has been here since the beginning. How could you possibly know how it feels to perpetually feel like you don’t belong?”
“Being an Evans isn’t a guarantee of happiness,” she said quietly. “Have you seen me with dozens of friends? Mostly, I’ve been ostracized. Watched. Looked at as though I were some weird oddity that no one can quite resolve.”
“You’re popular,” David argued.
“People know me. There’s a difference.”
David snorted. “Ask the only Vietnamese kid in his high school. Trust me, I know that difference.”
He tugged her back into his arms. “I want to hold you again,” he said against her shoulder. They were quiet for a long time, listening to their combined breaths while the silence of snow fell around them.
“Vừng trăng lên mái tóc mây,
Một hồn thu tạnh, mơ say hương nồng.
Mắt em là một dòng sông
Thuyền ta bơi lặng trong dòng mắt em”
“That’s beautiful,” she said. “What does it mean?”
“It’s one of the poems my mother demanded I learn,” he said. “Moonrise by Trăng Lên.”
She pushed against his shoulder and he resisted by standing to put another log on the fire. He stood, tall and proud and naked in the glow from the fireplace. She admired his lean, masculine form and wondered, ever so briefly, if their own children would be long and lean like their father.
“David,” she whined, just a little. “Don’t tease.”
“The night orb rises o’er your silky locks,” he said as he came back and slid between the blankets. “My soul is drunk with your scent of fall in ecstasy.” His kisses trailed down her shoulders. Breasts. Soft belly. He kissed his way up her arm. Finished at her neck. He rose and looked at her. “Your eyes are such a steady stream in which my boat swims quietly.”
He entered her again with a firm stroke of his hips.
“I can’t believe your mother made you memorize that particular poem,” Emma said with a pant. The strokes of his body teased and tantalized her senses. The friction and combined heat of their bodies
She lifted her legs to cradle him tighter to her body and wrapped her slim arms around his shoulders. She surrendered into him. To him. To their love.
David’s full lips smiled at her. “Maybe that one I learned on my own,” he teased before surrendering into her. To her. To their love.
Chapter Six
Emma’s kitchen was a whirlwind of activity. Steam billowed from a pot of water as it waited to be poured over tea leaves. Emma was frantically deveining shrimp at the kitchen table. Her best china sat in the drainer, freshly washed and air drying. Her best white tablecloth was over her dining room table in all its starched glory
“Knock, knock,” Honor said as she entered the bungalow’s kitchen. Emma looked up, blue eyes mildly panicked.
“Honor,” she said, her voice rising in a mild screech. “Is it that time already?”
“You said to stop by around three and we’d clean and get the house in order. Calm down,” Honor urged, patting her friend on her shoulder. “What time is dinner?”
“Dinner is at six,” she said. “Oh, what was I thinking? I should have just let David take us out for dinner, but no. I had to prove to Mrs. Nguyen that I will be able to feed and take care of her son.”
“David is what? Twenty-seven? I’m pretty sure he knows how to cook his own food,” Honor soothed.
“He says they’re very traditional. Always wanted him to find a nice Vietnamese girl and guess what? I’m not.”
“Okay. First, calm down. I am the ones with the in-laws from hell, remember? They will adore you. How can they not adore you? You’re Emma freaking Evans.”
Honor’s words shamed Emma. “You’re right. I mean, even if they can’t stand me, what’s the worst they can do to me?”
“Horrid in-laws can do a lot in the name of protecting their sons,” Honor said. “But let’s hope you don’t have those kinds of issues with the Nguyens.”
Forgetting her own problems, Emma jumped up and hugged her friend. “I’m so sorry. It isn’t that I forget how horrid Simon and Ruthanne were to you. And they were. Sometimes I still don’t know why you didn’t bring them up on charges. But when you’re caught up in your own drama, it’s hard to remember other people have had it worse.”
Tears trembled on Honor’s hazel eyes. “I know, Emma. I know you.” Honor shook out the table cloth and collected the delicate
rose patterned china set to place them on the table.
“What good would it have done to sue them? Noah was with his father. Spence and I are back together. And we’re never leaving Noah or Elizabeth alone with their grandparents. Maybe someday. When they’re in their twenties,” she said with half a laugh. “But not yet. I still don’t like them being away from me.”
“Do you talk to your therapist about it?”
Honor nodded. “Yeah, I do. And Spence comes with me once a month. I forgave them ages ago. I don’t know why they don’t like me. Will probably never know. But I love their son. I am raising their grandchildren.” Honor shrugged. “My depression was pretty deep, you know. If it hadn’t been for little Milk, I’m not sure I could have made it.”
Emma smiled as Honor mentioned her cat’s name. “How is the little brat?”
Honor laughed. “She’s still a spoiled brat. But I love her. She got me through some of the worst days of my life, you know.”
“I know. I wish you had called me, but I understand.”
Honor held her friend’s hand and looked into her eyes. “Look at me, Em,” she said, her hazel eyes beseeching. “And listen to me. I was deeply depressed. I was afraid. I was lonely. I had nothing. Part of the deal with Ruthanne was that I had to leave the area. I had no way of knowing she’d moved to California. I was afraid to log into any of my social media accounts. What if people were tagging photos of Noah and seeing him when I couldn’t have him. Well. That would have hurt too much, too. At least when I was on my own, I could pretend to forget for a few minutes at a time.”
Emma nodded, feeling her stomach go into butterfly overload. She bit her lip nervously and then rubbed the spot. “I’m sorry. You’ve dealt with so much, Honor. I have no idea why I’m such a wreck over a stupid dinner. You must think I’m an idiot.”
“Take a deep breath,” Honor said, coming back into the kitchen and shaking her slightly by the shoulders. Emma inhaled, and immediately felt some of the tension in her shoulders begin to loosen. “Now, how about a cup of tea and then you can tell me what you need help with.”
“I don’t have time for tea!”
Honor felt her lips twitch slightly. Emma Evans not have time for tea? “Wash your hands, set the table, and then I’ll help you prep the food for dinner. Did you make anything for dessert?”
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