by K. A. Linde
“What happened this time?”
“Get this,” she said with a shake of her head. She glanced back over to where she had abandoned Landon. “Miranda was pissed because Landon’s ex-girlfriend is here!”
“Why would she care if his ex was here? He’s married to her, for Christ’s sake.”
“Well, that’s Miranda.” Morgan shrugged.
“Yes, it is,” I grumbled. I took another sip of my drink. “She drives me batshit crazy. I don’t know why they’re together.”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
I nodded, but my eyes had locked back on Em, who was laughing at something Heidi or Julia had said. They each grabbed her hand and practically dragged her out to the dance floor. She shook her head, but they gave her pleading looks and started dancing to the hip-hop music that Sutton had requested for the night. It was as if she thought we were in a club or something, not a wedding.
Heidi was dancing all over Em while Em just stood there. She was saying something to Heidi and Julia, but they ignored her. And, after a few minutes, Em relaxed, and they were all dancing like they were having the time of their lives. Or they had just had an exorbitant amount of alcohol. Either way, I loved watching her move.
Once she got into it, it was intoxicating. The way her hips slid from side to side. The way she tilted her head back and laughed unabashedly with her friends. The way she lifted her arms over her head and sank low and then came back up to her full height. The way she tossed her hair and swung her hips in mouthwatering circles. It was hypnotic.
I stood there for two dances before she finally dared to glance over at me. Her eyes lit up when she saw that I was watching, and then she blushed furiously. She turned away from my look, but a minute later, she was back to staring at me. She was giving me a come-hither look, and it was killing me not to go over there and move with her on the dance floor. I wanted to oblige that look, but I didn’t want to be turned away again either. I was dying for her to ask. Not just with her body, but also with her eyes and her smile and her mouth.
She turned back to her friends, but her eyes kept coming back to mine. Over and over again. It was as if we were the only two people in the room. Everything else tumbled away, and she was dancing just for me.
Yes, I was watching.
Yes, she wanted me to.
She wet her lips and then did a little dance next to her friends. My dick pulsed as I thought about all the things I could do with those hips and all the promises I would keep with those lips. I had to straighten myself out, because thinking about fucking her while watching her dance was making my dick respond all too temptingly. I adjusted my pants and then finished my whiskey. She slanted her eyes back to mine and then discreetly tilted her head to the left.
I sighed.
Finally. Let’s play ball.
She spoke hurriedly to her friends on the dance floor and then pointed toward the restroom. They said something back to her, but I could see the secret smiles on their faces. They knew where she was going and what she was doing.
Em meandered away from the dance floor. She glanced over her shoulder only once to see if I was following, and I was. When she realized I had interpreted her gesture, she smiled and then tried to smother it. We meandered into the darkness, past the restroom, far enough away from the crowds.
When she turned back to face me, her cheeks were pink from dancing and being here in this moment. “You were watching me.”
“Is that a crime?” I asked.
“Suppose not. Why were you watching me?”
“Because you’re the most beautiful girl in the room, and I like the way you move.”
“Jensen, this could never happen.”
“You mentioned that,” I said, sliding another step toward her.
Her back pressed up against the exposed brick wall.
“Do you know who I am?” she pleaded.
“Em. And that’s all I need to know.”
I trailed a loose lock of her dark hair between my fingers. Her eyes were open and raw, showing me all the thoughts roaming through her head. She wanted me. I wasn’t wrong in that regard. She might have rebuffed me, but she hadn’t been able to walk away.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
Her hand ran down the front of my suit, and I leaned into her.
“Yes,” I agreed. “You tell me to go away yet ask me to come here. What exactly do you want?”
Even though she wanted me, her head was warring with her body. Tension and desire mingled in the space between us. I could move in and take her lips with my own. I wanted to. But I didn’t want to take. I wanted her to offer. Like she had offered to come back here with me.
“I don’t know. This is a bad idea,” she whispered.
“Seems like a good idea to me.”
She released a breath. “I’ve had a lot to drink.”
“Me, too,” I said, taking a step closer.
“And, now, I really want to kiss you.”
I chuckled. I liked her blunt honesty a lot more when it was directed toward me positively rather than negatively.
She practically glowed at my laugh, and her eyes darted down to my lips. “But we can’t.”
“Can’t?”
She shook her head a miniscule amount and then tugged me a little closer. “Nope.”
“You want to kiss me,” I said, stepping into her personal space and glancing down at her lips. “But you can’t. Or won’t?”
“Oh, I will,” she breathed. “But I shouldn’t.”
Then, she dragged me against her, and her lips landed on mine with a tenacity that was enthralling. Our lips touched, and the world ceased.
I ran my hands around her waist and pulled her flush against my body. My tongue licked along her lips, begging for entrance. She opened up to me at once, and our tongues met as we flat-out made out in the back of the building.
And she was a fucking amazing kisser. I could do this all day. Even though my dick was telling me to move faster, my brain was saying that this was incredible. Her body against mine. Her lips on mine. Her heartbeat ratcheting up to meet mine in tempo.
It was a life-shifting kiss. One of those that came only once in a lifetime. The kind that you didn’t want to mean more. You wanted it to be a lust-induced kiss in the dark, but you couldn’t even fool yourself. This one was everything.
I didn’t know how long we stayed there, kissing. It could have been hours or days. My brain could not function beyond that moment.
But, eventually, she was pulling away, stepping back, shaking her head. And I had no idea what any of those motions meant.
Hadn’t she just had the same kiss I had?
She touched her lips. They were swollen and red. “Jensen…I…we…”
“Em,” I whispered, reaching out for her.
But she slipped through my fingers and disappeared into the night. I tried to follow after her, but one minute, she was there, and the next minute, she was gone.
My own fucking Cinderella. Great.
Seven
Jensen
My head pounded the next morning as my phone blared on the nightstand. I grabbed it and pressed Accept without looking at who it was. Fuck, how much had I had to drink last night?
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello, Mr. Wright,” my receptionist Margaret said. “I hope this is a good time. I got the paperwork in that you need to look over, and you told me to contact you as soon as it arrived.”
“Yes. Thank you,” I said as I tried to crawl out of bed.
Work. Of course, it’s work.
I listened for a few minutes more as Margaret continued to discuss the paperwork.
I stumbled into the bathroom and downed a pair of Tylenol. I appreciated Margaret’s enthusiasm for the merger, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the logistics of the paperwork until I got rid of this headache.
“Do you need me to come into the office today to go over this with you, sir?” she asked.
&
nbsp; “No, thank you, Margaret. I’ll look at it in my home office and get back with you about it on Monday.”
She hesitated on the other line. “I think they’re going to want an answer today, sir.”
“They’ve kept me on the line for five days about this. And I’ll have to fly there to finish off the negotiations with Tarman. We have another day to wait. Plus, if I can lower their offer, we’ll all have bigger bonuses this Christmas.”
“Make them wait all you like then, sir.”
“Thank you, Margaret,” I said.
I hung up and then looked at myself in the mirror. I’d had way too much to drink last night. With a wince, I hopped into a scalding hot shower to try not to think about Em any longer. I’d tortured myself enough with it last night. Patrick, Austin, Morgan, and I had finished another bottle of whiskey while I was thinking.
By the time I completed my daily routine, I felt like a new man. Still a fucking confused man, but more like myself at least.
I checked the time as I changed into a pair of jeans and a button-up. It was still early. The alarm I had set for this morning hadn’t even gone off yet. I could probably still get in at least an hour of work before I needed to meet everyone for church—Sunday morning tradition for as long as I could remember.
With the added time on my schedule, my office beckoned. I walked into the first-floor office and took a seat at my mahogany desk. The sun was just rising through the giant floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the swimming pool that was closed for the season. I booted up my iMac and drowned myself in legalese that I would have to go over again with my lawyer. My eyes felt like sandpaper, and my throat was raw from all the alcohol and the sleepless night.
I thought my body would at least be used to not getting any sleep. Insomnia usually did that to someone. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a full night’s sleep. It was one of the reasons the company was flourishing. If you never had to sleep, then you could do double the amount of work.
My thoughts were so focused on the project at hand, I didn’t even notice Landon standing in my doorway until he cleared his throat.
“Bad time?” Landon asked with a wry grin.
I finished typing up the memo I’d been working on and then stood from my desk. “Of course not. Just got bogged down in work.”
“On Sunday, Jensen?” Landon said with a shake of his head. He entered the office and crashed back into one of the leather seats in front of the desk.
“Every day. Someone has to run the company. Not everyone gets to play golf on the weekends.”
Landon laughed. “Every day. Not just the weekends.”
“How’s your back anyway?” I walked around to the front of the desk, leaned back against it, and crossed my arms.
The light left Landon’s face. “It’s fine. Better anyway. The physical therapist thinks I shouldn’t be pushing it as much as I have this year, but none of the Wrights know how to slow down.”
That’s for damn sure.
“As long as you’re taking care of it, then you’ll be fine. People can have a professional golf career forever.”
“Yeah, I’m on it.” Landon shifted and stood. “Actually, I came over here so early because Miranda and I are going to head out.”
“What?” I asked in confusion. “I thought you were staying through the holidays.”
Landon grimaced. “Miranda wants to go back to Florida until Christmas. We’ll be back.”
“You’re staying for church today though, right?” I prompted.
“I…no,” he said.
I sighed heavily. “Not even for Mom?”
“I know,” he said softly. “I want to, but Miranda…”
I wanted to make some wisecrack about Landon being whipped, but it didn’t seem to be the time. Something was going on with him and Miranda. Their relationship was looking all too familiar. He knew better than this.
“Speaking of Miranda, I heard she freaked out last night.”
Landon blew out a grateful breath at the change of subject. “Yeah, bro, my ex-girlfriend Emery Robinson was there. You remember her?”
My body stilled, and everything narrowed down to that name. “Emery Robinson,” I whispered.
“Yeah. You know, my high school girlfriend. I didn’t even recognize her, and Miranda was pissed that she hadn’t been informed she’d be there.”
“You didn’t recognize her?” I whispered as horror and realization began to dawn on me.
“Nope. How fucked up is that?”
I ran a hand back through my short hair and closed my eyes. “Fuck.”
“What?” Landon asked in confusion.
I shook my head. This could not be happening. Em—my mysterious Em, my fucking Cinderella—was Emery Robinson. Of course, she would recognize me. But I hadn’t seen her in…God, ten years. No wonder she had ran away from me. I’d just tried to pick up my brother’s ex-girlfriend.
“Jensen, what’s up?”
I couldn’t tell him. There was no way I could tell him that I’d had the best kiss of my life with Emery Robinson. I hadn’t known it was her. And I knew Landon too well to drop that on him.
“Nothing. Hangover headache,” I lied. “Tell me more about Emery. I remember her…only vaguely.”
Understatement of the century. I remembered the taste of her lips and the feel of her skin and the way she kissed very well. Intimately. Everything else that came to mind about Emery was like a bridge over water on a foggy night. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t see it.
“We dated in high school for two years, but we broke up on graduation. The last time I saw her was our five-year high school reunion, and we didn’t talk then, and I had no idea she’d be at Sutton’s wedding. I guess Heidi invited her.” He shook his head. “I mean, I didn’t even recognize her!” he repeated.
“How could you not have recognized her?”
“When we dated, she was the captain of the soccer team, who liked to skateboard on the weekends,” Landon said in his defense. “Even at prom, she wore her hair up and no makeup. I don’t know what she’s been up to in the past decade. We’re not even Facebook friends.”
“And Miranda was pissed?”
Landon shrugged. “I don’t know why. I’m not interested in the girl I dated in high school, who I haven’t seen in years. I married Miranda.”
Oh, I knew why Miranda was pissed off. Emery looked hot as fuck. Whatever she had looked like and acted like in high school, she was a woman now. One I would very much like to get intimately acquainted with. Too bad I would probably never see or talk to her again.
“Is that the real reason you’re leaving this morning?”
Landon groaned and glanced back toward the door. “I don’t know, man. Probably. She’s super jealous of all my exes.”
I opened my mouth to say something to Landon about last night with Emery. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep it a secret, but what would really come of telling him? I wasn’t the dating type. I was the fuck-’em-and-leave-’em type. Even if I had done more than make out with Emery, it would have just been a hot-as-fuck one-night stand. It wouldn’t have fucking mattered who had dated whom a decade ago.
“Are you sure you can’t stay for church?” I asked instead.
At that exact moment, the front door crashed open. Landon sighed heavily and seemed to retreat into himself at the very thought of the person at the door.
“Miranda?” I hazarded a guess.
“The one and only,” he agreed. “I should probably head out.”
“Landon! Let’s go! We have to get on the road!” Miranda yelled from the foyer.
Landon’s eyes traveled through the open doorway. “I should probably go. I certainly don’t want to stand between the two of you in another confrontation.”
“Morgan’s the instigator; I assure you.”
Landon glanced back at me and rolled his eyes. “You don’t fool as many people as you think you do.”
I sure hoped I did in that moment.
I held my hand out to my brother. Landon clasped it tight.
“I just want you to be happy. Tell me Miranda makes you happy.”
“Landon!” she shrieked. Her heels clomped across the hardwood floor, drawing ever nearer, like a dragon ready to breathe flames.
“You’re a good brother,” Landon said with a smile and shook my hand.
Miranda stomped into the room. “Would you hurry up, or would you rather me leave you behind so that you could be with your ex-girlfriend instead?”
Landon winced. “Come on, Miranda. I’ve told you a hundred times that I didn’t even know she was going to be here.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll know when we’re back for Christmas so that you can sneak away and see her,” she accused.
“Seriously, she’s just back from college for a few days, visiting a friend. She’ll be gone before we get back. Calm down,” Landon said with a sigh.
“Whatever. Don’t make me late for the flight,” she said, turning on her heel and storming away.
“I’ll see you in a couple of weeks,” Landon said.
We hugged, and then he hurried down the hall toward his tyrant wife. And, while I was sad to see my brother go, I feared even more for the things he hadn’t said. One day, I would figure out the disaster that Miranda had created in our family but not today. Today, I had to go to church.
Eight
Emery
“I cannot believe you’re making me do this,” I said to Kimber as we stood outside of our mother, Autumn’s, house.
It was the house we’d grown up in. Small and squat with red clay bricks and dark roofing. Like everything in Lubbock, it had a monstrous fence for the entire backyard. A tree her mother had planted when she moved in towered over the property. The house was in one of those timeless parts of town. Nothing had changed, not even the people. They’d just settled here like dust.
“You were never going to come over here unless I made you,” Kimber said.
She mashed the old, smashed-in doorbell, and I could hear it hollering through the house, announcing our presence.