Emily sighed.
“I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven her for dying so carelessly, even if life was more peaceful with her out of the picture. With just Dad.”
Emily rested her head back against his shoulder. He kissed the curve of her neck, dragging out these moments of discovery. Before they moved further into the relationship he planned to start tonight, he needed her to understand him.
“I don’t like strong emotions, Emily. I like control.”
“I know,” she said, her tone filled with dry humor. “Trust me, Salem. I know.”
He chuckled, but knew it sounded strained. “Mom’s emotions were all over the place. She was larger than life. Laughed harder than others. Cried harder. Felt harder.”
His lips touched her hair in a featherlight caress. He loved the way she smelled. He’d had a lot of time to think. He’d learned that every moment of life is meant to be grasped with both hands, that every speck of love needed to be acknowledged. Each second appreciated for the wonderful now that it was.
He needed Emily in his life. He needed her in his bed, but first...
“When I lose my temper,” he whispered against her hair, “it reminds me of her and I wonder if I’m even human.”
“You’re human, Salem. Not a madman. You had a right to be angry with Justin. You had a right to be angry with Caleb. The things they did were appalling.”
“They were, weren’t they?”
“Yes.” She was emphatic. “I like hearing about you. Tell me more about your mother.”
“I was the wrong kind of kid for her. She didn’t understand why I liked to read so much. She was the wrong kind of mother for me. I didn’t understand why she had to be so busy all the time, but never with stuff that I needed. Never giving me clean clothes, or regular mealtimes.”
“She must have thought you were a changeling or something, or that someone had switched babies at the hospital.”
“Except I looked too much like her.”
Emily lifted her head away from his shoulder and smiled. “Then she must have been a handsome woman.”
He smiled. “Yes, she was. I remember that clearly. Aiyana looks a lot like her.”
“Are you always angry with her, or do you ever miss her?”
“I miss the times when she did sweet things. Sometimes when I slept I would have dreams of her making sure I was tucked in and of her kissing my forehead. I know now that I have my own children that it was real. They weren’t dreams.”
“What other kinds of good things did she do?”
“She played a lot of music.”
“I like that.” He heard a smile in her voice. Of course she would like that his mother loved music.
“What else?” she asked.
“She made the best Halloween costumes. One year, she bought this huge piece of thin foam and cut out two enormous hands. She sewed them together with red yarn using a big blanket stitch, leaving the bottom open so I could pull it over myself.
“She was so proud of her creativity. She laughed and said it was the one and only time she had ever used that stitch since my grandmother taught her how to edge blankets.” The memory used to make him sad. Now it filled him with joy.
“She cut a hole in the front for my face and two slits for my arms. On the back, she wrote Gimme Five. All the kids smacked my back all night long, but it was worth it. It was the most original costume in town.”
For a long, quiet time he stared into the night.
“She left? Without warning?”
“That part is painful for me. I felt bad for a long, long time after that—thinking that maybe I’d pushed her away.” Emily made a sound to object, but he kept talking. “I really pulled inside myself and books. But I think I understand her better now. She was a free spirit, Emily. She should never have married, should never have had a child. I saw so much in that jail cell. I wonder if she felt as trapped by us as I felt by those bars.”
An owl hooted nearby. Salem breathed deeply of the peace of the night, celebrating the freedom of being able to do so. “I remembered wonderful things. Every night when I thought about my daughters, I also thought about her, and remembered what was good about her, all that I had forgotten in my bitterness about her leaving.”
“Did your mother ever come back home to visit?”
“No. She went to Las Vegas. I can see her there in all of the lights, with all of that noise and music and laughter. She would have loved every gaudy bit of it. About a month after she left, we got word that she’d died.”
“So, you really lost her twice.”
“I’ve never thought of it that way before.” She’d surprised him with her perception. “Maybe that’s why it hit me so hard. For years, I was obsessed with keeping those around me safe. If my mom hadn’t left home, she would still be alive.”
“But...”
“But only physically. Her spirit would have died, and that would have been a shame.”
“Was that what happened to you in jail? This big change? Before, you were annoyed that I’d bought the girls a karaoke machine.”
“The jail cell was too quiet, like living with sensory deprivation. All of my life, I’ve wanted peace and order, but when I could no longer be with my girls, when I was forced away from them, I missed them so badly, and their spirits and laughter and messiness.”
He tightened his arms around Emily. “I missed their crazy emotions and their quirks.”
He whispered against her hair, “I missed you, too. I want life, Emily. All of it. I want you.”
He turned her around to face him, and then kissed her for long, slow heady moments, as though absorbing her essence, the very heart of Emily Jordan.
“I want to sleep with you tonight, but not in this house while we aren’t married.”
Her breath hitched. “Are you asking me to marry you?” He heard her hesitation, the fear of believing something that might not be true.
“Yes, Emily, I am.”
“Yes, oh yes. A thousand times yes, Salem.”
“This isn’t very romantic, is it?”
“It’s the most romantic proposal I’ve ever heard.”
His heart soared to the heavens, where it kissed the moon and all the stars. If it weren’t so late at night, he would hoot and holler.
What could possibly be more romantic than the realization of a dream that had started so many years ago?
* * *
SOMETIMES THE LARGE moments could be felt in quiet joy, Emily thought.
She held Salem in her arms, touching his shoulders, breathing in his scent, absorbing his heat. Salem. She kissed him. Couldn’t stop. When she came up for air, they were both trembling and breathing hard.
“The girls are young and impressionable,” he said, his voice unsteady. “It wouldn’t be right to sleep together down the hall.”
She’d slept with him in his bed before, the night she came home with malaria, but tonight Salem wasn’t talking about sleeping.
“We could go to the B and B, but the town would have a field day with the gossip.” He sounded frustrated.
He opened her car door. He was sending her home?
“Salem Pearce, if you think I’m not sleeping with you tonight, somewhere, anywhere, you need a lobotomy.” Her hands shuddered with the effort not to tear off his clothes.
“My hands are shaking.” He held one up. Shaking put it mildly. “I want you so badly.”
There was no way on earth Emily was not spending this night with Salem. “Are you up for an adventure?”
“After the one I just went through, I’m up for good adventure.”
“Get in the car.”
Five minutes later, Emily pulled into her dad’s driveway.
They ran around to the back of the house,
giggling like children, high on freedom and drunk on love.
She led him to the backyard.
“We can’t go in the front door,” Emily whispered. “Well, I can, but you can’t.”
“What can we do? We’re not going to make love in the garden shed or the garage.”
She squeezed his hand. “No, we aren’t.” She pointed to the tree outside her back window. “You’re going to climb that. I’ll go in the front door and go on up to bed.”
Salem studied the big, old tree. “It looks sturdy.”
“It is. Remember the night I came to see you at the Cathedral when I was sick?”
“Of course.”
“Dad’s party was on and I didn’t want them to catch me sneaking out, so I climbed down the tree.”
Salem’s hand touched his chest above his heart. “While you were sick? You could have fallen and broken your neck.”
Emily grinned. “I didn’t.”
“You and your reckless ways.” The words were critical, his tone was not. In fact, the subtle note in his voice sounded like admiration.
“Think you can climb it?” Emily asked.
“With you up in that bedroom, I’d climb a thread if it would get me to you.” He grasped the back of her neck and kissed her long and hard then lingered before pulling away. Oh, he did that well. The temperature of the night soared. “Get yourself into the house and that bedroom.”
She laughed.
“I’ve waited a long time for this, Emily.” She couldn’t see his face clearly, but the way his body swayed toward her told her everything she needed to know.
She sobered. “Oh, Salem, so have I. Years.”
“Go,” he whispered. “Hurry.”
He grasped the bottom branch of the tree and pulled himself up.
Emily hurried around to the front of the house and let herself in.
“That you, Cody?” her father called from the living room. Thank goodness they hadn’t tried to sneak in the front door. They would have been caught.
“Nope. It’s me, Dad.” Her voice sounded thin and breathy. Would he notice?
“Congratulations on getting Salem out.”
“Thanks. I’m bushed. I’m heading up to bed. See you in the morning.”
She climbed the first flight slowly then took the second two steps at a time, making sure she closed her door firmly behind her.
Salem was already waiting on the tiny balcony. Emily opened the French doors and he entered, taking her into his arms and squeezing the breath out of her.
They tore at each other’s clothes, hot and impatient, eager and horny, like a pair of adolescents. They’d known each other for so long. If the age difference hadn’t been so great, they should have been together as teenagers. They should have dated, and had their first kisses and their first sexual encounters with each other.
“Let’s make this our first.” She meant not just with each other, but their first time with any partner. The only thing that mattered was now.
“Yes,” Salem said, as though he’d been reading her mind. Maybe he had. They’d always had that strange connection, as though their souls had known each other in another life. Tonight, they would connect physically. “It’s the first of our whole lives together.”
Emily heard buttons pinging onto the floor as Salem tore her blouse from her body. She grasped his head to angle for a deeper kiss and he let her, all while he grappled with the zipper of her pants. She did the same with his, the action slower, more careful, because he was large and full and ready.
After what seemed an eternity, she had him in her hand, the weight of him delicious, and solemn and sturdy like the man.
He grasped her and held her tightly. “Shh. Let me hold you. Give me a second to celebrate this blessing.”
Holding her in his strong, quiet way, she absorbed the intensity, the depth of his emotions. Still waters.
Then he moved, backing her up to the bed. She was naked. Somehow, Salem had done that. She was too slow getting his clothes off and shoved his shirt from his shoulders, her hands on his warm skin, her fingers learning the textures of his light dusting of hair, his smooth clavicle, his hard nipples.
He stood and shucked off his pants then came down on top of her, his weight welcome and right.
She opened her legs and he lay between them, where he belonged.
“Salem,” she whispered seriously, because she’d come to a terrible realization. “I don’t have birth control.”
For a moment, he rested his head on her breast then smiled against her skin. “We don’t need it.”
Caught between panic and joy, she stilled. “Do you mean it?”
“I mean it. I want children with you.” He raised himself onto his hands, arms straight so he could look down on her in the meager moonlight spilling through the window. “I did a lot of thinking in that jail cell. We never had our chance, Emily. Never.”
He touched his lips to her forehead. “Our chance—” he ran his lips down the side of her neck “—is—” he took her nipple into his mouth and her back arched off the bed “—now.” He entered her and she’d never felt anything more sublime.
Now. Their time was now. At last.
Before now, Emily had had only two partners, a boy in college and Jean-Marc; she’d never made love without a condom, had never experienced skin to skin. To do so with Salem was an honor that left her speechless. The possibility that this loving act might produce a baby was miraculous.
She took her time exploring his body—the Zen of loving Salem, of noting every little detail. The ripple of muscle under skin. The way the hair on his legs rasped the soft flesh of her inner thighs. The silken glide of him inside her. The way their bodies belonged together as much as their hearts did.
Her hand cupped his face while he touched her with respect, and with pent-up longing. The man was a thinker...and made love like one. Slowly. Peacefully. Adoringly.
The wonder of love with Salem flooded her.
The beauty of his body, the strength of his affection, the tenderness of his touch...and then the passion of his lovemaking...took Emily’s breath away.
She’d come home thinking she didn’t deserve love, affection or family. She’d been wrong. She loved and gave to others with a generosity that should be acknowledged. She deserved this.
The tenderness of Salem’s touch washed away ugly memories of the things she’d done to hold on to a man who hadn’t been worth it. Jean-Marc hadn’t deserved her. Salem did. With Salem, tawdriness faded and all was beauty, sweetness and then the glorious light of consummation.
They murmured endearments, learned the landscapes of each other’s bodies with questing hands. Throughout the night, Emily found peace, self-forgiveness. Happiness.
Toward dawn, she fell asleep in Salem’s arms.
* * *
“EMILY-Y-Y-Y-Y?”
Emily rolled over and murmured sleepily, snuggling close to the deliciously warm body in bed with her.
What? Who?
“Emily-y-y-y-y.”
Yikes. Laura!
She had Salem in her bed, both of them as naked as the day they were born.
Salem shot up and so did she with a finger to her lips. Don’t make a sound. Sunlight shone through the windows, her alarm clock said it was eight in the morning, and Laura was calling her from the bottom of her stairs.
The panic shooting through Salem’s dark eyes was the same one that raced through her. Oh, crap. Maybe Laura wouldn’t come up. But if Emily told her not to, she would know for sure something was up and might even guess Salem was here.
Emily held her tongue and prayed Laura would stay downstairs. Maybe if she just didn’t answer, Laura would leave. She lay down and dragged the bedsheet up to cover her head. The situation was just too abs
urd. She started to laugh.
Salem pulled the sheet down so he could see her face. “This isn’t funny,” he hissed in her ear.
She covered both of them with the sheet and poked his ribs. “It’s hilarious,” she whispered.
“No, it isn’t. I value your father’s good opinion. I respect him. I can’t be caught in bed with his daughter.”
“His daughter is thirty-one years old and has a mind of her own, thank you very much.”
“This is still his house. We’re under his ro—”
“Emily,” Laura called. “Can you hear me?”
“Yes.” The one word was full of banked laughter.
“I have eggs and bacon for breakfast,” Laura said. “Come on down while everything’s hot. Bring Salem with you.”
Laura’s throaty, infectious laugh rang up the stairs before she closed the door. Emily’s jaw dropped. How did she know? Emily laughed harder.
Salem groaned. “How does she know I’m here?”
“I don’t have a clue.” It was too funny, and embarrassing, to be caught like a pair of kids.
“I feel like a teenager doing something wrong.”
“The only thing wrong, Salem, is that I don’t have my own apartment to bring you to. Besides, you don’t look like a teenager.”
He looked all man, with the bedsheet crumpled around his waist. Sunlight toasted his skin to golden honey and highlighted his broad shoulders and chest. If not for Laura, and probably her father, knowing that Salem was here, Emily would be feasting on the man, would be running her palms over him with her own brand of sunlight. Oh, he was beautiful. Prettier than anything she’d seen during all of her travels.
Nothing and no one compared to Salem. “I love you.”
He gave her one of his smoldering looks and Emily had to get out of bed before she ravished him.
She threw back the bedclothes and said, “Let’s shower.”
Salem perked up. “Together?”
“Yes, but no funny business. Not with my parents downstairs.”
“I want more of you, Emily. I want forever.”
His earnest expression nearly brought her to tears. “Me, too,” she whispered. Nothing more needed to be said.
Always Emily Page 26