Remnants of Riley

Chapter 5

My eyes fly open and goosebumps prickle my arms. My heart is pounding against my ribs like I just ran a marathon, and I can hear the blood thrumming in my ears.

Slowing my breaths, I count to twenty, touching a fingertip to my thumb with each number. I start at my pinky and work down to my pointer finger, then go back again and repeat the process until I”ve hit twenty.

When my heart finally calms down, I rub the sleep from my eyes and try to remember if I was dreaming about anything. Usually when my body startles awake like this, it’s because of the nightmares I used to have. But I can’t recall dreaming of anything tonight.

The darkness in my bedroom tells me that it’s still nighttime. I feel a draft wash over me and I shiver at the cool air kissing my exposed skin. Why is it so chilly all of a sudden? I grab my phone off my nightstand and see it’s a little after 1:30. I had only gone to bed a couple hours ago, and it wasn’t nearly this cold in here then.

Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I slide my feet into my fuzzy slippers and head out to the hallway to adjust the thermostat. The oversized t-shirt I wear does nothing to ward off the chill in my apartment, and I cross my arms over my chest in a vain attempt to stop my shivering. For the last week, the nights have been getting cooler and cooler. It’s probably time for me to just leave the heat on.

Adjusting the thermostat so the heat kicks in, I turn to enter the bathroom across the hall when another cold draft washes over me. Confused, I make my way to the kitchen and living area, wondering if I left a window open. I make a quick lap around my small apartment, double checking all the windows. Finding them closed, I head to my patio door and freeze.

The lock is flipped up. I know I locked it after using it last night. Ever since Trevor, I’m compulsive about triple checking my locks.

My breath catches in my lungs, and suddenly every sense is hyper aware. The hair on the back of my neck stands on end as I back away from the patio door and run back to my bedroom, grabbing the baseball bat I keep under my bed. Holding it as steady as I can in my shaking hands, I make a quick sweep of my apartment.

Laundry room? Empty. Closets? Empty. Bathroom? Empty. I let my head fall back and exhale sharply through my nose.

Maybe I did forget to lock the patio door.

The thought unsettles me. After everything I”ve been through, I should know better.

Fighting back the pit I feel forming in my stomach, I return to the patio door, locking it and giving it a couple tugs just to double check that it is, in fact, actually locked this time.

I return the bat to its hiding place under my bed, head back to the bathroom to pee quickly, then dash back across the hallway and jump into bed, pulling the covers up to my chin and snuggling back in.

The feeling of dread I had at seeing that door unlocked finally starts subsiding after a few more rounds of deep breathing and twenty counts on my fingers, but I can’t seem to get my mind to slow down enough to fall back asleep. And try as I might, it keeps wandering back to thoughts of this morning and my interactions with Emmett.

Sexy-as-sin Emmett.

I roll my eyes at the thought. I’m not blind. I know the man is attractive. But what I don’t know is why I can’t forget about him. Why he keeps intruding into my thoughts uninvited. I don’t like the way he makes me squirm. The way he makes my skin flush. The way he looks at me like he could devour me.

Being around him this morning made me so uncomfortable, and yet here I am, thinking about his piercing gaze and the way his shoulders looked under his dress shirt.

I roll onto my back and let out a sigh. I guess it’s better to be occupied with thoughts of Emmett than thoughts of Trevor.

It took months after leaving Trevor to be able to sleep all through the night without waking to nightmares about him. Tracy’s the only person who knows what I went through the two years I was with him.

The absolute fairy tale that was our first year together, our engagement and the excitement of wedding planning, and the absolute destruction that was the last six months of our relationship. After leaving him, I spent a year moving from place to place, never staying for longer than a few months, before finally settling back here last spring.

I was nervous about moving back and being so close to where I grew up. Worried about all the memories of my parents and the life I had run away from years earlier. But it ended up being the best decision I”ve made.

I didn’t realize how lonely I had been the last few years until I moved back and Tracy swooped back into my life like I had never left. And slowly but surely, I started feeling like I belonged somewhere.

So yeah, I guess thoughts of Emmett are better than the alternative.

Resigning myself to the fact, I close my eyes and drift back to sleep, thinking about what those tattoos under his shirt might look like.

I’m lying on my living room floor the next morning, trying to force myself to finish my workout, and hating every second of it. My abs burn like hell, and the woman spouting motivational phrases on the workout video playing on my TV does nothing to make me want to continue. If anything, she makes me want to turn my TV off. My abs have had enough of her bullshit.

Taking a few deep breaths, I force myself to jump back into the last ab circuit when there’s a knock on my door. I’m not expecting anyone, but I can’t say I’m mad about the interruption. Grabbing the remote beside me, I turn the TV off and walk over to the door, peering through the peephole.

“Shit,” I mutter when I see who”s on the other side.

Emmett stands casually in the hallway. He’s holding a file in one hand, the other stuffed in his jeans pocket. Even through the peephole, the leather jacket he’s wearing does little to hide how the shirt underneath hugs his chest.

God, he looks even better like this than he did in dress clothes. Why couldn’t Tracy have found someone unattractive to help me? My stomach flutters and I hate that my body responds to him like this.

Suddenly, I’m not so grateful for the interruption anymore.

He knocks again and I reluctantly pull the door open, knowing he’s not going to go away.

“Good morning, Miss Miles.” His voice is all deep and smooth, and I shiver. He pushes his way into my apartment, shoving the folder into my chest. “I need you to sign this.”

“How did you know where I live?” I ask and pull a contract addendum out of the folder. “And why couldn’t you email me this? I’ve signed every other document electronically.”

I look up from the paper to see his eyes moving over my body and remember I’m only wearing yoga pants and a sports bra. I fold my arms across myself as I wait for him to answer me, hating the way my hands are getting all clammy. His stare makes me nervous.

“Your address was in the paperwork Tracy sent me,” he finally responds, as if that actually explains why he’s here.

He moves to the back of the kitchen island, shrugging out of his jacket and draping it over one of my bar stools. The t-shirt he wears underneath fits snuggly across his chest and shoulders and the sleeves are practically painted onto his biceps. I can’t help but stare as they flex when he leans onto his forearms on the kitchen island. Both of his arms are completely tattooed from the wrists up, and I find myself shifting from foot to foot as I take him in.

This big, attractive, intimidating man is in my apartment. With me. The two of us. Alone.

I swallow and move to the side of the island opposite him, hoping the buffer between us makes me less nervous.

It doesn’t.

“But why are you here?” I ask again, reaching for my purse in search of a pen. “Like I said, you could have emailed this to me.” I finally find one and skim the document, noticing it’s an addendum for the new closing date. I sign it and shove the file back across the counter to him.

He pushes the file to the side and stands to his full height, rounding the island to stand beside me. When I turn to face him, he’s staring at me with a look in his eyes that I can’t quite decipher. I take a small step back, but he reaches out and grabs my wrist, pulling me back to him.

“Let me take you to brunch.” He doesn’t ask. He demands.

My response is immediate. “No.”

It’s not necessarily that I don’t want to, it’s more like I’m afraid to. When you’ve been through everything I have, it’s hard to open up and trust again, and I get the impression Emmett isn’t the kind of guy to wait around on a woman to get over her personal issues. Jeremy would be, though.

I flinch at the thought.

Jeremy is nice, but Emmett, he sparks something in me that I almost don’t recognize. And that scares me more than anything.

“No,” he repeats, as though the word is foreign to him.

His hand still grips my wrist and I pull out of his grasp, the feel of his fingers against my flesh lingering.

“No. I signed the form, so you’re welcome to leave.” I gesture toward the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a workout to finish.”

It’s a lame excuse, but it’s the best I can come up with right now. I’m not about to tell him I don’t want to go out with him because I’m embarrassed that a complete stranger is making me feel things I thought I’d never feel again.

An arrogant, demanding stranger at that.

I turn on my heel and circle around the other side of the island to avoid walking past him. Heading back to my yoga mat in the living room, I lay on my back to finish my workout.

My core is on fire, but it’s not from the ab workout anymore. Maybe a few more sets of crunches will replace the current burn with one that’s easier to deal with.

I’m about to start my next set when Emmett rounds the couch and flops down on it, his arms stretched out along the back of the seat like he’s got nowhere else in the world to be. His eyes watch me intently, and I may as well be lying here naked for how exposed I feel under his gaze.

“What are you doing?” I glare at him.

He lifts his hands for me to continue. “Waiting for you to finish your workout.”

“I’m not going out with you,” I reiterate with much more confidence than I actually feel.

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t even know you.” And I don”t like the way you make my body buzz.

He smirks. “That’s kind of the point of going out with someone.”

“Yes, well, usually you go out with someone when you”re interested in them. And I’m not interested,” I say, then start doing some bicycle crunches.

“You’re not?” he muses.

I pause to look over at him. He still watches me intently, and suddenly I don’t remember how many crunches I just did.

“No, I’m not.” Good lord, has the man never been told no before in his life?

The corner of his mouth rises. “I always get the yes, Riley. Whether it’s today, tomorrow, or a month from now, I’ll get it.”

“You really are full of yourself, huh?” I’m surprised there’s room for his ego in my little apartment.

He gets up from the couch and walks over to me, crouching down to run a finger along the damp skin just under the band of my sports bra, then up the side of my breast. My breathing falters at the contact, but I force my eyes to meet his.

“It will be your new favorite word, Miss Miles,” he purrs.

With that, he gets up, grabs his jacket and the file, and makes his way out the front door, leaving me a hot, bothered, and frustrated mess on the floor.

I swipe Riley’s keys from the counter as I make my way out of the apartment. She doesn’t even notice, not bothering to get up from her yoga mat when I leave.

She was a combination of angry and turned on when I walked away from her, the conflicting emotions a beautiful sight on her flushed face. I could see the way her nipples hardened under her sports bra as I ran a finger along her breast, and fuck me, all I wanted to do was drag that finger down the flat planes of her stomach and into her yoga pants.

My hand twitches at my side, thinking about exploring every inch of her soft skin. Seeing it redden under my touch.

Soon. My sweet, timid girl won’t say no forever.

But I have other things to worry about right now. Like making sure she’s safe in that shitty apartment.

Even though she’ll only be living there for a few more nights, I still hate the fucking idea of it. That area of town is rough. The whole reason I came over was to check if she had locked that damn patio door since last night. Thankfully, I could see she had flipped the lock at some point.

That eased my mind a little, knowing she was at least more secure, but it also created another issue: I wouldn’t have access. Which is why I grabbed her keys on the way out.

It’s cold today, so I had left the Porsche in the garage and instead opted for the Audi. I flip the heat on as I pull away from the curb, navigating to the nearest hardware store to make copies of Riley’s apartment keys.

I still haven’t quite figured out how I’ll return her keys without her noticing, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. My main concern is making sure I have unfettered access to her whenever I want.

It was cute, the way she turned down my invitation to brunch. I knew she would, but watching her try to put on a brave face, when I could tell how much her body reacted to me, was adorable.

She gets this tint to her cheeks whenever I push in on her, and her breath catches whenever I touch her. It drives me crazy, making me want to push her more. But I know if I move any faster than I am, she’ll shut down completely.

I want to push her, but just enough to make her uncomfortable, to make her squirm. Not enough to have her fleeing.

Fuck, who am I kidding? Even if she flees, I’ll chase her.

She’s the exact opposite of every woman I’ve ever been with. They were all more than willing participants, throwing themselves at me and letting me do whatever I wanted. And for a long time, it was enough for me. I fucked my way through half of New York before it started getting old. Then when I moved down here, it just wasn’t enough anymore.

I realize now I needed something different, something new. Something small and timid with long dark hair, small perky tits, and innocent eyes.

My hand drops to the bulge in my pants and I grip myself through the fabric. This woman tests my self-control like no other. I’m half tempted to pull over and rub one out quick, but I don’t. I need to get these keys back to Riley before she realizes they”re gone.

The hardware store is only a ten-minute drive from her apartment. I pull into a spot at the back of the lot and make my way inside. Thankfully, the store is relatively quiet for a Saturday. When I find the key section, I hand the key ring off to the man behind the counter and have him make me a copy of everything.

There are five keys on the ring. I don’t have a fucking clue what they’re all for, but where Riley has access, I want access.

When the keys are cut and I’ve checked out, I head back to her apartment. I park a block down, the same place I had last night, and walk over to her patio door.

Peeking through the crack in the blinds, I see the living room and kitchen area are empty. I take the newly cut keys and begin testing each one in the patio door, hoping one of these works. On the fourth one, it turns, unlocking the door.

I pause before opening it, double checking through the crack that she’s still not visible. Ever so slowly, I pull the door back, just enough for me to stick my head in and listen. That’s when I hear the shower running, and send out a silent thank you to whatever god made this small miracle happen.

Stepping inside, I make my way to her kitchen island and drop her keys back beside her purse. I’m turning to leave when the noise coming from the bathroom changes. The shower’s still running, but there’s a buzzing sound now.

When the first moan slips from her mouth, I move. Making my way down the hallway, I stop outside the bathroom door, pressing my ear against it. The buzzing noise picks up in intensity, and a whimper escapes from Riley.

Holy fuck. She’s masturbating. Just a few feet away from me.

I palm my cock again, desperate for friction. I can clearly picture her–skin hot and flushed, her pussy soaking wet as she moves the vibrator in and out. I can practically feel the slickness of her wet skin, the clenching of her pussy, as though it was my dick moving in and out of her and not a toy. I can almost taste her–skin salty from sweat–as I think of pulling one of her nipples into my mouth and biting down until she’s screaming, lost to the sensation and completely at my mercy.

I’m practically dry humping my damn hand when I hear my name slip from her mouth. “Emmett…” It comes as a plea and is about enough to send me over the edge.

Fucking hell. She’s masturbating while thinking about me.

I grip both hands to the door frame and take a steadying breath, trying to remind myself why I can’t barge in there and fuck her senseless right now.

Riley makes a small crying noise as she comes, and then the buzzing stops. My heart hammers in my chest like a fucking freight train, and I force myself to move, realizing she could step out of that shower at any moment.

Backing away from the door, I make quick work of exiting her apartment and locking it back up with my new set of keys. The only thing keeping my self-control in check right now is knowing that I’ll be seeing my girl again tonight.