50. Kane #2
Loved it that even Cash had come out tonight. He’d met Emery the day everything had gone down and I’d been taken to Dr. Reynolds’ office. Everyone had come to make sure I was okay.
Needing to see it with their own eyes because it was just the way we were.
It meant more that he’d shown up now. When things were good.
“By the grace of God,” Raven interjected as she shook her head, the biggest grin on her face. “And it’s a good thing since I have a toast to make.”
She wiggled around on the booth, placing a knee on the cushion and the other on the floor so she could awkwardly stand.
From where he was sitting next to her, Otto wrapped himself around her waist, all smirks and smiles and fucking obsessed as hell.
I finally understood the affliction.
Raven lifted her drink. “When I was nine years old, I found myself living with this group of four strangers. These guys who were little more than boys. They took me and River in as if we were blood. Protected us. Watched over us and taught us how to survive when our circumstances were so messed up.”
Her voice shook a little, moisture blearing her eyes that were as dark as midnight.
“You’re the only family I’ve ever known,” she murmured, emotion thick in her words. “The only one I’ve ever needed. The only one I want. I just wanted to say how happy it makes me to see it growing.”
A soft smile kissed her red-stained lips. “Nolan was a shock when he came into our lives, and then Charleigh found us. Charleigh who needed us just as badly as we needed her.”
She inhaled an affected breath, joy prancing all over her pretty face that she then turned toward Emery. “And now Emery and Maci. Honestly, my heart feels like it could explode. It’s the most beautiful thing watching it happen.”
Emotion flooded from Emery, and she shifted so she fully faced Raven, placing her hands over her chest in her own show of affection for Raven.
The one who’d become her friend. Her sister. Someone I doubted Emery very much expected. “I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” Emery said.
“Well, that is a very good thing because if you even tried to leave, I would hunt you down.” Raven’s words shifted into a tease.
“I would bring the rope and tape.” Giggling, Charleigh lifted her glass.
“Good lord, what have we turned you into?” River’s voice was soft with amusement, and he looped an arm around his fiancée’s shoulders. “Apparently, we really are terrible influences.”
Charleigh shrugged. “I kind of like what you’ve done to me.”
“That’s right,” Raven agreed. “I needed a partner in crime, and now I have two.”
She gave Emery an unhinged smile.
Emery laughed and lifted her own glass. “I’m ready for whatever antics and adventures you have in store for me.”
Fuck, I loved the way that sounded. The permanence of it.
“That’s what I like to hear,” Raven continued, “because Otto and I have a brand-new adventure in store for you all.”
The look she sent him spilled over with adoration, the same as what was coming from him.
Anticipation filled the air when she looked back at us.
“Because we’re adding another cutie pie to this family, and I know it’s going to be the most amazing sort of adventure.” The last word cracked with the joy that locked in her throat.
“We’re having a little one!” Otto shouted it with a fist pump over his head.
Pride streaming out.
And every single one of us were feeling that joy, too.
The way it radiated over all of us. Wrapping us whole .
Emery glanced up at me. Awe on her beautiful face.
I gave her a tender, knowing nod.
It was good. It was good.
“A baby!” Charleigh couldn’t contain her excitement, and she scrambled over River and Cash to get out of the booth. Raven did the same on the other side, and the two were laughing and crying and hugging each other like mad.
Everyone poured out of the booth behind them, wrapping Raven and Otto in their love and support.
River held her the longest. Hugging her and hugging her as he murmured something in her ear that none of us could hear, but I could tell from the way he hugged Otto after that there was no longer any question or anger over the two of them hooking up.
Because this was right.
Nothing had ever felt quite this perfect before.
“I think this really calls for a celebration,” I said, and I sauntered behind the long bar and snagged our best bottle of tequila and a bunch of shot glasses.
I returned to our table, poured the silver liquor into the glasses, and passed them out, save for Raven, of course, who I realized had been drinking club soda all night.
I looped an arm around Emery’s waist, and I lifted my glass toward the rest of our group. “To this family. Our greatest gift and my only treasure. May it remain strong and unshakable. And may it grow forever.”
“To this family!” everyone shouted as they clinked their glasses together and tossed their shots down their throats.
I didn’t throw mine back, though. I turned to Emery, a smirk taking over my entire face as I edged up close to her. “You want to drink tequila with me, baby? You know you should never drink tequila alone.”
Coyness played at the edge of her delicious mouth, and she swayed from side to side to the rhythm of the music that pounded through the air. “Is that so?”
“That’s right.”
I was swaying, too, getting lost in the moment .
In her.
Her scent and soul and the look in her eyes.
“You’re the only person I want to drink tequila with,” she whispered.
“Because you’re mine.” Possession ground out with the words.
Her nod was slow, toffee eyes flaring beneath the strobing of the lights as she admitted, “I’m yours.”
I clinked my glass against hers before we both tossed them back. Fire burned a path down my throat, and I grabbed her glass and tossed it aside, and my mouth found hers in a flash.
Eating up the taste of her tongue as I kissed her and kissed her.
My hand wound up in a fist in her hair and the other splayed wide against the small of her back.
Desperate to get close to her.
“Get a fuckin’ room,” Cash grumbled as he slipped by, and I pulled back for a beat, long enough to say, “For once, something intelligent coming out of your mouth.”
Cash lifted a middle finger over his shoulder as he sauntered away.
I couldn’t stop my chuckle, and a peal of laughter rolled out of Emery when I snatched the bottle from the table with one hand and grabbed hers with the other and began to haul her down the long hall to my office at the end.
She fumbled on those sky-high boots behind me.
“What are you doing?” Emery’s question was a whispered breath, just low enough that I could hear it over the din.
I spun her around and pinned her to the door. “Need you. Think I might die if I don’t get inside you.”
The playfulness wound with the desire, need flashing in that mesmerizing gaze as she stared up at me. “You have me.”
My girl was no longer shy or reserved, and I fucking loved it.
“And I’m never going to let you go,” I rumbled at her lips as I blindly punched in the code that unlatched the door.
It swung open, and I backed her inside, shutting and dead bolting it behind us as I edged her toward my desk .
I alternated pouring tequila into her mouth and kissing her the whole way.
Lapping it up with my tongue.
Mad with lust.
Crazed with devotion.
With this love that I didn’t understand.
This connection that felt like a life beat that ran through my veins.
“So happy, Em-Girl. So fuckin’ happy. Didn’t know it could be like this.”
I set the bottle to the side then pushed a bunch of shit off my desk so I could prop her on the edge of it.
She gasped as I stepped between her legs and dragged her against me. My jean-covered erection pressed heavy at her center.
Pleasure ripped up my spine at the bare contact. “Fuck. I’m never going to get enough. Never going to get enough of you or this tight little cunt.”
With frantic hands, I shoved her skirt up to her waist.
Our breaths came in choppy quakes as we struggled to get to one another, my kisses demanding and wild as I pushed her panties down her legs.
I stepped back to peel them all the way down, over her thigh-high boots before I tossed them to the ground.
“Lean back and let me see you,” I demanded.
Emery complied, leaning back on her elbows and hooking her heels on the edge of the desk and spreading herself wide.
Exposing herself.
Her pussy pink and swollen and drenched.
“Fuck. Look at you, Emery. Giving yourself this way. Knowing the way I’m going to take care of you.”
It was insane that she’d been so afraid of being touched before she was with me. It was something that both made me irate since she still hadn’t fully come to the place where she could talk about it, the words locking in her throat whenever she tried.
It also made me feel like a king.
That it was me she chose .
That she was free in my touch.
I ran my fingers through her wet, hot slit.
She arched, her chest heaving as her body begged for more.
“You want it, Little Warrior? You want my cock filling you full?”
“Yes. Always.”
I flicked the button of my jeans and dragged my zipper down, and I shoved them down far enough around my thighs so that I could free myself.
My cock jutted for the ceiling, hard as stone and bobbing with greed. So engorged I thought I might explode.
I fisted myself and ran the tip through her lips, making sure to rub the ball at the base of my tip over her throbbing clit.
Emery moaned and spread herself wider. “Please.”
My molars ground as I slowly began to feed her my dick. Driving slow and deep into her tight, soaked pussy.
She writhed and whimpered.
“Take it, Little Warrior. Take it the way you were made to do.”
Her lips stretched wide around my cock, so fucking pretty where we met. I couldn’t look away as I filled her so full we both were gasping.
The oxygen thin.
Our heads spinning
Delirium.
That’s what this had to be.
Touching her and feeling like I might pass out.