Chapter 5 I Devour Tacos Like I Devour Cock Cara #2
I throw my hands in the air. “We were struggling students!”
A server appears with two palomas that we didn’t order, and I take the cocktail with glee, grateful for the distraction.
I pop the grapefruit wedge off the chili-salted rim and give it a lick before dropping it in my glass.
Luisa meets my gaze from behind the bar, returning my grateful smile with the same soft one she always sent us home with.
This one is weighed down with nostalgia, and I make a mental note to tell Olivia that Taco Tuesdays are back on.
Turning back to Emmett, I find him sniffing his coral drink. “Have you had a paloma before? They’re my favorite.”
He shakes his head, tentatively licking the rim before taking a sip. Then his eyes widen, he removes the grapefruit and proceeds to drain half the drink. “Holy shit. That’s incredible.”
“Luisa makes the best palomas.” A beat of silence settles around us as we sip our drinks, gazes flitting away and back again as a pool of warmth gathers in my cheeks, and for the first time in my life, I find myself unsure of what to say.
Hesitant fingers creep across the table, but the second they tangle with mine, there’s nothing but warmth and certainty. “This feels weird, huh?” Emmett asks.
“Respectfully, you’ve come in all three orifices of my body more times than I can count.
This morning you made me take the stairs instead of the elevator so you could hear the way my moans echoed in the stairwell while you held me against the wall and ate my pussy.
Yes, having a first date now feels a little weird. ”
He chuckles. “If I stop thinking of it as a first date, I feel better. I’m just happy to be out with you. Having someone bring dinner to us is a bonus; your concierge is getting tired of seeing too much thigh every time I answer the door in your silk robe when he drops our food off.”
I squeeze Emmett’s hand. “We should consider getting you your own robe.” I pull my lip between my teeth, tipping my head side to side like I’m weighing the options.
“Then again, your cock looks extra pretty in pink, like a princess.” I gasp.
“I know! Let’s give him a pretty princess name, like how Andie called Ben’s Princess Sophia in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days! ”
“Princess Sophia?” Emmett jerks his hand back.
“But you already gave it a name! The Pussy Pounder Five—” His eyes bug when he realizes he’s yelling and everyone’s looking at us, including Luisa.
He leans closer, whispering, “You called him the Pussy Pounder Five Thousand. Remember? I bent you over the couch, buried your head in the cushions, and—”
“Yes, Emmett, and there’s always going to be a time and a place for that. When you’re wearing my robe, Princess Sophia just fits, don’t you think?”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine, but then I also want to throw Lara Croft: Womb Raider into the hat.”
“I’ll take it into consideration.”
“Thor?”
“Pass.”
“The Punisher?”
“Oh! I know!” I clap the table with both hands. “Sir Tom, Pussy Slayer!”
Emmett’s brow furrows. “Sir Tom?”
“Tom Hiddleston, Emmett. Keep up.”
“All right, that’s fair. Nobody competes with Tom Hiddleston.”
I grasp his hand with both of mine. “You get it.”
“Queso fundido for the princesa,” Luisa murmurs, setting a cast-iron skillet and a plate of tortillas down between us. She points to the skillet. “Caliente. Use that beautiful brain and don’t touch; you will get burned.”
“Ah, Luisa. How I’ve missed your sweet mouth.” I grin up at her as she wraps one arm around my head, hugging me loosely.
Emmett smiles, but it’s small and forced, a striking contrast to just moments ago. His gaze is on his hands as they fiddle with his napkin.
I reach across the table, avoiding the hot skillet and laying my hand over his. When his eyes rise to mine, I smile softly. “Hey you. Everything okay over there?”
“Oh, yeah, I just…” His gaze dips to watch as my thumb sweeps across his knuckles. When it comes back up, his eyes searching mine, it’s with a hesitancy I haven’t seen from him before.
“I’m a really good listener,” I promise quietly. “If you’re going to be Mr. Cara Hunter one day, I want to know everything.”
A chuckle, quiet and quick, but the uncertainty in his eyes shifts, giving way to a vulnerability that has him weaving his fingers through mine. “Luisa reminded me of my mom back there,” he tells me. “In a backward sort of way.”
“What do you mean?”
He looks at the skillet. “She told you it was hot, to use your beautiful brain so you don’t get burned.
” His gaze goes to our joined hands, and he licks his lips.
“I was five or six when I touched a cookie tray my mom had just taken out of the oven, burning my fingers. I cried, and she told me if I was stupid enough to touch it, I deserved to get burned.” He laughs quietly, a humorless sound, and I think I stop breathing.
“Same sentiment, but fuck, that delivery really makes a difference, doesn’t it? ”
“That’s a horrible thing to say to anyone, let alone a child,” I manage. “Did your mom do things like that a lot?”
“Little remarks here and there, mostly to let me know how frustrated she was with me, how ‘in the way’ I was, or just how unhappy she was with her life in general.” He forces a smile.
“Always followed it up with some good old-fashioned love bombing, though.” Emmett shrugs.
“Honestly, she wasn’t so bad. Great, actually, when she was happy.
I learned how to read her mood and stay out of her way. ”
I squeeze his hand, wishing I could squeeze an innocent, miniature version of the man sitting in front of me. “I’m sorry, Emmett. You shouldn’t have had to do that.”
“You’re right. At least she wasn’t as bad as my dad.” He blows out a breath, pulling his hand back so he can shove both under the table. “Sorry. Not good first-date conversation.”
“Emmett.” I hold my hand out, palm up. “If there’s a rulebook, we threw it out the night we met.
You don’t have to tell me right now, if you’re not up for it, but please don’t hold back because you’re afraid of what I might think.
” I let out a breath, biting my lip. “My thoughts, all of them lately, are about you. When I think about tomorrow, about next week, next year, or ten years from now… I think about you. I’m not going anywhere. ”
Emmett watches me carefully for a moment, like he’s letting those words sink in. I think I am too.
Slowly, he takes my hand in his, a soft touch that contrasts with the calluses on his palms, left behind by his hockey gloves.
“Thank you,” he murmurs, lifting my hand to his mouth, sweeping a warm kiss across my knuckles.
“My dad was just… loud. Mean. He thrived on intimidation, which was easy enough when he was bigger than me and my brothers. It meant a lot of screaming, stomping, slamming doors, breaking our toys, trashing the garage when he was pissed off. At first, he was predictable, just like my mom. But as I got older, he got angrier, meaner, and the most inconsequential things would throw him into a complete fucking tailspin. Like this one time, my mom went out with some friends, and my dad had to put my youngest brother to bed. He cried for my mom for half an hour, refusing to go to bed, and my dad just got louder and louder, until he eventually lost his shit, stomped off yelling and swearing some truly horrific shit about my four-year-old brother, leaving him crying on the floor. I snuck into his room and got him into bed. He stopped crying right away, like all he’d needed was a hug.
Dad must have checked on the baby monitor, the way I snuggled my brother until he fell asleep, because later that night, I heard my mom crying.
I went downstairs and found her picking up the pieces of her grandmother’s china collection, shattered on the floor.
” Emmett looks away for a moment, his fingers clinging to mine.
“I had this project due in the morning. It was a diorama, and it was supposed to be our favorite season. I thought I was being clever, because I’d done an outdoor rink and a bunch of kids playing hockey. ”
I smile. “Hockey season?”
Emmett nods. “Hockey season, firefly. Anyway, I’d spent two weeks working on it. I made every player with air-dry clay, hand-painted them all… I loved it, and I’d left it out on the dining room table to show my mom, because when she was proud of me, I felt proud of me.”
Dread washes over me, settling in my belly like a nauseating weight.
“Firefly,” Emmett murmurs as his hand comes up to my cheek, his thumb swiping a tear away. “You’re crying. Please don’t cry.”
“He wrecked it, didn’t he?” I whisper, and another tear falls. “Why? As punishment? For fucking what?”
Emmett shrugs. “My mom’s china, because she went out, and he had to deal with bedtime.
My diorama, because my brother settled for me.
Because I was able to do what my dad wasn’t.
” He seems to backtrack, and for some reason, that only makes me even more ready to burn the world down for him.
“I’m making it seem horrible, but it could’ve been worse. ”
“Don’t play that card. There’s always someone else who has it worse. That doesn’t make this better. That doesn’t make this okay.”
“I guess I just…” He scrubs the back of his head. “He wasn’t abusive, at least.”
I cock my head. “Physically, you mean?”
Emmett blinks at me. “I—”
“Because emotional abuse is still abuse.”
He pulls his hands back, clasping them on the table in front of him, looking directly at them, though I’m not sure he actually sees them.
“I’m sorry,” I say gently, touching his arm. “I overstepped.”