Chapter 7 Hey, God? Ignore the Part About the Last Supper Emmett
Three and a half years ago: Twenty-one days to fall in love
“I’M JUST SAYING, WHOEVER THOUGHT attaching daggers to their feet was a good idea was clearly not right in the head.”
I look up at my girlfriend, disgruntled but buzzing with excitement as she gazes out at the frozen lake ahead of us.
“You’ll be fine,” I tell her, but truthfully, I’m not sure she will be.
“Emmett. You can’t even look at me while you say that! I’m going to die.”
I stifle a laugh, yanking on her laces, tightening her skates. “You said it’s not your first time.”
“Right.” She sniffles, pointing that stubborn nose to the sky. “I did say that, didn’t I?” Her eyes roll down to where I’m kneeling between her legs, and they narrow, arms coming across her chest. “And yet you bought me skates, almost as if you didn’t believe I’d done this before.”
“You can’t skate in figure skates. Not with me, at least.”
Her arms fall dramatically. “But they’re pretty!” There go her eyes, narrowing again as I climb to my feet. “Wait. How did you know I have figure skates?”
“Ollie told me.”
“Is that so? And what else did Ollie tell you?”
“Nothing.” Not a lie, technically. I hold my hand out to Cara, but she’s busy staring up at me, eyes wide, lips parted. “What’s that look for?”
“God, you’re fucking huge on skates.” The words puff out on an icy breath, and I grin, hoisting her to her shaky feet. “What do you say we skip the skating and go back to your place? I’ll let you tie my hands behind my back and jerk off on my boobs again.”
I smile at the memory and brush my thumb over her lip. “No sense in wasting all that cum. I’d rather feed it to you.”
“You’re fucking filthy,” she murmurs, a full-body shiver running through her. “I love it.”
Gripping her waist, I lift her off her feet and set her on the ice. Her knees wobble and she fists my jacket with both hands, squealing.
“Emmett, I’m so serious. I might die. If not from somehow impaling myself on a shoe-dagger, then from embarrassment.”
“C’mon, baby. Cara Nicole Hunter doesn’t get embarrassed.
She can do anything she sets her mind to.
” Tangling her fingers with mine, I haul her into me, catching her against my chest. “You’re brave.
Determined. Capable.” I drop a feather-soft kiss to her lips.
“And you have me. I won’t let you fall.”
“Promise?”
“I’ve got you, Cara. Always.”
“I don’t like being scared,” she admits quietly, clutching my hand as I tow her slowly around the frozen lake. “It’s a foreign feeling.”
“Think of it more like letting go. There are some things we can’t do all on our own, and that’s all right.
We hand the reins over to someone else, let them lead the way, and give up control.
I know you’re out of your element right now”—I believe her exact words were if you ever catch me exercising for sport or fun, call the police; I’ve been kidnapped and/or blackmailed—“but you’re here, and I appreciate that. ”
She’s quiet for a rare moment, and instead of reveling in the silence, I hate every second of it.
“You’d be much better suited for someone like Olivia, you know.
She loves sports, and hockey’s her favorite.
She watches all your games and is always shouting at the TV like she understands what’s happening. ”
“Olivia’s great,” I agree, “and I like her a lot.”
Cara’s grip on my hand loosens, and she drops her gaze. Looping an arm around her waist, I pull her flush against my chest, spinning us beneath the sun.
“But she’s not for me.” Hooking a finger under her chin, I bring her gaze to mine. “It doesn’t bother me that you don’t know anything about hockey, or that you’ve never played any sports. We don’t need to have all the same interests to be compatible. Do you know what does matter to me, though?”
I brush her golden waves over her shoulder, smiling at the Vipers beanie tucked over them, my number on the side even though she swore she’d never be caught dead in sportswear.
“That I’m extremely hot and funny?” she guesses.
“That you spent the last three weeks having your best friend teach you how to skate so that you could do this with me.”
Cara gasps. “She told you about that?”
“There may have been some videos. I especially loved the way you starfished on the ice and complained about how exerting physical effort for a man is beneath you.”
Groaning, she buries her face in my chest. “I hope you know how special you are. I swore I’d die a sport-virgin, and yet here I am, in my shoe-daggers, dangerously close to breaking a sweat, and I’m not even naked, which is the only time I ever break a sweat.”
“I love it when you’re naked and sweating.”
“I know you do. That’s the reason I’ve been taking three showers a day.”
I huff a laugh, and Cara smiles, tasting it from my lips. So I’m a little insatiable. I can’t help it; once is never enough when it comes to her body moving against mine.
The truth is, despite being on the road for a total of eleven of our twenty-one days together so far, I think I’ve had sex more times in these three weeks than I have in my life, and I was not celibate before Cara.
But it’s not the sex I’m insatiable for; it’s the woman. The way my heart pounds when she opens up the door, the way my blood simmers and my nerves settle the moment she’s in my arms. The way she tastes when she presses three simple words to my lips, three words I never knew I needed: I missed you.
We spend the next hour coasting around the lake, taking breaks every time Cara complains that the reflection of the sun on the glittering ice is the reason she can’t skate straight, and I get lost in the way that same sun dazzles in her eyes.
Finally, I gaze into the sky as the sun starts its descent, faint strokes of pink and orange that paint this beautiful day, and not a bit of me is ready for it to end.
Spinning Cara so her back is to me, I grip her hips and dip my mouth to her ear. “Think you’re ready for no-hands?”
“What? How about no fucking way? Are you insane? What if I fall?”
“Then I’ll pick you back up, and we’ll try again.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that, firefly.”
She sucks in a deep breath, looking up at the sky. “If there is a God, I’d like to first apologize for never praying. Secondly, I’d like to humbly request that some divine force keep me on my feet. Third, I think Emmett should treat my pussy like the Last Supper should I survive this.”
I snort a laugh. “I don’t think he’ll like that one, baby.”
“I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl” is all she replies, and then she’s off. One shaky step at a time, legs wider than they should be, ass jutted backward, arms out wide like she’s searching for something to hang on to. “Oh my fuck,” she breathes out. “Emmett! Emmett, look at me! I’m doing it!”
“Fuck yeah, baby!” I holler across the lake. “You’re doing it!”
“I don’t know how to stop!” she shrieks, going all of two miles per hour as she approaches the pines at the edge of the lake. “I can’t stop! I’m going to die!”
“You’re doing great!”
She’s still shrieking, the sound bloodcurdling as it echoes across the lake, when she grabs hold of a branch that hangs out over the ice.
She uses it to turn herself around, and pure joy explodes across her face as she heads back my way, reaching for me.
“Did you see that? I turned myself around! I’m a skater!
A professional! There’s never been anyone like me before! ”
I catch her by the waist, spinning her around as she squeals with laughter. “There’s only one you,” I murmur, forehead pressed to hers as I set her back on her feet. “And somehow, in this whole world, you’re mine.”
Excitement dances in her eyes, giddy laughter bubbling in her chest. She opens her mouth, and the last thing I ever expected pours out of it.
“There are five players and one goalie on the ice at all times for each team, unless there’s a penalty.
When there’s a penalty for someone on your team, and you have to try to stop the other team from scoring, it’s called a penalty kill.
When the other team has a penalty, it’s called a power play.
A hat trick is when you score three times in the same game, which you did three games ago in Florida.
You also punched someone that game, which got you a major penalty, which is five minutes, and it was so hot I—”
“I love you.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “What?”
“I love you, Cara. And I don’t care that it’s only been three weeks, and maybe you think I’m a little crazy. I’ve been crazy since the day I took one look at you and told myself you were it for me, and I’ll be crazy for the rest of my life, because there’s nothing sane about the way I love you.”
Cara’s eyes bounce between mine, like she’s seeing every word, tasting them, searching for the hidden meaning. There is none. She’s mine. She owns me, my heart, my soul, every goddamn thought, and I don’t care if it doesn’t make sense. I’m just going to pray to God that she feels the same way.
“Watch the shoe-daggers,” she breathes out, and before I can ask her what she means, she leaps at my chest. Tosses her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist. Claims my mouth with hers as my hands go to her ass, holding her to me while I taste all her unspoken words from her tongue.
But then she gives me those too.
“I love you too, Emmett.”