20. The Real Her
THE REAL HER
“ N o problem finding it, I see?” Warren asked when he opened his door the following Sunday to see Emma standing on his doorstep with a backpack over her shoulder and a cat carrier in her hand.
“Nope,” she said. “Lucky doesn’t care for the car ride that much, but he finally stopped meowing and fell asleep. Could be the louder he got the higher I turned the music up. Otherwise I might have turned around and gone home. I didn’t think you’d like that.”
It hadn’t occurred to him how hard it might be for her to do this.
He didn’t have any pets and never thought much of getting them since he wasn’t home enough.
It would have been another mouth to feed in his house growing up, so that was a no.
“I would have understood,” he said.
“Give me a kiss and let me in the door,” she said. He leaned down to kiss her and then she pushed the cat carrier into his hands. “I’ve got another bag.”
She jogged back to her car and pulled out a suitcase with wheels on it.
“How much did you pack for three days?”
“I didn’t know what we were going to do or how you wanted me to look,” she said. “All you told me was you were going to bring me to the training facility tomorrow.”
He appreciated she cared enough how it would reflect on him, but he didn’t want her to be someone she wasn’t either.
He found he was falling in love with the real her that it seemed he only got glimpses of.
At least from her family’s interactions and reactions last weekend.
The shock he’d felt when he found out who Steve Spencer was though might have been the kicker.
He couldn’t believe they’d trusted him with that secret.
“Yes,” he said. “We’ll go tomorrow morning and I’ll show you around. On Tuesday, I’ve got a meeting for a few hours and then I’ll work out with the trainers. I feel bad I’ll be there most of the morning.”
“Don’t feel bad,” she said. “I’ve got work to do. You know that.”
It made him feel better he didn’t have to worry about entertaining her.
“I know,” he said. She was leaving Wednesday morning. He would have liked her to stay longer, but knew enough to not push it.
They were going to have to work out the future, but he was confident they could.
“Show me around,” she said, giving him a playful shove. He didn’t budge. “You’re not going to be Lucky’s favorite person if you make him stay in there any longer.”
“Come in,” he said. “I pretty much live in the back of the house.”
The front held a library, which he thought was awesome since he loved to read, but he didn’t do it in there. It was just another unused space.
“That’s great,” she said, popping her head in.
“I figured you’d like it. It’s more for show. I’ve got your mom’s books right in the center.”
She zeroed in on them when she walked in. “You’ll get the rest of them if you want. Just say the word.”
“Your mother has been publishing books for thirty years. That’s a lot of books.”
“It is,” she said. “And she has copies of them all to sign for people. Don’t worry about it. She will be honored.”
“She doesn’t have to sign them all,” he said. “She’ll run out of things to say.”
“She’ll never run out of things to say,” Emma said. “And she might keep you guessing on some of them. Who knows? She’s warped like me. But this is a magnificent room.”
They moved down a hall and past a guest room and full bath in the hall to the back where it was more open.
“This is where I spend most of my time,” he said.
“I’d think you’d spend most of your time working out in your gym,” she said.
“That too,” he said.
He wasn’t surprised she wasn’t all that impressed with his home.
At times, when he walked in, the house still impressed him. It was all his.
This was nothing compared to what she’d grown up in.
His house was worth millions, but not even a fraction of the mansion her parents owned on Amore Island.
“Your kitchen is awesome,” she said. “A chef’s dream. For Marcia.”
He laughed. “She does enjoy preparing my food in here.”
Emma walked over and opened the fridge. “Yes,” she said. “She set it up for us. Or is it all for you?”
“It’s for us,” he said. “She does the bulk of my shopping.”
“And you think I’m a hermit,” she said.
“It’s not that I don’t want to go into the grocery store,” he said.
“I understand. It’s that you don’t want to have people bugging you when you buy a bag of carrots.”
“A bag of carrots?” he asked.
“For you,” she said. “That is fitting. Where do you want to let Lucky out?”
“We can let him out now. Will he be fine running around on his own or should we show him where his litter box is?”
“That might be smart,” she said.
He put the carrier down, opened the door, and pulled Lucky out.
The kitten was rubbing against his chest while he petted him. “I’ll carry him around the house with us if you don’t mind once I show him the litter box.”
“You’re like a big old marshmallow. Just not squishy.”
“The coaching staff would not be thrilled if I was squishy,” he said, lifting an eyebrow.
They moved to a laundry room off the kitchen that was as big as most people’s bedroom.
He’d put the litter box in there and brought Lucky down close to it. The kitten acted as if he wanted to get down, so he let him.
“Let’s give him some privacy. I don’t like people watching me pee,” she said.
He’d never been a big fan of it himself, but in the locker room, there wasn’t a lot of privacy. Not in a public restroom either.
Another reason he didn’t go out much. There was nothing worse than having to take a piss while the guy next to you was staring with his mouth open, starstruck, then wanting to shake your hand and carry on a conversation.
They moved back to the kitchen and heard Lucky moving around in the litter box and then meowing a minute later.
Emma popped her head in to see the gray ball of fur just standing there trying to figure out what to do.
Warren picked Lucky back up, and they continued with their tour and went upstairs.
They passed all his guest bedrooms and went straight to his primary suite.
“Now that is a bed,” she said, moving over and diving on it, doing a turn in midair and landing on her back spread eagle.
She put her arms and legs out wide as if she were a snow angel wanting to leave her mark.
She was leaving it, all right, but she had no clue how deeply she was in his life.
“You’ve got a king-sized bed,” he said. “And you need it with all that moving around you do.”
She rolled to one side and then the other and sat up. “I think I sit still so much that when I’m sleeping and should be still my body decides it needs to move and burn off calories.”
“What calories?” he asked. “You hardly eat.”
“I eat one enormous meal a day. You know that.”
“And while you’re here, I’m going to take care of you. I fear your mother. I don’t think my publicist or agent would be too happy to find out I ended up in one of her books with my throat slit.”
“Why?” she asked. “You’re going to end up in one of mine. Or aren’t I popular enough?”
There was a smirk on her face, but he wondered if that was something she’d had to live with.
“Do you try to compare yourself to her?”
“It’s hard not to,” she said. “I think it’s natural for kids to do that with their parents. Roark followed my father into law, but never wanted to be a judge. He’s making his own mark in the world.”
“Just like you,” he said. “What made you want to add the romance to it? Because, you know, you’re not that romantic of a person.”
She got up and pushed him toward the bed. He set Lucky down and the cat went running out of the room.
“I don’t need to give someone romance when I can just jump them. I thought you liked that about me.”
“I love that about you,” he said.
“Get on the bed then,” she said. “Let me jump you.”
“Now?” he asked.
“We kind of have this thing when we see each other after time apart. I didn’t get to do it last weekend. I’ve got to make it up to you.”
“I think you do,” he said, sitting on the bed.
She walked away from him and shut the door. “I don’t need Lucky to come in here and distract me. He’ll be fine.”
“He will be,” he said. “I’m not worried.”
She lifted up her faded yellow T-shirt with an eighties band on the front. He was positive the shirt was made to look older than it actually was.
She unzipped and dropped her brown shorts fast, leaving her in a pair of black bikinis with the Patriots logo on the front.
It was almost as funny as the arrow design she had done with her wax the first time he’d seen her naked.
She hadn’t gotten waxed again but kept it nice and trim and neat.
As much as he appreciated the super bare skin, he knew it wasn’t her and wanted her to be who she was.
“Stand up,” she said.
She was in front of him, and he pushed himself up. She pulled his shirt over his head, then yanked his athletic shorts down along with his boxer briefs.
“I’ve got condoms in my bathroom.”
“Okay,” she said. “Or we can go with the fact I’m on the pill.”
“We can do that too,” he said. Which shocked him how easily he’d volunteered it since he’d never done that before.
Not once.
The last thing he wanted was to worry about someone getting pregnant. Even though he knew condoms weren’t guaranteed, he was able to control it.
There had been too many things in his life out of his control, and once he was able to take the reins, he did.
“I’m clean and all,” she said. “I had a test done two years ago and haven’t had sex with anyone else. I mean, I’ve always made them use protection and then after we split I tested again to know.”
“You know I’m having physicals all the time,” he said. “I’m good.”
He got tested between partners himself for the same peace of mind.
She pushed him back on the bed, his feet were on the floor, his cock standing straight and pointed right at her.
He thought she was going to climb on, but she dropped to her knees, her head following, her tongue only coming out to give him a little lick.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “I didn’t eat breakfast. Are you okay with that?”
“Do you think I’m going to complain?” he asked. “Should I be worried though? I’ve seen how you eat when you’ve missed some meals.”
She shrugged her shoulders with one side of her mouth popping up in her lopsided smirk.
He found it sexy as hell when it was mixed in with the deep blue of her eyes. He often wondered what emotion she was feeling when they were together, but in the bedroom, he always knew.
There was nothing sexier than knowing the woman you were with wanted you as much as you did her. You couldn’t fake that shit.
He knew. He’d been with enough women in his life that did.
Her hands slapped on his thighs as if she was getting ready for work.
Then her head dropped and her mouth opened, going so deep that he was shocked she didn’t gag.
All she did was move up and do it again, her lips closing around him, then sucking.
She kept opening her mouth and adjusting deeper until there was a tightness around his balls and he realized she was squeezing him.
“Fuck,” he said. His eyes closed and he did everything he could not to blow right then.
She wasn’t even moving as fast as he thought she would, but more calculated.
When she somehow went deeper, even his toes were curling into the carpet trying to get a grip on his control.
She stopped and popped her head up. “Don’t worry about me. I know what I’m doing. You can let go.”
“Are you sure?”
“Warren, I know your body well. I bet you’re sweaty if I touch your back.”
“You’d win that bet,” he said.
Down she went, as if she hadn’t just given him permission to release the control that had him shaking.
The minute she rotated her palm around his balls, he knew he was doomed.
Her lips closed and it felt as if she was sucking her cheeks into her face with the amount of pressure around his dick.
She went up and down once and that was all it took.
“Jesus, Emma,” he said, groaning. His fists had gathered the blankets on his bed and were all but ripping them off the mattress with his release.
Emma wasn’t stopping and was gobbling everything up that he gave her.
His fingers finally relaxed along with his shoulders and she sat back, that cocky smirk he was coming to love on her face.
“I studied sword swallowing for a book once.”