Chapter 18
Marshall
“Do you think they’ll ever catch Nick’s enemies?” Emma asked. “I’m worried that they haven’t gotten the guys who were behind that whole assassination attempt and the kidnapping.”
Even though it was late, neither one of us had been tired after Emma had finished her chat with Sara outside.
I’d grabbed Emma a glass of wine and another beer for myself before we’d headed out to the deck.
We were seated in the same loungers that Brock and I had occupied earlier.
“I’m working on it,” I assured her. “These bastards are slippery and the kidnappers aren’t talking, but I’ll find them eventually.”
Yeah, Nick was a friend and I cared about his safety, but my reason for tracking the kidnappers was intensely personal.
I wanted the assholes who had kidnapped Emma to get apprehended as quickly as possible.
“You’re working on it yourself?” Emma asked curiously.
“Of course I’m working on it with Nick,” I confirmed.
“Do you really think I wouldn’t be doing everything I can to catch the men who nearly killed you, Emma?
Nick is throwing all of his resources toward it in Lania, but his governmental agencies just aren’t as sophisticated as ours.
Not to mention the fact that the US Government takes the kidnapping of US citizens pretty damn seriously. ”
“Do they know about the kidnapping?” she questioned.
I turned my head to look at her. With the porch light on I could see her puzzled expression.
“They know everything,” I said jokingly. “You just won’t always know what they know.”
Tracking the men behind the kidnapping was a huge priority for our government right now, but I would have been doing the same thing I was already doing even if they weren’t paying me to do it.
Lania had been a pain in the ass for the US for decades, and the last thing they wanted was more trouble and more kidnappings in the future.
“When I talked to Nick a few days ago, he didn’t sound like he was worried about his own safety,” Emma said unhappily.
“He’s not,” I admitted to her. “He’s more worried about the fact that they kidnapped you and he’s worried about the stability of his country.
But he’s not taking unnecessary risks, Emma.
His bodyguards are surrounding him all the time.
You don’t need to keep fretting over his safety.
They protected him from getting killed during the assassination attempt. The only one who suffered was you.”
“I’m fine,” she said dismissively. “He had his bodyguards. I had you and Last Hope to rescue me.”
“Are you really fine, Emma?” I questioned with a frown.
She acted like she’d recovered well from her kidnapping, but I was still concerned.
Emma nodded earnestly. “I really am fine, Colin. I think the only thing that still bothers me is that awful assassination attempt. I’m afraid it will happen again and Nick won’t be so lucky next time.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that you could have been killed by one of those flying bullets?” I ground out.
She shook her head. “No. They weren’t aiming at me. They wanted Nick.”
Christ! Her nonchalant attitude drove me completely insane.
Bullets could ricochet and misplaced shots killed people all the time.
Thoughts of Emma being killed during that hail of bullets fucking haunted me all the damn time.
Hell, maybe it was better if she didn’t know just how much danger she’d be in, but her offhandedness about her own safety irritated the hell out of me.
Just the thought of anything happening to her made my gut wrench.
“I’d prefer to never see you in that kind of situation again,” I informed her.
That was putting it mildly.
I’d probably lose my shit if I had to go through that again.
Emma reached across the small table between us and put a hand on my forearm. “I’m safe, Colin. I don’t think that’s ever going to happen again.”
The tension in my body relaxed…a little.
“I should hope not,” I grumbled before I took a slug of my beer.
“You were really worried about me,” she said softly after she’d swallowed a sip of her wine.
Worried?
Seeing Emma in danger terrified the hell out of me, and there were very few things that scared me after all of the years I’d spent working with the worst that humanity could offer.
“Of course I was worried,” I answered, annoyed. “Why do you think I hauled my ass to Lania?”
She let out a long sigh. “Because you cared what happened to me even though we hadn’t seen each other in years.”
“It didn’t matter how many years had passed,” I muttered. “I think it’s my job to worry about you. I don’t think you do it often enough.”
Emma always seemed concerned about everyone except herself.
Someone needed to pay attention to her needs, and I’d decided that person needed to be me.
Hell, maybe that was what happened when someone became an only parent to a child, but that shit had to stop.
Strangely, I’d started to enjoy being the one who looked after what Emma needed or wanted.
She laughed and the musical sound made my dick twitch.
“I’m a very mature adult, Colin,” she reminded me teasingly.
“I don’t give a shit,” I rasped. “I want you to be happy and I want you to be safe.”
“I want the same thing for you,” she said as she stroked her fingertips up and down my forearm soothingly.
Something about the feeling of those soft fingers stroking my skin suddenly made me lose it.
I grabbed her wine and my beer, put them on the table, and shoved the table out of my way.
I yanked her lounger close to mine, wrapped my arms around her, and lifted her until she was sprawled across my body in my chair.
She gasped as she suddenly found herself on top of me.
I tightened my arms around her.
Yeah, that was much better.
I was convinced that there was no better feeling than having Emma as close to me as we could possibly get with our clothes on.
“Caveman,” she accused without the least bit of annoyance as she snuggled into me.
I smirked as I stroked her silky hair. “That’s not the first time you’ve called me that.”
I had to admit that my feelings toward her had always been a little possessive and primal.
That hadn’t changed for me.
And those instincts were almost impossible for me to ignore.
“I like your sometimes primitive behavior. I think I forgot that I thought it was really hot.”
“It never scared you?” I asked, already knowing that Emma had never been afraid of me.
“Never,” she said emphatically. “I always knew that beneath those Neanderthal instincts was a man who would rather hurt himself than hurt me. You were always protective of me and my feelings, Colin. I knew that.”
Something broke inside of me when she put her head on my shoulder like she trusted me completely.
Hell, I’d rather cut my balls off with a dull knife than to betray that kind of trust in any way.
“I still feel that way, Emma,” I confessed. “I think my first instinct is always going to be to protect you.”
“I think that’s just who you are,” she said softly.
Not always.
But with her, it was definitely who I was.
I grunted as she wriggled on top of me to work her way up higher on my body.
The feel of that soft, curvy body moving over mine got my dick as hard as a pike in a nanosecond.
“Emma,” I said in a warning voice, my heart pounding against my chest wall so violently that I had to take a deep breath to try to make it stop.
“What?” she said innocently as her beautiful, blue-eyed gaze met mine.
I threaded my hands into her hair. “I might be older, but I’m still a guy who finds this shapely body of yours incredibly appealing.”
The need and affection in her eyes gutted me.
Fuck! This woman had always been my weakness, but I really didn’t give a shit anymore.
I kissed her because I couldn’t stop myself from doing it.
I ravaged her mouth like a desperate man, and when she returned the embrace with equal fervor, I knew I was fucked.
I finally allowed myself to touch Emma’s gorgeous body as I kissed her, exploring every new curve and nuance that had gotten my dick hard the moment I’d seen her again.
I hadn’t been trying to flatter her when I’d told her that I liked her curvier body.
Hell, I liked it far too much.
When I palmed the gorgeous ass I’d been admiring for days now, she moaned against my lips when I pulled her as tightly as I could against my aching cock.
Mine!
Emma Lockwood was fucking mine.
I wasn’t a fanciful guy who believed in things like fate, but some primitive instinct told me that this woman was mine and was always meant to be mine.
I’d just been the idiot who had figured that out too damn late fourteen years ago.
Emma’s eyes were glazed and she was breathless when I reluctantly released her mouth.
I wasn’t going to lie.
There was a masculine part of me that was damn satisfied that she was just as affected by me as I was by her.
“Colin,” she said in a needy tone that made me want to carry her to bed and satisfy every damn need she had.
She hugged me so tightly around the neck that I could barely breathe, but I savored every second of it.
I decided that breathing was highly overrated.
I didn’t really need to breathe right now.
I needed her.
Probably always had.
Definitely always would.
I was too damn old to lie to myself.
“I think we should have another fling,” she finally said as she clung to me. “We have time before Wren comes home. I just want to spend that time being with you. I know it sounds crazy. I’m not asking for commitments or a future. I just want to live in the moment this one time and be with you.”
My baser instincts were telling me to take her up on that offer before she could change her mind.
However…
“Not happening,” I said flatly.
Her body tensed, so I went on to explain.
“I want to be with you, Emma, but it isn’t going to be a fling.
You mean more to me than a fuck or two. I’m not going to pretend that you don’t.
I’m too old and set in my ways for bullshit.
I’m down for living in the moment, but we’re going to actually date.
It’s what I actually wanted years ago, but I was too afraid to admit it.
We had a deal and I stuck to it. No deals this time.
We’ll figure out the future later, but I’m going to treat you the way you deserve to be treated before we have sex.
We did things ass backwards last time. That isn’t happening again. ”
She groaned as she released her tight grip on my neck. “It’s not going to be easy for me to keep my hands off you.”
I grinned. “I never said that you had to keep your hands off me. Honestly, I prefer that you don’t because I already know that I’ll definitely be touching you.
I’m just saying that we’re not having sex until you know that there’s more between us than just the physical.
Hell, it won’t be easy for me, either, but I want a hell of a lot more than we had years ago.
Figure out where you want to go on our first date tomorrow, and we’ll start living in the moment together.
I’m probably going to suck at it because my instinct is to plan everything carefully. ”
“How do you feel about going to Mackinac Island?” she asked.
“I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never been there,” I admitted.
I knew that it was an island that prohibited motor vehicles, so it wasn’t possible to drive around there, but the photos I’d seen of the island had been picturesque.
“I haven’t been for a long time,” Emma said wistfully. “But I love it there.”
“I’ll book a hotel. Pack a bag in the morning. We’ll stay for a few days.”
Hell, if Emma was longing to go there, I’d stay there as long as she wanted.
I didn’t really care where we went as long as she was with me.
I could deal with living in the moment with Emma if that’s what she was comfortable with right now.
At some point in the future, we were going to be done with living in the moment and the end result would be exactly what I really wanted.
Yeah, I still had some reservations about whether or not I’d make a good partner to her, but…bottom line…there wasn’t another guy in the world that would work as hard as I would to make sure that she was happy.
I’d fucking learn to compromise.
I’d learn to be emotionally available for her.
I’d learn to be the man that she needed.
I’d learn to deal with the fact that she was the only person in the world who could make me completely irrational.
Emma Lockwood would be mine.
I had no choice but to make that happen in the future.
I was a smart guy, and I wasn’t about to blow a second chance at getting exactly what I’d wanted since those days we’d spent together in Virginia Beach.
I’d been an idiot back then, but I wasn’t about to make the same monumental mistake twice in one lifetime.
The only thing that would stop all that from happening was if Emma didn’t feel the same way.
That part of the equation was out of my control, but I’d do everything possible to increase my chances of getting what I wanted.
I’d just have to hope that was going to be enough.