Chapter 3 #2
Emmett peers up at the high ceilings, the wooden beams stretching across for support, the tall window glowing with lightning, streaked by heavy drops of rain.
Then, something glows in his eyes. A light turns on, bright and pure.
“Hold on,” he says, “this isn’t right.”
I’m a tad bit disappointed that he gets up, but I respect the man’s boundaries.
“Oh. I understand completely. Let me turn the camera off—“
“No, no. It’s not that. Trust me, Eric would have loved to have someone here filming him.
An interview? Hah! He would have been ecstatic.
” Emmett strides across the room toward a bar cart by the counter.
There’s a new energy surrounding him, an aura that wasn’t there before.
“But on a night like this, with the rain and a good fire, Eric would have been sitting here with the guests, pouring drinks well into the night. He’d get hikers that were planning on early excursions so drunk that they’d sleep till noon. ”
Emmett pours dark liquor into two glasses. Nothing crazy, and he doesn’t bring the bottle over.
He hands me a glass and smiles. “I’ve never been much of a drinker, but… I don’t know. Eric’s the only person I ever enjoyed having a drink with… or a conversation. With you here, I almost feel like he’s around again.”
The confession shocks us both.
Emmett closes his mouth like he regrets the words. I feel heat radiate on my face.
Before he can retreat back into himself, I seize the moment.
“In his honor.” I pop up and raise my glass. “To Eric—I wish I could have known him, but you’ll have to suffice.”
Emmett laughs like he hasn’t done so in years. The bellow bounces around the lobby before it’s swallowed up by the thunder. We clink glasses and sip the smooth whiskey. It travels warmly, pumping heat through my chest and into my belly.
“He would have loved you,” Emmett gasps and takes my glass, setting them down. “Your spirit. Your humor. I bet the two of you could have talked until sunrise.”
“You’re not doing such a bad job yourself, Emmett,” I say, feeling nice and loose. “I could talk to you all night.”
Emmett smiles dreamily. “Until the battery on your phone dies, at least.”
“Longer.” I shrug. “I don’t need to film everything.”
“Well, you should get what you came here for before it dies.”
Emmett plops down in his chair; it groans under all that weight.
Whiskey takes his place at Emmett’s legs again, and I find myself a little jealous that the cat gets to rub all over him.
“Eric died in a car crash,” Emmett says with a clap of his hands, still smiling. “T-boned by a semi. The driver fell asleep. Rolled Eric’s Jeep nine times before it stopped. Dead at the scene. Skulled all crushed and—“
“Jesus, Emmett!”
Our eyes meet, and we both start laughing.
I can’t help it. The laughter rolls out of me like waves crashing against a shore, building and building without a sign that it’ll ever stop. It’s just so ridiculous that we’d take a drink and roll right into the gruesome details of his brother’s death.
“I’m sorry!” I squeal, kicking my feet. “It’s not funny.”
“Ah, don’t be. Eric would have found it funny. For all his charm, he had a sick sense of humor. Life was one big joke to him. Maybe his death was like a punchline. I imagine him laughing while his Jeep rolled. I bet he died with a smile on his mangled face.”
That breaks the dam.
Both of us are in tears. I’m laughing and kicking so hard that one of my clogs slips off.
“Oh, God. Stop. Please, I can’t…” I hold my stomach, feeling the whiskey fire rolling around. “No more. No more.”
“Maybe that horrible woman will drive their car off the mountain on their way down—“
“Emmett!” I lurch forward and kick him. “Horrible!” But I laugh even harder.
He shrugs. “I know…”
My bare foot lingers between his legs. I’m practically sliding out of my chair just to touch him, but neither of us seems to mind.
Emmett glances down, takes a deep breath, and drags his big chair forward. It groans against the hardwood floor like a moaning ghost, leaving us in deathly silence once it’s done. Now, our chairs are so close that we have no choice but to tangle our legs together.
“Did I mess up the framing on your shot?” He glances at my phone.
I shake my head. “It’s perfect, now.”
He watches me kick off my other shoe, lets me slide my feet into his lap. My dress bunches up around my knees, tempting his gaze. If he ran his hands up my thighs and took the dress with them, I’d let him. I’d help him get it off of me.
“Tell me more about him,” I say quietly. “Your brother. Not about his gruesome death.”
“You sure? I have details.”
I press my foot against his abs. The move makes him reflexively grab my ankle, and his rough palm moves up toward my knee.
“All right,” he hums, voice low, fire dancing in his eyes.
“Like I said, this place was his dream. Eric always did the things he said he’d do.
Fucker left for the Army when he was twenty-two because, one drunken night, he told one of his buddies he was gutsy enough to do it.
I had just turned eighteen… I followed him, of course. I always did.”
“Is that how you ended up here?” I ask. “You followed him?”
Emmett nods. “We did six years in the Army, went to college together on our GI Bills, got in plenty of trouble along the way.” He chuckles.
“Always dragging me into crazy shit. Long road trips. Crazy parties. A few brawls… those were mostly my fault. But he was the lightning rod. I just held on tight. If it wasn’t for him, I’m not sure I’d have ever lived much life at all. ”
His hand is absentmindedly caressing my leg. Rough against smooth, massaging deeper and deeper. My toes curl in his lap, and I feel something stiff and steadily growing with each passing moment.
The look on his hard face tells me that he has no intention of hiding it.
And I have no intention of pretending it doesn’t exist.
As he massages my leg, I rub the soles of my feet against his bulge. He’s practically ripping through his jeans now. He drops his head back for a moment and sighs pleasantly.
“This was the big dream. The thing he always ended up talking about after enough drinks to anyone who would listen. An outpost in the mountains. A place for adventurers to rest, plan, and party. More than a lodge… a home for us. We’d be the kings hosting our lords every night.
Nights spent by fires, sheltered from storms, surrounded by good people. ”
“That’s some dream,” I say, watching the memories drift in his eyes.
“It was. And it was real, for a while.” Emmett’s fingers dig into my thigh, just under the hem of my dress.
“We got the money together with some help from old Army buddies. For months, all we did was hunt for the perfect place. We drove all around the country. When we found this place, it looked like it was about to collapse. A good price, if we were willing to put in the work.” Emmett smiles. “That’s where I came in.”
The big man sits up and leans forward. He looks down at my legs, peeling back the hem of my dress so agonizingly slow that I can’t help but hold my breath.
“Eric was the people person. Me? I’ve always been good with my hands.
” One of his fingertips brushes against my panties high up on my hip, making me gasp.
“I can fix anything. With enough time, I bet I could build anything, too. While Eric handled all the administrative and hospitality shit I didn’t understand, I got to work.
I fixed this place up. Never stopped, really.
Everything from that bed frame in your room to the shrubs on the grounds.
The reason the roof ain’t leaking is because I fixed it.
I’ve never understood people, but I understand these hands and what they can do. ”
Slowly, he guides my legs apart. My knees bend, feet sliding across either side of his beefy body, and my dress slips down to my hips. Emmett gazes between my thighs, eyes hungry, mouth agape.
“Do you see something that needs some work?” I ask, voice shaky.
“Needs work? No. From where I’m sitting, everything is perfect.” He meets my gaze. “Besides, we’re not done with the interview.”
“Fuck the interview.”
I throw myself against him.
Emmett’s chair rocks onto two legs, but he manages to steady us with me straddling his lap. We nearly kiss, but the sensation of falling makes us both curse and cling together.
We press our heads together, eyes locked, breaths warm with whiskey and desire.
That thick, impressive bulge grinds against me as I move my hips.
He runs a hand under my dress halfway up my back.
“Does this mean I get a five-star review?” he grunts, bucking his hips to feel my body against his hard cock.
“Maybe it’ll be a one-star. The owner of the lodge put his big, strong hands on me. He seduced me. I didn’t stand a chance… They’d probably shut you down with a review like that floating around, Emmett. I’d expect a real journalist would show up and grill you.”
“It’d be worth it…”
“Yeah?” I gasp, teasing his lips. “Would you kiss the next girl who interviews you by the fire?’
“I don’t plan on kissing anyone else ever again—“
I consume that devotion, those absurd, ridiculous, utterly beautiful words he’s spoken. How dare he say something like that to me! We just met. We barely know each other.
And yet, here we are, tearing each other’s clothes off by the fire in his lonely lodge. Kissing each other like lovers. Saying things we shouldn’t.
I want more.