Chapter 19 Emory
EMORY
Fire sears my skin, trailing all over my body like a calloused finger. My eyes drop to Dawson’s hands. I can tell, just from a glance, that his palms are nothing but smooth. Like silk.
Arousal seeps deep into my core, the bottom half of my body already naked.
Exposed.
Bare.
Dawson’s face is stoic, lacking all expression as he watches me. And yet, I know he feels this magnetism between us. This pull that’s been there since day one.
For once, I let go, allowing him to have me in a way I haven’t given anyone else for far too long.
I lift my hand, smoothing it over my stomach.
Ever so slowly, I drop it, inching closer and closer to the warmest part of me.
The pad of my finger lightly brushes over my clit.
My hips jerk in appreciation. I can feel how wet I am, how inexplicably turned on my body is because of being watched, because of who is watching me.
“Feel yourself,” Dawson encourages in a low tone.
I listen, dipping my finger down between my lips and feeling just how excited I am. Wetness coats the pads of my index and middle finger.
“How much do you want it?” His eyes are on mine now, begging for the answer that’s desperately clawing its way up my throat.
“I want it so badly, Dawson,” I murmur.
“Show me.”
Those two words are like a magic potion to my system. I don’t delay it. My fingers swirl over myself, enticing my eyelids shut as I sink into the moment, into the feeling.
“You’re going to have to open your eyes, Emory,” Dawson says a second later. “That way I can see just how far you fall when you let go.”
I moan, lifting one of my feet to prop it on the sofa right next to his knee. “I don’t understand how you have such an intense pull on me.”
His hand reaches out, circling my ankle, his thumb trailing over the delicate skin. “Some things aren’t meant to be understood. They’re just meant to be felt.”
I suck my bottom lip into my mouth and bite down. I’ve always been one to slip away during moments like this, so keeping my eyes open proves to be more difficult than I realize.
My fingers work over my flesh, over that greedy spot of nerves that is drunk off Dawson’s stare, his eyes, his entire damn aura.
He is safety. The eye of a storm that never seems to come. The warmth of a firepit on a cozy, autumn evening. He is who my soul reaches for, and who I want to tell all my truths. Even if they hurt. Because I know he owns the salve that will pull the pain right out of me.
His hand tightens around my leg. “You are so damn pretty, Emory. Every inch of you, do you hear me?”
“Yes,” I breathe out, unable to say anything else. I’m too busy focusing on chasing that electrifying feeling pooling in the center of my being. I swoop my fingers down low again and collect my arousal. I want to feel it on my skin, on my clit, on him.
“Don’t have much to say?”
“N-no,” I stammer, my eyes fluttering again. I fight to keep them open, to keep them trained and focused on the man in front of me who I feel bonded with and tied to in some odd way.
I wasn’t supposed to fall for my therapist.
I was supposed to heal. To dig myself out of the dark hole I fell into. And I guess I did do that, but on my way to finding that sunshine inside of me again, I found him.
“Chase it,” Dawson says, scooting forward to drop down onto his knees in front of me.
His hands skim up my legs and over my knees, his fingertips digging into my thighs as he watches me.
He dips down and presses his lips against my porcelain skin, and my eyes really do fall shut.
His wet tongue trails close to the apex of my thigh, and I let out a little whimper that can be heard for miles.
“Since the moment I met you, I’ve wondered what it’d be like for my mouth to touch every part of you.” His hands move higher and those eyes snap up to mine. “I want to taste you. Will you let me?”
My fingers slow their movement, even though I’m so close. Because yes, yes, yes, I want to feel him against me. “Are you sure? I mean, I-I’m almost there.”
A devious smile traces his lips. “Considering I’m really struggling with my patience at the moment, there’s nothing better you could give me.”
Gently, he pulls my hands away and lowers his mouth to me.
I swear to god all the air inside of my lungs leaves me. It’s not until a grumbly groan leaves him that I get my shit together and suck in a breath.
His mouth on me is like silk on silk.
It’s a ballpoint pen scrawling eagerly along a piece of paper.
It’s the effortless click of a camera when my finger presses down on the shutter button to capture the beauty in front of me.
I come undone, a heap of tremors racing through my exhausted body. My foot drops off the couch, my back arching as I let wave after delirious wave crash into me, drag me down, and smother me.
The feeling is almost equivalent to when I slipped off that rock and plunged into the open waters. Except this is so much better. So much more uplifting and thrilling than that moment was.
I’d fall again and again if it meant I could capture this moment for all of eternity. For forever.
I resituate my hand, not even realizing that, at a certain point, I leaned back on my palm to catch myself from lying back.
It bumps into something hard and cool. I glance over my shoulder, dazed and riding the high of my orgasm.
My messenger bag is tipped over, a few of my belongings shifting out of it, my camera one of them.
An idea pops into my mind.
It’s absolutely inappropriate. A thought that should stay in the confines of my mind instead of breaching the boundary of spoken word.
With Dawson’s head still between my legs, I grab my camera and power it on. He doesn’t notice my shifting as anything other than coming down from my high as he greedily drinks me in. I bring the viewfinder up to my eyes, Dawson’s frame appearing through the lens.
He’s remarkably stunning. A knight in the form of curly brown hair with a chiseled jaw that harnesses the power of thoughtfulness and affection in a way I’ve never experienced.
Before I freeze this moment in time, I ask, “Can I take a picture of you?”
He pulls back, though not very much, and looks up at me, his eyelashes beautifully draped over caramel eyes. He presses up on his knees, sitting taller in his knelt position. “You always have my permission, Emory. Now and forever, so long as I can see the magic of the moment afterward.”
There’s a mischievous glimmer as he watches me. A reflection of smoldering heat that swirls into a sandy surf that calls out, begging me to dip my toes in so it can drag me out into the tide.
“Are you sure?” I say quietly, nibbling at the corner of my mouth as I try to hold back a smile.
His palm smoothes up my leg, climbing until it wraps around my waist and he squeezes. “Honey, I couldn’t give one single fuck how many pictures you take of me while I’m between these legs. In fact, you’re kind of making me want to create a whole damn album of them.”
Pink tinges my cheeks, but not because I’m embarrassed. Instead, I feel fiercely alive, brought on by the spark that ignited the first time I stepped into his office.
“In that case…” I say with a smirk, moving my foot and only stopping until it’s pressed against his chest. I push, indicating I want him to sit back down on the couch and relax. I want this man. More than I’ve probably ever wanted anyone.
He’s pushed himself into every nook and cranny of my mind, but now I want that fullness between my legs, playing with me and enticing me to step just a little closer.
He stretches out, lifting his arms over the top of the couch as he waits for my next directive. That tongue of his comes out, licking at his lips, licking me off them.
It turns me on all over again.
“Take off your clothes,” I say, the viewfinder just inches away from my face.
“Yes, ma’am,” he murmurs, a groan soon following when he slips his shirt over his back. His pants are quick to go next. Then his boxers. Both are kicked to the ground, and then he’s sitting back down, those arms stretched wide as his thickness extends up toward his belly button.
It’s ungodly large, the velvet skin around his head doused a shade darker than the rest of it. I find it insanely erotic and swallow as I try to tamper down the desire rolling through me. His eyes flick back down between my legs, and I’m sure he sees how much I want him.
I take his picture, the shutter snapping. He’s perfection wrapped in flesh and bone.
Lazily, he lowers a hand and grips himself tight. That soft skin bunches up as he drags his hand higher and drops it. He does it again and again, and I do what I intend, pressing down on the shutter button when he throws his head back, the thick line of his Adam’s apple the focal point.
“I can sit here all night, acting as your muse,” he says, his eyes on mine as he shamelessly touches himself. “Or you can bring your pretty self over here, and you can feel the insane fucking thrum of my heart in my chest as you let me fill you.”
I lift and close the small gap between us, going as far as sinking my knees on either side of him. My center presses right up against him.
He toys with the hem of my shirt. “You’re dangerously warm, and I’m fucking frozen, Emory.” He lifts the shirt a little higher. “Do you know what happens when both come together without having the chance to reacclimate?”
I shake my head. “No idea.”
“It causes a reaction equivalent to the visual of shattering glass.” He drags my shirt the rest of the way up. I pull it over my head, and he drops it at our side, my breasts on full display. My nipples pebble under the weight of his stare. “It’s good you know that’s what you’re doing to me.”
“I don’t believe it,” I say, even though I’m pretty sure I do. Because I feel the same.
“You won’t find anything but the truth coming out of me.” He leans forward then, covering my nipple with his mouth, his hands moving to my hips.
“Dawson,” I murmur, tilting my head to the side because it’s like I can’t even keep it raised at this point.
“Yeah, honey?”
“I need you. I don’t know why, and I can’t make sense of it—”
His tongue flicks against my breast. “I told you to stop trying to make sense of things you’re supposed to surrender to.”
He’s right. As much as I want to question all of this, the truth is that my instinct is only throwing out green flags and approving comments. It’s my realist logic that has me questioning something I shouldn’t.
I comb a hand through his curly locks, loving how soft they feel between my fingers.
“And for the record,” he adds, “you don’t need to ask me for permission. I’m yours. I have been for a long time now. I’m giving you the approval to take what you need from me in this way whenever you want it.”
“You are way too good, do you know that?”
His hands come up and knead my breasts. “We all have our flaws, but where you’re concerned, I’m abhorrently virtuous.
At least, for now. Because eventually, a time is going to come when I’m going to want to absorb everything around you—the good, bad, and ugly.
And that, honey, will inadvertently make me all of those things as well. ”
“Will it?”
“Absolutely.” He pulls back, questions swimming in his eyes. “Do you think you’re going to want to stick around when that happens?”
My answer is in the way I shift higher, collect him in my hand, and guide him to the center point of my body. I swipe him through my wetness. We both sigh at how good it feels, and then I slowly lower myself as I grip my camera in my other hand.
Once I’m fully seated, my therapist’s thickness deep inside of me, I say, “What do you think?”
“I think you feel way too fucking good.”
A grin coats my lips, and I slowly rock my hips. “I’m never going to get over the way you feel inside of me, how you sink into me and touch every single part of me.”
I mean it metaphorically, but this is Dawson, so it doesn’t take him long to understand exactly what I mean.
He snags the camera out of my hand and flips it around, aiming it right at me. “As long as you’re with me, I promise you’ll always feel every ounce of my love surrounding you, entering you, willing you.”
“Willing me to do what?”
“To fall. Just one more time.”
I lean forward and press a kiss to his lips, tasting the subtle hints of my arousal on his tongue as I swipe over it.
He lets me grind against him and take what I need.
At different points, the camera clicks. We moan in tandem, groaning through the passion that exhilarates us to a level unbeknownst.
I have a feeling it’ll always be like this with him.
That we’ll always be smitten with one another, magnetized and drawn together by this invisible pull that exists between and inside of us.
And I can’t wait for that.
Because for the first time in a long time, things are making sense—even in the mess—and that’s what I’ve wanted all along. To understand and to move through that with someone who sees me, accepts me, and loves me.
Because with that—I can make it through anything.
Hardships.
Losses.
And the trauma that comes from falling into the ocean and almost drowning.