Chapter 12 Emma
EMMA
As we round to the driver's side door of my car, I don’t think Jake is going to say anything.
His attention is on the bar and the street.
He’s so calm and competent, completely different from the defensive hothead I knew as a teenager.
It’s his military service at play here. I imagine he took care of bad men around the world, and now he’s back in Iron Ridge, doing the same.
For me.
I need to unpack that one later when he’s not touching me. Also when he’s not dragging me away from a corpse.
“Unlock the car,” Jake says.
“It’s unlocked.”
He curses as he opens the door. “Lock the fucking door from now on, Emma,” he mutters through gritted teeth, urging me toward the seat.
I put my hand on his chest. “Jake—"
“Get out of here. Now.”
But he doesn’t remove my hand, and he doesn’t force me into the car. Feeling bolder, I close the door and step closer to him, curling my fingers into his shirt. “What about you?”
“Me?” His brow furrows slightly, like he has no clue what I’m talking about.
“Him.” I nod in the direction of Eli’s body. “What—”
“Emma, go home so I can handle this before it gets complicated.” He touches my face softly, a direct contradiction to the order in his voice.
I take another step closer, and I can see the way his pupils dilate, the way his breath catches.
This close, in the flickering light of the neon sign, I can see the faint lines around his mouth and eyes, the little bit of gray at the edges of his temples, and it only makes me want to explore all of him to find out what other ways he’s different now.
Because I don’t know how to be any other way with Jake, I tell him the truth. "I’m afraid if I walk away right now, you'll disappear from my life like you did after graduation, and I'll never see you again."
His eyes narrow. Something shifts in his expression, and he looks almost relieved. "Like hell I will."
And now I’m relieved, because the day Jake Callahan left Iron Ridge was one of the worst days of my life.
I never want to live through that again.
I found out a few years later, after I married Mark, that Dad made Jake leave.
The confession had rocked my foundation.
Jake’s got to blame me for that, or at the very least for not standing up for him. "About that, Jake—"
The sound of the bar door slamming cuts me off.
We both freeze.
Voices. Laughter. Footsteps on gravel.
Someone's coming out to the parking lot.
Jake moves before I can react. His hand wraps around my wrist, and he pulls me into the shadows behind the truck next to us, pressing his body against mine, shielding me from view of whoever just emerged from inside.
His chest is against my back, his arm a solid band around my ribs, his head, tipped so his hat completely blocks our faces from view.
I know what he's doing. I know it's protection. But my body doesn't care about logic. My body only knows that he's finally close. That I can feel the hard line of him against me, the heat radiating off his skin, the faint scent of leather and coffee and something darker that's purely Jake.
His hand goes under my coat, splaying across my stomach, his fingers gripping the fabric of my shirt, and suddenly, I can't breathe.
Suddenly, I'm eighteen again and pressed against the wall of my father's equipment shed.
The memory hits me like a freight train—the way he felt inside me, the way he tasted, the way he made me come so hard I saw stars.
The way his breath felt against my neck as he whispered filthy things in my ear, covering my mouth so no one would hear me moaning.
The way he looked at me after, like I was something precious and magical.
If I turn around, will he be looking at me like that now?
I haven’t been loved like that since. Even with Mark, sex had only been nice.
Would it still be that way with Jake?
The footsteps pass by, fading down to the end of the parking lot. A car engine starts, the crackle of gravel loud as the car rolls onto the street.
Then silence.
Jake doesn't move. Neither do I. We're standing in the shadows with a dead man dozens of feet away, and all I can think about is the feel of his hard cock behind me. His hand splays across my stomach, and his breath caresses my neck, calm and steady despite the tension in his body.
"Fuck," he curses under his breath, the word rough and strained.
He pulls back just enough to reopen the car door, guiding me inside with a hand on the small of my back. Once I'm settled on the seat, he leans down, his eyes dark and intense.
"I'll meet you at your place," he says, his voice low and commanding as he buckles me in. "You drive straight there. No stops. No detours. Stay in the car until I get there. Understood?"
I nod, unable to find my voice.
He closes the door and steps back, and I watch him stride back toward the body. As I turn on the car, my hands tremble, and I can’t tell if it’s because of fear or excitement.