Chapter 10 Kodiak
Chapter Ten
KODIAK
The water in the shower was too hot, and I didn’t turn it down.
I leaned my forearms on the tile, let the water hit my neck, and thought about Emma and the assumption I’d made that Luke was calling her rather than Brenna—or any number of other people.
Instead, I’d blurted the one name that made her look at me like I’d lost my mind.
Before her, if a woman was interested in someone else, I stepped aside, didn’t compete, or ask twice. When I saw her with Luke, I’d read the whole thing wrong and left.
Since, Emma had assured me there was no one else. I’d believed her, so why had I reacted the way I did?
The problem wasn’t Luke; it was me. I was inventing threats because the absence of one left me with nothing to do except be present. Now, I was realizing that being present was harder than any mission I’d ever run.
The mirror was fogged, and I swiped it with my palm after I shut off the water and climbed out. I toweled off, put on my shorts and went in search of her.
I found Emma in the living room with her back was to me.
My model ship sat where it always had, but now, a framed photo was next to it.
“Is this okay?” she asked without turning around.
I told her it was, then closed the distance between us and kissed her. Her mouth opened under mine, and I stopped thinking about the photo and the bookshelf.
“You owe me a demonstration,” I said when I broke the kiss.
“Excuse me?”
“Brenna’s fifty bucks. You said you’d show me.”
Emma smiled, took my hand, and led me down the hallway.
The bedroom lamp was on, and I watched as she pulled my sweatshirt over her head. Her breasts were bare, and her nipples hard from the cool air. I had my lips on one before the sweatshirt hit the carpet.
I sucked harder when Emma’s hands gripped my arms, and she arched into me. I moved to the other breast, tracing circles with my tongue, before I closed my lips and pulled. The sound she made shot heat down my spine.
She reached for the waistband of my shorts and shoved them down. Her hand closed over my cock, and when she stroked me, my hips pushed into her grip.
“Slow,” I said.
“I can do slow.”
Her knees hit the floor. When her lips closed over the tip of my cock, my hand hit the wall to keep myself upright. She took me deeper, and her tongue dragged up the underside.
Emma worked me with her mouth and her hand, finding a rhythm that made my thighs shake. Each time she went deep, her throat tightened, and the sensation blurred everything else.
I weaved my fingers in her hair. “Emma. Stop, or I’m done.”
When she eased off and wiped her mouth, I pulled her to her feet and walked her to the bed. She sat on the edge, and I knelt between her legs. Her shorts and underwear came off in one motion.
The first stroke of my tongue on her pussy was flat and slow. She fisted my hair, and her hips rocked, and I did it again, slower, circling her clit with the tip of my tongue. When I stopped, she made a frustrated noise, and I grinned against her thigh.
“Coleman.”
“Yes, Emma?”
“Stop teasing me.”
I pressed my mouth to her again, using long, firm strokes with the flat of my tongue at the same time I slid two fingers inside her.
She was wet and swollen and tight, and each time I curled my fingers, she tightened her grip.
I matched the rhythm of my mouth to my hand, and she started to come apart.
Her thighs tensed, her stomach clenched, and her hips bucked. I held her down and kept going.
She came with my name on her lips, her spine bowing off the mattress, and her thighs trembling against my ears. I stayed with her until the tremors faded and her legs fell open.
I kissed the inside of her thigh and rested my cheek there.
“Get up here,” she said.
My mouth traveled up her body. She pulled me onto the bed and pushed me onto my back and straddled my hips.
“Nightstand,” I said.
She positioned herself over me. “I’m on birth control. I’ve also been tested.”
“Me too. As long as you’re sure.”
“I want to feel you with nothing between us.”
When she sank onto me bare, the sensation erased all thought. She was hot, tight, and slick, and the difference between this and every other time was so stark that I grabbed her hips and held her there because I needed a second to keep from losing it.
Her hands were flat on my chest, and her weight settled on me.
“Okay,” I whispered, moving my hips beneath her.
She rolled her body in a slow grind that let her control the depth, angle, and speed. My palms rested on her hips, guiding but not controlling. She rose until I was barely inside her, then sank down again. The sounds we both made filled the room.
I sat up and pulled her into my lap. She wrapped her legs around me as I thrust into her.
I could go deeper this way, and when I did, she gasped and locked her arms around my neck.
One hand settled on the small of her back, and the other gripped her ass and guided her rhythm.
Each time she rolled into me, I pushed up to meet her, and the depth made her dig her nails into my shoulders.
Sex with her this time was different, but not only because I was bare inside her. The pace was slower, and she could watch my expression change with every movement.
Her forehead pressed to mine, her rhythm sped up, and I matched it. My thumb found her clit between us, and she clenched so hard I dropped my head to her shoulder and swore. I kept my finger moving, and she rode me harder.
“Coleman,” she cried.
“Let go, sweetheart. I’ve got you.”
“Come with me,” she begged.
Her whole body locked, and I held her through it while the contractions dragged me to the edge. One more thrust, deep, and I went over. The release ripped through my body, and I pulled her into me and buried my mouth in her neck while I came.
We stayed like that for a long time. Me inside her, neither of us moving.
Then we kissed, and I lowered her onto the mattress.
She rolled onto her side, and I fit myself behind her.
My arm circled her waist, and she laced her fingers with mine.
It had become my favorite way to sleep. I pressed my lips to her shoulder and closed my eyes.
The front door code beeped the next morning. Three people had it, and two of us were in the house.
“Anybody home?” Gunner hollered, walking in like he owned the place.
“In here,” I shouted to him from the kitchen. He set a small bag on the counter, glanced over at Emma, and had his hand out before I’d spoken.
“You gonna introduce me, or do I have to do it myself?” he asked me but winked at her.
“Emma Sinclair, Gunner Godet.”
He crossed the kitchen and shook her hand. “So, you’re the reason he needed food delivery.”
Emma glanced at me. “Is that unusual?”
“Darlin’, I’ve known this man for fifteen years. The fridge had mustard and protein bars. Zary stocked it before you two got here, and he didn’t argue. That’s a first.”
“If I’m going to be here, I keep plenty of food in the fridge,” I said.
“That so? Plenty? Is that what you said?”
That got a laugh out of Emma and a grin from Gunner.
When she asked about the wind chime, he told her his father had made it from range brass, and when she commented on the drawings on the fridge, he beamed.
“Lia drew the dog. Oliver did the thing next to it. We think it’s a helicopter, but he swears it’s a dragon.”
“It could be both,” said Emma.
“That’s exactly what Zary said. You two are gonna get along.”
I leaned on the counter, drank a glass of water, and listened to their banter. Gunner so different now compared to when I first met him. He’d been wired tight once, same as me. Zary had changed all that.
When Emma excused herself to call Darla and eased the bedroom door shut, his grin faded. Then I saw his gaze shift to the frame on the bookshelf.
“That new?”
“Yeah. It’s a photo of Emma’s mom and dad.”
“Kid,” he said, chuckling. “You got a woman in your house.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid.”
“Like what?” I asked. “Ask her to marry me?”
“Nah, that would be smart.”
“I like him,” Emma said when she came down the hall a few minutes later.
“Most people do.” That hadn’t always been the case, not that I’d tell her that.
“He’s protective of you.”
“He’s protective of everyone,” I muttered.
“No.” She picked up the water bottle she’d left on the counter. “It’s more than that with you.”
When she carried her laptop to the sofa, I opened the bag Gunner had brought with him. More blueberries and other fruits were inside. I put them in the fridge and shut it.
Emma and I headed into DC shortly after Gunner left. During her conversation with Darla, she’d learned Derek Mansfield, chief of security in the Treasury building, had requested a noon meeting with her.
The thing I liked most about the office next to hers was that it had a glass panel in the door and clear visibility to the elevator bank. The foot traffic I kept track of on this floor fell into two categories. People who belonged here and did the same thing daily, and those who didn’t.
Darla rose from her desk on the half hour without fail. Assistants moved between offices in pairs. Security rotated at regular intervals. That was the first category.
The second category was smaller and more interesting.
The woman from compliance we’d encountered the first day I came to the building with her had slowed near Emma’s office three times in two hours.
A man I recalled seeing on the fourth floor, in an office near Naomi’s, spent five minutes in the conference room across the hall before leaving with nothing in his hands. I made a note of both.
Then, at eleven forty, Derek Mansfield arrived.
He came off the elevator twenty minutes early and strode past Darla, to Emma’s office. I stepped into the hallway as he reached her door.
“Hey, Emma,” he said, sticking his head in the door.
She stood, waved him in, then left the door ajar.
“I wanted to bring this to you first,” he began.