8. Jaime
Old habits die hard, and evidently there wasn’t anything in this world that could quell my desire for Emma Carter.
I didn’t press her for information about her life after college—about what it was like to give her life over to her old man, because if I had to guess, it hadn’t been all sunshine and roses. I suspect Mr. Carter ruled with an iron fist and without Mrs. Carter there to keep him in line, he probably imagined himself unstoppable now.
Judging by the weariness in Emma’s eyes, I would guess her father’s moral boundaries had gone up in smoke with his late wife. That and the intense relief that overcame Emma when she walked in here after her “business dinner date.”
After all these years, I still felt this possessive urge to keep her as close to me as possible and protect her from anyone who made her feel that weary.
The spark in Emma’s eyes when we were kids was barely there now, and while most people would agree that adulthood has a way of dulling such things, this was different. My gut instinct told me she’d been put in an impossible position.
Or maybe that was just wishful thinking. I long entertained the notion that there was more to Emma’s decision when she cut me out of her life years ago than loyalty to her family.
Come on, Jaime, you need to stop living in the past.
But it was difficult to do that when she was looking at me with so much need in her eyes. I noticed the way her face flushed when I got close—and that she didn’t pull away. My eyes drifted to her full lips, wondering if she still tasted the same—felt the same.
I was about to find out when Joey called out, “Hey boss, we’re all done here. Did you want to check it out before we go?”
I didn’t move a muscle, but Emma’s eyes widened and she adjusted herself, regrettably pulling back.
I bit back an irritated groan, wanting to throttle Joey for interrupting us, even though he was just doing his job. I was the one who was behaving inappropriately, mere seconds away from kissing Emma out in the open for everyone to see.
I cleared my throat before calling out, without breaking eye contact with Emma, “I’m sure it’s fine, go ahead and clock out.”
The corners of her mouth quirked up, and she said, “I don’t want to get in your way…”
“You’re never in the way. Besides, I hire good people. If they say it’s clean, then it is. I just need to shut down our POS system and then I’ll walk you to your room.”
There was the eternal politeness that I found both charming and exasperating. “You really don’t have to…”
This time, I did groan in frustration. “I know that, Emma, but I want to. I’m not done with you yet,” I said before I could think better of it, even though no truer words had been spoken. We had unfinished business, and I would not let this opportunity slip through my fingers. “Besides,” I continued, “you never know who’s lurking in the mean halls of Pine Crest Resort,” I teased.
“Okay,” she breathed. “If you insist, you may escort me to my room,” she relented, but I could hear the laughter in her voice.
I closed out the books and shut down the computers like a man whose ass was on fire and then rushed around the bar holding out my elbow like I was a country squire about to escort the lady of the manor to her palatial space, which ironically, I was.
If anyone would have told me the simple touch of someone’s arm could be erotic, I would have thought they were nuts and yet it felt like an electric current surging between us where our arms met.
“Do you remember touring the expansion of this place with me after all the drywall was up?” she asked as we shared a thankfully empty elevator.
I laughed, my heart racing even harder, realizing she was bringing up the memory of our first kiss.
“How could I forget? That’s when you lured me into a corner and took advantage of me,” I teased.
She swatted at my arm, biting her lip but smiling. The elevator came to a stop, and we stepped out onto the floor, looking at one another, our arms still intertwined at the elbow. “Oh, um, my room is at the end of the hall.”
We began the long walk, and I was grateful her room was on the opposite end of the expansive hallway, so I could delay the inevitable moment when we’d say goodnight.
“I remember,” I started, “you coming over to the new construction site I was working on with my dad since we’d finished framing the addition to the resort.”
My dad’s team built the bones of the structure and then another team hung and finished the drywall while my dad’s crew move on to the next job—a gas station out on Route 14.
I loved working with my dad and making some extra money, but once the job was done, I didn’t have an excuse to see my beautiful new friend Emma. My Dad teased me about not enjoying the scenery at the new job site—a dozen sweaty construction workers. He’d sighed and clapped me on the back. “I know we’re not nearly as nice to look at as that redhead, but you’ll see her again,” he’d encouraged.
It felt like I would never be lucky enough to see her again until later that afternoon, when a familiar BMW pulled up to the construction site.
I remembered how my heart thudded in my chest as I waited with bated breath to see who would emerge from that car. I couldn’t for the life of me fathom why Mrs. Carter would come all the out here but then that familiar redhead emerged from the car and the next thing I knew, a very determined Emma marched over to me, her ponytail bobbing from side to side with every step.
She beamed when our eyes met. “Jaime!” she said with excitement. “I have great news. They finished the drywall at the resort.” I supposed that was great news for her family, but I wasn’t sure why I should be excited about it until she was standing right in front of me—her sweet scent wafting around me and threatening to make my brain short circuit. “I thought if you could take a break, maybe I could give you a tour, you know, show you how all your hard work is shaping up,” she said with bright, hopeful eyes.
I hadn’t been able to hold back my smile, but it quickly melted away when I realized it would be at least a few more hours before I could take a break. But that’s when my dad called out, “Jaime! We’ve got it covered here—take the rest of the day.”
My father was never one for knocking off early. He believed every hour of pay was one more hour of security for our family. I was about to question him, but he threw me a stern look, so I kept my mouth shut. Emma watched our exchange with hope in her eyes and when I turned to her and said, “that sounds great. Maybe I can take you to Mabel’s for a burger afterward?”
Her smile tugged at my heart and made desire streak through me. “That would be nice,” she replied as I packed up my tools. My dad waved at us as we walked to the BMW and it warmed me from the inside out when Emma waved back and said, ”thanks for letting me have him for a bit, Mr. Acosta.”
I saw the amused smile on my dad’s face and Emma’s words caused a fresh stirring in me that was hard to control as a young man. But my arousal came to a screeching halt as we approached Mrs. Carter’s expensive car. I’d been on the site for hours. I was sweaty and dirty, so I hesitated.
Ever watchful, Emma said, “I’m sorry about the mess in the car. A couple of friends and I went hiking this morning and tracked in a bunch of mud.”
“Your mom won’t be upset?” I questioned, sensing Emma was trying to comfort me before the fact.
She shook her head. “My mom? She’s the one who hikes in the most dirt,” she laughed and I felt instantly at ease, even with my grimy jeans sitting in the passenger seat of Emma’s mother’s car. From there, she took me to the newly dry walled site and as we walked through the empty halls, she slipped her hand into mine. She went on and on about the plans for the expansion and everything that needed to happen before they unveiled it and finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. As soon as we reached an abandoned corner, I’d stopped her nervous chattering by leaning down and laying my lips across hers.
I thought of that day often, the first brush of her lips that had me hooked. And to this day, I haven’t been able to unhook myself—I’ve never wanted to.
“Excuse me,” she laughed, “you are rewriting history, Mr. Acosta, because I distinctly remember you cutting me off mid-sentence to kiss me.”
We were approaching the double doors at the end of the hall that led to the Carter family suite, and a knot of dread began forming in my gut. Our moment was almost over. “Well, you can hardly blame me. I’d been wanting to kiss you all summer, and we were finally alone,” I asserted as we stopped in front of her door.
She turned to face me then, a little more of that spark in her eyes now.
I looked down at her, reveling in the way she tilted her head upward, staring into my eyes, and the loneliness I saw in hers tore at me. Not just because I couldn’t stand the thought of her being lonely, but because it was the very thing that had been plaguing me for years. I’d had relationships, but none of them were Emma and she was who I wanted. “I had no choice but to kiss you… before I lost my nerve.”
She huffed out a laugh. “I’ve never known you to be short on nerve, Jaime,” she breathed.
“It’s rare, that’s for sure. But if I’m being honest, I could use a little extra nerve today, too.”
Something lit in her eyes and a familiar heat rushed through me as she murmured, “then let me give you some of mine.” Then she rose on her toes and, like a magnet, our mouths had no choice but to meet. At the first taste of her, I had to bite back a groan and curl my hands into fists at my sides to keep from grabbing her and manhandling her like a caveman.
But Emma had other plans, because she curled her hands into my shirt, yanking me down so I had no choice but to slant my mouth to kiss her more deeply. The action made her lose her balance and because of her hold on me, we both stumbled back until we bumped against the wall.
We broke apart, laughing, but when our eyes met, all laughter stopped. Her eyes were glassy with need and my mouth went for hers with a vengeance. I needed to taste her again, like I needed air.
When my tongue touched hers, there was no going back. I speared my fingers into her hair, the silky tresses twining around my fingers and a hungry moan echoed the air and it took me a moment to realize it had come from Emma’s throat and not my own.
This wasn’t like any of the stolen kissed from our youth, not with the way her hands were rubbing against my chest. And God, the taste of her… I felt like I was home after being away for too damn long.
I didn’t know how I was ever going to stop when Emma abruptly shoved me away and looked up at me with wild, worried eyes, then breathed, “we have to stop.”