13. Dom
I can’t take it back. I can’t kiss her and then walk away and pretend that she isn’t the most important thing to me at this party.
Since the moment I got home, I’ve wanted to kick everyone out of my house and off my property so that I can go to her.
So that I can beg Emma to forgive me.
Then I see her standing in my yard, and nothing else in the world exists.
She’s here, and I don’t have to kick anyone out.
I don’t care that her brother is here, or anyone else for that matter.
She looks away, and I can practically taste the panic I can see on her face.
But her body knows mine, and when I march directly through my yard to her side, she leans into my body before she realizes I’m here.
This. This is what I care about.
I don’t even care that she took off my shirt. I’ve got plenty of time to get her in another one.
I care about this kiss and holding her in my arms.
I care about the way her body literally melts into mine, fitting perfectly against me. Branding me in a way nothing else could.
That’s the danger of caving to my feelings for her. Emma won’t just belong to me. I’ll belong to her. From now until my last breath.
I’ll do anything for her.
I will wait a hundred years if it means that I can kiss her again.
Nothing else matters.
There was a time in my life when I thought that passion was made up. That the people around me were joking or kidding when they talked about being crazy over another person. But that was before Emma walked into my life and knocked me on my ass.
When I finally break away from our kiss, mostly to catch my breath and to smile at her, I rest my forehead against hers while keeping my eyes closed.
“You know everyone saw that, right?” I can barely hear her over the roaring of blood in my ears, even though our faces are touching.
“I don’t give a shit,” I tell her.
I set her down, letting her body slide against mine so she can see exactly how little I care that anyone watched us kiss.
“When I walk away, everyone’s going to see your dick.” She laughs, her cheeks flushed, and I can’t help but lower my face to hers so that I can claim her lips again, this time briefly.
There are hoots and hollers from our friends, but none of them break through the bubble between us.
“What are you talking about?”
Emma leans back slightly. “You’re wearing gray sweatpants.” She stares down pointedly at my dick, but I don’t see what she’s talking about when I try and follow.
“Okay?”
“Trust me.”
With a smile, I pull her back against my body, turning her so that her ass hits my front. “Okay.”
I take her seat by the fire, and Emma tumbles into my lap because there isn’t anywhere else for her to go. “Oomph. What was that for?”
“You said they’d notice, bonita. That means you have to help solve the problem. At least until they leave.”
Plus, I can give her payback for the t-shirt situation at work.
“Dom.” She turns while sitting on my lap, which definitely doesn’t help the problem she’s been talking about. “What are you doing? You made damn sure to tell me last night that it was a mistake. That we are a mistake.”
I shake my head. “Not anymore.” My fingers play with the hem of her shirt, sliding underneath it to caress the skin not covered by her leggings on her waist. “I told you. It’s torture. Not being able to touch you. Kiss you. Fu?—”
“I get it,” she snaps. Then she shoots a look at Kennedy and Bria Keller, who are both sitting too close as far as I’m concerned.
Bria, I can’t do anything about since she’s somehow fallen asleep in her chair. But I whistle at Linc, who turns to see me nod in Kennedy’s direction with a small tilt of my head.
He’s there in a flash and picks Kennedy up. “Hey,” she protests uselessly. “I had a front row seat. You can’t make me leave.”
“Come on, Kennedy. I’ll give you a front row seat when we get home.”
He carries her to the other end of the yard, back toward where he parked his truck earlier, and I smile at Emma. “Better?”
She doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t have to. I feel her. Feel the way she relaxes by not having one of her best friends as our audience.
“Let the party end,” I tell her quietly as she leans into my body. “As much as I want to kick everyone out and tell them to go home, it’s hard when half of them are family.”
She doesn’t complain, doesn’t even move. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she finally says. “I can leave, and it’s not like everyone saw.”
My heart kicks up a beat, panicking at the thought that she’ll leave when I finally make the smart decision. “Everyone saw,” I tell her. “Didn’t you hear them whistling?” She shakes her head, and I tighten my grip on her body minutely. “They saw. And I wanted them to see, Emma. You aren’t a mistake. You never were.”
I watch the way she pulls back again so that she can look at me, gauging my sincerity. My heart is still racing, my mind filled with the same reasons I pushed her away. I’m deploying. She’s a rookie. She shouldn’t have to wait.
And then the nightmare image that I’ve seen every night since our first kiss flashes in my mind again. Emma, holding a little girl who looks just like us, telling her that I’m not coming home, and the excitement of having Emma in my arms vanishes. Side by side with the image of Emma, dead, never knowing how much she means to me.
My throat dries, and my tongue feels like I’ve swallowed sand and it clumps there, making it impossible to say anything. But instead of running away, I push the nightmare aside. At least for the time being.
I can’t lose her.
“Do you want to spend the night?” I ask her, hoping that she’ll say yes. What I really want is to ask her to stay forever, but I know that will scare her away. Either that or I’ll ask her, and then I’ll fuck it up again. So for now, I just ask for the night.
Forever can wait.
Before she can answer, Stryker plops down into the chair next to us. “Is this why you never answered my text the other day?”
Emma freezes, and I open my mouth to tell him to leave when she handles it like a boss. “Eddie,” her quiet voice rings out clearly, not hampered by the crackling fire in the slightest. “I don’t have anything to talk to you about. That’s why we broke up three years ago. And that’s why I didn’t answer your text. It has nothing to do with Dom.”
If he’d been looking at me, he would have seen my smile, but he doesn’t look away from her.
“I know,” he says solemnly. “I just wanted to check on you. But I get it, if you’re turning into a badge bunny.”
I stand up at that, and Emma slides onto the ground.
“Leave.” Her order comes as my hand wraps around the other man’s collar. “Before I hurt you, Eddie.”
Stryker, who has a problem with opening his mouth before thinking, shakes his head. “No. I think it’s a justified question, especially if we’re supposed to trust you with our lives.”
“You weren’t a cop when my sister decided to waste a few years of her life on you.” Linc steps into the conversation with his arms crossed. “And yeah, you were my friend. But not with the way you’re disrespecting her.”
Remy stands on my other side. “I mean, you haven’t been my friend since you took a stance against Parker. No help here.”
Stryker ignores all of us, though, in favor of Emma. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”
“No.” She shakes her head. “It isn’t. You were there the day I told Danny what I wanted to do with my life. You knew what my plan was, and what my backup would be. You knew all of it. That’s why you decided to be a cop, too. So that you could potentially work with me.” She steps forward as her words affect all of us.
Linc looks at me with a question in his eyes and I shake my head and check with Remy. None of us knew about Emma wanting to be a cop when she was a kid. It would have been something we helped her with, of course, but we didn’t know.
“I’m not a badge bunny,” Emma goes on with steel in her voice. “But I will wear the badge. Maybe that makes Dom a badge bunny, you know? But you? You should go now, before I have to hurt you. Like I said.”
Stryker, for probably the first time in his life, does the smart thing and leaves.
Honestly, good riddance.
Emma turns to me with a smile on her face, completely at odds with what just happened. “Do you want to take a shower with me? I kind of feel dirty.”
Without a goodbye for anyone, and directly contradicting what I told her only a few minutes ago with wanting to wait for everyone to leave, I take her hand and practically drag her into the house, ignoring the cheers and laughter as we go.
When we are inside, I lock the doors, and Emma watches me with furrowed brows.
“In case someone decides they’re staying the night. I want to discourage them. With a lock.” She follows me into the dining room, and I follow her with my eyes as she leans against the wooden table.
“You can say no, if you want.” Her hesitance makes me pause, and I don’t know how to answer the non-question. “I mean it,” Emma goes on. “I know I put you on the spot, and I just… I don’t want you to think that you have to take a shower with me. I just sort of said the first thing that came to my mind.”
“Emma.” I step so that we are facing each other and cradle her head in my hands, tilting it up so that she has no choice but to look at me. She keeps her eyes closed, like she’s afraid that if she opens them, I will reject her… again. “Emma, por favor. Please, just look at me.”
Her eyes open, and I hate myself. I hate what I did to her, what I made her think. Because right there on the surface is all the fear and potential anger at what she expects to happen.
I really don’t deserve this woman.
“I’ll take a shower with you… after.” With her face still held in my hands, I kiss her gently. At first. But when she starts to kiss me back, all bets are off. “First, I’m going to claim you.”
Before she can stop me, I pull her shirt over her head and push her back on the table so that her legs dangle over the edge.
Once she’s down, I pull the waistband of her leggings down and strip her until the only thing that remains is a matching pair of red lace underwear and a bra that I know for a fact I could tear without even trying. In fact, yep, there they go.
Emma doesn’t even squeak. Instead, she groans and I smile at the flush that takes over her chest.
“Santa Madre.”
Before I lose it completely, I strip off my shirt and step out of the sweatpants I threw on after my shower.
Emma, always the eager one, leans forward and props herself up on an elbow when I don’t move. “Is something wrong?”
“Yeah,” I croak.
My cock is in my hand, and I gasp against even the slight pressure on my skin. But the look on her face. Wanting. Full of the same need and desire that course through my veins makes it impossible to look away.
“You’re not… small.” She licks her lip, biting down when I pump the length and let her see everything my hand covers.
Unable to take her look anymore, I grab one of her legs and smile as her ass squeaks and slides almost off the table.
In the next instant, I’m lined up with her body and have one of her legs around my waist and the other on my shoulder.
“Are you sure?”
Our eyes lock, and she nods.
Getting all I need, I slide into her warmth and groan with every inch she takes.
Her moan fills the air, and her back arches. When Emma’s leg starts to quiver, I turn my head and bite her calf, smiling against the skin when she starts to tighten around my dick.
“More,” she gasps.
I thrust harder. Deeper. Until we’re both out of breath, and I’m barely hanging on by a thread.
But she hasn’t hit the height of her pleasure yet, and I refuse to give in until she does. The table creaks with our weight, and Emma writhes beneath me.
“More.” Her repeated plea fills the air, and I let go of her leg and lean forward, take both of her legs around my waist, and bend forward until our lips meet in a clash of teeth and tongue and violence.
“Come for me, Emma.” The order comes broken and gasping, and she moves her hand down to her core.
When she touches herself, I watch as fire lights her eyes and she implodes around me. I expect a scream and thrashing. Not Emma. She pauses, her muscles contracting, and her eyes lock on mine with her mouth open in a silent scream.
“Finally,” I gasp and let go, taking everything that she gives and giving it back to her twofold.
When I kiss her, Emma wraps her arms around my neck and smiles.
“Next time,” she says against my lips. “We should do that in a bed.”
“Next time?” I smile down at her. “I’m not done with you yet.” Still fully seated inside her body, I pick her up and walk through my house.
Every step has her body clenching around mine, and it’s enough to drive me insane. But I have a mission, and I’m not going to be happy until I get her into my bed.
“Oh God.” Emma moans as I feel the pressure in her body building again. We haven’t even made it to the bedroom yet and she bites down on my shoulder.
Pausing in the hall, I press her back against the wall and thrust deeper, letting her pleasure set the pace for what comes next.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she orders.
“Yes, ma’am.”
One.
Two.
Three.
Counting the seconds helps me focus on the task at hand.
Every heartbeat is one step closer to claiming her, finally.
“I’m close.” The words are nothing more than a grunt at this point, because all of my brain power is trying to keep me on my feet while I’m surrounded by the perfection that makes up her body.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Pulling us away from the wall, my entire being is screaming in delicious agony. I never want this moment to stop.
“Don’t stop, Dom.” She’s gasping for air but her body is writhing, demanding more.
Just a few more steps, and I set her gently on the edge of my bed, while both of us groan at the lack of contact between our bodies.
“Hurry.” She grabs at my body and I’m there with her, needing to touch her.
I don’t know whose hand it is on my cock, hers or mine. But one of us lines me up against her entrance and in the next moment, I’m sliding home.
Emma’s legs are around my waist again, setting the rhythm for me to follow. And I’m only too happy to follow her lead, taking every ounce of her pleasure for my own.
This time, as her body tightens around mine, there’s no chance in hell that I’m going to stop the building pressure taking over my body as well as hers.
I don’t remember coming down, but I have Emma wrapped in my arms and her lips against my neck.
“That was perfect,” she murmurs.
“Mm-hmm,” I agree. “Next time, I’m going to tie you up and make you come with my mouth.”