15. Dom
She beat me. Technically speaking, we both hit the target. But Emma? She hits it at a complete bullseye, at two thousand yards. An almost impossible shot for a regular person. I should have known that there is absolutely nothing normal about Emma.
“I think I’m in love,” Ian whispers loudly as we all sit around a table at Mama’s place. “Not romantic love, but the platonic kind that won’t have Chloe killing me in my sleep. Did you know she could shoot like that?”
Linc shakes his head. “No. I mean, Dad was a sniper in the service. That’s why he didn’t become a cop when he got out. He used to say that he spent too much time with a gun so he wanted to spend time with the firefighters where it was easy. I thought he was joking when he used to say that he could shoot a penny on the broad side of a barn. But he had to be the one to teach Emma because there’s no way anyone else had the skill to teach her how to do it in this area. Shit, I wish he was the one who trained me, but he said me and Danny were too temperamental.”
They all glance over at me, expecting me to be angry or upset, but it’s the opposite.
Seeing Emma’s face light up as she talked about her rifle, and then watching her take a shot that would make most grown men piss themselves, turned me on more than I’ll ever admit.
“You can’t have her,” I tell Ian belatedly. “She doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”
Every set of eyes at the table turns to me, and I see the moment that I really have Linc’s approval. He stares hard while he tries to decide if I mean it. But when he does, he slaps me on the shoulder.
“Good man.” He smiles. “He’s right, you know. Emma would probably cut someone’s liver out if they said she belonged to them.”
“Not their liver,” the woman herself chimes up from the counter, where she holds a massive tray of food that my mom made as she carries it out from the kitchen. “Maybe the kidney. You have two of those, so you can lose one and still survive pretty easily.”
“She’s bloodthirsty, a better shot than Dom, and she’s beautiful.” Ian clutches his heart. “Linc, man. Why did you hide her away forever?”
Emma rolls her eyes at his joke and slaps him upside the head. “Watch it, or I’ll sic Dom on you while you’re sleeping.”
“He’s not that scary.” Ian surveys me like he actually thinks I will be his opponent. “I bet I could take him. But Chloe? She’d gut me like a fish if she thought for a second that I seriously considered flirting with someone else.” He sighs romantically. “God, I love my girl.”
“No.” I shake my head. “You couldn’t take me. You’re out of shape and squishy.”
“Like a marshmallow.” Emma scrunches her nose and sits right next to me at the table, draping her leg over mine. “I don’t like marshmallows.”
“Is that a fancy way of saying that I’m not your type?” Ian raises an eyebrow, offering a mock-question to Emma, who just laughs it off.
“Absolutely.” She laces her fingers with mine.
Ian cackles. “It’s okay. We can’t all have a monster dick like Dom here. And Chloe loves mine the way it is.”
When Emma’s eyes dart to mine, all I can do is shrug. “Boot camp, deployment, and living together in the barracks.”
She nods and then turns back to the others with a bright smile. “If you know how big he is, why would you even try your luck?”
That gets a laugh, not only from Linc and Ian, but from the rest of the guys who came out after work, too.
“I’m gonna go.” Emma squeezes my fingers and then gets up from the table. “See you later.”
She kisses me, pressing her lips to mine with a smile, and then I watch her walk away.
“That’s my sister,” Linc says, and I know he’s trying to distract me from staring at Emma’s ass.
When she is gone, I turn back to him without blinking. “I know. And she’s my girlfriend.”
Linc groans. “Come on, man. It’s been like three days. I don’t want to know about that shit.”
“Why not?” Remy says around a mouthful of rice. “I had to hear about you and my sister. I think it’s only fair that he gets a little bit of payback.”
“I hate you all,” Linc announces. “I don’t need to take this abuse. I’m going home. Where Kennedy won’t subject me to the torture of seeing my sibling hooking up with a friend.” He flounces away, overly dramatic for the situation, and everyone laughs as he goes.
“Do you think he realizes that Kennedy and Emma are like best friends?” Ian asks the table at large. “Or the fact that Emma and Parker were actually sisters-in-law?”
“He knows,” I say quietly. “I think he’s just pissy that his little sister beat his ass on the range.” With a shrug, I push back from the table. “I’m leaving too.”
“Hey, Dom.” Remy stops me, and I give him a minute to get whatever’s on his mind out in the open. “Stop by the house before you leave. Parker wants to have dinner before you go overseas.”
I nod curtly and walk away. But I pause at the counter, needing to talk to my mom first. She locks eyes with me, glancing over my shoulder at the group of men and then back. In those brief moments, an entire conversation seems to take place. “Adios, Mama. Te veo ma?ana.”
“Te amo, pobrecito.” Mama pops her hip against the counter and smiles brightly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Give Emma a kiss for me and make sure she’s there for dinner. Bee would love to see her before she moves in with her family.”
When I pull up to Emma’s house, the front light is on, and Emma sits on the front porch, illuminated by the open door.
“Mama says to remind you that you’re coming for dinner tomorrow.” As soon as I get out of the truck I give her the message, because if I don’t, I’ll forget, and then both of the most important women in my life will be mad at me.
“She called.” Emma smiles in the darkness, her eyes shining. “Are you spending the night with me? I didn’t expect to see you for a little while. I barely got home.”
“If you want me to.”
That simple statement, giving her all of the power over what happens, feels natural. In any other world, with any other woman, I wouldn’t be comfortable. But Emma? She is the calm in the middle of the chaos.
“Come on.” She gets up and holds out a hand for me to take. “Let’s go.”
There are very few things in my life that I don’t question. Emma tops that list. So I take her hand, and instead of walking inside, I pull her into the briefest of kisses, making sure she feels the same emotion I do.
With a smile, I let her go and watch her walk inside.
Closing and locking the front door behind me, I follow her upstairs and into her room, in time to watch her strip out of everything. I pull the shirt over my head and hand it to her so that she can wear it like she’s done since the first night we spent together.
“Thank you.” Emma beams. Then she crawls into bed and watches me take off my clothes.
“Lights on or off?”
She sighs. “Off. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to stay awake.”
“At least a little bit,” I prompt, then pull the blanket down so that I can settle between her legs. “You know, I didn’t ever tie you up like I told you I would.”
Emma laughs. “No, you didn’t. But maybe I should be the one tying you up.”
Before she gets any funny ideas, I press a kiss to her inner thigh and savor the way her skin flutters under my touch.
“Okay,” she admits. “Maybe not. You’re very good.”
I’m smiling against her skin, staring up at her in the dim light offered through her windows. “I’ll show you how good.”
A flick of my tongue against her clit, and Emma can’t say anything coherent for a long time. When I finish and pull her into my arms, she curls into my body with a sated sigh.
“So glad you followed me to that cemetery.”
I chuckle against the side of her head. “Freaking zombies. That’s what you’re asking for out there. Nothing but zombies.”
I feel Emma’s smile, rather than see it. “One day you’re going to have to tell me what your aversion is to zombies.”
“They’re dead, Emma. Dead things that want to eat our brains. It’s not normal. Not like our loved ones visiting for Dia de los Muertos. I’ll take my chances with real monsters. You know, the ones hiding behind human faces.”
She turns so that her legs are draped over my body and half of her face is on my chest. “Whatever you say, Dom.” She bites my chest playfully. “But if I turned into a zombie, you’d still cuddle with me.”
I don’t answer her because I don’t want to admit that she’s right. I already know Emma is the only one who can bring me to my knees, but in that moment I know for a fact that she’s also the only one who can make me face my greatest fears. Or at least one of them.
There won’t be any getting over my fear of la chancla.
When Emma’s breathing evens out and she falls asleep, I press a kiss to her hair and adjust our bodies so I can get some sleep, too.
“I think I love you.” Her sleep-drenched words hit me like a battering ram.
My heart hits against my ribs, or at least that’s what it feels like. “What?” The hoarse question is more of a plea than anything else. Me, begging her to say it again. To prove that I didn’t hallucinate her telling me that she’s falling for me.
I wait, but there’s nothing except her soft snore to fill the air. Minutes pass while I wait for her to tell me more. The steady beating of her heart is my only companion, and I bank the memory of her words. I’ll need them to get me through the months that I know are coming.
I’m almost there, more than ready join her in sleep an hour later. Until my phone starts to ring, blaring loudly in the silence of Emma’s room.
Groaning, she turns away from me and pulls the pillow over her head, refusing to wake up all the way. “Come back after your call.” Then she’s sleeping again, completely oblivious to the fact that I haven’t been able to fall asleep since her confession. I almost pinch her on the ass to keep her awake, but I don’t want to do that to her.
I answer the phone before I’m even sitting up all the way. “Ortiz.”
Poppy, the dispatcher on duty, sighs on the other side of the call. “I’m sorry to wake you up. You’re the on-call deputy, and there’s a situation that patrol says we need a detective for. It’s bad, Dom.”
“Sorry, Poppy.” I groan. “I’m not supposed to be in the on-call roster, with everything shifting to Logan for the next few months.” Scrubbing a hand down my face, I look at the digital clock that sits on Emma’s nightstand. “Is it something that you need me for?”
“No. I’ll call Logan.” Poppy sounds like she’d rather poke her eyes out with a rusty knife than call him.
I run a hand through my hair and try to think of a way to keep her from a shitty situation. “I’m sorry, Poppy. If you need me, call me back, okay?”
“It’s okay. I’m sure he can handle it. Sorry to wake you.” She hangs up, but I can hear the expletive she lets out as the call disconnects.
I lean forward, resting my head in my hands, and tap the phone against my forehead, waiting to see if she will call back or if Logan will call for help. But one minute turns to two, and two minutes turn to five without a call.
“Come back to bed,” Emma says sharply, popping up next to my shoulder like a banshee, draping herself over my back. “You’re not staying up all night because I don’t want to stay up all night. I need my cuddles.” She kisses my neck and drags her hands down my back. “Hurry up before I wake up all the way and then kick you out for the night.”
The way Emma talks and acts in the middle of the night is my absolute favorite. She already barely has a filter, but when she’s mostly asleep, there isn’t anything she won’t say.
“Okay, mi amor.” I crawl under the blankets and am immediately hit with Emma’s warmth.
She kisses me, and I have to fight the urge to take it any further than a kiss. We both have a long day coming up, and I don’t want her to have a bad day because I can’t control my need to have her.
Just like before, we get comfortable enough to sleep, but Emma puts most of her body on top of mine and shoves her head under my chin, curling into my embrace even more than she had before. If I could have taken a picture of her position without disturbing her, I would. Instead, I take a deep breath and enjoy the way she feels. Her heart beats in sync with mine, and I drift off to the thought that we only have a few more days of peace before both of our lives change.
Hers taking her to the police academy, and mine dropping me into the middle of the desert. My last coherent thought is that I hope she’ll wait for me while I’m gone, because I don’t know what I’ll do with myself if Emma isn’t there when I come home.