Chapter 18
EMMA
Isqueeze my thighs together, trying to ignore the pulsing between my legs, trying to pretend I'm not lying here in the dark, aroused by the memory of Jake Callahan's lethal competence.
It doesn't work.
My hand slides down my stomach, hesitating at the waistband of my sleep shorts. Then I hear Jake’s voice in my head, saying Because no one touches you, and my fingers slip beneath the fabric.
I'm soaked.
A soft gasp escapes my lips as I touch myself, and suddenly, I'm not thinking about right or wrong anymore. I'm not thinking about anything except how Jake looked at me in the darkness. How his voice dropped to that low, husky rumble when he said when I take you again, I'm never letting you go.
Not if—when. Like it's inevitable. Like I'm already his.
I circle my clit slowly, building the sensation, pretending it’s his finger rubbing me, remembering the way he made me feel safe and claimed and wanted all at once.
I've been alone for so long. Even when I was married, I was alone. Mark never looked at me the way Jake does, like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
My fingers move faster, and I bite my lip to keep from making noise. The house is empty, but old habits die hard. I've spent too many years being quiet—being the good girl who does what she's supposed to do.
I don't feel like a good girl right now.
I feel wild and reckless and desperate. I feel like the girl who used to sneak out of this house to meet Jake Callahan in the barn—who used to let him into this room to touch me in the darkness while my father slept down the hall, completely unaware that his daughter was falling in love with the young ranch hand he'd hired.
God, the way Jake touched me back then.
I pluck my clit the way he used to, the way no one else ever has. My breath comes faster as I work myself higher, my free hand sliding into the arm hole of my tank top. My nipple is hard, and I pinch it gently, imagining Jake's mouth there instead.
Imagining him above me.
Inside me.
Taking me the way I want—need.
When I take you again, I'm never letting you go.
I believe him.
I believe every word.
I catch the moan that tries to escape, biting my lip to keep it in. I want to be claimed. I want to be possessed. I want to belong to Jake Callahan so completely that there's no question, no doubt, no possibility of escape.
The thought should scare me, after nine years of stifling marriage, but it doesn’t.
I want Jake.