Chapter 50 – Emerson #2
I purposely tighten my muscles around his cock and moan at how full he makes me feel. “No woman complains about thoroughly and properly,” I murmur, the cool of the wing beneath me and the heat of what his dick is doing within me driving me to distraction.
“Good,” he says as one hand twists around the length of my ponytail and tugs my hair back some to hold me in place as he drives into me harder this time.
“Yes.” The word is a drawn-out sigh and each thrust brings a new round of pleasure, a new way to sustain the adrenaline of the jump.
“You like that?” He grunts as his thumb rubs circles to stimulate the nerves in my ass while the head of his dick expertly manipulates and taunts and teases the ones within me. With each touch, each graze, he pushes me up that welcome precipice between pleasure and pain.
“Please,” I beg, and it’s the last thing I have to say because he’s as primed and desperate as I am and ready to take the fall.
Again.
“We are lucky everyone was gone so we didn’t have to take the walk of shame back here,” he murmurs against the crown of my head.
He is leaning against the headboard of my bed, and I’m resting my head on his chest. I’m comfortable and more peaceful than I have been in days . . . and I know it’s because of him.
“Do you always take your suspects back to their place after you frisk them?” I murmur.
“No, but it sounds like you skydivers do after a jump.” He chuckles, its vibration rumbling against my chest.
“Adrenaline has a way of doing that to you—making you need that extra release.”
“Is this an occupational hazard I should be worried about?”
“No. God no.” I pause and then add, “But I won’t deny that all of my staff have had their fun at one time or another.”
“And that’s why Leo was laughing.”
“Ha. At least we left plain sight,” I say with a laugh as I think about Leo and that hot little number he all but mounted against the side of the Blue Skies shed after a particularly thrilling jump.
“I don’t think I want to know.”
“No, you don’t.” I can still hear the rest of the jumpers hooting and hollering for him to get a room, but the sweet, little thing he was with was so excited to have a catch like Leo, she had no shame.
We sit in silence for a bit, his fingers trailing up and down the line of my spine, moving the towel, which is still damp from our shower, down a bit more with each subsequent trace of his finger.
I think of the day. Of how I came back determined to pick up and go so I could escape the feelings and the memories I can’t seem to stop.
Oh how quickly that changed when he put his trust in me.
He gave me his biggest fear and didn’t walk away like I wanted to do to him.
Shouldn’t I be able to face my biggest fear then, too?
“Thank you for getting me down safely,” he murmurs as if he’s reading my thoughts.
“Thank you for trusting me to do so.”
“You needed a leap of faith, Em. You needed someone to prove to you that they trust you, so in turn, you should trust yourself.”
“There are so many things you don’t understand . . . things I wish I could . . .” My fingers draw absently on his chest over his heart.
“No. It’s okay I don’t need to know.”
“I’m just not ready to explain—”
“You don’t need to. I’ve done enough damage. I pushed you when I didn’t realize I was. I guess I just want you to understand that I’m here for you. That I care about you. That whatever it is you need from me, I’ll try to give you, so long as you tell me. I can’t read your mind.”
I draw in a long, deep breath as if I’m trying to digest and believe what he is saying to me. As if I’m willing myself to whole-heartedly trust him.
“Trust is hard for me,” I whisper, feeling as if I just peeled back my soul and opened it to him. In reality, my revelation is nothing new but it’s still huge for me to admit.
“Understandably.”
Another deep breath. Another confession that needs to be expressed but that is totally unfounded. “I blamed you for the longest time you know.”
“Blamed me for what?” he asks, trying to pinpoint what of the many things I could pin on him.
“My lack of trust.” His fingers still for just a beat before they move to my chin and tilt my face so I’m forced to look at him. His eyes question me, but his lips refrain from verbalizing. “It was so much easier to blame you for everything than to blame the man who was supposed to love me.”
He nods ever so slightly; the compassion in his eyes is truly overwhelming. “I can’t tell you I understand, Em, because I haven’t walked a day in your shoes, but I can tell you that I respect what you are saying. That I hear you. That I’ll prove to you that you can trust me.”
I feel so stupid, needing to hear him say those words, but now that he has, I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my chest. “Where do we go from here?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean . . .” I pause and try to figure out how to put what I want to say into words. “Never mind.”
He pulls me in tighter against his chest. “Where do we go, Emerson? First of all, you’re not going anywhere.
I love that you’re a wanderer and free spirited—I wouldn’t change that for the world.
I’d never take that away from you. Though, I’d appreciate it if you keep the taking off without telling anyone where you are to a minimum.
It makes the cop in me want to track you down to make sure you’re okay. ”
“You wouldn’t . . .”
“Don’t tempt me,” he teases but with a hint of an edge that tells me he’d do just that if need be.
“I won’t. Remember, we’re working on trust here,” I say dryly.
“I’m aware.” He plants a noisy kiss on my forehead.
“Since you’re staying put, then we keep doing what we’re doing.
You get your loan despite how much I’d like to punch that slimy fucker you’re getting it through.
I get my promotion despite the asshole trying to take it from me .
. . and we . . . move forward. Together. ”
“This is all a huge change for me.” I try to wrap my head around how two months ago, I was thinking about the next flavor of the month, and now, I’m sitting here discussing tomorrows with Grant.
“What is? The having someone care about you part or the feeling settled in one place?”
“Both. None. All of it.” I laugh as I hook my leg over his.
I meet his eyes and find myself admitting things to him I haven’t yet digested myself.
“I’ve survived this far by closing myself off and not allowing myself to feel .
. . and then you enter my life with your lights and sirens blazing, and it’s as if you’ve handcuffed me so that I can’t escape from you.
So that I’m forced to feel. So that I think in wants and needs.
So that I wonder how I ever lived without it.
I love it. I hate it. It’s overwhelming, and it’s just . . .”
“Well, get used to it because I’m not going anywhere and neither are you, even if I have to handcuff you and your nomadic ways.” There’s humor in his voice, but there is also an earnestness that tugs on my heart. It makes me just that much more thankful that he showed up today.
“Better make sure you bring them next time,” I tease as my body reacts to the memory of earlier in the hangar.
“I’ll make sure to put my extra set in the nightstand.”
“Promise?”
He leans forward and presses the most tender of kisses against my lips. “Promise.”
Our eyes hold for a moment. “You’ve pretty much obliterated my rules, you know that, right?”
He makes a non-committal sound. “I was wondering how long it was going to take for you to realize that.”
I shrug. “I have a selective memory.”
“Is that what it’s called these days?” The way he says it makes my body become all too aware of how thin the towels wrapped around us are and how easily we might be able to slip out of them.
He kisses me again as my fingers reach for the towel at his waist. “There is one thing I forgot to do earlier—you know, proper police protocol.”
“Falling down on the job again?”
He chuckles against my lips. “Only if I’m falling on top of you.”
“Cute,” I say and then sigh as his fingers find their way between my thighs. “We were talking about following proper police protocol.” It’s hard to get the words out.
“Then I guess it’s time to get this strip search under way,” he says before his lips meet mine.
And just like that, we slip into something beyond my rules.
It should terrify me after the past week I’ve had, which was filled with doubts and questions, but there’s something so comforting about the moment.
About being with someone who sees my scars and still thinks I’m beautiful.