Chapter Sixteen
THE LINE BETWEEN real life and fantasy blurred in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, when, after Dean and Emery’s frantic and fantastic shower fuckfest, they’d landed in his bed, where he’d loved her properly. And then not so properly, he thought with a grin. Emery was a sweet tigress between the sheets. She liked control as much as he did, which led to the hottest sex of Dean’s life. He lay beside her now, only a couple hours after they’d fallen asleep, with his heart full, overwhelmed by the desperate need to make love to her again, slowly and sensually. Hot sex was amazing, but he wanted her to feel his love for her more deeply, to understand that what they had went deeper than anything he’d experienced before—and deeper than anything she had, either.
She lay on her stomach, the sheets strewn across one leg, her beautiful ass calling out to him. He’d never been an ass man, but when it came to Emery, he was an every-part-of-her-body man. He scooted lower, trailing his fingers lightly along the back of her legs, and followed them with his mouth. His heart ached as reality slowly filtered in. Today was Wednesday. Emery was moving out. He’d waited so long to be with her, and he didn’t know how he would survive waking up without her in his arms.
Struggling to push past that ache, he pressed his lips to the soft skin behind her knee, vowing not to let reality ruin the last few hours they had together under one roof. He kissed his way up the back of her thigh as he moved between her legs, nudging them open to accommodate his body. She made a mewling sound as he loved his way up and dragged his tongue along the crease at the cusp of her bottom. Her hips rose off the mattress, and he lifted them higher, turning over onto his back. He positioned himself between her legs, and reached up, cupping her breast.
“Good morning, beautiful.” He sealed his mouth over her sweetness and squeezed her nipple just hard enough to earn a lusty gasp.
She went up on her elbows. “Wow,” came out breathy and sexy as she rose onto her knees and grabbed the headboard. “Your mouth is the best alarm clock ever.”
He moved with her as she straddled his mouth. He clutched her hips, holding her tight against his mouth so he could love her deeper. She moaned and arched, and when he brought one hand to her clit, she made more of those addicting sounds. Her thighs squeezed around his head, sending heat searing to his cock, which was aching to get in on the pleasure. He ate at her swollen sex, taking her right up to the edge, then slowing, until she was grinding against his mouth.
“Please—” she begged.
He gave her all he had, loving her with his mouth and hands, until she moaned and bucked, surrendering to her climax.
“Holy freaking…God,” she panted out, but he refused to relent.
He held her hips tighter, devouring her more intensely, feeling every delicious pulse on his tongue as she cried out his name over and over again. Sounds he’d never forget. He wanted to hear so many they infiltrated his every thought. He took her right up to the peak again.
When she finally collapsed on top of him, he swept her beneath him, embracing her quaking body. His beard was wet with her arousal, her taste fresh and exciting. He should wipe his mouth, but he couldn’t wait. He pushed his hands beneath her, cradling the base of her skull as he covered her mouth with his. She kissed him eagerly, unfazed by the taste of her own arousal, igniting more of his carnal desires. Gone was his ability to slow down and love her carefully. Would he ever be able to? She was the soil to his seed, the sun to his bud. She was the other half he’d never known he was looking for.
He lifted her knee to his hip and drove into her in one powerful thrust. They both moaned, then stilled. She was so tight, he realized she was probably sore from last night. He drew back quickly, catching her glassy eyes. A spear of pain ravaged his heart.
“Fuck. I’m sorry, doll. Did I hurt you?”
She shook her head. “No, no. It’s not that.” She closed her eyes for a second, and when they fluttered open, the ache in his heart dissipated. “You’re my perfect, too.”
AFTER THEIR BREATHING calmed and they came back down from the clouds, Dean stepped from the bed, bringing a groggy, sated Emery up beside him. She groaned, going boneless against him. He’d made love to her with the love of a thousand Cupids and the grace of a prisoner just freed from jail. It wasn’t slow or careful, but it was wonderfully, perfectly them.
“A quick shower, and then we’ll watch the sunrise. Example outing number three.” That got her attention.
She peered around him, squinting in the direction of the nightstand. “Is that…?” She leaned forward and peered into the half-open drawer. “My necklace?”
He reached into the drawer and withdrew her leather necklace with the two little charms. “I found it on the couch right after you moved in.”
“And you kept it,” she said with a playful smile.
“I should have asked, but yes. It makes me feel closer to you.”
“Hm. I wonder if that’s what serial killers say when they keep a lock of their victim’s hair.”
He clenched his jaw even though she said it teasingly. “You make me sound creepy. Here.” He set the necklace in her hand, and she closed her fingers around it.
“Do you know what the charms mean?”
He shook his head.
“You know I’m a Gemini, which means I’m an air sign. My father used to tell me that I was like the wind, hard to catch and easy to get swept up in, but too adventurous to settle down.” She turned the charms over and pointed to the one with three squiggles on it. “Air sign. When I graduated from high school and didn’t want to go away to college, I tried attending community college. But I could not sit through the classes. My mind wandered, and I was bored to death. I basically sucked at school. Well, that type of school, anyway. My mom suggested I try taking an exercise class to combat my boredom. I must have signed up for twenty different exercise classes over the next year, each one less fun than the next. I stayed away from yoga because I was…”
“A whirlwind?” he offered.
She laughed softly. “Exactly. Anyway, one day Desiree, who’d tried her best to never talk about her mother back then, told me that her mother meditated religiously. You know her mother never stays in one place very long. I figured, what could it hurt? And I took a yoga class. I swear to you, that first class changed my life. For the first time ever, my mind calmed enough for me to sit still. The next time Lizza blew into town for a visit with Desiree, I was there when she arrived. I told her about how yoga had affected me. By then yoga had become my saving grace. You know I never feel complete unless I make it to the mat, and she understood that. I’ll never forget, she put one hand on my arm and said, ‘You’re a water sign. You need that.’ Of course, I’m not a water sign, so I told her she was wrong. But she insisted, and said she could see water all around me. That’s when I remembered that my mother had delivered me in an underwater birth. It was all the rage back then. And Lizza said, ‘See? You’re a unique person. You’re an air and a water sign.’”
She pointed to the other charm, which looked like waves. “The next time I went into town, I bought these charms.”
“What does the water sign signify?” he asked curiously.
“Water signs are intuitive and emotional. They’re overly sensitive, and a little mysterious.”
“For all Lizza’s faults, I have to agree with her there, doll. When I look into your eyes, I could drown in their depths.”
She curled against his side. “You’re softening that Viking image of yours with all this romance.” Smiling up at him she said, “I like that you wanted to keep a part of me with you. I want you to have it.” She set the necklace in the drawer and took his hand, leading him out of the bedroom. “You can thank me during our quick shower.”
The shower was anything but quick, but how could he have even tried to fool himself about being fast with his sexy tigress’s hands all over him.
But it was her mouth that did him in, when she sank to her knees and demanded, “Fuck my mouth like you own it.”
Christ. This woman…
Seeing her loving him with all she had, stopping only long enough to tease his balls with her tongue, was enough to bring him to his knees. But he wasn’t about to let his doll down. He leaned back against the shower wall and buried his hands in her hair, taking control as she’d requested. He was careful not to choke her, moving with tempered restraint. She squeezed his balls and he yanked her mouth off his cock.
“Don’t go easy,” she demanded. “Geez, big guy. Don’t you know me by now?”
Christ Almighty. Perfectly matched didn’t begin to describe how good they were together. More like two of the same being.
He bent and kissed her hard, tightening his hold on her hair. “You gotta stop me if I get too caught up in you and push too hard.”
“I promise.” She pushed his chest up and wrapped her slender fingers around his shaft, giving it a few hard tugs before swirling her tongue around the head.
His balls pulled up tight. “Suck me, baby. Suck me hard.”
Her eyes flared, and in the next breath she was sucking and stroking like her life depended on it, taking him right up to the edge. When she slowed, he quickened her pace with a thrust of his hips and a tug of her hair. She was eager to comply, giving his balls a gentle tug. His chest constricted, and his eyes slammed shut.
“Emery—” he warned.
She grabbed the backs of his thighs, taking him deeper, faster—and right over the edge. His release quaked through him with magnificent force, and she devoured every pulse. His body jerked with aftershocks as she licked him clean, then rose to her feet. He gathered her against him, and she grabbed his jaw, tugging him into a mind-blowing kiss. She tasted of him, with an undercurrent of his blissful doll, and after a deep, sensual kiss, she tasted only of her sweet, loving self.
After he recovered, they lovingly washed each other off, and then Dean gathered her in a towel, stealing more steamy kisses.
“If you keep that up, we’ll miss the sunrise!”
Her giggles and threats filled the air—and his heart. “We have thousands of sunrises in our future.”
“Maybe,” she said teasingly.
“Christ, woman.” He smacked her ass and she scurried out of the bathroom toward her room. It felt weird to return to his bedroom alone, where Emery’s scent hung in the air. As he dressed, his mind skipped ahead, and his stomach clenched tight. How could he let her move out?
Twenty minutes later they were sitting on a blanket on the dunes in their sweatshirts and shorts, overlooking the water. Ribbons of red, orange, and lavender crept across the sky. Emery rested her head on his shoulder, fitting to him like a piece of a puzzle. He’d brought a thermos of ice water with lemon slices for them to share. This, he decided, was the perfect way to greet the day.
“This is my favorite time of day to do yoga, before the world wakes up, when it’s just me and the gift of a new day.”
“I like the way you said that. A gift.”
“Oh, I might blow through life like I think it’s all here for my taking, but trust me, I know each day is a gift. It’s a chance to renew ourselves in so many ways.”
“How’s that?”
“The way I see it, if we mess up one day, the next day is a chance to make it better or move past it. It’s a gift of another chance. A new beginning.” She gazed up at him and said, “That’s what I love so much about doing yoga first thing in the morning. It centers me in a way nothing else ever has. It’s like my mind, body, and soul all have this one chance to come together without any clutter.”
“You, without any chaos?” He leaned down and kissed her. “I’m not sure I’d want to even imagine that.”
She laughed softly. “You sort of center me, too.”
Her confession warmed him all over. “Is that so? How?”
“I’m not sure, but you push me to see things differently. I know this will seem weird, because you have already made me act so differently than I normally do. But I feel more like myself than I ever have.” She looked out over the water as the sun crept higher. “Ever since our first kiss, which I know wasn’t months ago or anything, but ever since that kiss, I haven’t wanted to hold back.”
He brushed her hair over her shoulder so he could see her face more clearly, and when she turned, her cheeks were flushed.
“I tried to fight it,” she admitted, “because I didn’t want to risk our friendship. But I feel completely uninhibited when we’re close. I never realized until now that I wasn’t uninhibited with anyone else.”
“It’s because you feel safe with me,” he said. “We’ve shared a lot over the months we were apart. Some things I would have rather not heard about, and I’m sure there were times you didn’t want to hear about things I shared. But I never judged you, and you never judged me. That creates a sense of safety.”
“I didn’t see it that way. I saw our talks as two friends sharing their daily lives. When you told me about the dates you went on, I wanted you to be happy, but now I know that the reason I ate nearly a half gallon of ice cream on those nights was because I was jealous.”
“No way.” He pulled her closer. “I can’t even imagine you being jealous.”
“No? I could have clawed Chloe’s eyes out in the first thirty seconds of seeing her. The way she looked at you was proprietary and intimate.”
That surprised him. “We’ve known each other forever, but we’ve never gone out. She’s a friend, unlike all those horseback-riding, lasso-swinging cowboys you call friends back home.”
She buried her face in his chest. “And yet you still want me.”
He lifted her chin and gazed into her eyes. “More than you can imagine. I like who you are. I told you, there’s nothing you can do that will scare me away, and I’m not going to let you sabotage our relationship when you get scared.”
She scowled. “You think you know me so well?”
“Hardly. You’re not the type of woman a man can ever be done getting to know. You’re power and passion, too wild to be tamed and too smart to let anyone dull your shine. You’re like the ocean, shaping the landscape around you as you go through life. I know better than to stand in your way. You’d find a way to blow right through me.”
She went up on her knees and moved between his legs, looking hauntingly beautiful against the rising sun.
“You really see me like that? Powerful? Wanting others to change to fit my needs?”
The sadness in her eyes told him that she’d misunderstood the beauty he meant to convey. “I do see you as powerful and beautiful, but not asking others to change to fit your needs. You own who you are, and you do what it takes to get where you want to be. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
He kissed her softly, but the uncertainty in her eyes remained. “Emery, you don’t ask for anything. You’re beautiful and passionate. You’re bright lights and steamy nights. You’re the little girl who would move heaven and earth to make her best friend feel safe and happy after her mother broke her heart and the strong woman who won’t settle for anything less than she deserves.”
Her eyes glossed over again, as they had in the bedroom.
“You don’t ask others to change. But you don’t take any shit. When you’re not treated right, you walk away. I’ll never ask you to change, either. But as you know, I have asked that you open your eyes with regard to our relationship, to make sure you don’t accidentally blow us both out of the water.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. “You see me clearer than anyone ever has in my entire life.”
He held her close, wishing the sun would take hours to rise so they could remain right there together, keeping the rest of the world at bay. He couldn’t hold back from asking for what he really wanted. “I wish you’d consider staying, and not move to the inn.”
She was quiet for a long moment.
“It’s too soon,” he said, more heartbroken than he’d like to admit and wishing he’d kept his mouth shut. “Sorry I mentioned it.”
She moved back and gazed into his eyes with a serious expression. “It would be easy to say okay, but I’m still worried I’ll somehow drive you away, and I don’t want what we have to end.”
“You won’t drive me away.”
“Then let me prove that to myself. Moving out will be hard, especially since you’re so addicting. I can’t even begin to imagine what it will be like to wake up in a separate house, much less a separate room. But I have to know this is real, and if it is, then a short walk won’t make a difference.”
He wanted to push her, but even if he didn’t need proof that their relationship could withstand a little distance—for God’s sake, they’d been hundreds of miles apart for months—he acquiesced to ease her mind. “Okay, doll.”
She rested her head on his shoulder again, remaining quiet for so long this time, he hoped she was reconsidering.
“You’re really good at these example outings,” she finally said. “I don’t want them to end. Because once they stop, it means we’ve decided to date, and when people date, they find flaws in each other. Everything will change. And when you couple that with me moving out…”
She lifted her head again, and the worry in her eyes brought his hands to her cheeks, holding her so she couldn’t look away, couldn’t avoid seeing the honesty in his eyes. “No, sweet girl. We’ve had months of getting to know each other’s flaws. When they come out, we’ll embrace them, and the ones we can’t, we’ll talk about until we find a way to accept them. Not everything good ends with disappointment. We’re moving from example outings to a real, claim-me-as-your-guy relationship, and I’ll do everything within my power to make sure you never regret that decision.”