Kellan’s life was marked with one mistake after another. More often than not he just rolled away from them and forgot about it. He couldn’t do that here, not with Emma. That sweet little college girl hadn’t just given him a night of passion. It had turned into a three-week marathon of naked bodies and sweating flesh.
“Will you tell me about your dad?” she asked, crawling into bed one night. She was wearing one of his t-shirts and nothing else. Her hair was still mussed from their most recent bed-destroying session.
He stiffened. “What?”
“I was just thinking about my dad.”
“Emma, if after all the things we just did you are thinking about your dad, I’m gonna have to say you need to see someone.”
She laughed and shoved at his naked side with a cold foot.
He winced and grabbed it, pulling it away from his skin. “Jesus! Did you soak those in ice water?”
“I’m cold.” Her voice was soft.
He sighed and pulled the blanket around her. A very bored Rocco jumped up to add his own body heat.
She reached down and petted the beast. “You’ve stolen my dog.”
“I did not.” She turned that dazzling smile on him. “He just knows good people when he sees them. And don’t think I don’t know what you are doing.”
“What am I doing?” He wrapped an arm around her. “Man, you are cold.”
“I told you.” She hunkered down next to him. She smelled like toothpaste and rain. “And you are trying to change the subject. Tell me about your dad.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because you kinda stole mine.” She didn’t sound angry when she said it. Had she been angry, he might have been able to snap back at her, or ignore the question altogether.
He tucked the blanket tighter around them both. “He was a mean damn drunk.”
“That couldn’t have been all he was.”
“Why not?”
“Because.” She shifted her body against his and snuggled into the curve of his shoulder. He could feel her breath on his naked skin. “Because my dad was a mean damn drunk, but he was also a good person. So your dad had to be more than that.”
He could have argued it, but it wouldn’t have much mattered. Mac had been mean, especially when he didn’t get his way, and he liked his liquor as much as the next man, at least until he started chemo. It wasn’t the same, but he got what she was saying.
“Yeah, all right. He came from a poor family and thought the military was the only place for him. At least that’s what he said. He also had a habit of lying about who he was and where he came from, but that’s what he said most often, so I think it’s true.”
“So he was in the military?”
“I think he was, he could shoot like he was. He liked to shoot things. One of the things he used to do was take me out hunting. He said it was important I learn how to hunt. I couldn’t tell you why, but it seemed pretty damn important to him.”
“Oh?”
He could hear the hesitation in her voice. The slow soft way she asked the question, like she didn’t really want to know the answer, but she couldn’t quite stop herself from asking it anyway.
He rolled over and offered up his shoulder. He couldn’t see it but he knew it was there, a long scar in the shape of a jagged crescent moon. He felt the muted sensation of her fingers touching old scar tissue.
“What happened?”
“I missed.”
He was going to roll back on his back but he felt her sleek body tuck in behind him. Her arm wrapped around his middle, and the pad of her thumb swept up and down on his side. The shift of her body had him rolling towards her. There was a comfort to feeling her so close, he found himself continuing to explain.
“It was a cougar. Have you ever seen one?”
“Not up close.”
“They are beautiful. Their pelt is sorta like your hair.”
“My hair?” She shifted behind him. He could only assume she was turning to look at her locks. “What about it?”
“Gold, every shade of it. She was just laying down, stretched out on this great big rock. You could tell she had eaten recently; there was a bit of blood on her mouth. It should have been creepy, but it wasn’t. Like on a person it would have been creepy, but on her it just belonged. Dad led me up there and put the gun in my hands. I didn’t expect to shoot anything that day, not really. I hadn’t been quiet enough before to sneak up on anything.”
“You? Loud?” she teased. Her lips brushed over his skin as she talked.
“Clumsy, too.” He wrapped his arm over hers. “But yeah, I hated the idea of shooting her. I mean, we weren’t going to eat her like we did the buck.”
“You can eat cougar,” she said. “It just doesn’t taste very good.”
“Have you had cougar?” he asked, tilting his head so he could see her face over his shoulder.
She was smirking at him. “No, I have not. But I can tell you that pretty much every animal can be eaten. We just don’t eat certain ones.”
“Why?” he asked, legitimately interested. “Taste?”
“Partially.” She tightened her arm around his middle, her fingers splayed over his skin. “But there is more to it than that. We eat animals that can be domesticated and fattened up, more often than not. It’s really hard to cage a cougar.”
“No shit.” He stretched his legs and rolled over unto his back. She stayed close to him, half wrapped over him. He felt the hot press of her sex against his leg. He was going to do something about it when the dog shifted his bulk between Kellan’s legs, pinning them both. “But the long and short of it is that I couldn’t shoot her. I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but it felt wrong. We were just going to kill her and hang her up and I wasn’t for it. My dad didn’t like it.”
“He cut you because you wouldn’t kill something?” She sounded shocked.
“Not exactly, he threw rocks at me. I was clumsy but quick, so only two hit. That’s the one that took me down.”
She hugged him as much as their current position would allow, and he let her. It was strange. Kellan didn’t talk about himself like this. She had a way of getting it out of him. There was something about the gentle kisses she laid on his skin, rather than the typical ‘oh, you poor thing’ some people gave.
He turned his head and she kissed him. It started off light, almost friendly, the way a girl might kiss anyone who had a bad day. Then her tongue darted between his lips. She stirred, the dog moved, and she crawled into his lap.
“All right,” she said softly, tugging the hemline of the shirt up. “How about we set aside father issues for a while?”
“Well,” he licked his lips as she exposed the naked mounds of her breasts, “if you insist.”
It was, quite possibly, the best marathon ever.
# # #
“Dude, you are crazy.” Rudy bent over the open hood of a customer’s Cadillac. His ruddy face had a smear of grease on the cheek. The shop was full of work today, and most of the guys were bouncing around between jobs.
“What are you talking about?”
“That.” Rudy motioned with the torque wrench in the general direction of the shop’s office.
Through the blinds, the two of them could see Emma and Hannah chatting and smiling at customers. She was good at the business side of things.
“What about it?”
“All right, you aren’t just crazy, you’re stupid, too.” Rudy switched out tools and continued his work.
Kellan snorted. “Man, are you going to make sense anytime soon or are you just going to keep calling me names?”
“You said when this all started that it was just to keep her safe.”
Kellan shrugged his shoulders and looked away. “Yeah, so?”
“Falling for her is a safe thing?”
“Man, I’m not falling for her. She’s just…I dunno.”
Rudy rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“You got something to say?”
Rudy stood up. “I got plenty to say. Are you going to listen?”
“Spit it out.”
“That girl has been in love with you since she was fifteen years old. I expect her to get all stupid over you. Hell, she deserves to get all stupid over you. I was hoping she’d do it when she was sixteen or seventeen so she could get you out of her system and move on with her damn life.”
Kellan watched her through the blinds. She looked good today, even standing next to someone as primped as Han. There were some chicks who took hours to make themselves look as put together as Emma looked when she threw her hair into a ponytail and wiggled into some jeans. He liked the way she wiggled.
“You angry it’s happening now?”
“Yeah, man, I am.”
There was something in his tone that had Kellan looking back at him. “Are you jealous, Rudy?”
Rudy shook his head, and changed tools, popping an old spark plug out of the car and looking at it. They saw the tops, worn down to nearly nothing, coating in dark muck, both of them knew it was fried. “Not the way you think. I dunno, back in high school I might have been. I didn’t just take her to prom because she was my friend. But that’s not it now. Emma, she’s different. She’s smart, but a lot of people are smart, but here’s the thing. Most smart people? They get all bitter and jaded about the world because they know too much about too much shit.”
“Not Emma.” Kellan found himself defending her. He handed over the shiny new plug.
“Not Emma,” Rudy agreed, shoving the new piece into place. “She’s got this great big heart and all this love to give. Yeah, she hides it behind all her book-smarts, but you see it every time she pets that ugly ass dog of yours, or laughs with Hannah, or whatever. She’s this bright ray of sunshine and good will and you…well, fuck me, Kellan, you aren’t.”
“Fuck.” Kellan bent over the engine with Rudy. He wanted to be mad, and deep down there was a part of him that was, but the fact of the matter was that Rudy was right. “I can’t just drop her.”
“It’s pretty damn funny to me that you think dropping her is going to stop what you are feeling.”
“I thought we were talking about Emma.”
“We are, and you are involved. I mean, aren’t you the one screwing that great big smile on her face?”
Kellan couldn’t quite keep the grin off his mouth when he said, “Yeah, I am.”
“So you gonna be able to dump her when this is all said and done? Are you going to be able to walk away from all that?”
“Of course,” Kellan said. Even to him the tone sounded uncertain. “I dunno. The sex is good.”
“Whatever, man. A guy doesn’t look at a woman the way you are looking at Emma because the lay is good.”
The sound of a torque wrench tightening things into place interrupted their conversation. It gave Kellan a moment to consider what Rudy was saying. He wanted to say it was wrong, but he knew better. What could he offer Emma? A hard life in the critical eye of the law? For now, he could give her safety, protection from Gabriel and his screwed up brother, but what about when all of this was over? What could he offer her then? Nothing, not a damned thing.
He looked up and saw her looking at him. Her big blue eyes were so full of life and happiness. She hadn’t looked that way since she got back. Her smile brightened a few degrees when their eyes met and he found himself smiling back. She gave a little wave and he nodded in response.
It hit him like a ton of bricks.
“Shit.”
“You know what you gotta do,” Rudy said
“Yeah, yeah, I know.”
# # #
“Well?” Hannah asked when there was a lull in customers. “How is it going?”
Emma felt a tingle run from the tips of her fingers down to her toes. Her mouth was grinning so hard it nearly hurt. “Good.”
“Good?” Hannah asked, eyeing Emma with a discerning gaze honed by having children. “Oh, sweetie, that is not the face of good. That is the face of a woman who has seen God.”
“So many times.” Emma sighed blissfully. She laughed and shook her head, and organized a pile of receipts from the day into a single pile, separating them from yesterday’s. It felt good to be doing something useful. Sitting at home was great for a break, but after the first week it had pretty much been torture. They were filling in while Kellan was off doing a different kind of business. Emma didn’t know what, and she wasn’t entirely sure she needed to. “God, that sounds so cheesy.”
Hannah shrugged one tanned shoulder and waved a flippant hand. “Sweetie, that’s all love is. It’s wine and cheese and not a whole lot else.”
“Wine and cheese?” Emma snorted. “Wow, you must not think much of love.”
“Are you kidding me? It’s, like, the perfect comparison.”
“What are you talking about?”
Hannah sighed and filed away the pile of paperwork for Joe to look at later. She spun back to Emma with a hand on her hip. “Okay, so, some days, especially in the beginning, love is really easy. It’s like bubbly moscato and slices of sharp cheddar. Crisp and happy and feels good but isn’t exactly the top shelf.”
Emma leaned against the office desk, crossing her arms beneath her breasts. Over the weeks she had learned it was Hannah’s lot in life to give out advice, even when it wasn’t particularly wanted. “Okay…”
“No, really. Hear me out. You wanna Coke?” She snatched up her purse and pulled out a roll of twenties.
“Holy crap.” Emma blinked as her friend pulled a single bill out of the large stack. “Business must be good.”
“Oh, business is great, but this?” She waved the money around. “This comes from having a man in the club. You know what they say, crime pays.”
But is it worth it? Emma wanted to ask. Was it worth it knowing he could go out and get shot? That he could die because another group of like-minded people wanted to come in and take over the illegitimate businesses and make sure it was their illegal merchandise that was getting sold? She glanced away from Hannah and back towards Kellan, whose dark hair was pulled back by a red bandanna. Had she ever seen him with his face completely relieved of hair?
“Coke?” Hannah offered again.
“Dr. Pepper if they have it.”
“Sure thing, sweetie.” Hannah popped the bill into the machine and punched in their orders. “What was I saying?”
“Bubbly moscato and sharp cheddar.”
“Right! Okay, so that’s just the beginning, right? All that tasty happy going on. It’s good stuff and it can make you put on some pounds, but it’s not really perfect. Perfect comes later. It comes with a little work and a little time.”
“Like cheese and wine.” Hannah twisted the top off of her drink and took a long drink.
“See, now you are getting it. Don’t get me wrong, some days it’s Kraft singles and that cheap boxed shit. You’ll eat it because you gotta, but you don’t really like it.”
“Wow, that’s weirdly philosophical.” Emma glanced up and watched as Kellan worked alongside Rudy. A wave of tranquility washed through her. It felt good to see him, to feel comfortable in a space that was designated as his.
“I dunno, you think about this kind of stuff when your little one is crying at three in the morning.” Hannah held up the bottle. “Which is when you wish you could IV this stuff.”
“How is the little one?”
Hannah turned into an effervescent mommy as she pulled out her cell to show a bunch of pictures of the kids. Emma felt the itch of friendly jealousy spark inside her belly. It wasn’t the angry kind of jealousy that turned best friends into worst enemies, but the gentler kind that made Emma yearn for something she didn’t have.
She’d always wanted a family. Perhaps it was unpopular now, but Emma wanted to have the job, the husband, and the house with the picket fence. Maybe it was all those years she’d gone without one, or maybe it was a socially constructed impossibility. She didn’t know, and right now, seeing Hannah light up like a New Year’s chandelier, she didn’t really care.
“What is it, Emma?” Hannah put her hand on her arm. The fingers were gentle.
“Hmm?” Emma realized that Hannah had been asking her something. “I’m sorry, my mind drifted.”
“To what?” Her big brown eyes were filled with mischief.
“Babies.”
Hannah gave a little squeak. The playful gleam turned into something commiserating. “Oh my god, Emma, Are you pregnant?”
“What? No, of course not. We literally just started having sex, like, two weeks ago.”
Hannah snorted and slid her phone back into her purse. “Honey, two weeks is really all it takes, but hey, none of my business until you make it my business. Are you making it my business?”
Emma blushed and admitted, “A little.”
“All right, you are going to have to explain what you mean by that.”
Emma sighed and dragged a hand down her face. This kind of thing was easier to think about than talk about. “I love him. I know I shouldn’t, but I do. He’s got all these issues where relationships are concerned. And I know that we’ve talked about this already but every day I feel more and more like this is a real relationship. I made him breakfast this morning, I didn’t even have to ask how he wanted his toast or coffee.”
“That’s the stuff right there.” Hannah nodded, making her ponytail dance. “So what are you going to do?”
“What can I do?”
A kind arm slung around Emma’s shoulders. “You could tell him. I mean, I know, I know, communication and blah, blah, blah. But you have to let him know where you stand, and what you want, or everyone is just going to end up hurt.”
“You are an awesome friend, but sometimes I think you are crazy.”
“Both can be true.” Hannah smirked. “Hey, listen, Rudy and I were going to go do dinner and dancing tonight. I got a sitter and everything. Why don’t you two join us?”
“Like a double date?”
“Well, no. I mean, a couple of the guys from the club are going to be there, some are bringing dates, so it’s kind of a group thing.”
“Is Samantha going?” Emma asked. She didn’t mean to sound bitter, but it came out that way anyway.
“Oof, that was mean. Did something happen?”
“Not really.” Emma drank the last of her soda and deposited the bottle in the bin. “I mean, she calls him whenever she has an excuse, and texts him all the time. Like, I get it, she wants him. I can’t blame her for wanting him, but I can blame her for going after someone who isn’t reciprocating. That kind of thing bothers me.”
“No shit.” Hannah laughed.
“No really, I mean, okay, here’s the thing. If it were a guy doing that to a girl, would people just shrug it off?”
“Well, the difference here, hon, is that the guy is armed.”
“Maybe I should just be nice to her.”
“Emma, sweetie, did you hit your head?” Hannah plucked at Emma’s hair in a dramatic effort to find an invisible wound. “I think you just said we should be nice to the woman who is trying to steal your man.”
“He’s not my man,” Emma corrected. She sighed and plopped herself down in the office chair. The sun was coming in the window, turning the whole office a pale orange. She could see dust motes dancing in the air. “Maybe she’s lonely. A lot of girls seek out male attention because they feel unwanted by their female peers.”
“Jeez, how many college classes did you take?”
“Too many.” Emma laughed.
“You know you sound like a textbook half the time?”
“I was a lonely kid. Books and animals, that’s what kept me going.” Emma smirked.
“When are you gonna get the money from your dad’s stuff?”
“Lawyers are still processing stuff, but it’ll clear up before I go back to school.”
“More textbooks.” Hannah butted her shoulder against Emma’s and the two women shared a companionable laugh.
Emma couldn’t say anything to that because the owner of the Cadillac came waltzing up in her four-inch heels and a brand new hairdo.
“Hi, Samantha!” Emma smiled, doing her best to make it look sincere. “How are you today?”
Samantha ran a hand through her perfect hair. It fell into place in just the right way. “Fine.”
Emma and Hannah exchanged a look. Hannah gave a tiny shake of her head. “Hey, Samantha, listen, Hannah and I were—”
“Is my car ready?” Samantha interrupted.
“I…” Emma glanced out the door. “I don’t know, I’ll have to—”
“Never mind, I’ll just go ask myself.”
Samantha waltzed through the door before Emma could say anything else. Emma watched through the blinds as half the guys in the auto shop stopped working so they could watch those long, long legs saunter through their work zone.
“You need to cut her.”
“Violence is a terrible way to get a point across.”
“You heard me, that girl needs to get cut down a few inches. Look at her, waltzing in here like she owns the place and everything in it. Perfect little princess.”
Samantha paused in front of her Cadillac, fixing a big bright smile on her sculpted face. Emma couldn’t hear what she said but it had Kellan glancing up and smiling.
“See that?” Hannah said.
“Yeah,” Emma said softly, “I see.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing,” Emma admitted. “And there is nothing to do. I know, I know. I should walk in there and claim my territory or whatever it was you said, and maybe you are right. But, Han, that’s not me. I didn’t want to play those kinds of games when I was in school, and I am certainly not going to play them now. If Kellan wants her, he’s going to have her.”
The sound that Hannah made was somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “That’s a piss-poor way of backing out.”
“I’m not backing out. I don’t want to fight for something that isn’t even really mine in the first place.”
Emma watched the perfect woman wrap an arm around Kellan’s shoulders. For a moment, just a moment, she thought she saw him pull away. Her heart gave a leap. Then he settled back against her and her exultation sank down to her knees.
# # #
“Hey, you okay?” Kellan asked that night over dinner.
In the end, Emma had decided not to bring up going out with the group. She hadn’t wanted to be around people anymore. Instead, she and Kellan had picked up pizza on the way home as Emma no longer felt hungry. She stared down at her single slice of olive and sausage and felt no inclination to take more than a bite.
“You been pretty quiet.”
“Yeah,” she lied. “I’m fine.”
He glanced down at her untouched food and then back at her. “All right. I guess Rocco is going to eat well tonight.”
The dog, hearing his name, wandered over and plopped a hopeful butt down on the linoleum. The sound of his tail sweeping back and forth in gluttonous anticipation was audible. Emma tore off a piece of crust and tossed it to the mutt. She knew it wasn’t the best practice to feed a dog from your own plate, but she couldn’t help herself. At least the dog got to be happy.
“Saturday is Phantom’s birthday. We were thinking of doing a party.”
“How old is Phantom?” she asked. She didn’t much want to say yes or no; neither option held any appeal. Then again, Phantom had rescued her from a potential kidnapping, so she certainly didn’t want to snub him.
“Nineteen, he’ll be twenty.”
She shook her head. How young was too young to break the law? She glanced over at Kellan, who had been involved with her father’s “work” for years and decided not to ask. “Where did you guys find him?”
“We didn’t,” Kellan said. He took a healthy bite of his own slice and chased it with the neck portion of his beer. “He found us. See, a few years ago your dad got pissed. He thought someone was stealing food from the shop. Nothing big or anything just packages of chips, a couple of sodas, you know, stuff like that.”
She tore another piece of her crust off and handed it to a waiting Rocco. “It was Phantom?”
“Yup. Your dad got so mad that he put one of those secret camera things in. We all went out of our minds when we saw this scrawny little kid sneaking in through a window. He moved like some kind of acrobat. It was nuts. He snuck in, grabbed some food and left. He left nothing behind, not even a dirty footprint.”
“Was he homeless?”
“Turns out he was. Some runaway foster kid. I don’t know. Vinny took a liking to him, brought him home and washed him up. The kid almost never talks.”
She remembered the single sentence she had heard he had helped rescue her. “I noticed something of the sort. I guess Phantom isn’t his name.”
“No, I think it’s Taylor or Travis or something that sounds like it belongs to a cowboy.”
“Phantom suits him better.”
“It’s all he answers to now. Vinny gave him the name.”
She nodded and picked up her slice of pizza. She gave it a little nibble. “I remember Vinny from when I was younger. He’s a good guy.”
Kellan nodded. “He is. Loyal, too. It was him who dragged your dad to the doctor when he realized something was wrong.” He finished his slice of pizza and reached for a second. “How about we go sit in front to the television and watch a movie. That’ll get your mind off of whatever this is.” He motioned to her barely touched food.
They did. It was easy, so easy, to just curl up with him and disappear into a movie. At some point she did eat, and later she found herself curled into his arm. She could almost forget this wasn’t real, that it was all temporary.
“I think I’m going to go to bed.” Emma shoved herself off the couch as the credits rolled.
A hand, tattooed and callused, wrapped around her wrist. “Emma, you don’t have to talk with me. I mean, I am not going to beat it out of you or anything like that, but if something is wrong—”
“Are you sleeping with Samantha?” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them. They were stupid, and she knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop them from happening.
“What?” He dropped her wrist.
She shook her head and held up her hands in surrender. “I’m sorry, forget I said anything. I don’t even know where it came from. I don’t think I’m feeling very good tonight.”
He stood up. “I’m pretty sure I’ve made what’s between Samantha and me pretty clear. I’ve told you I’m not sleeping with her, and even if you and I weren’t doing whatever it is we are doing, I still wouldn’t be sleeping with her.”
“What are we doing, Kellan?” she asked. “I mean, honestly, what is this? I don’t…I don’t think it’s normal.”
He took a step towards her, and even Emma could see he was barely holding onto himself. “What isn’t normal about it?”
“I want you to touch me. I want to touch you.”
“Seems pretty normal where I’m standing.”
She shook her head once, hard enough to make her head spin. “The hell it is. I’ve touched guys. I’ve had them touch me. From time to time it’s been all right, but this….this isn’t that. I wake up and the first thing I look for is you. I kiss you and it’s like I’m breathing for the first time. And when you are inside of me, I feel alive. It’s just…it’s just ridiculous.”
He grabbed her and pulled her to him. She was buried against his chest, surrounded by the scent of him. She let herself sink against it.
“I don’t know what to do.”
He put a hand beneath her chin and lifted her face. His kiss was like butterfly wings on her lips. His tongue brushed along her lower lip, caressing ever so lightly, an invitation to be let in. She welcomed it.
Her arms slithered around his neck as her toes lifted her up. It took only the press of his body against hers to have her blood humming inside of her skin.
“Take me to bed,” she whispered.
He swept her up and, rather than taking the left and going into her room, he went right and took her into his.
# # #
She looked like a goddess who had gotten lost on the way to somewhere important and landed in his bed. All that golden hair haloed out on the dark blue of his pillow. Blankets were bunched up around her as her bare feet kicked them out of her way.
“Touch me, Kellan,” she begged, opening her arms to him.
He was going to, by God, he was going to touch her everywhere she’d let him. Her jeans were better than all the expensive panties that high price stores could toss at him as he popped the button and slid the zipper down.
She was wearing simple white cotton today, and it drove him crazy. He’d seen all kinds of women in all kinds of frippery, but nothing made him go quite so wild as Emma the Brain in white cotton panties.
Emma was right, he realized, this was ridiculous. It was insane. The scent of her as he slid the fabric down her thighs drove him wild. He didn’t know if he wanted to possess her or roll over and let her possess him; the truth was probably somewhere in the middle.
It was easier to get her shirt off. She’d taken her bra off at some point, he didn’t know when, but his eyes fell on the softness of her breasts and he knew he was done for.
She fell back against the mattress and spread her arms out like she’d make a snow angel out of his sheets. Her long legs were stretched out, showing off the curves she got from walking the dog every damned time he barked. They were good curves. He bent and laid a kiss in the inside of her knee, tasting her skin there. “You’ve got great legs for a nerdy chick.”
She rolled her eyes and poked his shoulder with her big toe. “How do you think nerdy chicks are supposed to look?”
He ran his tongue along the inside of her thigh and felt the skin twitch. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I know they ought to taste like you.”
He let himself get lost in the feel of her against his lips. The creamy satin of her thighs, the softness of her belly. He took his time when he got to the full underside of one breast, and again when he took the rough peak of her nipple between his lips.
She made the most delicious sounds. He never had to wonder if she was enjoying herself. It was all breathy moans and hungry sighs. Every time he laid his hands on her she rose to greet them. He’d never had a woman respond to him so willingly.
When he slid into her, he knew he was done for.
When she had fallen asleep, curled into a protective ball around a happy dog, Kellan decided he had to do something.
“Yeah, no, I’ll be there in a minute.” He ended the phone call.
“Who was that?”
“Samantha,” he lied.
“Oh, you are going to meet her?” She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. He had fully intended for her to be angry. He had grown used to the way she could snap at people. The wildfire of her. Instead, her voice sounded soft, almost broken.
“Yeah, I mean, you are done with me, right?”
“What?”
He shrugged into his leather vest; it felt heavier today than it should. “I mean, you said it was just about relaxing. You seem pretty relaxed to me.”
“Are you kidding?” she demanded. “I mean, yeah, I said that—”
“And you say what you mean, right? That’s what you told me. You don’t play those kinds of games. You were pretty sure about it.”
“That’s so not fair. We’ve been…I thought—”
“You thought what?” He kept his voice low and even. He could see every word hurt her, slapped at her. Something inside him broke to do it. “You thought it was special? That you were special? Emma, I am not going to lie. You are hot, and you were a sweet little honey pot, but it wasn’t anything more than that.”
“Liar!” She flicked the stove top off, leaving the eggs sizzling in a cooling pan. “You are a liar. I am not stupid. I know it wasn’t…that what happened was…different.”
He laughed, and even to his earls it was cruel. “Different? Please. I mean, you were sweet, but you were a little…I dunno…naïve.”
“Naïve?” she demanded. “What? This wasn’t just one night, Kellan. This was weeks. This was something else. I don’t know what you are doing here. I don’t know if you are so damn scared of being in a relationship that you are pulling away. You are, aren’t you? You are being deliberately cruel.”
“Am I smart enough for that?”
“Yes,” she snapped back, pushing past him and into the room beyond. She hadn’t spent much time in it since their first night together. God, he’d been living with her, really living with her. “You are great with handling people, and you are trying to handle me. Right here and right now.”
“Where are you going?”
“What do you care?” she demanded. “If you are going to Samantha, it is actually over, isn’t it? It shouldn’t matter where I am going. I mean, you don’t care, right?”
“I am supposed to protect you.”
“Then why are you hurting me?” She opened one of her drawers and deposited the contents in a bag. It wasn’t her typically neat and orderly packing. “Why are you doing this?”
Her shoulders were shaking. He wanted to go to her and that made him angry. She needed to understand that this wasn’t serious, this was temporary. Emma deserved better.
“I told you what this was, from day one I told you. It’s not my fault you got caught up.”
“I didn’t just get caught up, Kellan. I love you.”
“What?”
She whirled on him. Her eyes were like glass. “You heard me, damn you. I love you. I don’t know when it started or how it started or even why but I love you. I love how you lead people, how you keep them all at arm’s length, but you are there if you need them. I love that you took care of my dad. I love that you named your ugly dog Rocco. I love so many things about you and you are an idiot, a goddamned idiot if you pretend otherwise.”
He couldn’t say anything, so he didn’t. His throat was tight, and his skin felt too hot. It itched like the lie was infecting him. He clamped his fists and waited for the feeling to pass. She continued to glare at him, this small woman filled with so much passion. She was an intoxication.
“I’m going to go to Samantha’s. I’m going to fuck her. If you wanna keep saying you love me after that, I’m not the idiot.”
He turned on her and left. The last thing he heard was a desperate sob, but it didn’t drown out the sound of his own heart breaking.