“Fine.” Her voice turns cold. “Then I’ll just?—”
The words cut short with a loud thud against the door, a sickening crack. The sound of something—or someone—hitting the metal stairs.
“Emma!” I wrench the door open in panic, imagining her tumbling down those rusted death traps, skull cracking on concrete?—
Something shoots between my feet—Emma’s upper body, arms extended—and before I can process what’s happening, she’s flipping backward in a controlled somersault, her legs following through my doorway in a graceful arc until she’s fully inside my apartment, landing in a crouch like some goddamn ninja.
“What the fuck?” I stagger back, heart hammering. “Did you just—did you fake falling down the stairs?”
Emma rises to her full height, brushing invisible dust from her jeans. Her dark hair has come loose from its ponytail, framing her face in wild strands. She looks satisfied, like a cat who just knocked something expensive off a shelf.
“I needed to get in here somehow,” she says simply. “I need to talk to you.”
I stare at her, my mind still trying to catch up with what just happened. This woman. This fucking woman. She fake-collapsed to trick me into opening the door, then somersaulted into my apartment like it was the most normal thing in the world.
“You could have called,” I say.
“Would you have answered?”
“No.”
“Then I made the right choice.” She crosses her arms, looking around my apartment with those sharp, observant eyes. “Nice place.”
“Emma.” I point toward the door. “Leave.”
“No.”
“Jesus Christ, you’re still the most stubborn?—”
“Are you going to make me?” She tilts her head, challenge in her eyes. “Because I’d like to see you try.”
I drag a hand through my hair, trying to get control of the situation. Of myself. “Why are you here?”
“I know my dad ordered you to stay away from me.”
I let out a breath. “Then you understand why I need you to leave.”
“So that’s it? I’m here to see you, and you’re not even going to have a conversation with me? You’re just going to do what he says?”
“He’s my president.”
“He’s my father! And he doesn’t get to dictate who I see or talk to or—” Her voice cracks. “God, you’re all the same. All of you. The club comes first, always. Before me, before anything.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Do I? Lee chose the club over Mom and me for years. Dad chose the club over everything, including being a real father. And now you’re choosing it over—” She stops. “Over whatever this is.”
“Emma, it’s not that simple?—”
“It is that simple!” Her voice is louder now, angrier. “Either you want to see me or you don’t. Either this matters or it doesn’t. Stop hiding behind Stone’s orders and just admit that the MC matters more to you than I do.”
The accusation makes my throat tight.
“That’s not true.”
“Then pick me up and throw me onto that bed. Fuck me the way you did the last time I was here, then make love to me the way you did in that motel.”
I stare at her, guts twisting. The image of Emma on my bed—her body under mine, the sounds she made, the way she said myname—floods my mind. My hands twitch with the need to touch her. Every cell in my body is screaming at me to cross the room, to gather her in my arms, to show her exactly how much I’ve missed her.
