“Nope,” I stubbornly reply.
Emmett takes my other hand, gently squeezing my fingers between his. “I can stand here all night if that’s what it takes.”
I suck in a sharp breath, eyes still averted. “Good.”
Dropping one of my hands, Emmett’s callous palm cups my right cheek, swiveling my head to look at him. “Why good?”
While he might be able to control the position of my head, I retain the right to look where I want, which is still directly at the bar.
Finally, my gaze meets his soft gray eyes as they study me intently.
“Because if you stay here all night, then you won’t be able to put any distance between us,” I whisper.
I watch the way his Adam’s apple bobs, and it’s all the confirmation I need. That’s precisely why Emmett asked me in here.
“Is it because of what I saw last week?” I ask.
Emmett’s jaw clenches, tendons working overtime. “No. It’s because I never should have been fantasizing about you in the first place.”
Despite everything, excitement buzzes through me; the image of Emmett stroking himself and the sound of my name leaving his lips are burned into my memory forever.
“Is my dad onto us?” I fire another question at him, wondering if that’s what’s pushed him to feel this way.
“No,” Emmett repeats. “I’m backing away because it’s the right thing to do. For you and for Blake especially.” His hand descends to grip my chin, eyes briefly falling to my mouth. “The train we’re riding right now is destined for disaster, Billie. The more times I’m around you, the harder it is for me to keep my hands where they should be—by my sides and not running through your hair or holding your chin like this, desperate for all of your attention.”
A delicious shiver runs down my spine, butterflies swarming my stomach.
“I wish …” He squeezes his eyes shut before snapping them open and focusing on the door we just walked through. “I wish I’d met you earlier in my life, and I wish our situation were as simple as it is for so many of my teammates and their partners.” He sets his eyes back on me. “But it isn’t, and I refuse to make your life any more complicated than it already is.”
“You don’t have to leave my life,” I plead, a sob bursting to break free.
He releases my other hand, both palms now cupping my face. “Oh, Billie. Don’t you get it?”
He rests his forehead against mine, and the first tear hits my cheek. I didn’t want to cry, but his words contradict hisbody language. None of this makes any sense—or at least, I don’t want to believe that it does.
He heaves a huge breath into his lungs, and then his long exhale fans my face with his addictive scent. “Putting myself first and doing all the things I want with you will inevitably lead to me losing you forever.”
“It won’t,” I protest.
“It will,” he counters, wrapping his huge arms around me.
I cling to him like a koala, burying my face in his white dress shirt.
“You’re one of the smartest people I’ve ever met; don’t tell me you can’t see what will happen because I know you can. If Scott didn’t murder me, then he’d definitely never let me near you again.”
“He doesn’t own me,” I force out. “I’m my own person, and so are you.”
Emmett hooks his finger under my chin. “There’s fourteen years between us. You want to be with someone your age. A guy who can race around the yard with Blake, a man who isn’t slowing down when you’re just getting going.”
He means none of this; it’s all bullshit.
“And what if you want more kids? I’m an old man, remember? Born in the days when they still had wooden money.”
He chuckles, but I don’t return it. I’m too fucking mad at him for spouting crap.
Maybe he can sense my frustration because he wraps his hands underneath my ass before walking us across to the empty bar top. He sets me down on the counter and steps between my legs.
We’re perfect kissing height, not that it matters.
