Reaching up, I set a soft palm over his racing heart.
He drops his gaze to my hand, eyes slowly closing. “I just letTucker go without inflicting any long-term damage, but if you tell me that he hurt you, I’ll hunt him down and break his fucking neck.”
Tangling my fingers into his hoodie, I bite down on my bottom lip, determined not to let more tears emerge. “What he said today would’ve destroyed me when I was back in Austin.” I gaze up at him, shaking my head. “Not anymore.”
“Why not anymore, Billie?” he whispers with so much intensity in his words.
I focus on the sunrise tattoo hidden beneath his clothing. “Because now that I know what a real man should look like, there isn’t anything about Tucker that I want. He came back here to fix a PR issue for his parents. He doesn’t love me or Blake, and I don’t think he ever did.”
Deep lines crease into his forehead, features overrun with pain. “I was pacing the streets out there, thoughts of you leaving with him when you deserve so much more than he can give you. Both of you.” A desperate groan reverberates in his chest. “The way I want to show you how much you mean to me, and how I would treat you like goddamn royalty.” He takes my hand and interlaces our fingers. “Both in and out of the bedroom.”
“Then why don’t you?” I ask, throwing every last bit of caution to the wind.
Today’s conversation in the car feels like it never took place after everything that’s unfolded since.
When Emmett lifts my chin to look at him, there’s a beat of nothing, right before he says two words we’ve both been longing to hear.
“Fuck it.”
Full lips envelop my own, and rough palms wrap around my ass, planting me on the kitchen island. He tastes better than the brief hints I’ve sampled each time his breath has fanned my face.
He whimpers, and I moan, tongues slowly caressing each other. I’ve kissed other guys before, but none of those experiences even come close to the way Emmett owns my mouth.
This kiss is commanding yet delicate, frantic yet perfect in every way. Months of pent-up anguish burst free, driving his tongue to take what’s been his since the second we set eyes on each other on my twenty-first birthday.
We know there’s no going back, that this is the reality we have to sit with when the kiss ultimately ends. I wouldn’t want it any different, and by the way Emmett tangles his fingers in my hair, dropping his lips to explore my jawline, it’s obvious that he feels the same way.
This moment is long overdue, and the heat pooling between my thighs is a testament to how hard we’ve tried to resist the inevitable.
Some things are just meant to be, and this kiss was written in the stars.
The man I washed and dried dishes with when I was a teenager, the family friend I harbored an unrequited crush on for years … is kissing me, cupping my face in his hands, biting down on my bottom lip so he can steal another taste.
How can something so forbidden feel so right?
Breaking from my lips, Emmett’s voice trembles, “Remember when I told you that you take my fucking breath away?”
I smile against his mouth. “Yes.”
Moving his hands down my body, he rests his fingers on the button of my jeans. He’s asking for permission to take things further, and it feels like all my fantasies are finally coming true.
Folding my hands over his, I guide them until my button and zipper are undone.
“Well, it’s high time I stole the air from your lungs, Mama.”
Blown pupils gaze back at me as he waits on the one answer I was only ever going to give.
“I want you to take me. Right here, right now.”
Dragging his right thumb across my bottom lip, he presses his jean-covered cock into my apex. It’s hard and long and even bigger than I recall from the morning we got ourselves off in his bed.
Lifting me from the island, he starts for the living room. “Iwant to take you to bed,” he whimpers between kisses. “But with the way I plan to make you scream, there’s a high probability that we’ll wake Blake, so the couch will have to do.”
If I wasn’t already leaking through my jeans, I definitely am now.
Laying me on the couch, Emmett kneels in front of me, hooking my legs over his shoulders.
“Have you ever had anyone eat your pussy?”
