“You’re poisoning him, putting thoughts in his head that don’t belong.”
“Whatever you’re trying to do, I’m not afraid of you.”
Jack freed a folding knife from his back pocket and held the blade to her throat. His eyes roved Amelia’s body and settled between her legs as if he contemplated fucking her hard just to make a point. It wasn’t about desire, just control.
“You should be,” he said and leaned forward until his lips brushed her cheek. “I’m not like Em. I don’t worry if I’m a good man. I know that I’m not. Stay away from the people I love. I won’t tell you again.”
Jack eased off and put his knife away. After he left out the pocket door, Amelia collected herself with deep breaths and burning cheeks. On the ledge of a built-in hutch, she smoothed out the prayer card with trembling hands. The Blessed Mother looked on placidly but offered no solace.
Behind her, Emory’s footsteps stirred in the hall of photographs. She’d know his cadence anywhere, had committed it to heart. Amelia held her breath and released it as a comforted sigh when his chest met her back.
Wedged between the hutch and him, she gripped his forearms that snaked around her middle. One of his hands slid up her stomach to cup her breast, and the other grasped her waist.
“I feel like I haven’t seen you all day,” he muttered in her ear and melted against her, his body warm and loose hair brushing her cheek. “I wish these people would leave.”
Amelia craned her neck until her lips met his in a soft kiss. “They need you.”
“No, they don’t, butIneedyou.”
Emory’s tongue traced her bottom lip before slipping into her mouth. Amelia spun in his arms, and he lifted her to the hutch’s ledge. The time apart, so laughably brief, dropped a match to their desire.
The prayer card tumbled to the floor as the kiss turned feverish. Emory pushed her dress to her waist, and Amelia straddled his hips with her bare thighs. His fingers grazed the swell of herbreasts in a touch that laid goosebumps against her skin. One finger slipped beneath her bra and teased her nipple until it was hard. The other hand cupped her ass and guided her movements. With his hard cock nestled between her legs, each languid roll of Amelia’s hips mimicked how she might ride him.
“Let me take you upstairs,” Emory panted against her open mouth. “I wanna taste you, feel you.”
He pushed her underwear aside and stroked between her legs before sinking a finger inside. His thumb swiped her clit with delicate pressure. Amelia closed her eyes and surrendered to the sensations.
“That’s my good girl,” she heard Emory say somewhere along the way to her climax.
How was it he knew precisely how to touch her, hold her, make her come undone? She cracked open her eyes as Emory dropped to his knees. With one leg hitched over his shoulder, he went to work with his mouth, and Amelia lifted her arms to steady herself against the bookshelf at her back. A thin book tumbled to the floor.
She meant to protest, to tell him someone might find them that way. It didn’t matter. None of it did. Her hesitation was fleeting and swiftly dissolved as his tongue swirled her opening. Emory gripped the back of her thigh, and she relied on his strength to hold her steady.
“I missed you,” she sighed and combed her fingers through his hair. He stared up at her and, by the light in his eyes, she knew he smiled between her legs.
No man had ever lavished that much attention on her that way. With his mouth between her legs, he seemed to thoroughly lose himself as much as she did. Amelia’s head fell back hard against a shelf, but the sting was lost amongst the pleasure surging through her. The music in the great room disguised another climax that came in one loud, shuddering breath.
“I missed you too,” Emory chuckled as he stood. “I swear I’m gonna do that every day.”
Eyes heavy-lidded with lust, he kissed her hard, butsomething in the promise troubled her. They couldn’t go on like that in perpetuity.Mind your cuts.Warm tears brimmed as Amelia slackened in his arms and slumped against the bookshelf.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Amelia gripped his dress shirt and buried her face against his chest. She hated how swiftly the tears came, that they even came at all.
“Look at me.”
She shook her head. “I don’t like when people see me cry.”
“I’m not people.” Emory tipped her chin, and his gaze softened as it ran a circuit between her eyes, down to her lips, and back again. “It’s just me.”
Meant to soothe, it only hurt more. It was just him and her like it had been for days, and where the Queen of Heaven couldn’t comfort, the King of the Underworld could. Since when was he the only thing that brought her peace? It must’ve happened when she wasn’t looking. She was losing herself there. Bits and pieces fell off, replaced with things that confused and scared her.
“Why are you crying?” he asked not unkindly, but Amelia still felt called to the carpet to explain.
And she had a perfectly good explanation. Jack had brandished a knife and threatened things he conveniently didn’t speak. Some men were clever that way, creating loopholes for their awful behavior, but Jack was also a liar and a better one than she. He’d lie through his teeth to cast her out. Over Emory’s shoulder, Amelia glimpsed the hall of photographs and his world built on belonging but only for the chosen ones.
“I don’t know where I belong,” she said.
