Emory faltered, flat on his face and tongue-tied too. He licked his bottom lip and gripped the wheel.
“I didn’t kidnap you, and this isn’t a field trip.”
“You kidnapped me.”
“I didn’t.”
“Well, I don’t want to be here, so what would you call this?”
The sun pounded through the windshield. Emory cranked up the air, as much to buy time as battle the heat.
“An obligation,” he said with as much authority on the matter as he could muster. “Sometimes we gotta go places for our own good. Like, fuck, I don’t know.” He scratched his chin and sighed. “I don’t like going to the post office, but I do it ‘cause I have to.”
The reasoning was weak, the explanation flawed, the analogy stupid. He knew that, even without Amelia’s perplexed look that seemed slightly embarrassed on his behalf.
“This isn’t like the post office. Besides, you don’t go to the post office.”
Her certainty incensed. What the fuck did she know about him?
A bead of sweat trickled down Emory’s temple. He swiped it away with a rough hand and snapped on a short fuse.
“I buy stamps just like everyone else!”
She laughed then.
Amelia Havick laughed at him.
No one laughed at him.
No one.
They supplicated, placated, measured every word, regulatedeach movement. Curated to appease, it drove him insane. Not her. She didn’t give a shit who he was, so she laughed; not mocking, just gently amused. It dispelled enough of the tension that Emory conceded where he could.
“Fine. I brought you here against your will.”
“It’s call kidnapping.”
“It’s your turn,” he demanded, more churlish than intended.
“My turn for what?”
“Compromise.”
Amelia unfolded her arms and traced her fingertips along the hem of her skirt inching up her thighs. Emory’s heartbeat quickened as his eyes followed her fingers.Fuck, don’t start that.At the end of his rope, he couldn’t handle the tease.
He remembered well the way she tasted, how her beautiful face contorted in pleasure when she came. That memory existed on the edge of his thoughts and waited for quiet moments to invade.
“Compromise.” Amelia lingered on the word and studied the barren horizon dotted with brush. “For right now, I believe you’re probably the least likely to hurt me of the people who want to.”
Emory expelled a quiet laugh. “Any more caveats you wanna cram into that statement?”
“Fine,” she said and rubbed her arms blanketed with goosebumps. “I acknowledge that you’re protecting me.”
Amelia turned to him with a shy glance through dark lashes. When the road demanded his attention, Emory looked away and turned down the air conditioner.
“Mirabelle told me you have a brother,” she said, the statement imploring with a latent question she didn’t have the nerve to ask.
“Had. Ihada brother.”
