Entice (18 page)

“Emmett,” he growls out, fisting a hand in my hair.

I worship his torso, so broad and hard beneath my lips, placing kisses everywhere, leaving no spot untouched by my mouth. Teasing both nipples with my tongue, I ask him, “Will you wear your piercings in these for me sometime?”

“Done,” he mutters, “anytime you want.”

I nod and grin, pleased and ready for more. “You have a magnificent body, Sawyer.” I bend at the waist, following the trail of my wandering hands over his abdomen with my hungry mouth. “And this,” I lick the groove of his V, “is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Straightening back up, I place both hands on his pecs and lean in for a kiss. He doesn’t leave me wanting, doing that thing with his mouth where I enter another realm. Which is probably where I find the courage to quickly make it past his waistband and wrap my hand almost around his dick.

When I saw it that day in the alley, he was obviously going soft, having been finished and all, because MOTHER of HELL!

“Em,” he growls, his hand on the back of my neck, the other in my hair, both gripping down hard.

“Hm?” I hum against his lips, my right hand exploring him.

An odd time I know, but all I can think about right now are Holly and Erica, two girls in my eleventh grade gym class. One day, while dressing in the locker room, I eavesdropped on their non-whispering, vulgar conversation about the many different male appendages they’d “tried out” and their disappointment. According to them, their quest for a dick that was both long and thick was futile, most guys blessed more so in one facet or the other, but never both. Considering they were admitting to being experts, I’ve lived for years under this assumption of what to expect.

Well, here’s to locker room sluts being wrong, because the pulsing, heated cock in my hold is too thick for me to fully circle with my hand and long enough that the head is peeking out from his waistband.

“You’re huge.” I flash my eyes to him, mortified I said that out loud.

“And you’ve got quite the grip.” He winks, then places a chaste kiss on my lips. “You win.” He scoots back and off the bed, standing before me like the Adonis I just found out first hand, he is.

Languidly, he removes his shorts, no underwear, and remains still, letting me look my fill. He’s so damn sexy, his large body made up of deeply cut lines, bulging muscles, and large, broad shoulders, a fine line of dark hair leading to the beautiful cock straining up to his stomach—perfection. I try my finger crook again, gleeful that this time it works as he climbs, one knee at a time, on the bed toward me.

“I’m ready, Sawyer, I want to feel you deep inside me.”

“Not yet, Angel. I’m nowhere near done. I still want to—”

“Shh,” I lay a finger over his mouth and stare straight into his eyes as I lie back and hold out my arms to him. “Now.”

He makes a move for the nightstand drawer but I lock onto his wrist and pull him back. “I trust you, Sawyer. Only you inside me.”

“Em?” he says, his grumble and eyes full of doubt.

“Well, we know I won’t get pregnant,” I chuckle nervously. “And I just want to feel you. No jewelry, no barriers, nothing but the two of us. Is that okay?”

“God, yes,” he groans, bending his head to lick up my neck. “Never gone bare, Em, ever. Only with you. Just the two of us.”

I lift his head, my hands on his cheeks and stare him in the eyes. “I believe you, you’d never hurt me.” I kiss him once. “Now feel me.”

Taking his time, gentle and caring, he eases the tip of himself in, back and forth, not even an inch at a time. He kisses my mouth and my neck, asking me over and over if I’m all right, the battle of restraint heavy in his voice. His concern, his scent, his tenderness—they relax me, my gasp matching his rumbling groan when my body fully invites him in. And then he is. Inside me. And it is everything, but nothing like what, and so much more than, I had imagined.

“My Emmett,” he murmurs. “My sweet Emmett.” He slides in and out of me, gentle and unhurried, kissing my face, my lips, my neck, my breasts.

I’ve never felt more adored and safe in my entire life.

“I can feel everything, baby,” he groans. “You feel like my Heaven. So hot, so tight, so—fuck.” His hands grip my ass, maneuvering me up and closer to him and we gasp together.

“Oh God, Sawyer, it feels so good, so good.” I clutch the sheets beside me, digging my fingers in painfully. “Sawyer,” I whisper.

“Ruined, forever.” He thrusts deeper, harder, bending down to run his tongue up my throat. “Nothing like it, Emmy, nothing.”

Our moans become grunts and he runs both hands up my arms, lifting them up and beside my head, where he links our fingers. It puts more of his weight on me and I welcome it. With this strong, splendid man covering me, no harm can ever come to me.

The rhythm of his hips changes, no longer a straight in and out, so I shift with him, placing that spot he’d found earlier in his direct target. “Right,” I squirm once more, “oh, right there. Hard, you won’t hurt me,” I pant.

“Like,” he pulls almost all the way out, then slides back in, up and to the left, “that?”

“Yes, babe, yes, don’t stop. Never, ever stop,” I beg as the prickle in my abdomen shoots downward in one big explosion. “Oh shit, SAWYER!” I scream, I yelp, I make sounds that are completely unhuman.

“With you, baby, oh goddamn,” he swears, speeding up momentarily, squeezing harder on my hands, frantically finding my breast and sucking hard with a small whimper of his own.

He stills, never letting go of my hands, kissing up from my breast to my mouth. I can feel him, pulsing inside me harder now. “Oh Em,” he kisses me languidly, still slowly pushing in and out, as gentle as his kiss, “if that’s making love, I don’t ever want to fuck.”

I snicker, untangling our hands to grab his face, pulling him into me for another soul-sucking kiss. When I’ve thoroughly thanked him, I come up for air, my chest pumping up and down in sated exhilaration. “That was amazing. Thank you.”

He grins that cocky, one-sided smirk that I adore. “You’re amazing. You don’t thank me when you just gave me the greatest gift I’ve ever received.” He drops kiss to the edge of my mouth. “Emmett?”

“Hmm?”

“I lo—”

“Let’s take a shower!” I drop my hands, pushing myself up despite his huge body on top of me and him still inside me. “Or a bath. Either one, your choice.”

“Bath’ll work,” he mumbles, gently pulling out and rolling off me. “I’ll run it.”

CHAPTER 16

Unfrozen

—Sawyer—

I
’ve never felt like this. Is this God’s way of punishing me for all the women I’ve fucked and left? All the mouths I gladly shoved my cock in with no reciprocation?

Well played, sir. Point taken.

She made a fool of me. I gave her my all and she changed, taking all we’d built and tossing it aside.

The morning after the best night of my life, she was up before me and I found a note saying she ran some errands. I waited until late afternoon, finally going home, only to see her pull in after dark. No call.

The next day, she drove into work without me and was completely engrossed in a conversation with Darby, of all people, when I arrived. The whole shift, she’d call off her orders, run off to somewhere she had to be, then come back and hurriedly load up the drinks once she saw they were ready.

As a last ditch effort, I’d finally cornered her on day three of the freeze out at her house. I now have a key, so it wasn’t really breaking in, but she was taken aback nonetheless.

“You didn’t do anything wrong. I’ve been busy is all,” was her explanation.

So yeah, the cocky, aloof playboy hath fallen. Now what?

“Hey, you’re home!” Laney squeals in surprise when she walks in, dropping her bag by the door.

“That I am,” I mutter, rising to hug her. “How are ya, Gidge?”

“Can’t complain. How are you?” She pats my chest. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in years. How’s Emmett?”

“How much time do you have?”

“As much as you need. Let me grab a quick shower though, okay? No sense in gagging ya. I just got out of practice.”

“I’ll start dinner,” I suggest. “What do we have?”

“Dunno,” she taps my nose, “look.” She heads down the hall with a grin.

I’m browning chicken in a pan, sipping my second beer when Dane walks in.

“Holy shit, a Sawyer sighting!” he shouts. “Should I alert the media?”

“I think they’d be more interested in a dick that can walk and talk. Maybe I should call.”

“Aren’t you a ray of fucking sunshine? Where’s my woman?”

“Shower.”

“Where’s yours?”

“Where’s my what?” I had yet to turn around, but now I have no choice—I need another beer.

“Your woman.”

“It would seem,” I slam the fridge door and crack open my beer on the edge of the counter, “that I do not have a woman.” I take a long, delicious sip of ice cold hops before I continue, looking curiously around the room. “Nope, no woman here.”

“Oh boy,” he sighs, stepping around me, pulling a bottle of Crown from the cabinet. “Sit down, I’ll serve. Coke or Sprite mixer?”

“Sprite,” I mumble, taking a seat at the kitchen table.

“So, what happened?”

“I made love to her,” I scoff, “should have stuck with fucking I guess, ‘cause she ran like she was on fire. Now she acts like I have the plague.”

Dane eyes me over the rim of his glass, taking his time to savor the whiskey and contemplate his response. “She lives two doors down and works for you. How far can she have possibly run?”

“Oh, I still see her, but it’s like she’s checked out. Everything’s at arm’s length and awkward; it’s not the same. When I try to put my arms around her, there’s a tiny flinch she can’t hide. When I go in for a kiss, I get the cheek turn. She swears nothing’s wrong, but I’m not stupid.”

Laney picks this time to walk in, hair wrapped in a towel. “Ah, I see we’re drinking our dinner?” She smiles, leaning over to kiss Dane. “Hey, handsome.”

“Baby.” He pulls her into his lap, getting a better kiss. “You eat, I’m gonna drink with my boy here.”

“No way are you hogging him! I haven’t seen him either.” She scrunches her eyebrows at Dane, then turns a warm smile on me. “Hit me with it. What’s wrong, Saw?”

“Emmett and I are,” I run a hand over my head, blowing out through my nose, “not good. Going backward instead of forward. I think I scared her with too much too fast. Again.”

“Why?” Her face crinkles, truly feeling my pain. “You two are adorable, seamless. What happened?”

I don’t miss that she doesn’t ask what I did wrong. My Gidge believes in me.

“We made love, finally, and she got weird.”

“She ran before you could,” she murmurs so low I almost don’t hear her. “Self-preservation.”

“You really think that’s it? I thought when she finally wanted to be with me that meant she was over her fears and she believed in us.”

“Sex is different for women, Saw.” She leans across the table and pats my hand. “Nothing will open up a woman’s floodgates and make her feel vulnerable faster than sex. She probably thought she could handle it, but women are truly, genetically, unable to keep emotions separate from sex. Sounds like she found out too late, and now she’s dealing with it.”

“That sounds like Emmett. She’s got some stuff…” I stop myself, taking a drink. “I think you nailed it, Gidge.”

“Green Eyes” by Coldplay comes from somewhere and I knock over the chair I jump up so fast. “That’s her, where’s my phone?” Scrambling around, searching frantically, I find it behind the couch cushion.

“Hey, Em,” I answer with a half-assed bravado. “What’s up?”

“Sawyer,” she sobs.

Fuck, she’s crying.

“Can you come down here? I know I’m an ass and I shouldn’t call, if you’re busy—”

I don’t really hear the next few words, I was off in a dead sprint at “down here.” It only takes seconds to get to her stoop. Thankfully, the door’s unlocked and I bust it open, anxious and scared of what I’ll find.

“Oh uh, you’re here,” she says into her phone, still at her ear, before she gets her wits about her (me busting through her door and all) and puts it down. Her red, wet eyes track my rush across the living room to where she’s curled up on the couch. “You’re fast,” she tries to joke, wiping her nose.

“Why are you crying, babe?” I’ve already scooped her up and sat back down with her on my lap. “Emmy, baby,” I grab her face, pleading with her for answers. “Talk to me, what is it?”

“I’m, um, bleeding.” Her face falls to my chest, frail little body racked with sobs.

“Where?” My hands and eyes run over her wildly. “Em, where?”

“Sawyer,” she whispers, not getting me to stop my examination. “Sawyer!”

My head jerks up to her, the frightened look in her eyes squeezing around my heart.

“I need to go to the hospital. I’m bleeding down there.”

It takes a second, but it finally registers. I nod. No words would be the right ones, so I just move her off me to stand. “Where’re your shoes? Your purse?”

“My room, the table. Sawyer?”

“Yeah?” I drop to my knees, grabbing both her hands in mine.

“I’m scared.”

“Don’t be scared.” I pull her head into my chest and rub her hair, kissing the crown of her dark head. “I got you. Whatever it is, I got you, Emmett. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”

She nods and sniffles, bucking up. “Let’s go,” she says with steely determination.

“I’ll drive.”

We both startle at Laney’s voice behind us and turn like idiots to stare at them.

“You and Dane drank. I’ll drive.”

“She’ll drive,” Dane reiterates from his post beside her.

Had I not shut the door? Was I so concentrated on Em that I didn’t hear them come in? Who fucking cares. They’re both clutch and I’m damn lucky to have them. We’re damn lucky to have them.