Tethered (41 page)

“You’re so beautiful,” Emmet said and flattened his tongue between my breasts. “So, sexy.”

Emmet moved slowly down my body, trailing his fingers down my sides until he reached the waistband of my shorts. He hooked his fingers inside and slowly began to pull my shorts and panties down over my hips. His wet tongue slid from hip bone to hip bone, making me squirm and bite my lip.

Donya SGL was creeping onto the scene, whispering in my ear to grab Emmet’s head and make that tongue lick me lower. Sensible Donya blushed and dug her nails into the grass and dirt. Donya SGL scared me sometimes. She made me feel like a slut even though the only person I was with was Emmet, but she made me want to do things I’d only read about in romance novels and caught glimpses of on the internet. She made me want to behave in a way that made me want to cover my face with shame. But hell, Donya SGL’s ideas turned me on. Imagining Emmet doing any of DSGL’s suggestions increased the moisture between my legs and made my nipples swell.

As Emmet pulled my bottoms off and tossed them aside, I came out of my haze long enough to remember that we were outside in the open. Though the area was secluded and rarely did we see another soul, I felt vulnerable lying on the ground with only my shirt and bra bunched up around my ribcage and nothing else on my skin.

“What’s wrong, baby?” Emmet asked, trailing a finger down my sex.

“I never thought I’d be one for public sex,” I said nervously.

He chuckled softly. “What public, babe? It’s just you and me.”

“What if someone is in the woods watching?” I asked, suddenly frantic and searching the trees. The sunrise was nearly complete, but the woods were still rather dark.

“No one is watching us, I promise,” he said soothingly, rubbing the inside of my thigh.

I gave him a look of doubt.

“I guess I’ll have to take your mind off of people in the trees spying on us,” he said dramatically.

I looked towards the trees again. “I don’t think that’s possible.”

I pushed myself up on my elbows and let my eyes scan the circumference of our fishing hole. The only movement I saw was the swaying of leaves in the light breeze. I started to sit up so I could pull my shirt and bra back on, but suddenly Emmet was hovering over me, nearly nose to nose with me. When I saw tanned flesh out of the corner of my eye, my eyes jerked down to his bare chest and followed his tasty abs down to his naked lower half. My eyebrows raised and my mouth formed an O.

“Lay back, Donya,” he quietly demanded.

Yes!
DSGL shouted and did a fist pump.

I dropped back onto the grass. My head had barely touched the ground when Emmet was on me, kissing me deeply as his erection ground into my slick sex. Groaning into his hot mouth, I thrust my hands into his hair.

“Emmet,” I whispered harshly after he broke the kiss to suck and nibble on my earlobe.

He adjusted his erection with one hand until the head was pressed against my slit. He looked me in the eyes and used one hand to stroke my cheek.

“Tell me you love me,” he commanded in a whisper.

“I love you,” I breathed.

Emmet slammed into me, to the hilt. I cried out, but it was cut off by Emmet’s mouth taking mine. As his mouth ravaged my own, his cock slid out until just the very tip was barely inside of me, and then he slammed into me again. He was so hard, long, and thick. It felt like he was trying to stretch me, to break me, but my moist channel clung to him, wrapped tightly around him like a suctioning sheath.

As Emmet’s thrusts became more forceful, I felt myself sliding across the dewy grass. I tried to find purchase, digging my heels into the ground, but I only succeeded in taking his rigid member impossibly deeper. My hands slid out of his hair, down his neck, and across his strong, muscular back. He put a hand under my knee and lifted my leg. He slipped his arm under the leg and maneuvered it until it was over his shoulder. I tore my mouth away from his and screamed into the humid air.

This new position had Donya Sex Goddess and Lover screaming with joy. The pain was exquisite as his hard shaft rubbed against sensitive areas inside my body that I didn’t know were there. Before I could even understand what was happening, I was sobbing through a hard orgasm that made my entire body shudder and shake and more moisture coated Emmet’s member.

“You’re so damp,” Emmet growled, pounding into me. “Fuck, Donya. You feel so good.”

He moaned loudly as his pace increased and he seemed to lose all control. Sensible Donya was in pain and had the urge to put her hands on Emmet and make him stop, but DSGL cheered him on. The pain made her wetter, made her nipples more sensitive and made her curse dirty things into the air.

“Oh god,” Emmet groaned through a clenched jaw.

I fell over the edge again, crying out his name, and my body bucked violently.

“Donya,” he moaned long and low and then suddenly pulled out of me. He shouted curses as he shot his load onto the grass between my legs. DSGL wanted me to sit up and help him stroke the rest of his orgasm out, but I really felt that DSGL had taken me far enough for the day. She made me blush and feel a bit ashamed as I lay there breathlessly watching until he had spurted out every last drop.

Exhausted, he collapsed beside me and pulled me into his arms and kissed me gently on my temple.

“Are you still worried about people watching us?” Emmet murmured in my hair.

I laughed lightly, but the Sex Goddess piped in with an answer. “If they were watching, they sure got one hell of a show.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Death didn’t come easily for my mom. She didn’t just stop breathing in her sleep or go out in a drug induced coma. It was nothing like I saw on television and in the movies. She struggled, gasping and choking for air on her final breaths. I knew she was ready to go, but she couldn’t help her body’s automatic response to try to get oxygen into her lungs. Her eyes were wide with fear and they stayed that way until my Uncle Roger closed them for her.

Her hand in mine was still and already cold. I gave her cold, dead hand one last stroke of my fingers and then gently placed it on the bed at her side. I stood up and moved away from my sobbing aunt and teary uncle and my dead mother. I left the bedroom only to come face to face with the rest of my family that had been mostly absent up until recent months.

“Is it over?” Kera asked, already clutching a tissue.

I nodded and then held up my hands to fend off any form of physical contact as my cousins and aunts tried to hug me. I didn’t answer their sympathetic commentary. I quickly left the house of death and hurried down the sidewalk.

It was late in the fall. The warm, summer weather was gone and replaced with cool breezes and lower temperatures. It was cool enough to wear a jacket, but I had forgotten it and didn’t want to go back for it. I speed walked through the streets until I reached the Grayne house. I let myself in and headed into the dining room where the family was gathered for dinner. They all looked up at me with surprised expressions.

“What are you doing here?” Emmy asked in a high pitched voice.

“Why aren’t you with your mama?” Sam questioned, even as she got up to no doubt get me a plate.

“She’s not going to notice that I’m not there,” I said flatly, taking a seat beside Emmy and across from Emmet who had a school book and notebook open on the table next to him. He looked at me knowingly. He felt what I felt and I felt his need to take me into his arms, but instead he sat there and stared at me.

“Is she…” Emmy started, but couldn’t finish.

Sam put an empty plate in front of me and sat back down, but stared at me also, waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, she is,” I said, scooping a tiny bit of potatoes onto my plate. “Pass the pepper.”

“Pass the pepper?” Emmy asked. “Pass the damn pepper, Donya? Your mom just died!”

“Which doesn’t change the fact that my fucking potatoes need fucking pepper, Emmy,” I snapped at her and held out my hand expectantly.

Under normal circumstances, Sam would have chased me around the house trying to slap the taste out of my mouth for dropping the F bomb, but the circumstances weren’t normal. She sucked in a breath and looked at me with pity. Fred and Emmy also looked at me with pity. The only one who wasn’t giving me a piteous stare was Emmet.

I took a piece of chicken, a big scoop of peas, and poured myself a glass of iced tea. I was about to reach for a biscuit when I remembered that I hadn’t washed my hands after touching my mother’s dead hand.

“Gotta wash my hands,” I muttered and pushed away from the table.

I went into the powder room near Fred’s office and thoroughly washed my hands. When I returned to the dining room, it was obvious a hushed conversation halted at my appearance.

“Please, don’t stop talking about me just because I’m back,” I said dryly, putting a napkin on my lap and reaching for that biscuit.

No one spoke. Everyone but Emmet ate in silence, but eyed me carefully. Emmet picked at his food with his fork as he watched me.

“How is school?” I asked him. He only came home for the weekend because he knew my mother was about to die. I told him I didn’t want him to disrupt his schooling for me, but he insisted.

“Donya,” he sighed. “Stop.”

I was chewing chicken that I was sure tasted delicious since Sam had made it, but it was like cardboard in my mouth. I had to chew an extra few times and force it down with half a glass of tea.

“Stop what?” I asked after I was sure the food wouldn’t get lodged in my throat. There wasn’t much room for swallowing with the big knot in there that had been there since my mother’s last breath.

“Stop,” he said in a tone that would normally have me halting whatever action I was doing.

“You have to be more specific, Emmet,” I forced a chuckle. I took a glance around the table and found that the other three were watching our exchange with curiosity and foreboding.

“Stop trying to force yourself to feel fine when you’re not,” he said gently.

I gave him a look that suggested what he was saying was ridiculous. Sam tried to cut in and said Emmet’s name in warning.

“No,” I said, holding a hand up to Sam as I glared at Emmet. “I’m sorry, am I not behaving how you
think
I should behave? Because I didn’t know there was any precedence for this.”

“Your mother just died,” he said patiently.

“And?” I shrugged. “I hardly knew her. Your crazy mother is the only mother I really ever knew.”

“Trying to harden your emotions isn’t going to help you,” Emmet said firmly. “You’re going to bottle it up and it’s going to explode when you least expect it.”

“When did you become the authority on her emotions?” Emmy demanded. “Maybe she’s handling it the best way she can.”

Emmet didn’t take his eyes away from me when he spoke to Emmy. “No, she’s not.”

“Again,” Emmy said, irritated. “When did you become an authority on her emotions?”

“You’re way off base, buddy,” I lied, forcing down another bite of food. “I guess you expect me to be falling into your arms, emotionally wrecked.” I was being mean to him and I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Stop,” he said again.

“You know what?” I threw my napkin on my plate and pushed away from the table. “I came here for a good meal and to escape the herd of sobbing people in my mom’s house, but you won’t shut the hell up and just let me be.”

Four voices called my name as I marched out of the dining room and towards the front of the house.

“Donya, come back here right now,” Emmet demanded from behind me.

“Fuck you,” I said harshly over my shoulder.

As my fingers closed over the door handle for the front door, strong hands grasped my shoulders, almost painfully. I was yanked away from the door and spun around to face Emmet. I slapped him hard across the face. I heard Sam shout my name in horror, but I ignored her and punched him in the chest. As I continued to beat on Emmet, he took it with an occasional grunt, but he didn’t release me.

“It doesn’t matter!” I shouted at him as I slapped at his arms. “She didn’t matter to me and I didn’t matter to her, so it doesn’t matter that she’s dead!”

The last few breaths my mother took replayed in my mind and I could feel her hand go limp in my hand all over again. I stood there staring at Emmet with wild, wide eyes.

“Your mom loved you,” he said firmly. “She knew she fucked up before and she tried really hard to make it up to you. You were the only reason she was afraid to die, Donya. She never thought she’d be able to make up for what she failed to give you all of those years, okay? She told me you were the only thing that mattered. You
did
matter.”

It was right there in that foyer that I broke down when I found out my dad died. It was Emmet’s arms that held me then, and as an onslaught of grief slammed into me, it was Emmet’s arms that kept me from crumbling to the ground in that same foyer again.

I clung to him as I sobbed, and he held me securely, rubbing my back and smoothing a hand over my hair.

“It’s okay to cry,” he whispered in my ear. “I’ll take care of you. Always.”

I don’t know how long we stood there like that before Emmet pulled away a little. Emmy was beside us, offering up a box of tissues as she cried for me. Emmet took a few tissues and began to gently wipe away the moisture off of my face. I was so thankful for him. I was so glad that he didn’t listen to me and came down to be there for me despite my objections.

“Thank you,” I said softly to him. I was still crying. I was pretty sure I couldn’t stop, but I had to tell him how much it meant to me that he was there with me.

“You don’t have to thank me,” he said, holding my face in his hands. “I promised to always be there for you when you need me. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are or what other obligations I have, Donya. You supersede anything and anyone. Okay?”

I nodded and I didn’t pull away or push him away when he leaned down to press his lips gently against mine. It didn’t matter that everyone we had been trying to hide from was now watching with rapt attention. The gasps and the curses didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that I was in Emmet’s arms and he was going to take care of me. Always.