Worth the Fight (Accidentally on Purpose) (29 page)

“My mom thinks I have unattractive hair and need to join a gym,” she sniffed. Usually Emmy doesn’t take her mom’s cr
itiques to heart. She was usually confident enough to not let it shake her, but I could hear it in her voice that she was questioning her appearance.

“Your mom is a crackpot,” I told her and was rewarded with a real laugh. I pulled back and looked into her beautiful face. “Please don’t get plastic surgery. When I say you’re pe
rfect, I mean it.”

She looked me in the eyes with her own eyes full of questions.

“Luke…did you kiss her or did she kiss you?” she asked after some reluctance.

“No, Em, she kissed me,” I answered quickly and hoped that it wasn’t too quickly, indicating some kind of guilt.

The frown that formed on her face twisted my heart strings. “But you kissed her back.”

“No, baby, I did not. I was so shocked I just stood there.” I felt so ashamed admitting that. I felt like a lesser man for my inaction. “I can’t believe I just stood there like that.”

“But she said she was touching you. Was she?”

“A little bit,” I admitted. “Mostly she kept touching my arms.”

Emmy caressed my upper arms. Finally feeling her hands touching me so willingly was an incredible sensation. “Well…you do have yummy looking arms.”

“But they’re yours, not hers,” I said softly.

“I think she gets that now,” she said with a little bit of haughtiness. She climbed into my lap and rested her head on my shoulder. I felt megatons of weight lift off of my chest. I finally felt like I was breathing again. Emmy was my source of breath and for two weeks I was near death.

I stroked her hair, inhaled her soft scent and let her body close to mine soothe my soul. “Have I told you I loved you lat
ely?” 

“No. You should sing it to me.”

The last song at our wedding reception was “Lately” by Tyrese. I had held Emmy as close as we could get with an unborn Kaitlyn between us, dancing in a tight circle as I sang the song to her.

“You better sing that to me again,” she had said with her lips pressed against mine. “And often.”

And I did. All the way up to the day our world almost ended.

I sang to her now, running my fingers through her hair and caressing her body. I touched her face, her neck, her back, her arms, her legs, between her breasts. She didn’t recoil. She didn’t push me away. She accepted my touch as if she needed it as much as I needed to give it. She turned herself around and straddled me as I finished the song.

“I love you, too,” she said and kissed me.

I pushed my hands under her shirt and caressed her bare back. Her hands roamed frantically over my body. She stopped abruptly and before I could object, she started to unbutton my shirt. When that was going too slowly for her, she let out an a
ggressive grunt and tore my shirt open. I was shocked and very turned on. This aggressiveness wasn’t like the night I woke up with her sucking me. This wasn’t anger. This was pure desire.

“Someone is a little eager,” I teased and playfully pulled at her shirt.

“Just take my damn shirt off,” she demanded and planted a kiss on my lips.

I chuckled and answered her demand. I removed her shirt and her bra and tossed them away.

“Did you lock the door when you came in?” Emmy asked with her lips on my jaw.

“Nope. Hopefully your mom will have enough sense to know what’s going on up here.”

“She probably knew it was going to happen before us.”

“Mmm,” I managed as her teeth nipped my neck. “You’re probably right. She’s the one that sent me up here. I started to just text you, but she gave me a hard time.”

“Well, let’s not disappoint her,” she growled lightly and pressed her bare chest against mine.

“I can’t wait for these to stop being a source of food,” I said as I cupped one of her breasts. I missed pulling her nipples between my teeth and watching her wriggle from the sensation.

“If you don’t want a source of food all over you, I suggest you make your hand migrate south.”

I flipped her onto her back. She let out a little squeal that I cut off with a kiss as I began to release the zipper of her jeans. I slipped my hand under her panties and flattened my palm against her clit. She moaned into my mouth and squirmed against my hand. I pushed a single digit inside of her and eased it in and out, but this was going too slowly for me. I needed more. I pulled away from her warm mouth and quickly began removing her jeans and underwear.

“Someone is a little eager,” Emmy mocked.

“Very,” I said and quickly removed the rest of my clothes. Eager was an understatement.

Impatient, I pressed my body to hers, fitting my cock against her sex. I kissed her and rubbed the head of my cock against her clit. Emmy moaned into my mouth and pressed her hips up to meet my thrusts. My shaft slid through the length of her pussy, collecting her moisture.

“Shall I make you come like this?” I asked her, watching her face.

“Yesss,” she moaned and then begged. “Please.”

“You don’t have to beg me, baby,” I said to her as I rubbed against her harder and faster. Every time the head of my cock rubbed over her clit I groaned. She was getting wetter ev
ery second. “You’re so moist, Em.”

Emmy was squirming beneath me, moaning and licking her pretty lips. I knew she was getting close to coming and I planned to give her one hell of an orgasm. I kissed her, sucking in her escalating moans. Her orgasm began with a shrill sound out of her mouth as she turned her head away from my kiss to let it out. I slammed my cock into her, hard and fast. I groaned, but Emmy started to scream. I covered her mouth and watched her eyes roll back in her head and her face turn that sexy shade of pink. I held myself deeply inside of her as her orgasm began to fade. Hesitantly, I took my hand off of her mouth. I needed to be deeper inside of her. I needed her to feel every inch of me. I looped my arm under her left leg and immediately felt myself slide deeper. Emmy tensed and her eyes grew large with alarm as she put her hands on me to stop me. 

I understood. I’m not being conceited, but I am a very well-endowed man. Even after all of this time, I sometimes hurt Emmy with my size, but it was always only at first. The pain always shifted to pleasure.

“I’m yours and you are mine,” I said in a firm tone that told her I was not changing position and I was not backing out. “I’m going to have you
all the way
and you are going to have me
all the way
.”

“Too much,” she managed even as I slid in another inch. 

“I need to feel you, Emmy,” I said and thrust into her hard and deep. She covered her mouth to muffle her own screams as she looked up at me with impossibly wide eyes.

I moaned and asked her “You feel me?”

“How can I not?” she snapped.

I grinned down at her and pulled up her other leg. She looked very apprehensive, but I wasn’t going to hold back. I pulled out until just the tip of my cock was in her slick e
ntrance.

“Ready?”

“How can I possibly prepare to be invaded by your obscene freak of nature?” she shot at me and gripped the sheets in an effort to brace herself.

I was finished talking about it. I slammed my erection i
nto her tight core until my balls were pressed against her. I groaned loudly as I felt her pussy contracting around my cock.

“You feel so fucking good,” I told her. I pulled out and thrust into her again, harder than the last time. Emmy did not
hing to hide her cries now. “You’re so fucking perfect, Em.”

I braced myself with my hands on the headboard and pounded into my perfect wife with wild abandon. I felt her walls clutching at my shaft. She was so wet that I could hear the moisture as I slid in and out of her. I was hurting her, but I was giving her pleasure as well. Despite the pain etched across her face, she held onto my body, digging her nails into my skin.

I let go of the headboard and put my hands on her hips. Eliciting a yelp of surprise from Emmy, I rolled us over until I was on my back and she was on top of me.

“Oh my god!” she screamed. Her automatic response was to attempt to move away as the head of my cock hit and pressed on her cervix. I was much harder and longer than I was the night Emmy tried to angrily fuck me. The angle was different. I was deeper, much deeper. I held onto her hips and slowly rota
ted my hips.

I looked up at her beautiful, flushed face. Her hair was sticking to her cheeks and neck. She looked wild and sexy.

“You’re so beautiful, Emmy, so perfect,” I groaned. I started to thrust inside of her while holding her in place. Emmy thrashed above me, clawed at my hands, and screamed my name again and again. I felt my orgasm rushing through me. I needed to come inside of her, mark her again as mine. I needed her to come on me, mark me again as hers.

“Come on my cock, baby! Shit, I’m going to come!” I yelled as I thrust wildly inside of her. “You feel too damn…” I grunted and moaned. “…fucking…PERFECT!” I shouted as I began to come inside of her. Emmy burst into sobs as she came. I stroked my cock inside of her, groaning as I filled her. Emmy shuddered violently and then collapsed on my chest.

“I love you so much,” I whispered to her. I felt her tears, hot on my chest. “You are my everything, Emmy,” I told her as she sobbed heavily.

Every emotion she tried to push away while we were pr
etending seemed to surface. She cried harder than I had ever seen her do before.

“I will do anything for you, baby,” I whispered as I c
aressed her back and her hair. “You are perfect, so perfect…”

I held her for a very long time. I didn’t try to hush her. She deserved to cry. I had hurt her so badly.

“Nothing and no one will ever come between us again,” I told her, and meant it. I would protect and fight for our family always, at any cost.

Chapter Thirty-One

It was a beautiful Saturday. The heat wasn’t oppressive and the sky was a perfect shade of blue with sparse white clouds. Everything seemed so much brighter after I got my wife back.

I took her parents to the airport with a smile on my face, and not just because I was getting rid of Sam and her big mouth. I even gave the woman a big hug that lifted her off of her feet and kissed her cheek, ignoring her surprised outburst. I shook Fred’s hand with enthusiasm. I hurried out of the term
inal, anxious to get back home to my woman.

I plugged my iPod into the stereo for the trip home. I tapped the steering wheel to the upbeat 90’s music as I sat in traffic. I sang out loud to the words I knew and whistled to the parts of the song I didn’t know. I had a perpetual smile on my face, which only grew wider as I thought about the night I shared with Emmy.

We had lain in bed for a long time after Emmy’s breakdown. We talked quietly and caressed each other until we realized one of us would have to put the kids to bed. Em looked exhausted, so I volunteered for the job, but Sam and Fred insisted on putting the kids down since it was their last night with them for a while. Fred was discrete, but Sam gave me a knowing look. She nudged me and told me to go back to my wife. Who was I to argue?

When I returned to the room, I found the bed empty but I heard the shower running in the bathroom. I disrobed and joined her in the shower, and then joined
with
her in the shower, against the tiled wall, creating more steam than the hot water that beat down on our bodies. When we crawled into bed, we were both spent. The evening had been exhausting, but so had the past couple of weeks. I kissed her until she was nearly asleep. We both fell asleep shortly thereafter, tangled together in the middle of the bed.

I woke up first in the middle of the night. I kissed the top of her head and began to untangle myself from her body. I didn’t want to wake her up, but she stretched with a light moan and sat up as I was pulling on a pair of lounge pants. She tiredly scratched at her bed head and then got up, also. She grabbed a pair of panties from her drawer and pulled one of my t-shirts out of my drawer and slipped them on. The shirt just covered her gorgeous ass. She put her hand in mine and together we s
ilently crept down the kitchen stairs.

I put my hands on her waist and hoisted her onto island in the center of the kitchen. I kissed her gently and briefly b
efore I pulled away in search of leftovers. I tapped on the small radio on the counter and turned the volume down to a soft, but audible level. We listened to music as I prepared and heated a heaping plate of food for us. We didn’t speak, but we smiled at each other, and while the food was heating in the microwave, I kissed her until the timer went off. I carried the plate of food to the island after grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. I swiped my finger into the mashed potatoes and offered it to Emmy. She met my eyes and opened her mouth. She sucked the potatoes off of my finger. We fed each other little bites of the late dinner with our hands, and with little kisses in between. We talked softly about nothing of importance, laughed, and touched and touched as if we were afraid to stop touching one another.

When the plate was cleared, I didn’t even care to move it before I lifted Emmy in my arms and pulled my pants down just enough for my erection to spring free. I pushed her panties aside and slid into her with her legs wrapped tightly around me. We made love quietly, right there in the middle of the kitchen. We finally fell asleep again in our bed as the sun was rising.

The night had been magical, and there wasn’t anything that could take away from it. I was confident that our day ahead was going to be just as magical. Our plans to take Lucas and Kay Kay to the park and then out to dinner after their naps weren’t really remarkable plans, but we would be together, and that was all that mattered. Later after the kids were in bed, Emmy and I planned to watch a movie and eat popcorn. It’s the simple things in life that bring me happiness. My wife was happy and healthy and so were my children. Beyond that, everything else was a bonus.

When I got home from the airport, I noted that Diana’s car was parked at the curb, but Emmy’s car was missing. I wondered where she had gone. She didn’t mention that she had anything to do.

I walked into the house and found Diana in the living room with the kids. She was sitting on the floor playing cars with Lucas while holding Kaitlyn in one arm. She looked up at me with an “Uh-Oh” expression but was quick to cover it.

“Where’s Emmy?” I asked her after I took Kaitlyn from her arms.

She shrugged a shoulder as she got to her feet. “I don’t know.”

I narrowed my eyes at her until she threw her hands up. “I really don’t know, cousin!”

“She didn’t say anything?”

“Not really,” she evaded, gently kicking one of Lucas’s cars with her flip flop.

“My car!” Lucas shouted and smacked at her toes.

“Sorry, kid,” she said and stepped away towards the fo
yer. I followed in close pursuit.

“Diana,” I said in warning. Something was up. I wasn’t worried, really. I trusted Emmy, but I was beyond curious.

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Look. All I know is that she asked me yesterday if I could make it here at seven-thirty. She said that I couldn’t be any earlier than that and I couldn’t be more than a few minutes late. When I got here she was rushing out of the door telling me she would be home before you. I was under the impression that she didn’t want you to know she was going anywhere.”

“Huh,” I said. I didn’t know what to think about it. There had been a few times in the past two plus weeks where she i
nsisted on running some kind of random errand or another, but I assumed it was to get away from me. Since we were good again, I didn’t imagine that was the case, especially since she wanted to be home before me.

“Did she pay you?” I asked, reaching for my wallet.

“Yes, she paid me. I’m glad one of you got home early though,” she said pulling open the front door. “I have to go buy my books for school.”

“Do you need book money?” I offered. My cousin Stacy, Diana’s mother, didn’t have a lot of money for basic needs, let alone to put her daughter through school. Emmy and I had been helping out wherever we could, including paying Di above and beyond for her babysitting services.

“Nope, I’m good,” she said. “Thank you anyway.”

She kissed my cheek and went out the door.

“If you need anything, let us know,” I called after her.

She walked backward toward her car, looking thoughtful. “Anything?”

I looked at her as if to say get on with it.

“I’ve never been able to go away for spring break,” she said hopefully. Then she broke out into a grin and waved it off. “I’m kidding. You guys do enough already.”

She waved as she opened her car door. I waved back, distracted by my thoughts. Diana was admittedly one of my favorite younger people in my family. She worked her ass off for everything she had, little as it was, since she was thirteen and took jobs babysitting. Now she was putting herself through school and trying to help out her mom and younger siblings, too. She didn’t easily take handouts, and I know if I presented her with a trip to Cancun, she would decline. But if I took her with Emmy and I on our honeymoon to watch the kids…Hmm.

I was still thinking about it when Diana pulled away. I was about to close the door when I saw the woman who looked like she was on fire storming across the street from a car that had rolled up while I was talking to Di. She didn’t just look like she was on fire because of her wild, red, wavy hair, but she had a hand on the round bump in her belly and I swear there was smoke coming out of her ears, but I couldn’t ignore the pain that was stitched throughout her features.

She tried to force a smile as she approached. I smiled back. But even with all of this damn smiling, I knew Emmy and I were about to run face first into another obstacle. I had a feeling I knew what was coming, but Emmy was clueless.

“Hello,” she said, her expression turning somber.

“Hello, Lily,” I said.

Despite my better judgment, I stepped aside and let her in.

I led Lily into the kitchen and left Lucas to his cars in the family room. I watched Lily as her eyes wandered around our home.

“You have a beautiful home,” she said as she watched Lucas for a moment from where she was standing.

“Thank you,” I said, shifting Kaitlyn in my arms.

“I live in a penthouse,” she said conversationally. “I ne
ver thought I’d ever live in a penthouse.” She looked at me with her steel colored eyes. “Your home feels…like a home. Warm and fuzzy like. My penthouse feels like a penthouse,” she said dryly. “The ‘home’ part of my equation is currently absent.”

I tilted my head with a million questions on my tongue, but I heard the front door open. I could almost sense Emmy’s surprise. I couldn’t see the door from where I was standing, but I knew by how long it took for it to close that she was surprised to see Lily standing in our kitchen. Emmy appeared in the fam
ily room as she spoke briefly to Lucas and then she walked into the kitchen, looking both surprised and apprehensive.

It was an awkward few minutes as Emmy nervously cha
tted with Lily. We offered her something to drink and eat, trying to be hospitable and warm like we were to anyone who walked through our door. Finally after Emmy fetched a bottle of water for each of them, she asked Lily the big question that was hanging in the air.

“So, what brings you to Chi-town?” she asked Lily.

“Umm,” Lily said, glancing at me. “I actually…” She looked at me again and seemed reluctant to speak, but then she sucked in a breath and finished. “I need to talk to you in private, Emmy.”

I frowned as I looked at Lily. This had Kyle Sterling written all over it and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to drag his name into our marriage and I sure as hell didn’t want Emmy dragged into Kyle’s world again. I knew it had to be about Kyle. Emmy may have had an inkling that it was about Kyle, but she didn’t know the details that I knew. She didn’t know that when Kyle initially contacted me about buying the bar property, he had told me he was buying it for Lily. I followed up with Mayson later and found out that the pair were definitely a couple, but Mayson and I agreed that Emmy didn’t need to know that bit of information.

“Oh,” Emmy finally said. She looked at me and back to Lily. “We can talk upstairs?”

“No,” I said, sighing. “I’ll take the kids to Lena’s for a while.”

I didn’t really want to leave, but I felt that they would be able to really talk without any distractions if the kids weren’t there.

“Don’t leave your house on my account,” Lily said with genuine concern.

“It’s fine,” I told her, but I needed Emmy out of the room if only for a minute. “Baby, can you run upstairs and get Kaitlyn’s diaper bag? And make sure Lucas goes to the bathroom. Once he starts playing over Lena’s he doesn’t stop, not even to pee.”

Emmy got up. She looked at us like she knew something was up that we weren’t telling her, but she continued on into the family room. I waited until after she was walking a whiney L
ucas up the stairs before I spoke to Lily.

“Is the baby his?” I asked her as I nodded at her belly. “Is it Kyle’s?”

“Yes,” she answered softly.

“Where is he? He did something didn’t he?” I accused. Of course he did something. If he didn’t do anything, Lily wouldn’t have been in my kitchen, knocked up and waiting to talk to Emmy alone.

“He’s in London.”

“What are you about to drag my wife into, Lily?”

“I’m not
dragging
her into anything,” she snapped. “I have no one else to talk to about this, no one who understands him like Emmy does.”

Though I knew it was probably true, I didn’t like hearing it. I hated knowing that Emmy was so intimately knowledge
able about Kyle.

“If he’s gone, then maybe he actually did something right for a change,” I said icily. “What happened to my wife could easily happen to you and your baby.”

“I’m not going to argue with you about that, Luke,” she said resolutely. “I don’t believe that he ever meant to hurt Emmy and I sure as hell know that he won’t hurt me that way, but you have a right to feel how you want about it. I may even feel the same if I was in your shoes, but I don’t want to
hear
it, do you understand? This is his child I am carrying,” she gestured towards her belly. “Not someone else’s. I can’t just walk away. I
need
to know what Emmy thinks, what she would do if she had all of the facts that I have.”

“That’s what I’m worried about, Lily,” I said darkly. I heard Emmy and Lucas descending the stairs behind me, but I asked a question I knew I wasn’t going to get an immediate a
nswer to. “What will she do when she has all of the facts?”

Emmy and Lucas stepped into the kitchen. I turned around and smiled at them as best I could. Now I was back to pretend smiles.

“Thanks, baby,” I said and gave her a brief kiss as I took the diaper bag from her. 

She looked at me as if she knew I was pretend smiling. “What’s wrong?”