At Any Turn (Gaming The System) (24 page)

She bent to grab Heath’s TV remote. He had a fairly good-sized plasma screen and a decent sound system. It wouldn’t be a punishment to watch old reruns on it—especially if it meant I got to sit with Emilia. She hesitated, fiddling with the remote. She wanted to talk, I could tell, but I was going to fight every urge inside of me to take over the situation. I’d orchestrated this setup, sure, but now I was going to sit back and let her drive this where she wanted it to go.

She gave her head a toss—flicking that strange hair over her shoulder. I didn’t take my eyes off of her; couldn’t, really. Even with that ridiculous white hair, she was still the most beautiful woman in the world to me.

“You were wrong today, you know…about—about my not being interested in
those parts
.”

I suppressed the urge to sigh in frustration. But I stayed silent. Without a word, I pulled the ice off my crotch and set it on the ground beside the couch, laying it on a towel she had given me. She watched me and continued to fiddle with the remote.

“Are you going to leave now?” she asked in a quiet voice.

I watched her carefully, scared I might startle her away. When I spoke, I kept my voice quiet. “Do you want me to?”

She cleared her throat, her eyes avoiding mine. “I don’t know what I want,” she said in a trembling voice. She wasn’t talking about my going or staying.

I waited, suddenly finding it hard to breathe. I wanted to reach for her, to pull her against me, smell her scent, kiss her neck. But this had to come from her.

She reached out and fiddled with one of the buttons on the middle of my shirt, scooting a little closer to me. “Am I confusing you?”

Not only was it hard to breathe, it was hard to speak. “Yes.”

She swallowed. “I’m confusing myself, too.”

I wanted to lean in and kiss her, wanted to take over, take the indecision from her, make this
my
decision, my action. I knew what
I
wanted. I wanted
her
. But she had to know what
she
wanted. If I took over, she’d just complain about me being a control freak again.

She laid her head lightly on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to wrap my arm around her, to lean in and smell her hair. I’d tensed briefly from the contact of her against me, but I forced myself to relax. “I miss you,” she whispered again.

Pain lanced through me. I ignored it. “I’m right here,” I said. “You don’t have to miss me.”

She brought a hand up and laid it on my chest, right in the middle. I was aware of everything that hand did, every square millimeter of contact against me, the spread of her fingers as she laid them over my heart, the throb of my heartbeats under her hand. I closed my eyes, savoring the feel of her.

“I know,” she said, her voice trembling. Then she tilted her head to look at me and began to kiss me along the line of my jaw. My only response was to curl my arm more tightly around her waist. I closed my eyes and let her kiss me. She was in control and I wouldn’t do a thing to change her perception of that.

Her mouth was on mine and she shifted slowly to straddle my lap, careful to avoid my sore crotch. I kept my hands on her hips while hers moved across my chest. Her mouth slid across mine, opening, her tongue entering my mouth. I almost lost it then. Despite my previous injury, I wasn’t so maimed that I wasn’t hard as a rock in seconds and ready to do all sorts of naughty things to her. Every single one of them flicked through my mind like a slideshow and each successive image made me more and more eager to take her. Pulling her on top of me, pushing her against a wall, cinching her hands behind her back while I fucked her, biting her, tasting the insides of her thighs, riding her until I was exhausted and spent. A hot surge of lust threatened to rise up and drown me. But I struggled against it. I slammed the dam valves shut tight on that raging force of sexual need. I couldn’t control
her
or the course of this, but I could control myself.

Her arms locked around my neck and I concentrated on keeping my hands where they were instead of roaming up her shirt, like I wanted to do. She was kissing me with a wild abandon, making those delicious noises in the back of her throat, those noises that made me want to listen to her while I made her come, all night, over and over again.

When her mouth left mine, it was to make a frenzied rush to kiss her way down my throat while her fingers fumbled with my buttons. “Heath’s spending the night with Connor,” she breathed and I almost lost all control at the implication. She wanted me to stay. She wanted us to sleep together. And God, I wanted it too. I’d never needed to have a woman as badly as I did at that moment. To bury myself inside her, move against her and listen to her moan in ecstasy.

I let her unbutton my shirt, run her hands across my chest—they were white-hot against my skin. It felt so incredibly fucking good to have her in my arms again. “Emilia,” I whispered into her hair. “I want you—I need you to come back—”

“Shh,” she said, pressing her thin fingers to my lips while she continued to drag her mouth across my neck, sending bolts of pleasure across my skin.

My hands went from her hips to her back. I had a choice, here. Sit back, enjoy this, have a nice, pleasant fuck and walk away. Use her for my own needs and let her use me for hers. Make this nothing more than our own little game of Call of Booty.

Or make this a meaningful moment. A turning point. A chance for us to turn this whole goddamn mess around. “Emilia,” I repeated and she brought her head up and sealed her mouth over mine in a hot, voracious kiss. Her lips enveloping mine, the blade of her tongue outlining my lips. Her warm breath against my mouth. Her breasts pressed into my chest.

I put a hand on either side of her head and pulled her back from me. When we separated, our breath came fast. Lust was burning a hole right through me and I felt empty with it, incomplete.

“I’ll go there with you.”

She froze for a moment. “What?”

“To Maryland. I’ll move there. We can be together…”

She leaned forward and kissed me again, her tongue plunging into my mouth, her hands slipping through my hair. Then she was kissing my neck again.

“I need you to fuck me,” she breathed against my ear.

“Emilia…”

But she wasn’t listening. Her mouth was on my chest, her tongue and lips searing my skin. My hands slid up her back. I wanted nothing more than to sit back and follow where she was leading us. But would this just screw up things between us even more? Make it more confused? That organized part of my brain, where the programmer’s mind lived, wanted this sorted out
now.
I’d make up for the lack of sex later—and I’d make sure we both enjoyed it, a
lot
.

“I want you back,” I hissed. My crotch was sore and aching with the tension of unreleased desire. Oh God, I wanted her.

“I want your cock inside me,” she replied.

“What about the rest of me?”

She shushed me again, returning her mouth to mine, but I put my hands on her shoulders and pulled her away.

“Emilia. Say you’re mine. Say we’ll be together. I’ll go with you.”

She hesitated, staring at me with wide eyes, almost as if she was afraid.

“Let’s—” she cleared her throat and looked away. “Let’s not talk about that.” She backed off and stood up, reaching out for my hand. “Come on,” she said.

I wasn’t an idiot. No way was I going to pass up this opportunity. I followed her into her dark bedroom. She had a twin bed, for God’s sake. I couldn’t sleep with her here, but I could fuck her just about anywhere. But here, I couldn’t lie beside her, sleep next to her in someone else’s bed under someone else’s goddamn roof. I wanted her where she belonged, under
mine.
She turned and pulled me down to her again, hooking her arms around my neck.

“Grab some of your things and let’s go to my house. You can stay with me.”

Her hands came up to my chest and pushed me away. “Goddamn it. Can you
not
try to take over once in a while? Is it
really
that hard?”

“Emilia, I want this to be over. I want us to move past this. I’ll give you what you want. You can go to med school in Maryland. I’ll move for you. We’ll be together—”

She sucked in a quick breath and jerked her face away, turning her back on me.

I wanted to go to her, pull her back into my arms, but I realized then that I might have already screwed up too badly.

Instead I raked my hand through my hair and waited. And waited. She was saying nothing, but her shoulders were shaking. She looked like—

She sniffed loudly. Like she was crying. Her hands went to her face.

I swallowed. “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head.

I went to her, put my hands on her shoulders. She tensed, shook her head again, this time violently. “You should go,” she choked out.

Shit. I’d fucked up again. “I can’t leave when you’re like this.”

She turned on me, her face flushed in the dim light, tears on her cheeks. I expected her to yell, to shake her fist at me, to stomp around or even just storm out of the room.

What she actually did, I did
not
see coming. She came forward and hugged me, pulled herself tightly to me, her wet face pressed to my bared chest, her arms cinching around my waist. It happened so quickly, it almost knocked the breath right from me.

“Emilia, what the hell is going on?”

“I need you to hold me,” she sniffed.

So I did. She wasn’t crying anymore—she wasn’t moving at all. Hardly breathing. The pure helplessness I felt in that moment almost crippled me.

I backed us toward her bed. “Come here.” I laid her down on the bed, then closed the door before joining her. She turned away from me, but pressed her back up against me immediately and I wrapped my arms around her.

“Tighter,” she said.

So I tightened my hold and she relaxed against me, fitting her head underneath my chin.

“Emilia…I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I’ll call my realtor. Have her look into some places where we can live. I
can
run the business from there. I
can’t
lose you.”

She shook her head. “Don’t…I’m not moving to Maryland.”

I hesitated, completely confused. Had she not just flown out and spent a week there?

“But…does that mean you’re staying here for med school?”

She said nothing for a long moment, then took a deep breath. “Med school’s on hold for now.”

What the hell? I opened my mouth to ask her, but she spoke, cutting me off, her voice trembling again. “I don’t want to talk about it. Please, Adam. I need you to hold me tonight. Just hold me, please?”

How could I refuse that simple request? I laid my face beside hers, my cheek pressing against hers and I pulled her to me as tightly as I could while still allowing her the ability to breathe. There was a whirlwind of confused emotions blowing inside me. Relief—she was staying here. Concern—she obviously wasn’t happy about it. And medical school was on hold? Why the hell? She’d already put it off for a year because of the test. Now she was pushing it back another year? Or maybe she was pushing it back indefinitely.

Not fifteen minutes later, she was sleeping and I was still reeling from this new development—and yeah I had a spectacular case of blue balls to go along with that frustration. Would she tell me any more later? There were ways I could find out—but I wasn’t
that
much of an idiot. I wasn’t going to use them—and not only because of the risk of her discovering it again. But also because it was just wrong—a violation of her privacy that I never, ever should have considered and, quite frankly, was now heartily ashamed of.

I’d wait for her to tell me. God, I just hoped it wouldn’t take her long.

I got up, kissing her cheek, when I heard Heath come in the front door. I buttoned my shirt, covered her with a blanket and walked out into the main room. He stopped, startled when he saw me, throwing a long look at Emilia’s closed door.

“What are you—? Well, I guess that’s none of my business.”

I took a deep breath. “We were just talking. She got upset.”

He frowned. “Is she okay?”

I rubbed my jaw, shrugging. “She said—she said she’s not going to med school anymore…”

Heath’s brows shot up. “Did she say why?”

I shook my head, staring at him expectantly. He
had
to know more than I did. If Emilia wouldn’t tell me, maybe Heath would.

Heath threw another concerned glance at the door, a distinct look of worry crossing his features. Then he turned away to lay his stuff down with a long sigh.

“So…can you fill me in as to what’s going on with her?”

He straightened and looked at me. “Adam,” he said reproachfully. “You know me better than that, man. I’m not going to betray her confidence.”

“But there
is
something going on…”

Heath’s mouth thinned, but he didn’t say anything. After a moment he only nodded.

I tensed. “But you’re not going to tell me—”

Heath looked at the door again. “
She’ll
tell you. I’m sure of it. Just…be there for her man. You have the chance to make up for your past fuckups. I know you mean well, but you have to play this very carefully or this will be it. I don’t mean to be a prick about this because I do like you and I think the two of you…” His voice faded, then he shifted his weight and ran a hand through his hair, making an awkward face. “This makes me sound like a sentimental pussy, but I think the two of you belong together.”

I focused every bit of my attention on him, never taking my eyes off of him. My hands were on my hips. “But…you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong with her.”

Heath’s features grew stern. “No. I’m not.
But
I’ll tell you what she needs from you, okay? And if you are half as intelligent with this sort of thing as you are with your coding stuff, then you won’t screw it up. She needs you, clearly. You were here for her tonight. Keep being there for her. Be the man she’ll turn to when she needs a shoulder. Be her
friend,
all right? Just her friend. Like you were for a year before the two of you ever met.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. Back to being FallenOne and Eloisa. Inside I was cold and shaking with worry, but I knew he was right. I nodded.