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Chapter Thirty-Two

Emma—Present Day

My alarm is going off, and I wake up sweating. I was dreaming about the buzzing sound, and it makes me wonder how long the alarm was going off before I woke up. Jesus, I am hotter than shit. My pajamas are soaked, and my hair is stuck in a matted-up wad. Why am I so fucking hot? I kick off the covers, roll on to my side, and switch off the alarm. It is then that I smell the now-familiar odor of stale cigarettes and warm whisky breath. I roll over on to my other side and see that David is in my bed. He is sound asleep, lying flat on his back with his hands resting on his chest. The blanket covers only his lower body, and I spend a few minutes watching his chest rise and fall. His mouth is slightly open, and for a moment I consider kissing it. I could put my face against his and sink my tongue into his mouth. But I know he didn’t get to sleep until just a few hours ago, and I don’t want to wake him. He is so quiet. He looks almost childlike. I smile at the thought of David stumbling into my apartment after poker. I smile knowing that he
wanted
to come here to make sure that I am okay. To make sure that I survived a night without him.

As I shower and eat my breakfast, I think about how David will feel when I tell him that I spoke with Ricky last night. I wonder if he’s going to consider me nuts for even caring to find more out about Michael. And then I think about Lucia, and I wonder how much David cared about all the things that she did.

* * *

Wednesday is acting just like the hump that it is. The morning is slow. Slow as fuck. I feel as if I am treading water. I’m not working with Matt this morning because he is having a meeting with some of the project managers, going over our initial designs and tweaking some of the kinks we stumbled on. But then, in the afternoon, things pick up. We have a conference with the architects—making the rest of the day slip by seamlessly. And now, a handful of hours later, I am on the bus again, listening to my iPod and headed back home. Headed back to David. I haven’t heard from him all day.

When I get to my apartment and unlock the door, David is sitting at the table. Spread out in front of him are mounds of money. Stacks, actually. He is sorting the bills and putting them into piles of the same denomination. I feel for a second as if I am interrupting him. But then I remember that this is
my
apartment and that he knows I come home at this time. I close the door behind me, lay my bags down, and walk over toward him. He holds up his index finger, silently asking me to hang on for a minute. I put my hands on the top of his shoulders and watch him finish counting the bills in one of the stacks. Next to him is a small pad of paper and a pencil with a novelty eraser in the shape of Spider-Man’s head. It looks silly sitting amongst all this money. There are numbers listed on the paper, and when he stops counting, he scribbles the number 8200 on the bottom of the list. Then he looks up at me, lifting his hand to his shoulder to stroke my fingers.

“Hey,” he says. “Sorry I’m taking up your table, but Brad and some of the other guys are up at my place, and I didn’t want to do this there.”

“No problem,” I say. Then I tip my head down at the table and add, “From poker?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It was a pretty good night. I didn’t get back here till nearly five in the morning, and I was exhausted. There was no way I was gonna count all this then. I slept here until like four o’clock this afternoon. When I went up to take a shower and get changed, Brad and the guys were already up there. So I came down here instead.” My eyes skim over the stacks of money on the table. There must be at least twenty thousand dollars sitting there. “I hope you don’t mind,” he adds thoughtfully.

“Mind what? That you’re counting your money here or that you slept in my bed until four o’clock?”

“Both,” he says with a small grin.

“I don’t mind one bit. Just surprised to see you here, that’s all,” I say. He looks up at me and shrugs. “That’s a damn lot of money you’ve got there,” I add as I walk into the kitchen to get something to drink.

“Yep, it sure is. It’s not all mine, though. In fact, most of it is someone else’s. Like a tenth of this is actually mine.”

“Still...” I say, my voice trailing off in suggestion.

“Yeah, well, I usually get a bigger cut. But not this time.”

“Why’s that?” I ask from the kitchen.

“Just one of those times when someone else has to get paid before I do,” he says as I am walking out of the kitchen holding a pair of water bottles. I hand one to him and watch as he finishes counting the last pile of bills. When he’s done, he packs them all into a metal box, puts the pad and pencil on top, and closes the lid. The box has a combination lock, and I watch as he twists the dial and tests the lid to be sure it won’t open.

“That little lock isn’t going to keep your money safe from me, sir,” I say in jest. “Picking locks is one of my surprise talents.” I am leaning on the wall now, my shoulder flush against the frame of the kitchen doorway. He raises his eyebrows.

“Any other surprise talents I need to know about?” he asks.

“I’ve got lots,” I say with a smile, “but if I tell you, then you won’t be surprised.”

“True,” he says, “and so far all of your talents have been very interesting.” He stands up from the table and walks over to me, putting his palm against the door frame and leaning in to give me a kiss. It is hard and sweet. And it leaves me feeling a little woozy. When he pulls back, he strokes his thumb back and forth over the crest of my cheek. Instinctively, I drop my eyes toward the floor and lean my face into his hand.

“Your skin is warm,” he says, slowly moving his hand from my face down the side of my neck.

“Yeah, well, a kiss like that tends to do such things to a girl,” I say weakly. I sound like a meek little kid when I say it.

David steps back from me and looks down at his shoes just as I raise my eyes to look at him. I’m not sure why, but I think I’ve made him uncomfortable. I thought that he would take my comment as a challenge. I thought he would have whisked me off to the bedroom by now. But instead, he is backing away from me, shuffling his feet back toward the sofa, with his eyes still on the ground.

A moment later he lifts his eyes to mine. “I’m sorry,” he says. Why on earth would David be sorry? I don’t understand. Does he think I don’t like feeling this way?

“No need to be sorry,” I say with a look of confusion. “Why would you be sorry? I like what you do to me. I like it when you make me feel like that.” He is looking at me as if he doesn’t believe it. “David, pretty much everything you do makes me feel like that.”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, walking over to him and taking a hold of his waist. “And it’s a good thing. Really.” Vulnerable David is here, and I’m not sure how to feel about him.

I decide to change the subject. “I want to eat something. I’m starving. Wanna spend some of that dough you got on a pizza for your girl?”

“Of course,” he says, planting a quick, chaste kiss on my mouth and pulling his phone from his back pocket.

* * *

After the pizza delivery guy comes, we sit at the table and eat. I tell David about the articles I found online regarding the case against TruTimber Imports and Michael’s death, sharing with him all the details discussed in the stories. But he seems the most surprised when I tell him about my phone call with Ricky. He can’t believe I actually called him. He seems almost angry about it, and he chides me for making the call when he wasn’t around. Vulnerable David has vanished and protective David is back. I try my best to assure him that the conversation was brief and that Ricky was nothing more than his usual asshole self.

David surprises me by telling me that he will drive me the six hours to go to the funeral on Friday if I want. Fuck that. I tell him the same thing I told Ricky: “There is no fucking way that’s happening.” He chuckles and tells me he only brought it up because he thought that going might provide me with some closure.

“The kind of closure that comes from a funeral is for pathetic fools,” I say sharply. His face immediately stills—I can’t believe how angry the words sound coming out of my mouth. Especially since what happened at my mother’s funeral was the one of the brightest moments of my adult life. “Just knowing that the motherfucker is dead is closure enough for me.”

“Okay,” he says, chastised. “I get it. I won’t mention it again.” He stands, carrying the plates into the kitchen and tossing the pizza box into the trash can on his way back out. I regret pouncing on him, and I wish I could take it back. I am deciding how to apologize when he comes back to the table and stands behind me. His fingers work their way down to the pendant suspended between my breasts. As he touches the raven, his other hand sweeps my hair to the side, and he lowers his face to the back of my neck. His mouth is warm as his lips and tongue slide across the skin at my nape. I feel a shiver move across my body.

“I know you’re only trying to help.” I say in apology. “I’m just not used to being helped, that’s all. I don’t know how to behave.”

“I’ll tell you how to behave,” he says softly, his lips still against my neck and his voice full of innuendo.

I smile. “Only if I get an indescribable benefit in return,” I say.

“Done.”

I try to keep my balance as he pulls my chair back, away from the table. He walks around to the front and faces me. His hands rest on my shoulders as he sits down, straddling my lap. I smile playfully at him and grunt as if he is too heavy.

He lifts his shirt up over his head, dropping it on to the floor, and says, “I’m not that heavy, am I?”

I shake my head, wrap my arms around his waist and thread my fingers together at the base of his spine. He clasps my jaw and kisses me. As our mouths meet, I feel myself slip into him. It’s like my whole body is dissolving into his. Like we are one person, alone and charged with electricity.

There is a bundle of something caught up in my chest, making it hard for me to breathe. Maybe it’s anticipation. Maybe it’s need. Or lust. Whatever it is, I don’t want to snuff it out. I don’t want it to end. It is making me feel heady. I wonder if it is love. Or hope. And I wonder if David knows it’s there. If he feels it, too.

I untangle my fingers and slide them into the waistband of his jeans, moving around the front to open his button and zipper. And then I am touching him, rubbing my hands up and down over him, feeling his need. When I tighten my grip, he takes his mouth off mine and looks at me, watching my face as I touch him, pushing his hips upwards into my fist. I listen to him breathe, and he is calm and quiet. Like he was this morning, when he was sleeping. I want to hear his breath stutter with need, and so I let him go and push him off my lap. I tug his jeans down over his hips, and when he kicks them off, I pull him back toward me. I drop off the chair and on to my knees. I kiss his stomach and his hips, letting my tongue skim across his skin. I lick and suck him, sending him to the back of my throat over and over again. My hands move slowly from the back of his knees up to his behind, and I push his hips forward. I push him into my mouth, deeper and faster until I hear his breath skitter. He tells me to stop before he comes, and then he backs away from me, dropping out of my mouth and looking down at me.

“Get up,” he says. The sound of his voice unfolds me, pries my insides open. I might as well raise the white fucking flag right now. It isn’t even a contest. I am completely helpless.

When I am standing, he slides the zipper of my dress down to where it ends. He lifts it up over my head. I slide my panties down off my legs and David takes my hand. He walks me over to the sofa and tells me to sit down in the middle of it. My insides melt into goo.

David tugs my hips forward until my ass is hanging just on the edge of the sofa. Now it is him kneeling in front of me. He spreads my legs, putting one foot on each arm of the sofa. I lean back against the sofa pillows, feeling both exposed and electrified. His arms spread out wide, and he trails his hands slowly from my ankles inwards, stroking and smoothing me, spilling desire across my skin. When they reach my center, his fingers taunt me again with their small circles. Not for long, though, because a moment later, his hips move forward and he is inside me, rocking back and forth on his knees. Pressing into me. He grips the insides of my thighs, holding my legs open. His skin smacks against mine each time we meet, and every time I hear it, the bundle in my chest tightens and chokes me a little more. He is nearly breathless now, and I feel my heart hammering inside of me. He lets go of my legs, and sinks his thumb into my mouth. When it is wet, he uses it to taunt me with more small, slick circles, and his hips keep reeling into me until my tangled chest is rising and falling like a carnival ride.

When I come, I shout out his name. It sounds strangled and weighted, the way I feel. The way that David
makes
me feel. I am sucking the air into my lungs like a junkie sucks his pipe. There are chemicals rushing through me, filling my lungs and blood with release. I can’t catch my breath. But David wastes no time. He pulls out of me just long enough to pull me up and turn me around, propping one of my knees up on to the sofa. My other foot is on the floor, and my hands are on the back of the sofa as he enters me again, this time from behind. My arms are stiff, and I shift all my weight back on to David as he grips my hips and pulls me against him. He sinks himself into me again and again, and then my breath leaves me completely, rushing out of my chest, this time whispering his name instead of shouting it. I close my eyes and listen to him. I don’t inhale again until I hear his body let go. I don’t breathe until he says my name and sucks a chain of air into his own heaving lungs.

But even after, when he is lying against my back on the sofa and we are both breathing our own breaths, I can feel the bundle of something still caught up in my chest. I don’t think it is going away.

David’s body is cool against my warm skin. I turn over and burrow against him, wrapping my body around his chest and legs. The sofa is barely wide enough for both of us, and David’s heels are up on the armrest.