The Rise of Emery James (25 page)

"Cole!" I wonder how much of that tequila she's had so far. Her eyes are starting to look a little glossy. "You're here. I was just thinking about you. And here you are. Poof. It's like I'm magic or something."

I laugh and make my way up to the deck. "What are you doing partying out here all by yourself?" I ask taking a seat in the chair beside her.

"I'm not by myself anymore. I was waiting for you," she says sweetly.

"But you didn't get me a glass?" I tease.

The space between her brows creases with her frown and I smile. "You can share my glass," she says finally.

"Are we celebrating something?" I take the glass from the table and pour some of the clear liquid. She frowns again, deeper this time.

"It's my anniversary," she says flatly.
Shit
. I down the shot.

I pour another and hand it to her. "I had no idea," I say, because I'm unsure how to handle this situation. We talk about Gabe and we talk about her marriage, but this is something new. Regardless of how unhappy she might have been he was still her husband. She's still a widow. I have to keep reminding myself of that, otherwise I get completely swept up in how she makes me feel and all of the things that I want to do with her.

"Three years. Today would have been three years. It's crazy when I think about it really. Three years is nothing. Especially when you think about how fast it all fell apart." Her voice is far off, lost in memories. She downs the shot like it's water, another sign that she's probably had too many of them already.

"You want to talk about it?" I ask. I'm not really sure I want her to say yes. As curious as I am about what happened with the two of them, the idea of listening to her talk about it is less than appealing.

She seems to think about it. I watch as she brushes her hair out of her face and I caution my heart and the way it does that dangerous flip, but she looks so beautiful that I can't help it. Her legs are bare, teasing me all the way up to her tiny little shorts. The white tank top she wears is no better, with the strap that hangs loosely at her shoulder begging me to kiss the skin it left behind.

I pour myself another shot.

"You probably think I'm a fool. For staying with him. I mean, all you see is sad, broken Emery. But it's not like I was always that way. We were happy together once," she says firmly.

I nod, letting her continue. I hate hearing that. How messed up is that? I'm jealous of a dead guy.

"I mean it," she says, staring me straight in the eye as if she's sure I don't believe her.

"I'm sure you were," I assure her. "No way would you have married the guy if you weren't happy."

"Right."

She falls silent again and the crickets sing along to the country radio station.

"When we met he told me that he loved the way I talked. Said I was like a breath of fresh air," she smiles. I would have agreed with him given the chance. "Then, after we were married and he was working for his dad he didn't like it so much anymore," she said, her voice far off.

I feel my body tense. "What do you mean?"

She shrugs, "They were all so fancy. Not a single one of them knew how to have any kind of fun. I never fit in with any of the people he knew. I was just the country girl with the twangy voice that they all made fun of. I was a joke."

My jaw is going to snap from the force of teeth clenching down. Emery has given me glimpses of her life with Gabe, but this is probably the most honest she's been. The anger that boils up in my gut makes it hard to sit still and listen. I'd rather hop a plane and take down every asshole who ever made her feel inadequate. I'm trying to find my voice and find the right words to say that won't involve me bashing her dead husband's name, but I'm not sure that I know what those are. Before I can speak she continues her confession.

"People change. Right before your eyes. Do you know that, Cole? You can think you know someone, think you know everything about them and then suddenly it's like you are living with a stranger. And you can try and fix it. You can fight against it with everything that you have. You can try and get back what you had, but once it changes you can never really go back."

"Are you talking about Gabe?" I ask quietly, not sure that I want the answer. I want to know. I want to know because whatever happened in her marriage changed her, but I also know that hearing the truth will make me hate him and I'm not so sure I'll be able to hide that once we sober up.

"Yeah. And maybe me too. We both changed. In the end neither of us were the people we were when we started. How does that happen?" she asks.

I move my chair, turning it to face her. I grab the edge of hers and turn her to face me. I need to see her face. It's too much to let her talk into the darkness. I need to see her eyes, her expression. What I see will haunt me long after this night is over. There is so much self-doubt there and it cuts me. How did he take all of the confidence from her? How did he manage to break her spirit? Why would he want to?

"Life takes us places we never expect to go," I say carefully. I'm holding back a wave of fury that I can't let her see. Something tells me she'd take it on herself and I'm tired of anyone making her feel anything less than worthy.

"Sometimes I wonder if I made a mistake. With all of it. School, Gabe. I just jumped in and look where it got me."

I swallow and take her hands into mine, running my thumbs across the tops of her fingers. "Emery, you can't focus on what went wrong. You said yourself there was a time when you were really happy, right?" I ask.

"But what good is a touch of happiness if it ends up being a lie?" she asks seriously.

"Sometimes things just go bad," I offer.

"He saw other women," she says quietly. At first I'm not sure I heard her right, but the look on her face tells me the admission is ripping open wounds that have only just begun to scab over. My heart clenches at the pain that still rests in her eyes. "I've never told anyone that before," she admits.

"He was an asshole," I say. I can't help it. I can't hold back my feelings on the guy any longer.

She just nods. "At first I tried to pretend that I was imagining things. I tried to rationalize the signs, but he didn't even seem to care that I knew. Like it was just part of the deal. I tried to find the spark again, I bought all of the fancy lingerie, played the perfect wife. I even got some of those boudoir photos done so he could take them with him on trips. But none of it mattered."

My knee bounces restlessly and I’m thankful that I’ve about caught up to her in tequila or I may not make it through her story.

"He was with someone else the night he died." My eyes snap to her, shocked.

"Are you serious?"

"They were both killed. Karma I guess. I think that's part of why I'm so messed up. I can't decide if I'm sad or just really angry. I guess I'm both."

"That's totally understandable," I say through clenched teeth. I knew she was carrying a lot of stuff on her shoulders, but I had no idea she was dealing with this too.

"Can I tell you something else. Something I haven't said out loud to anyone?" She levels her gaze at me and I swear my heart stops beating for a moment as I try and guess what she might confess.

"Of course."

She swallows hard and her teeth sink into her lip as if she's trying to work up the courage to say what she wants to say. I lean forward in my chair, closing the space between us. "I'm a little relieved." She closes her eyes at the words, unable to face me. I instantly grab her hands and squeeze them between my own.

"Hey, Em, look at me," I say, but she shakes her head, refusing. "Baby, I'm serious, open your eyes." Finally, she does, one at a time and it's the cutest thing I have ever seen.

"You called me baby," she says softly. I did. I didn't mean to. But I don't take it back.

"Focus," I smile. She smiles back, nervously.

"Does that make me a horrible person?" She stares up at me with such hopeful, earnest eyes and it tears at my heart because I know that this has probably been killing her. This guilt.

"You are an amazing person," I say.

She starts to look away from me, as if she doesn't believe me, won't let herself believe. I take my hand and cup her chin, forcing her to look at me. "I mean it, Emery. You are amazing. Whatever he did, whatever he made you believe, is wrong. Anyone who takes the light from your eyes, the light I know that burns so bright in you, never deserved you. It doesn't bother me to say that about him, even if he is gone. I say it because it's the truth. I'd kick his ass if he were here. For not appreciating you. For not adoring you and cherishing every single moment that he had with you. Don't forget that he was the luckiest son of a bitch in the world to get you to take his name. He should have spent every single day thanking you for giving him that."

Her eyes turn glassy at my words, and while I hate that I've made her cry, I won't take a single word back. Because I've been dying to say them for weeks.

"Thank you," she says softly and it makes me smile.

"For telling the truth?" I ask, giving her a teasing smile to help ease the heaviness that sits between us.

"For making me feel like maybe I did deserve more --." She lets the statement fall off, like she isn't quite brave enough to finish it.

"You know you deserve everything, right?" I say seriously. She shakes her head and I lean in closer, my hands running up her thighs. Her gaze drops to where I touch her, I didn't mean to slide my hands across her bare skin, but now that I have, my insides have sparked a flood of heat. It courses through me and makes my head spin. I watch as her tongue slowly moves across her lip, her focus still on my hands resting against her toned, tanned thigh. I graze my thumb from side to side, needing to soak in this moment where I'm touching her and she's not pulling away, not tensing up, not hiding.

"I haven't been touched in so long," she says quietly. "Even before he was gone he --." Again she lets the statement fall silent before finishing. She doesn't look at me; she only watches as my fingers draw lazy circles across her smooth skin. I should probably stop, but the closeness of our bodies and the smell of her shampoo have me wanting to pull her onto my lap.

"I miss it. That feeling of being desired. Of being touched. Devoured. Caressed. Sometimes it's easier to push it all aside and pretend that it's not important. But it is. Don't you think?" she asks, finally looking up to find my eyes. I'm sure she can see the fire there, the desire I have for her can't be hidden away, not at this moment. I see something flash across her expression, but she quickly schools it away and then sits back, putting space between us. It's only then I realize that I've barely taken a breath the entire time she was talking.

I nod, and try and clear my throat. I can't seem to find my voice. It appears every ounce of energy I have has been channeled into finding some sort of restraint. I swallow hard, because I'm not sure just how long it's going to hold out.

"I'm going to take some of this stuff inside," she says suddenly. She stands, breaking our connection and grabs up the bottle of tequila and the shot glass and walks inside to the kitchen.

I sit stunned after she leaves trying to calm my body down. Hearing her talk about how she misses being touched and adored has my dick straining against my jeans. The desire and the tequila cloud everything else that’s happened tonight. The stuff she shared with me was huge. I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done that if it hadn't been for the liquid courage. I like to think she can trust me, but tonight she'd opened up with things that I hadn't even guessed. I'm not really sure what to do with it all. I need time to process it. But all I can think about right now is that last little bit. The part where she confessed how badly she missed being touched. Caressed. Shit. How was I supposed to walk away after she said something like that?

I should talk myself out of following her inside. I should get up, walk back to my car and sleep off this tequila buzz. I should. But my body doesn't listen to logic. It's already standing and following her into the kitchen. The wooden door bumps shut behind me and she glances over her shoulder with a smile as she places the bottle and the empty glass on the counter.

I don't say a word as I move towards her, stalking her like prey. I should just say goodnight, but the need to touch her is overwhelming every bit of my good sense. I move to stand directly behind her, pressing my body against hers, my hands resting on her narrow hips.

I hear her breath catch and I smile at her instant reaction. I love the way she leans back into me, inviting me closer without a second thought. The alcohol has dulled both of our reservations and has made it easier to do exactly what we want.

"I keep thinking about what you said out there," I say, my voice low as I move my lips across the soft skin of her neck up to her ear.

"Which part?" she breathes. It's sounds like a sigh or a purr. It has me hard as stone and aching to feel her.

I let my hands drift from her hips and up her sides and then I slowly ghost them back down. I feel her shiver beneath the touch and I know that I won't stop until I give her the release that she craves. I want to be the one to give it back to her.

"You deserve to be touched. Caressed. Devoured. Let me remind you what it’s like to be taken care of," I rasp as I drop kisses on the skin where her neck meets her shoulders. Her soft whimper has me pushing forward.

"I want to touch you, Emery. I want to give you everything that you need. She throws her head back and moves her body against mine, searching for everything she's afraid to ask for.

I wait for her refusal. I wait for her to tell me to stop. To go home. But she doesn't. She doesn't say no. She simply moves against me, arching her back, her head falling to the side, exposing her slim, beautiful neck to me. The lingering scent of gardenia from her lotion envelopes my senses and I brush my lips across her skin. The soft moan that escapes her is all the permission that I need to keep going.

This time when I run my hands up her body I slide them beneath her shirt, running my calloused fingers across the smooth silk of her skin. She feels warm, soft and firm all at the same time. My hands move up her bare torso until I find her breasts. She pushes into my hands, rubbing the lace against my fingertips as I take a handful and tease her nipples through the material. I've barely started touching her and we're both strung so tightly that I fear where this abandonment of caution will take us.