Worth the Fight (Accidentally on Purpose) (17 page)

It wasn’t a question. I wasn’t asking for permission. I was going to mark her.

“But we’re going to come together,” I moaned. “You’re going to have be quiet, sweetheart.”

I took my hand off her mouth. She reached for a pillow, but I knocked it away.

“I want to see your face when you come and when I come inside of you, Emmy.”

She bit her lip and tried hard to keep her squeals and moans down. I braced myself on the headboard again and began to pound into her without restraint. She bit her knuckles as she tried not to scream.

“Oh shit,” I moaned. “Come for me, Emmy. Come on…shit…come on my cock, baby.”

I thrust into her so hard that I pushed her up the bed several inches. She covered her mouth and screamed muffled words I didn’t understand and then her eyes were rolling back in her head. I had to bite my own lip as I began to come. I growled low in my throat as I spurt my seed inside of the woman I loved.

“Take it,” I growled. “Take all of it.”

I cursed quietly as I emptied myself into her. When I was sure I had given her every last drop, I let her legs drop limply back to the bed and stretched my body over hers. I put my arms around her again and kissed her deeply as I gently rocked inside of her. I was still hard and I wasn’t ready to leave her body. I took her slowly, softer, stroking myself into her with care. I pulled away from her lips and kissed along her jawline and down to her neck as I put a hand in her hair. We didn’t speak and we didn’t get loud again, but we moaned as our bodies moved together, reaching for mutual satisfaction. No words were needed. As if on cue, when I again began to mark her as mine, she shuddered and gasped as she came with me.

I didn’t immediately pull out of her. She looked up at me and smiled lazily.

“Your body remembered me,” I whispered and kissed her nose.

“I don’t think my body ever forgot you,” she said sleep
ily.

“I’m going to make sure it never does,” I murmured with my lips against her throat.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.” I gave her one last lingering kiss and rolled off of her. I pulled her into my arms and kissed her hair. “How do you feel now?”

“Much, much better,” she sighed.

“Me, too,” I said, but she had already fallen asleep.

I ran my fingers over her belly. I felt a little guilty. A little cruel. A little bit like the bad guy. I purposely planted my seed.

And hoped it would grow.

Chapter Sixteen

“Your mommy is going to kill us,” I said to Lucas.

“Emmo,” he pointed to the television, as if to say “Dude, shut the hell up. I am trying to watch Elmo here.”

We were sitting in the living room eating cereal right out of the box. There were a lot of Cheerios on the couch and on the floor, and not all of it was Lucas’s mess. If Emmy came out and saw that I was letting Lucas eat in front of the television and the mess we had made together, she was going to rip my head off.

I smiled as I thought about her lying in bed, sleeping sounder than I have seen her sleep in a long time, completely naked with her just fucked hair. If Lucas was napping or not home, I would have gone in there and woken her up with a reminder of the night that we shared.

My smile faded. She was going to rip both of my heads off. I took no precautions, and in fact went all primitive man on her and “marked” her. Twice. I may as well have peed on her. I even had the delusional thought that if I impregnated her, she would stay with me. I was so intoxicated by my physical co
nnection with Emmy I obviously had forgotten that her last pregnancy didn’t exactly send her running into my arms. It was an immature move. It was shady and wrong. I was no better than Claire.

But if she
did
get pregnant…

I looked down at Lucas and imagined a little girl that looked just like him. One thing was for sure, one day I wanted to have another baby, with Emmy. I would do anything to keep her, but it couldn’t be underhanded and sneaky, like trying to knock her up without her knowledge. I would have to do it the old fashion way and work my ass off to prove to her that we were meant to be.

My cell rang on the dining room table. I set the box of cereal in Lucas’s lap and stood up, shaking off Cheerios in the process.

“Hey, Casey,” I said to Emmy’s sister-in-law. This Casey was unlike the
K
acey in my office. This Casey was a sweet, smiling, southern woman without an ounce of whatever office Kacey had running through her veins that made her so scary.

“Hey, Luke. Listen, I know you took Lucas to the zoo yesterday but we’re taking Owen today and we thought maybe we can take Lucas, too? We’ll keep him all day so he and Owen will have time to play.”

What a terrible father. All I could think of is getting Lucas to Emmet’s and Casey’s so I could jump back into bed with Emmy.

“That sounds great, Case. I’ll get him ready and bring him by. We’ll return the favor, as usual.”

She laughed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see you soon.”

We hung up and I swooped into the living room to tear Lucas away from his sacred public programming.

*~~~*

My ego had just taken a double blow. First, when I came in with her favorite muffin from Panera, Emmy looked like she was about to kiss me. It wasn’t my imagination. She had licked her lips and leaned in a little, but at the last second, she patted my arm instead. My hopes of not having an awkward after-sex-morning were blown away. Soon thereafter she refused a check that I offered her to begin paying back some of the money I owed her. It was killing me to know that I owed the mother of my child money, but she had made some valid points that had me grudgingly pushing the check back into my wallet. 

“I felt really good about paying you back,” I said, pouting just a little bit.

“Aww,” she said mockingly. “Do you want me to pat your arm?”

“Maybe later,” I said. “I want to talk.”

I wanted to be honest with Emmy. I wanted to tell her how I felt. I wanted to know if she felt the same way, too. I wanted to admit to her that I was panicking inside last night, and made a foolish decision – twice. There was so much to talk about.

“Oh boy,” she said with a nervous smile. “Can I at least have my coffee first?”

“Are you incapable of talking with a cup of coffee?”

“The damn stuff dribbles out of my mouth every time I try.”

I grinned. “Maybe it's best to swallow rather than spit.”

“Are we still talking about coffee?” she asked, as her cheeks turned a little red.

“You're successfully avoiding an inevitable convers
ation,” I said, beginning to feel a little frustrated.

“You got me,” she said, throwing her hands up. “I'm so not ready for that conversation.”

“I'm not going to let this one go.”

“I know,” she said and bit her bottom lip. “Maybe we can just postpone it.”

I really believed she was biting on her bottom lip on purpose. It wasn’t a nervous bite. It was a come-hither-and-taste-these-lips kind of bite.

“I would need a damn good reason to postpone it,” I said looking at her lips. I already had a damn good reason to pos
tpone it.

I put my hands on her ass and pulled her body to mine. I kissed her, expecting some resistance, but she kissed me back, hungrily. Her fingers were laced behind my head as her tongue swept through my mouth as if only my mouth could quell her hunger.

I released the button and then the zipper on her shorts and pushed my hand into her panties. Emmy groaned and she pushed herself against my hand as I worked a finger into her wet pussy. Suddenly she was throwing her head back, moaning loudly as her orgasm hit her. In a hurry to be inside of her, I pulled her shorts and panties off and quickly removed her shirt. In five seconds, my pants and boxers were hitting the floor and I was already lifting Emmy up and about to slide into her.

It would have been a good time to ask about birth control, but I already came inside of her twice last night. The da
mage was done.

I rammed myself into her. She screamed like she couldn’t scream the night before as she held onto me for dear life while I pounded her into the counter.

“You’re fucking. Killing. Me.” She said with each thrust.

“Do you want me to stop?” I paused deep inside of her. She had to be sore from last night, after not having sex for so long and then having me bucking into her so hard.

“Are you crazy?” she asked incredulously. Her fingers gripped my ass and she pulled me in deeper with a long groan. “If you stop I’ll kill
you
.”

“There’s my girl,” I growled and rammed into her.

Her hands were on the back of my head, kissing me again. I held her up with one hand and palmed a breast. Her nipple was hard and grew harder when I pinched it between my fingers. I could feel her sex contracting around my cock. I knew she was about to come again. I released her breast and reached down between us and thumbed her swollen clit. She began screaming my name, reflating my ego and sending a warm, fuzzy feeling straight to my chest.

With her body wrapped around mine, I turned to carry her to the bedroom, but I never kicked my pants away and tripped over them. We ended up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and discarded clothing, laughing and moaning. Soon the laughter was gone as I began to move inside of her once again. I moved at a slower pace, just savoring how her soft body felt under mine.

I traced my thumb over her lips and her tongue flicked out for a taste. I groaned and pushed deeply inside of her. I let my eyes take in her features – her cute nose, the delicate curves of her cheekbones, her gorgeous eyes, every freckle, and the scar in her hairline that was not there two years ago. I had asked her about it once before but she blew me off, made it seem a trivial thing, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew in my gut that she got the scar from Kyle, along with so many others.

I was never going to let him hurt her again, regardless of where we went from here, but I wanted to
know
where we were going from here. I loved her, but honestly, I wasn’t sure if her reluctance was because of her personal demons or if she simply didn’t want me. Or both.

“I really love you,” I said as I moved inside of her. “Do you love me?”

“Always,” she said.

I really needed to hear her say it. I pressed inside of her harder and deeper, desperately searching for what her heart r
eally felt.

“Really?” I whispered.

Deeper, harder, searching for the answers within her.

She looked me in the eyes and stroked her fingers through my hair. “I love you.”

She said it, and I loved hearing it, but there was something missing within the words. They weren’t empty, but they weren’t as full as my own were.

I kissed her hard and slammed into her so hard that she slid backward on the linoleum floor. I held her closer and slammed into her again as my fingers pressed into her skin.

I loved her so much. I wasted so much time trying not to and now I wasn’t sure if it was too late to have her. My heart was in her hands and I had the unsettled feeling she either didn’t know what to do with it or she was going to let it fall.

“You love me, but you don't want me,” I concluded, un
able to hide the unbelievable sadness that I suddenly felt.

Emmy burst into tears and it killed me. I held her as tightly as I could hold her, only intending to comfort her. Her legs tightened around me and her hips grinded into mine. She was crying almost to the point of hysteria, but her vaginal muscles gripped me again and I responded by thrusting deeply i
nside of her. Her body shuddered violently as she began to come, sobbing my name and digging her fingers into my back. I fell apart, coming explosively inside of her as I had the most personal, raw experience of my life.

Breathless and heart sick, I wiped at Emmy’s tears.

“I didn't mean to make you cry,” I said.

She covered her face, trying to staunch the heavy flow of tears, but they kept coming. She sobbed as if whatever barrier that had been holding back her pain all of this time finally broke.

I got up and tried to console her. I had hammered her about Kyle Sterling and said some very cruel things to her over the past year, but she never cried. I didn’t know how to feel. I definitely felt sad for Emmy, but was she rejecting me or did she not know what she wanted from me yet? Did she just want this physical connection or did she want more from me? I needed to know.

My cell rang in my pants a couple of feet away, but I i
gnored it. It rang again and I ignored it again. I didn’t want to let Emmy go. The least I could do after failing her before was to hold her. When Emmy’s phone rang a moment later, I became concerned that Lucas could be hurt or that there was some other emergency. Reluctantly, I released her and went into the bedroom to get her phone.

“What?” I said to Lena. I was feeling a little perturbed by the interruption.

“Mom’s hurt,” she said.

My mouth grew dry. “What happened?” I demanded.

“I’m not sure,” she answered. My sister doesn’t panic. My sister is like a rock. But I heard apprehension in her voice and that made me very nervous. “All I know is that she’s in the ER. I’m on my way now.”

I asked her what hospital and told her Emmy and I would be there soon. I rushed out into the kitchen where Emmy was leaning against the counter, still naked and still crying.

“My mom was just rushed to the hospital,” I said to her.

Her eyes grew big, and just like that the sobbing stopped. We rushed around the kitchen pulling on our clothes. I made a quick stop in the bathroom and then we were rushing out the door.

“What happened?” Emmy asked in the elevator. Her voice was still trembling and every few seconds a shuddering sigh would hit her, the aftermath of hard crying.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said, pushing a hand through my hair. “Lena sounded really nervous.”

“Lena never gets nervous,” Emmy said after a small gasp.

“I know,” I sighed.

She slipped her hand into mine and didn’t let go.

*~~~*

“I’m not dropping her off at some old folk’s home,” Lorraine snapped at Lena and me. “She’s not a dog. We can’t just leave her at the pound.”

“The fact that your mind even compares the two is di
sturbing,” Lena said, shaking her head. “Fine, Lorraine. Why don’t you let her come live with you?”

“I have a very full house as it is, Lena,” she argued. “You know I can’t take mom in. Why don’t you take her in?”

“The same reason you can’t, Lorraine.”

“I think we should stop talking about Mom as if she doesn’t have a brain left to think with on her own,” I said to both of them.

“I’m not even sure if I trust your judgment, Luke,” Lorraine said sourly. “You took off to the east coast without a thought about your aging parents.”

“That was ten years ago, Lorraine,” I snapped. “Kids grow up and move away. Get over it.”

“This isn’t about Luke,” Lena snapped at Lorraine. “This is about mom. The fact of the matter is that mom is getting older and we need to be sure she is safe.” She shook her head and sighed as she checked the time on her phone. “Sam will be flying in in a few hours. We can talk to her and see what her thoughts are.”

“Sam is coming in?” I asked, surprised. “Does Emmy know?”

Lena shrugged. “I don’t know if she knows or not. I called her right after I called you.”