Claiming Emma (10 page)

She must have read his face, because the laughter faded from hers and he watched the glitter of passion return to match the heat in his.  Again, she licked her lips.  He took that as an invitation and leaned down in one swoop, his mouth covering the nipple he had previously laid claim too and he took as much of her into the heat of his mouth as he could, then sucked, and felt her back arch off the bed while she gasped and groaned for him.

His hand on the other breast, he covered it, and played with the nipple, learning the feel of both, one with his hand, the other his hot mouth and swirling tongue.  Since her legs wrapped themselves back around his hips and she practically hovered over the bed, jerking against him to get closer, he got a pretty good idea of what she liked.  Which seemed to be every fucking thing he did to her.  Then her hands were back on his ass.  This time she was pushing his boxer briefs back with her own little impatient growl and Noah trailed his hands down to slip inside the red lace of her panties and slide home.

Hot and wet and tight, she gasped at the finger he pushed inside her, and at the feel of her hands on his ass, and her pussy clamping over his finger, he needed in there,
right fucking now
.  He reared back for the second time and had to forced her strong legs from around his hips so he could divest her of her panties, which thank fuck went flying a moment later.  Then with her hands pushing at them over his ass, his boxer briefs came down and he wasted not one more minute, replacing his finger with something quite a bit bigger.  So much bigger it was a struggle to make it fit, and Noah was cursing and sweating at the torture pain of feeling his dick squeezed into that hot wet place.  Then he was all the way in, and it finally occurred to him to wonder if she was maybe not enjoying the fit as well as he was. 

His head snapped up and his eyes went to Emma's face, and he nearly came right then at the look he found there, it was safe to say from the heat in her cheeks, the way she was breathing open mouthed and the sultry fire in her eyes that she was right there with him.  With a growl Noah dropped until he was pressed full length over her, chest to chest, his dick buried deep.  He kissed her, this time there was no way she could mistake that kiss for anything but what it was.  A full on claiming.

She kissed him back, her arms and legs wrapping him up, she claimed him just as surely as he did her, and Noah had never felt anything to compare to it.  Not in his whole fucking life. Then he started to move inside her and it just got better.  Hotter, harder, more intense, more pleasurable.

Emma nipped at his lip and his eyes refocused from his absorption with the sweet friction they were creating between them and he met her eyes. 

She licked at the lip she had just bit in apology and said to the question in his.  "I want to watch," in that breathy voice, making his balls constrict with the pleasure of both the sexy as hell words and the tone behind them.

She was as close to coming as he was
, thank fuck
, because with that he lost all semblance of control and started pounding into her hot sheathe, his eyes though, never left hers, because he agreed, even as far gone as he was he wanted to watch too.  Then the pleasure hit her face, and her neck arched as she came, clamping tight around his dick deep inside so that he had no choice but to follow.  The pleasure of his release he felt in his balls, but also in his fucking knees, his toes, hell, the fucking tips of his fingers tingled with it.  His whole body jerking with the power of it.  Something he had never before experienced, and still with all that, what he thought in that moment was not about what he felt but what he had seen.  His last thought before pleasure took him over was that he had never seen anything more beautiful than Emma coming on his cock.

While he came down from that high slowly, holding Emma as tightly as she was holding him, skin slick with lingering heat, breaths loud in the quiet around them, his first and last thought for a while was that he wanted to see it again, every night for the rest of his fucking life.

Yeah, it was safe to say those three days had not been uneventful, Noah thought. Snapping out of his satisfied revelry at the ringing of his phone.  He slipped it out of his pocket and looked at the screen to see Brady's number. 
About fucking time,
he thought and answered the phone.

It was safe to say that Emma had limited experience with men.  She had been aware from a young age that her mother went through boyfriends quickly and most times embarrassingly and in public.  Boyfriends that stole her focus from her only child so much that it meant Emma left behind her childhood much faster than most children did, forced as she was to see to herself, and too many times to count, her mother as well.  Then one time too many she drove Emma to school still feeling the effects of her tie on the night before and slammed their old Lincoln into a tree.

Her mother walked away without a scratch, Emma lost her chance to ever have children of her own.  After that, the state took her out of her mother’s lackadaisical care and landed her in the first real home she had ever had. Lavender Farms and her grandmothers loving arms.  But the damage had been done. 

Emma had eventually gone to college, the first in her family to do so, and while there she had a boyfriend she liked enough to give her virginity to.  She had thought something would come of it if she let it, which she was admittedly undecided about, but when he graduated a year ahead of her, he told her he wanted to part as friends, stating he was not ready to settle down and eventually when he did, he wanted children.  They parted, both of them moved on easily, Emma with enough relief to prove to herself that her heart had not really been involved.  Justin to a business career in the Silicon Valley, and eventually a wife and 2.5 kids.

Emma graduated and went back to the only place she had ever belonged.  She dedicated herself to Lavender Farms and her grandmother and did her best to ignore, or discourage any male interest that came her way.  Without kids in the mix she convinced herself that there was no reason she needed to find a man who she then had to deal with on a daily basis, and she honestly didn’t expect one to stick for the same reason.

That had worked well for her as she built up her business, grew a family of friends around her and lived the life she wanted, content and most days happy with her choices.

But she had not counted on Noah Hale coming along and making her want more.  Three days of him in her bed, and for all intents and purposes taking over her life, and all her contentment and satisfaction with her choice to do without a man were not just in question, but pulverized and eradicated beneath size twelve army boots.

Closing the greenhouse door behind her, Emma leaned back against it and blew out a hard breath. She liked having him here.  All of it, working with him, sleeping with him, taking care of the baby with him.  Heck, she didn’t just like it, she loved it.  That was the problem.

Even if she had fallen hard in love with the big Ex-army ranger over incredible sex and the way he was with Lucy and her out of the bedroom as well as in it, that did not mean that she was anything but a way station for him. 

Having watched him with Lucy the last few days Emma could not help but recognize, even if she had been teasing him at the time, she had been right when she called him a natural.  Lucy might be in the baby stage where she slept most of the time when she wasn't eating or pooping, but Noah looked at her as if she was the smartest, prettiest most interesting kid there ever was.  He never seemed to get bored when he was looking after her, and he had become so deft at the bottle, changing and walking her around while she gazed at everything and nothing attempting to hold her head up that Emma found herself with time on her hands.  Something she had not had since Hannah went into labor early.  He even climbed out of their bed each night to give Lucy her nighttime feeding, kissing Emma and telling her with a squeeze that he had it.

The first time he did it Emma had to get up and watch him do it, she was so moved by what he was doing and how well he did it that by the time the baby was fed, burped, and back in her crib asleep Emma had no choice but to throw herself on Noah and kiss him everywhere.  He liked that so much he returned the favor and then some.  Needless to say they got very little sleep that night, or the two nights that followed, and for the life of her Emma could not find it in herself to care.  She was working on borrowed time, she knew it, and she intended to take every moment she had and savor it, because she knew from what he showed her daily that Noah would make an amazing father, and no matter how much she might like to, she could not give him that.  But oh, how she wanted too.  More so every day.

The sure knowledge that he would eventually realize what he was missing and leave was starting to eat at Emma.  In big gulping painful bites.  As much as she had determined to enjoy him while she had him, the same as her time with Lucy and before that Hannah, Emma knew, she
knew,
that going back to the life she lived before them,
before him
, with the same contentment was going to be impossible.  She knew that, because just thinking about it made her heart hurt and her lungs seize in her chest. 

She was in so much trouble.

Before she could continue with yet another mini panic attack at the thought of what the future would undoubtedly bring, the door at her back opened, and she fell back with a whoosh into Noah's hard arms.  Emma pulled out of the arms she had comes to know very well in the last three nights and ignoring both the question in his eyes and her own Pavlovian reaction to Noah's touch, which included among other things the hardening of her nipples and a quiver in her sex, she righted herself, turning to face him.

"Got the call from Brady," he said after studying her a minute.  "I know why Marcella wants Hannah."

And whoosh there went her breath.
Then a superfluous thought crossed her mind. 
Jeez, how long have I been in here worrying about this? 
She thought, since it seemed like she had just left him with a smile in the retail area.  But she let that go and moved on to what was important almost instantly.

"And?" she asked half impatient, half worried about the answer, her hand finding his arm and gripping it for support she was afraid she would need.

Noah reached both his big hands to her hips and pulled her into his body, as was his way.  Since he had claimed her in bed he never lost the chance to claim her in other ways, actually in any way he could, every chance he could, regardless if anyone was paying attention or not, and unless they were at home, somebody usually was.

"Noah?" she asked impatiently when he was slow to answer.  It was then she felt his hands contract and clutch her hard, and she noticed his eyes.  Whatever Noah had heard, he was beyond pissed about it. 
Oh no,
she thought. 
How bad is this going to get?

And listening to his explanation, interspersed liberally with curse words that made her glad they were not on the sales floor, Emma found out it was bad enough.  Then Noah informed her of everything else Noah had learned from Brady's investigation, and it got worse.

***

Briar Rose had not changed in the three days they had been banned from visiting, but it felt like she had abandoned Hannah just the same.  So while Noah stopped at the nurses station for an update and an explanation as to their presence, Emma raced ahead to Hannah's room to assure herself visually that her friend was the same.

She was sitting by the bed holding Hannah's hand explaining about their absence when Noah practically stormed the room.  It was safe to say that the time between Brady's phone call and now he had not calmed down one iota.  But then Emma could not blame him, his father’s widow was a bigger bitch than either of them had assumed, and Emma had assumed bitch of
epic proportion
to begin with.  Knowing what they now knew, Noah had upped her title to the “C” word, which Emma did not even like to think in her head, and he had done that repeatedly and heatedly throughout his explanation of the facts.

"It might be a few hours," he ground out.  "But she will be here before they close the door to visitors, if she continues what she has been doing for the last three days."  The sight of Emma holding Hannah's hand softened something on his face, and his eyes warmed the way they had every time he saw her since he claimed her.  "Should we call Margo and let her know Paige might need to keep Lucy longer than we thought?"

Emma smiled at this and shook her head.  "I told her it was a possibility before we left.  They will take her home with them if we are not back by closing, and we can pick her up there when we’re done."

Noah grunted his assent and came to stand beside her chair.  When he just stood there with his hands across his chest, Emma blinked up at him and motioned to the other chair.  "There's no need to hover handsome, you can sit down."

He snorted at the very thought of that.  "Too fucking pissed to take a seat right now Em."

"I get that," she said smiling sadly at him.  "I really do, but you need to try and calm down before Marcella gets here, because unless I am very much mistaken in who you are, you are not going to be able to do all the terrible things to her that you have been picturing in your head since the call from Brady."

"I’d Like to rip off the cunts head and shove it up her ass," he muttered darkly and Emma could not help her wince at his language or her knee jerk reaction to cover Hannah's ears when he said it.  Not that she did, but she really wanted to.

"Right," she said instead.  "But you are hardly going to get physical with your father’s widow, so taking this time to calm down is probably still the best idea."

"My father had shit taste in women," he muttered not calming down in the least.  Emma tilted her head to study him.  Noah was not a big talker, but occasionally he let things slip that had her curious about a number of things.

"Your mother?" she asked quietly, and felt his eyes connect with hers.  She had told him about her own past one night in the dark while they lay naked and entwined, because he had asked gently about her inability to have children, but he was not the type to volunteer information of his own past. Emma got the feeling he rarely thought about it himself.  But he had nightmares; she knew this because he’d had one the second night they spent together, and occasionally he would stare off into nothing and Emma took pains to bring him back from whatever bad place he’d gone to.  All he would say when she asked him about it was that he had been a Ranger for twenty years, and while some of it was good: the men in his unit, the brotherhood, and the idea that they were making a difference doing something no one else would or could do some of it had been very bad, as bad as it could get, and that was all he would say on the subject.  But he let her comfort him, and Emma did that in any way she could think to do it: with her body, and by distracting him with Lucy, or making him laugh when the look in his eyes said he had not done so in too long.  It was enough, for both of them it seemed.

On his childhood, he had said very little, other than to say his dad hadn't been around and he wished his mother had followed his fine example.

"I thought my father couldn't do any worse than ma," he rumbled darkly.  The way he said ma making it more a curse than the "C" word had been.  "But turns out he had a type."

Ouch,
Emma thought.  Thinking of all they had learned about Marcella Hale and grimacing at the thought his father had married two such women.

Before she could do more than flinch at his short and to the point description of the woman who birthed him, there was a commotion in the hall.

"You get that fucking doctor here today, or I'm suing this whole place for malfeasance."  Marcella had arrived.  Then she was at the door to the room, saw the two of them by her daughter and screeched even louder, despite the nurses hurried and impatient requests for her to "think of the other patients and please keep your voice down."

"You!" she screeched.  Then turned what could only be described as a hiss at the nurses who trailed after her.

Before they could come into the room, Noah was across the room like a shot, had Marcella none too gently yanked in and the door slammed shut behind her, segregating her in the room with them.  When she started to struggle and screech again he shook her none to gently.

"Shut the fuck up."  Something in his actions, words or tone, must have penetrated because Marcella went still, her eyes rounding in panic as she looked around the room for help.  Emma shook her head slowly at the woman, squeezing Hannah's hand at the same time in reassurance.  She would get no help from Emma.  Not after what they had learned. 

"I know about the will," Noah's angry words shot out like a slap and Marcella's eyes snapped to his face her panic rising.

"I don't know what..."

He shook her again, interrupting her before she could finish her lie.  "I know Hannah inherited the other half of Pops money and you need her in your house to get paid.  I know you give fuck all about your fucking comatose daughter, and I know you have a fucking boy toy on the side who will get skip of your ass if you can no longer supply him with the money to snort his blow whenever he feels like it."

All the color left Marcella's cheeks and she opened her mouth, undoubtedly to deny his words when he shook her for the third time, this time so hard her head jerked on her neck and Emma had to wince at the sight, but she said not a word, and luckily for her Marcella got the message and stayed equally quiet.

"I have fucking picture proof of your boy making a buy Marcella, and you didn't bother to close the curtains on your little party at the hotel last night, so I also have more, and I think if you have a fucking brain cell left after snorting that shit, you know exactly what I have, and what I can do with it.  Namely, ruin your fucking life if you don't leave this town and never darken your daughter’s door again."