Point of Origin (9 page)

Well, now I said so.

Leveraging me against the wall, he ran his hand up my thigh, bringing my dress with it. Thank you, God—I hadn’t worn pantyhose today. As his mouth slipped to my neck, triggering that place just under my jaw that instantly readied me, he brushed over my lace panties.

Score one for good underwear choices.

“Fuck, baby. You’re soaked,” he moaned, sending another wave of warmth through me.

“Only for you. Always for you,” I admitted, tugging on his hair to bring his mouth back to mine.

He kissed me, swallowing my gasp when his thumb grazed over my clit. Then I tore my mouth away to breathe as he rubbed circles over me, need spiraling, coiling deep inside where I desperately wanted him. “There,” he whispered finding a rhythm that had me leaning my head back against the wall and arching my hips into his hands. “God, you’re beautiful, Emmy. The way you feel under my fingers, so hot, wet…you’re perfect. You’ve always been perfect.”

He used both fingers to roll my clit, and my back bowed. “Bash!”

“Fuck yes, just like that,” he praised. “Come for me, Emerson.”

There was no way. It never happened this fast. But then, it did. The tension winding in me reached a breaking point. He slid his thumb inside me as his fingers worked my clit, and I flew apart, screaming his name.

God, I’d almost forgotten what this felt like, to truly need someone so desperately you didn’t care about repercussions—to need Bash.

He moved us to his desk, and my ass hit the cool, polished wood a second before he stripped my panties off. I pulled his shorts down his legs and off, pausing to admire every cut line of muscle he’d developed. “Bash, you’re incredible,” I whispered, letting my fingers trace the fuck-me lines that led to his length.

“Later,” he promised, silencing me with a kiss. “Right now, I need you, Emerson. Please. God, please.”

I lifted my arms, a new wave of desire hitting me with his words, his desperation. He unzipped, then gently tugged my dress over my head, his mouth dropping slightly as he took in the matching lace bra. “Perfection.”

A quick flick of his fingers and my bra joined my dress, replaced by the warmth of Bash’s hands as he cupped the weights, then gently tugged on my sensitive nipples. Then his lips were there, his teeth grazing over the peaks, sucking and tonguing me until I squirmed on the desk.

“I need you,” I whispered, rubbing my center over his erection as my fingers caressed the line of his shoulders, loving the deep colors of his flame tattoos.

He groaned. “Next time,” he promised me, standing. “I’m going to lick every curve you have, worship you until you’re coming on my tongue.”

My hips bucked, his words sending me back into the realm of frenzy. “Now, Bash. Now.”

He reached into his desk drawer, and a rip of foil later had himself covered and poised at my entrance. “Emerson?”

“God, yes, Bash. A million times, yes.”

He thrust home in one smooth movement, pushing through my folds with a delicious friction that had me keening.

“Oh. Fuck. Me. Baby. Damn. Don’t. Move,” he groaned into my neck as my legs hooked around his hips, the angle of the desk absolutely perfect. “I need this to last. I need more. I need—”

I rocked into him. “Take me, Bash. Fuck me. Love me. Whatever you need. Just do it now.”

He grasped my ass in one hand, and my head in the other, kissing me as he began moving, rocking inside me gently and slow at first, until the beads of sweat formed from holding back. “I missed this. I missed you,” he said with another kiss, and my heart melted as the rest of me burned in the fire that was us.

His hips swung faster, harder, and I met every thrust, moving with him, against him, anything to get those sounds from his lips, to watch him surrender to me as my second orgasm built. He gave me everything, locking those green eyes on mine as he began to pound into me, sending his hand to gently pet my hyper-sensitive clit. “I need you to come again, Emerson. I need to feel you come around me. God, baby, you’re killing me.”

He pressed gently on my clit and my body clamped down on his as my orgasm ripped through me, deeper, longer than the first one, tearing me from everything I thought I knew until there was only Bash and how much I still loved him. Still needed him. I cried out his name as he thrust once, twice, and then shuddered inside me, leaning his forehead against mine.

We both sucked in lungfuls of air, trying to calm our racing hearts, our overheated, satiated bodies.

I hadn’t been a starry-eyed teenager—we really were that damn good together. Even better now.

“Holy. Shit,” I whispered, leaning my head against his collarbone and kissing the damp skin beneath.

“My exact thoughts,” he agreed.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

He grinned and swung me into his arms. “Make up for lost time.”

Then he carried me down the stairs and into the room he’d claimed as his, and did exactly as he promised.

****

The sun was setting when I woke, blinking at the spectacular show of colors through the floor-to-ceiling windows in Bash’s room. I stretched, wincing with a smile at the sore areas of my body that were well-used.

But I was alone.

A wave of panic washed over me before I could remind myself that I wasn’t eighteen, and this wasn’t six years ago. Holding the covers over my breasts, I sat up in the massive bed and looked around the austere room. It had to be at least sixty percent bed. Everything was stored in closets that lined one wall, and the desk was bare except for his laptop and a few personal items. This room smelled like us, sex and Bash, but there was nothing of him in it.

And nothing of you…you’re naked.

I tiptoed out of the bed and snagged Bash’s shirt from the council meeting this morning off the back of his chair. It came nearly to my knees, so at least I’d be covered until I could get my dress from his office. After I buttoned it up, I headed upstairs, checking around the corners for Ryker or Knox like I was a secret agent, but the clubhouse was empty, quiet.

Once I made it to Bash’s office, I slipped my panties on under the shirt, but he walked in before I could put on my bra. Air filled my lungs, and I realized that I hadn’t really taken a full breath since I’d woken up alone. Regardless of knowing that he hadn’t really left, the fear had been subconscious.

“Hey, gorgeous.” He set two boxes of takeout down on the desk and came over, wrapping his strong arms around me.

I laid my cheek against his heartbeat, feeling the steady thrum I’d set the rhythm of my early life to. “Hey,” I said, my voice breaking.

He cupped my face. “What’s wrong? Oh, God. Don’t tell me you’re having regrets.”

“No, nothing like that,” I said through a watery smile. “You weren’t there when I woke up, and I knew you hadn’t…left, but I guess I didn’t realize how relieved I was to see you.”

He kissed me, soft, chaste, and lingering. “I’m so sorry I ever did that to you. I knew I was on the short list, and I was so damn scared to tell you. When they called that morning, you were sleeping, and I knew that if I told you, and you asked me to stay, I’d never have the strength to leave. Especially after having the most perfect night of my life. There’s no excuse. I don’t expect you to forgive me—I never did. But if I had it to do over again, shit would have gone down differently.”

“You wouldn’t have slept with me,” I guessed.

“Oh, hell yes I would have. I have a ton of regrets in my life, Emerson. Being with you? Never one of them.”

“Even those six months where you were in college, and I was in high school? And the no sex? And the distance?” To our tiny town, Bash and I were peas and carrots, expected to go together, and no one had batted an eye. But by the time we gave into our feelings, he’d just turned twenty-one, and I still had six months before eighteen. “I knew it wasn’t easy on you, and part of me always thought that was why…”

His thumbs stroked my cheekbones. “No, never. After Thanksgiving, when we decided to be together, I didn’t look at anyone else. There was no other woman—they had nothing to offer me when I had you. And yeah, waiting to finally get my hands on you? It was torture—don’t get me wrong—but you have been worth every second. Me leaving was never about you.”

“Then why did you wait to do this until you thought I’d be gone? Why would you never call? Never send an email, or a letter, or a fucking carrier pigeon?” God, the worrying had crushed my soul, the not-knowing had been worse than waking up alone in his house.

“For one reason. I knew we’d end up right here. I knew it the moment I saw you again. But it doesn’t change things. I have a life in California. You belong here. You always have.”

I wanted to tell him that I quit working for Mayor Davis, that I wasn’t going to London, but it didn’t matter, not in those moments. They wouldn’t change the outcome of what we’d done—what we were. It would only make him feel guilty, and while we were short on time, guilt was something we already had in spades.

“Then I guess we just enjoy what time we have, right?” I asked, a lot stronger than I felt. I’d already agreed not to ask him to stay again, so what was there really left to say about it? He would leave. My life would continue. At least I’d have closure on us. For whatever that was worth.

“What time we have,” he agreed with another kiss. “It’ll never be enough, you know.”

“I know,” I agreed, trying to ignore that I’d just walked into loving Bash again. But it was different this time, because I already knew where we were headed. Funny, but I preferred not knowing, the way we’d recklessly given ourselves to the each other.

Bash’s phone rang and we broke apart so he could answer it.

“Hey, Knox,” he answered, then listened. “Really? Okay. That’s one.” He glanced over to me and then down to my very exposed legs, his eyes darkening.

“We just had sex 2 hours ago,” I whispered at him.

“So?” he mouthed back, gesturing at me as if to say, “duh.”

I rolled my eyes and went to the whiteboard that covered one of the walls in his office. As he talked to Knox, I started to write. Twelve. We needed Twelve.

Out of the twenty-one children of the original team, four were too young to even consider, and another two were borderline. This was impossible. It couldn’t be done without everyone agreeing, which was pretty much never going to happen.

“Five minutes? Sure. We’ll see you.”

My attention snapped back to Bash as he hung up. “Oh my God, where’s my dress?”

He came up behind me and pulled my ass to his hips…where he was already hard again. “Bash…” I whispered. “Are you even human?” We’d already had sex twice in the last four hours.

“Limited time, remember?” He said into my ear, sucking lightly on the shell. A tug of desire flared to life in my stomach. Now that my body remembered what lust was, it certainly wanted its fill.

“Five minutes,” I reminded him.

He sucked on my neck lightly, and my head lolled to the side. “I hate that he’s coming here when all I want to do is bend you over that desk—”

I spun and slapped my hand over his mouth. “No. You don’t get to turn me on with that mouth of yours. Not when Knox is on his way.”

He sighed, looking like I’d just stolen his favorite toy. “Fine. Let’s get those incredible legs covered up.”

Twenty minutes later, I stood at the dry erase board wearing a pair of Bash’s pajama pants rolled at my waist, and his shirt knotted at my hips while Knox, Ryker, and Bash paced the length of the office.

“I can call Indy and see if she’d be willing to come back,” I offered, writing her name into slot number eight.

“It’s still not enough,” Ryker said, running his finger through his short blond hair.

“It has to be,” Knox argued. We’ll have to do it with nineteen members and stick to eleven legacies.

Bash remained silent, his thumb playing with the slight dimple in his chin as he glared at the board like he could will it into submission.

I looked at the three empty spaces we couldn’t fill with possible names and my heart sank. How was this going to play out?

We had two weeks.

It wasn’t enough time to pull this off.

It wasn’t enough time for me to love Bash.

But it would have to do.

Chapter Nine

Emerson

“I wonder what you would think,” I said quietly, tucking my feet under me as I sat beneath the swaying aspens. “What would you say? I’ve done nothing but make phone calls for three days, trying to track everyone down, and I just don’t know if we’ll make it in time.”

The trees were turning gold now, a sure harbinger of fall. Usually I adored this time, the way the leaves played with the sunlight and turned the mountains to the gentlest fire. But today those leaves felt like a countdown, as if even nature was challenging us.

“Would you tell them that this is insane? To restart what took you away in the first place or would you remind me that the team was always our second family?” The wind carried my voice to where I prayed Dad could hear it.

Up here, just over the ridgeline, I felt closer to him than I ever could while sitting at Aspen Cemetery. His body may have been there, but his soul was here. How ironic that this was where everything started. My gaze skipped to where the tree had been where he’d carved our family’s initials, but it was long gone, just another casualty of the fire. That bitch had taken everything that day—every photo album, every uniform, every tangible piece of my father besides the blood in my veins.

And his memory. Nothing could strip me of that.

“Here you are,” Bash called out as he came through the small tree line.

“Hey,” I answered back, my chest tightening and nerves flooding my stomach. What the hell had I been thinking, getting back into bed with him, like my heart wouldn’t let him in as easily as my body? “How did it go with Mr. Hartwell?”

He sat next to me, propping his elbows on his knees. “Odd to see him as a principal now, but it went well. He said he’ll stand with us.”

“Good.” Relief washed over me, taking the nervousness with it. Concentrating on the team was easy, it was the other stuff that screwed with my head. “I got ahold of Indy. She’s in.” It had taken a miracle to track that girl down in the backwoods of Montana.