Steel My Heart (14 page)

Instead he knelt at the side of the bed and pulled me closer. "Wait," I gasped as I felt his breath on my thigh.

He looked up expectantly, but he didn't move away. My heart thudded in my ears and I felt flames against my cheeks. "I'm not, I'm not used to that."

His lopsided grin nearly knocked me backwards. "Then baby girl, you're gonna have to get used to it."

I sucked in my breath as he shimmied my panties down. I squeezed my eyes shut, unwilling to see him kneel down there; his head nestled between my thighs. I felt him there instead as he traced a line of kisses up the path of my inner thigh, closer and closer. I gripped the sheets, frozen in place.

Then I felt his cool breath as it met the moist heat of my center. I bit my lip, expecting the pain to flare to life. But he seemed to know my exact limit. I gasped when his tongue parted my folds, finding that place, tasting me tentatively. Each little lick melted me further. He moved slowly, at first, letting me relax into a rhythm. I,felt the answering downward rush as his tongue coaxed small cries from my lips. Boldly, I put my hands on his head, telling him exactly where to stay. He grinned up at me from between my legs, his dimple shining wetly.

"That's it," he smiled.

"Come up here," I begged, cupping his face.

He dove for me with a wicked grin that made me laugh until his lips covered mine. When I tasted myself on his tongue, my cheeks flamed in embarrassment, but the flame in my belly snuffed it out. I snaked my hand up his chest, tugging at his shirt. He ripped it off and my lips tasted the smoothness of his skin. His fingers found the clasp of my bra. Yanking my shirt over my head, I allowed him to fling it away, exposing my pink nipples to his waiting mouth. When his tongue curled around the tender peak, I moaned long and low.

"I want you," I grimaced, squirming as his tongue sent hot sparks down my spine.

He exhaled forcefully. "Fuck, I've wanted you since I saw you in that bar," he groaned.

His fingers found my sensitive folds again and began dancing skillfully. I arched to meet him, forgetting myself as my hand closed around the hardened bulge of his need.

"When I didn't think I could have you..." his lips trailed down the center of my belly, each touch searing my flesh anew. "Fuck," he finished, unable to speak anymore once his tongue found my center.

I cried out again, yearning and desperate, but his tongue showed me no mercy. My hands sought and found that bulge again. Somehow my clumsy fingers were able to free the object of my desire and began to move up and down the length of him. His breath hitched and he lost the rhythm of his tongue. I grinned at my power. He pressed his hips forward, moving in my hand, and I shimmied myself forward.

He stood up and I lifted my hips to meet his, wrapping my legs around his waist to pull him inside of me. He slid in almost by accident, and I gasped at the sudden fullness.

He pulled back. "Are you okay?" he asked, concern creasing his brow.

My heart sang. I lifted myself to meet his lips, smelling myself on him.

"Don't stop," I whispered. He growled in return, thrusting deep inside of me, and our bodies began to move as one. With each thrust, he kissed me again and again, his hands everywhere at once.

"J.!" I cried, burying my face into his neck and clutching him to me. His hard, muscled chest crushed me beneath its weight, choking the cries of ecstasy his skillful hips elicited. The escalating pressure suddenly broke free and I shook like a leaf from the uncontrollable spasms of my very first orgasm. The shock sent my eyes flying open in surprise and I burst out laughing in relief and delight.

He paused to look at me beneath him, his brow furrowed as peals of laughter shook from me even as tears gathered in my eyes. "Emmy?"

How could I explain? How could I tell him that this was the first time this was good? How could I make him understand how much his he had fixed with only his touch and attention? What would make him understand the significance of what he had just done?

Speak your truth,
his voice inside my head spoke clearly. So I did. "I've never done that before. From sex." I lifted my lips to his, "You're the first time this has been good for me."

My words seem to light a spark behind his eyes.

"It can be even better," he growled. He snaked his hands under me and rolled over on the bed so that I was on top of him. I looked down at my soft body above his hardened physique, my white skin against his dark, and for once in my life I only saw beauty.

He saw it too. He closed his huge hands around my breasts, then smoothed them down the curve of my waist to rest on my hips. "Move for me, baby girl," he panted.

It was a new sensation to be in control. I swirled my hips above him, feeling him everywhere inside of me. Rocking forward, I felt the delicious pressure against my nub. I wanted more.

"That's it," he hissed, moving beneath me. I closed my eyes, blind to anything but the building sensations that swirled around and around my body. He surged upward, wrapping me in his arms and pulling me down to him. "That's it," he moaned in my ear. I screamed as I broke open again, his breath on my earlobe sending me back over the edge, a gentler ride this time. I clung to him, holding him close to me, savoring the merging of our bodies.

I could feel the twitching of his thigh muscles. "Emmy, I'm going to..." he warned, but I held him in place.

"Go," I whispered, not caring about anything else but the pleasure on his face. He bent his head to my neck, burying his face into my hair, and groaned out his release, a low sound in my ear that vibrated my whole body like a plucked guitar string.

I don't know how long we lay there. It was at least as long as it took for our breath to slow and steady and sync up. His heart beat against my chest, slowing and slowing into a strong, steady beat that matched my own. He rolled me the side and we lay there looking at the ceiling, not saying a word.

"J.?" I rolled over to him and looked at him. I had never seen his face so relaxed before. It was like seeing him for the first time. I turned my face upward and looked at his cheek. His beard was coming in, the dark hairs gleaming in the shaft of angled light from the window. The sun was setting on this day.

"Emmy," he breathed, and for him it wasn't a question. He closed his eyes, his mouth twitching.

"Hold me J.?" I asked him. "Come under the covers and hold your girl."

When I settled against his chest, his breath was already coming smooth and regular as I adjusted the blankets. I traced the swirls and spirals of the stubble along his jaw as my man slowly fell asleep.

Chapter 29

Emmy

I didn't know it could be this easy.

Six months in Robert's clutches had trained me to fear. When I woke up in J.'s arms, my head pillowed in the crook of his arm, my heart leapt into my throat on instinct. I didn't know whose strong arms were holding me cradled and close for one terrifying second.

Then I saw those eyes, the tiny emerald shards gleaming at me as he sleepily smiled, "Good morning."

I placed my hand on his chest. The warmth of his skin melted my fears. "Are you real?" I whispered, still confused.

When his lips brushed my forehead, I knew I wasn't hallucinating. "I could ask you the same thing, baby girl." His voice was low and husky, rumbling through my body as I snuggled closer. I flung my leg up over his, wanting to draw myself nearer and nearer. If I could, I would have climbed inside of him.

Instead my knee brushed lightly in between his legs. I felt a stirring there that made me grin. "Is that real too?" I giggled, closing my fist around it.

He closed his eyes, his lips parted in a gasp. "Yeah, that's definitely real," he moaned as I started moving my hand.

I was suddenly seized with a delicious shiver of naughtiness. I threw the covers back to expose his naked body. "Damn, put that back!" he shivered.

"Wait!" I smiled as I shimmied myself down in between his legs. I kissed the point where his thigh met his groin, inhaling the scent of him. Then I flopped the covers back over myself.

He lifted them and peeked at me with lifted eyebrows. Then his eyes widened as I closed my mouth around him, flicking my tongue over his rigidity. He lost the ability to hold up the covers and I was plunged into the warm darkness. I felt naughty and powerful, and the feeling inflamed me. I moved up and down the length of him, delighting in each gasp and moan that my tongue drew from his lips. The feeling of him in my mouth, the knowledge that I was in complete control of his pleasure made me moan myself. I snaked a hand down in between my own legs, moving my own fingers in time with my strokes.

Slow pressure began to build under my own dancing fingers, and I moved faster and faster. I reached the peak of my own pleasure just as his hips began to jerk and spasm. He thrust himself deep inside me, burying himself in my throat just as I cried out my own pleasure around him. I sagged against his thigh as he twitched and sighed out the last spasms of his release. Snuggling down into safe, warm darkness, I nuzzled his smooth skin.

"Can you breath down there?" came the muffled call from outside the blankets.

"Barely," I acknowledged. "But I don't want to come out."

"Then I'm coming in with you."

He lifted the blankets over his head. "Stop! You're letting in the cold!" I squeaked.

He pulled them shut and we were enveloped in the dark cocoon together. "I'll warm you back up," he murmured, folding me back into his arms.

He tilted my chin up to kiss me. "Wait, my breath!" I covered my mouth with my hand, the taste of him still on my tongue.

"If you think I give a shit about that," he growled. But he didn't finish his sentence, choosing instead to bruise my lips with his.

We rolled around under the covers, twisting and coiling ourselves in the comforter. His fingers found the slippery depths of my center.

"I give a shit about this," he said, already drawing out those small cries from my lips. I smothered them against the covers, surrendering myself to the skill of his fingers. Coiled up in my cocoon, I had nowhere to go to escape his tongue when it met my buzzing nub, and I had nothing to distract me from the mounting waves of pleasure that built up and up inside of me. And there was nowhere to go except straight back down from the peak, the waves crashing and breaking over and over until I finally shuddered and was still.

I reached for him blindly. "Kiss me again," I whispered.

"I want to, babe," came the muffled reply. "But I'm suffocating to death."

I laughed as we fought and struggled to free ourselves from our downy cocoon. I squinted in the bright light of the room and J. coughed and gasped in mock relief at the cool air.

I blinked in confusion at the room around us. The whole room was done up in white and gold. The four poster bed was gleaming brass, the downy comforter was bright, gleaming white.

"The Treasure Room, I repeated, taking in the ship's wheel on the wall and the faux treasure chest against window. "I totally didn't notice this last night."

J. sat up on the bed and stretched, his taut muscles rippling in the morning light. "I didn't notice most of anything last night either," he agreed. "It's cute."

I suppressed a smile. "Did my big, bad biker just call something 'cute?'"

"Hey, I call 'em like I see 'em." He grinned down at me as I lay on the bed. "You're pretty cute."

I felt suddenly shy. "Am I?"

A mischievous glint made the emerald in his eyes gleam as brightly as the bed. "Yeah. I like how you blend in with the bed."

I looked at my pale skin against the stark white of the comforter. "Asshole," I laughed, smacking him. "Yes I know. I'm translucent."

"You're gorgeous," he smiled, running his finger along my belly. I shivered under his touch, my body responding to him so quickly my head spun. This time it was slow and deliberate. He kept his eyes locked on mine as he moved above me, our bodies locked together. I melted down to a pinpoint in his embrace, and when there was nothing left of me, he called my name and we crashed over the edge together for the second time that morning.

I lay there panting, staring at the ceiling, no thoughts in my head but that I could stay here forever. But as my breath slowed I became aware of another sensation besides pleasure. My stomach growled long and loudly.

J. turned and buried his head in the covers, his shoulders shaking with silent laughter. I felt my cheeks flame with embarrassment until I heard the same low noise rumble from his side of the bed.

"Oh hell, they're talking to each other," J. laughed again. "Burning too many calories this morning."

"But I don't want to get up," I protested.

"Yeah, and I don't want you to put on clothes," he replied, cupping my breasts possessively.

I rolled over and kissed him. "Let's make it quick and get back here as soon as we can."

Chapter 30

J.

The Treasure Room had become J.'s world.

Waking up to Emmy in his arms that first morning had been like living inside his dreams. And each subsequent morning was even more unbelievable.

J. was starting to understand what happiness actually was.

They had spent the first day together exploring the countryside on J.'s bike. They found a diner outside of the main drag and ate there for every meal. J. found he could spend an entire meal just watching Emmy devour her food with gusto, her frank enjoyment making him grin like a fool. He found he could ride contentedly for hours, looking where she pointed, turning where she indicated, just following her lead.

One of the phrases they had drilled into him in anger management classes had been, "Live in the now." An empty catchphrase that had no meaning other than hippie, feel-good bullshit. Until that very moment.

With Emmy he finally understood. Nothing else mattered but being with her. The past and its demons, the future and its worries, all of it fell away when he saw her laugh when they discovered a waterfall along the side of the highway. He had held her hand as they picked their way to the top of the cliff and found themselves on a plateau overlooking the Delaware Valley, the only people for miles around.

J. made love to her alongside the stream, her cries drowned out by the rush of the water, and nothing else had mattered except her. If he stopped paying attention to the glory of his present, he might miss something: the way her cheeks flushed cherry-red when she was excited. The way her hair fell in tumultuous waves down her back and curled tighter and tighter in the heat and humidity. The way she looked at him as he moved above her, her blue eyes wide, her raspberry lips parted as she cried out his name. The past was drowned out, the future was muted. Being with Emmy was what it meant to live in the now.

"Are you okay?" Emmy looked at him expectantly. The waitress was poised with her pencil and pad, her drawn in eyebrows raised at him.

J. looked down at his menu. They had eaten at this diner for every meal for the past four days. He could probably have recited it back to the waitress. "Burger, medium rare please. With mushrooms and Swiss."

"The usual," the waitress nodded and gave him a ghost of a grin. "You know the grilled chicken is pretty good, and better for your heart."

Emmy raised her eyebrows and nodded, but J. shook his head. "I like the burger. Thanks." He snapped his menu closed and handed it to the waitress who gave a disaffected grunt and left.

"Is the burger really that good? I'll have to try it." Emmy peeled back the paper on her soda straw. There was something different about her small hands today, but he couldn't place it.

"It's alright," J. shrugged, looking out the window onto the highway.

The diner was not in the pretty part of town that catered to tourists. They were surrounded by locals; farmers plowing through huge plates of food after a hard day in the fields, and truckers searching for something a bit more like home than a rest area off the Pennsylvania Turnpike. The parking lot was huge, shared by a strip mall full of down on their luck secondhand stores and a garishly decorated pawn shop.

"Then why do you keep ordering it?" Emmy pressed. She had ripped the paper down into little pieces that now snowflaked the table top. J. watched her nervous little hands fondly.

"Because," he replied slowly, trying to figure it out at the same time he explained it. "I ordered it the first time we came here." She looked up at him, a hint of a smile playing along her lips. "So it feels lucky to me."

Her smile widened. She took one of his hands into hers. It took two of them to cover his massive palm.

"I don't want anything to change, either." She nodded towards their entwined hands. "That's why I did it."

"Did what?"

She turned her hand over flat on the table. "I pawned it."

Once he saw the blank space on her ring finger, he wondered how he hadn't noticed it immediately. The huge, blinking diamond that she wore like a leaden weight on her hand was gone.

"You did what?"

"While you were waiting for our table for us." Her eyes shone excitedly and two pinpoints of color flamed in her cheeks. "I didn't go to the bathroom, I ran across the parking lot." She grabbed his hand again. "Now we can stay here longer. Now we don't have to leave and go back."

J. stared at her hand, dumbstruck. "Is, is your fiancé," he cleared his throat as she looked at him sharply. "Is
Robert
going to care?"

She tossed her head angrily and took back her hand. "I don't give a fuck," she hissed tightly. "He gave it to me. He's gone from my life." She took a sip of her drink, her eyes far away. "As far as I'm concerned, it's my compensation. Paying me for what I went through."

J. swallowed and took a sip of his own drink. If it made her feel freer of her past, then it was definitely a good thing that she got rid of the ring. If it helped her move on. But it nipped at J.'s pride to know that she was using the money to pay for their room, his meals, his gas. He slid his hand back over hers, carefully squeezing.

"I'm glad you're free of it."

She snapped back to focusing on him, her blue eyes lively once more. "We'll have enough money to stay for a while," she babbled excitedly. "In fact, if we're careful maybe we could even use it as a security deposit on a place up here. You know," she gestured over to the entrance of the diner, "I saw some apartment guides, it's pretty cheap to live up here. Well, cheaper than Philly anyway. We could put a security deposit down and maybe have enough money to get a few pots and pans or something." Her eyes gleamed wildly and she clutched his hand. "A new start, what do you think?" She shook her head, her blonde hair swinging in her face. "We'd never have to go back."

The spot of color blazed bright against her pale cheeks and J. ducked his head to avoid her piercing eyes. Just then the waitress arrived with their tray, and the next few minutes of jockeying plates around and removing glasses gave him time to organize his thoughts.

He took a bite of his mediocre burger, but the magic of its sameness was gone.

"Emmy," he started, putting it down and wiping his fingers with a napkin. "What about money? Jobs? I've been wearing the same jeans for five days now."

She shook her head. "We'll find something."

He bit his lip. "My skills don't really transfer well to the wider market," he smiled ruefully. "Plus, haven't you noticed I'm the only black guy in town?"

She furrowed her brow. "But you have a degree! And it shouldn't matter, the color of your skin. It doesn't to me."

He touched her hand. "I wish everyone were like you. But they aren't Em."

He hoped she would let the degree talk slide. Now wasn't the time for him to have to tell the truth on that lie.

Pressing her lips together, she looked at him furiously for a second and he felt his own anger growing.

"Don't be naive, Emmy," he spat, more viciously than he meant. "We can't just fucking run away from our problems." He clenched his fist and exhaled, trying to temper his words. "This has been nice. Wonderful even. But I'm not willing to get run out of
my
town and
my
life by some redneck piece of crap calling me names."

She blinked. "But I don't want to go back to
my
life." Her voice was low and dangerous. "I left everything behind and I don't want to look back."

"There's a difference between starting over and running away, baby girl." He tried to find the right words. "Starting a new life on your terms is a good thing. Getting bullied into running away? That's not something I'm willing to accept."

"I've lost my appetite," she replied calmly, her voice high and tight. She stood up from her side of the booth and looked out over the top of his head, rather than meet his eyes. All the fire and life that she had shown a minute ago was gone. "Will you please take me back to our room so that I can lie down?"

He blinked at her, astonished. "That's it? We're done talking about it? You're just gonna give up?"

"I don't want to fight, please," she replied primly, her face a mask of tightness.

J. stood up, trembling with rage. "Don't you give me that bullshit, Emmy," he hissed. "I'm not fucking
Robert
. Don't you just pretend everything is okay and avoid the issue."

She snapped her eyes at him and for a moment they blazed in fury that made his heart leap. But then she shook her head and the glazed, faraway look returned. "I don't want to fight, please," she repeated. "I'm tired, I want to lie down."

J. threw down his napkin. "Fucking pay the lady then, I ain't doing no dine and dash."

Emmy placed money on the table. The sight of the bills and the knowledge of how she had acquired them made his anger flame anew. But how would he tell her that if she refused to talk about it?

She only held on to him loosely on the ride back to the Carriage Inn. The wind rushed into the space between their bodies, making the distance feel greater than it was. It bothered him so much they were practically in the parking lot before he noticed the police cars parked haphazardly in his way, and the guns that were all pointed in his direction.