Unbroken (19 page)

Then the shutters slam down in his eyes, and Emerson’s mouth twists into a pained, brooding smirk. “Some things don’t deserve to be forgiven.”

Emerson’s body is tense now, coiled and waiting, and I feel a stab of pain and regret shoot through me. I have to dig my nails into my palms not to let out a gasp of dismay. Is that what he thinks about me—or are we talking about his mom again?

I don’t know what to say to him, I don’t even know where to start. I need an explanation about why he broke things off four years ago, but how can I ask, when the truth might be worse than I ever imagined? Is there even anything he can say to me to make it all OK?

I press my lips together, miserable. The silence drags on, unbearable, as the boat gently rocks on the waves. Then Emerson looks across the blanket at me. “Why did you come back?” he demands.

“I told you.” I look down, my voice small. “Dad’s broke. He wants to sell the house.”

“Bullshit.” Emerson curses. “You could have had someone else come, you could have left it all alone. But you came back. Why?”

I keep my gaze fixed on the deck, the ocean, anywhere but him. “I couldn’t trust anyone else to pack it up right. All the memories...”

“Don’t lie to me!”

In a sudden motion, Emerson sweeps the plates and containers aside. He grabs me by both arms, pulling me towards him so that I have no choice but to look at him. To stare into that beautiful blue abyss, as dark and tormented as I’ve ever seen it.

“Cut the bullshit, Jules.” His grip is tight on my skin, “Tell me why you came back.”

My heart leaps into my throat. I swallow back a sob.

He’s right. I’ve kept telling myself, and everyone else, that I had to be here. I had no choice. But the truth is, I couldn’t stay away.

I didn’t want to.

“Tell me, Jules.” Emerson’s voice turns pleading. His eyes are desperate, begging me for the answer I’m too afraid to admit.

But I have to.

“You,” I cry, my voice echoing out across the silent ocean. “It’s always been you!”

A look of wonder flashes across Emerson’s face, and then he’s pulling me to him, capturing my mouth in a desperate, drowning kiss.

I come undone.

Emerson kisses me like it’s the end of the world, like we’ve only moments left to live, and there’s nothing he wants more than to possess me, completely. No past regret, or heartache, nothing but our lips, and tangled tongues, and the steely embrace of his arms locked tight around me, crushing me against his chest.

This is like nothing I’ve felt before. It’s like a tidal wave of sensation is breaking over me, and I have no choice but to be swept along, falling deeper into the intoxicating taste of him. I grab at his shirt and cling to him, all my worries and insecurities dissolving in an instant under the hungry probe of his tongue, and the feel of his hands searing a blazing trail across my skin as he lays me down beneath him on the hard deck.

I tear off his shirt and lock my legs around his waist, arching up against him as he yanks down the tiny straps of my sundress and then rips it over my head, baring me to the night. I gasp at the chill of air against my bare skin. He buries his face in the hollow of my neck, sending sharp bolts of pleasure down my body with every new kiss. The electricity crackles, hot and wet between my thighs as he sucks and bites his way along my collarbone and down across my bare breasts, his mouth hot and demanding on my skin.

Oh God, yes.

His hand slips between my legs, and then I’m arching up against his touch, moaning as his fingers stroke and tease through my panties. His touch shivers against me, sparks of pure sensation, but every time I buck into his hand, he holds me back, scratching lightly over the fabric with his fingertips until I’m writhing, aching for him, crying out with frustration.

Emerson lifts his head, gazing at me with a dark, hooded look as he toys with me. I beg him wordlessly with my eyes, gasping until he roughly yanks my thighs apart. He gives me a swift, possessive stroke before he sinks one finger deep inside me.

I cry out, lifting my hips as his hand begins to pulse against me. I clench around him, mindless from the fast rock of his finger, and the lightning rasp of his tongue as he dips his head back to my breast and drags his mouth across my nipples.

Closer. Harder. Now.

I roll us, landing on top and thrusting down hard against his hand as his mouth keeps tormenting my breasts.

He pushes another finger up inside me.

The world spirals out of focus. Even the distant lap of the ocean is gone now, drowned beneath the roar of blood in my ears and the hungry thunder of my heartbeat. Emerson’s fingers surge inside me, and I bite down into his shoulder, mindlessly bearing down on the dark, delicious pressure like I’m possessed.

We’re beyond tenderness or teasing now, gasping and clawing at each other as we fight for control. But it’s never been an even fight. Emerson rolls again in a single movement, trapping me beneath him. He drags his head from my chest, and a chilled blast of air replaces the warmth of his mouth on my nipple. I yelp, tensing as he rips my panties away, leaving me totally naked, spread and breathless on the deck.

He looks down, eyes raking over my body with a look of wild abandon in his eyes. He’s on the edge, ready to lose control completely, and I feel a shot of power that I’ve stripped away all his last defenses. For a moment, he’s poised there above me, our breath coming in ragged gasps, then he slides his way down my body and grabs above my knees, pushing my legs open and setting my ankles around his neck. He bends his head and set his mouth against me, licking across the tender apex of my thighs in a long, harsh sweep.

“Oh God!” I cry out, hearing my moan echo out across the bay as his tongue laps at my most sensitive point, dipping down to probe inside me.
There!
He licks up again, sinking his fingers back inside me as he sets about undoing every last coherent thought in my mind. His tongue licks me faster me as his fingers pulse from the inside, the shockwaves coiling closer and tighter, and I buck against his mouth, desperate for the delicious friction of each new lick, and suck, and thrust—

Emerson pulls away, and I cry out again, this time in desperate frustration. I grab for him, gasping for release, but he sweeps my hands aside and pins my wrists to the deck in one swift motion so I’m trapped there, helpless beneath him. His gaze pieces right the way through me, wild and blazing with lust. I struggle against his grip, hating the space between us, needing his mouth on me again, but Emerson stays just above me, keeping my wrists locked in place pressed painfully against the deck.

He watches me, his jaw clenched, every muscle in his body solid and tensed above me. Out of reach.

I writhe, straining against his iron grip. “Please,” I gasp, not caring that I’m begging. Right now, in this moment, I’d do anything to feel him inside of me, any fucking thing he could ever ask or demand.

I’ll give all of me just to possess him one more time.

“Please, Emerson!” I whimper.

“What?” He growls. “What do you want from me?”

“Fuck me!” My voice breaks.

Something shatters in his expression. Emerson’s eyes flash, wild. He releases my wrists and scoops my body to his with a deep, guttural groan. He kisses me, devouring my lips as I yank open his jeans and push them down. He’s hard and ready for me, and I instinctively arch up, opening my thighs wider, already aching for the thick fullness of him.

He finds me, slamming inside with a single thrust that sends every nerve and cell in my body screaming with pleasure.

Holy fuck!

I fall back with a cry, clawing my nails against his back, surging to meet his thrusts with my own as he rocks into me, hard and deep and unrelenting. He’s filling me up, splitting me open with a gorgeous ache. I open wider, pulling him deeper, and the pain melts into a heavy-boned sweetness, radiating out through my whole entire body. Emerson drops his mouth into the hollow of my neck, groaning desperately against me as I slide my hands over the slick contours of his chiseled ass. I’m panting, wild, utterly lost in the mindless rhythm of our bodies and the dark craving that calls from the very heart of me. I arch up against him, driving my hips hard against his, grinding fresh sparks of friction through my body, but it’s not enough. My veins are itching from the inside out, a sweet thickness pulsing in my bloodstream, coiling tighter, spiraling out from my aching core with every new hard thrust of Emerson’s cock.

I cling to him, caught on the edge. I’m sobbing with need, strung out so close to the edge of the world, but caught, powerless to plunge over the precipice.

Emerson plunges faster, his body rock hard with tension, the sound of his breathing labored and desperate. “Jules,” he groans against me.

I answer with a desperate moan, head flung back against the deck. I gaze blindly into the night, crying out with a hollow need. The sky is dark, scattered with stars that seem to fade, dim against the fierce boil of pleasure rising in me.

“Baby,” Emerson gasps, thrusting deep inside me. He grabs my face in one hand, forcing it around to meet his gaze. His eyes are unflinching, blazing into me as his body wreaks its havoc on mine with wretched precision. There’s no escape from the devastation. I’m drowning in him, every sense overwhelmed, and I claw for some last solid ground, trying to look away, but he holds me tight in place, forcing me to look at him, demanding everything I have to give.

Everything I am.

He sees past my secrets, past my lies, stripping me naked. His eyes don’t stray from mine for a second, not even as his body slams into me and my cries rise up into the silence of the dark night. I’m clenched tight, prisoner to pure sensation, aching and grasping, but I can’t make it over, the release waits just out of reach.

“Come for me,” he growls, jaw clenched. “Dammit, Jules…. comes for me. Now!”

He slams into me one final time, his raw, guttural cry echoing out across the bay. His body is suspended above mine for a moment, shaking with tension, then I see his gaze flash, and the first wave of release roll across his face. He cries out, wordless, shuddering into me, and his desperate surrender is enough to break me wide open. I shatter, screaming his name, my cries mingling with his as the storm of ecstasy sweeps through me and I fall headlong into the deep blue darkness of his soul.

We collapse together, limbs tangled, sweaty and clinging on for dear life. And as I drift in the breathless afterglow of the best fucking orgasm of my life, one thought forms from the mindless pleasure, and wraps me in its undeniable truth.

I’m home.

* * *

When I wake the next morning, he’s gone.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I wake to an unfamiliar rocking sensation, the steady roll of the waves outside the cabin. I lay confused for a moment, my eyes still shut. Then the ache of my body comes in to focus, and everything that happened last night comes flooding back to me in a rush of exhilaration and sweaty, gasping sex.

Emerson.

Emerson and me. Together. Fucking like our very lives depended on it.

I sit bolt upright with a gasp and look around. I’m alone on the narrow bunk in the tiny cabin, the sheets twisted around my naked body. I told Emerson there was no way we’d both fit to sleep here, but he just smiled a heart-stopping, exhausted smile and scooped me tight on top of his body. I drifted off with his arms locked around me, my head resting on his chest, lulled to sleep by the steady drum of his heartbeat and the slow roll of the boat on the waves.

The cabin is empty.

“Emerson?” I call out. He must be up on deck, doing boat things. I scooch back down on the bunk and let out a satisfied yawn. I can feel every muscle and tendon in my body, an ache low between my thighs reminding me all over again of the things we did up there on deck—and then again, here on the bunk, just as ravenous, until sleep finally took over us.

I drift there a while, sleepy, still wrapped in the lazy, delicious after-glow. When I surface again, there’s still no sign of Emerson in the cabin. I check my phone. It’s almost ten.

“Hello?” I call again. I find my sundress in a heap on the floor and pull it over my head, venturing up the ladder and emerging into the bright sunshine up on deck. “Emerson?”

I look around. He must have sailed us back to Cedar Cove sometime in the early morning, because we’re tethered up back by a dock at the harbor. But the boat is empty.

I feel a cold stab of fear.

No,
I tell myself quickly.
He wouldn’t have left you. He’s probably just off getting breakfast somewhere, or picking us up some coffee.

That must be it. I send him a quick text.
Where r u? Hope u bring back donuts.
Then I go back below deck and tidy up the cabin, making the bed and retrieving my underwear from the corner of the room. When I can’t distract myself any more, I climb back up and take a seat behind the wheel, watching the distant stream of cars in town, and the slow bustle of life along the shore—and trying like hell to ignore the flutter of anxiety rising in my chest.

The minutes tick past. With every glance at my phone, my fear grows. I try calling him, but it just switches straight to voicemail. I open my mouth to leave a message, but my words freeze in my throat. What can I say?