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“Mmm . . . good.” He gave her bottom a couple of slaps, but he quickly soothed away the sting with a kiss on each cheek. Then he was gone, and the sounds of a wrapper being opened filled the air. Apparently, he had the condom waiting, telling her that he suspected all along she’d come into his room after their interaction in the kitchen.
She gasped a little as he gathered her in his arms and flipped her over, sliding his hands up her arms until they were over her head. Pressed down into the mattress, she was pinned beneath his strength. “That first orgasm was all for you.” His voice brushed against her ear. “This one is mine.” With his one hand keeping hold of her wrist, the other at her hip, he was poised at her entrance, and a breath later he was inside her.
And it was everything she thought it would be.
He moved slowly, allowing her to adjust to his girth, before he began pumping his hips in a steady rhythm. That’s when she learned something about Shep. Sex was an endgame. His thrusts slowly picked up speed and force while he stared deeply into her eyes, thrusting his hips until they moved punishingly hard and fast. She drifted then, all thoughts ceased, time seemed to go away too. It was only the two of them, and this undeniable energy between them.
Skin against skin. The scent of their sex filled the air around, and his cock filled her perfectly, pressing against everything he needed to touch to raise a deeper climax. Her inner walls pulsed, her moans became screams.
He dropped his body against hers, trapping her beneath him, and slid a hand under her bottom, lifting her up to him. His groan tickled against her ear. “Take me with you.”
A minute later, she did.
She controlled nothing. Pleasure overwhelmed everything.
Their moans blended together, until she vaguely heard him grunting, and sensed him bucking and jerking on top of her. With her toes pointed and back arched, he delivered on his promise, sending her crashing into a pleasure that didn’t only affect her body.
His pleasure left a mark on her soul.
Chapter 5
The next morning, Emma woke to a cold, empty bed. The clock on the nightstand read nine o’clock. She slid out from between the bed sheets, the cool air brushing against her bare flesh, then went back into Grams’s room and set to dressing in leggings and a long T-shirt, not worrying about her hair and makeup. The house was quiet around her. Too quiet, in fact, bringing a slight race of her heart. The silence was the enemy, or so she’d learned recently. Maybe that’s because New York City was so loud, but that’s why she loved Kinky Spurs. The noise she was used to. The silence made her think too much.
She hurried downstairs, anticipating finding Shep making breakfast. Instead, she found the kitchen empty too. Disappointment washing over her, knotting her stomach, she noticed a note on the counter. She hastily grabbed the piece of paper. In Shep’s handwriting, the message read: I didn’t want to wake you. I have a meeting this morning. I’ll be back this afternoon. Shep.
With those simple words, the knot in her belly vanished. Shep planned to come back, and somehow that gave her something to look forward to. For weeks now, she’d stayed busy. Her day s
tarted with feeding the animals, then she’d leave and spend the day downtown. She wasn’t good at this alone thing.
She pushed those thoughts aside and set to making coffee, all too aware of what had been started in the kitchen last night. Maybe this was dangerous, allowing Shep into her bed. Though at the same time, she had no plans of getting into a relationship with him. With Jake, it’d been emotional. With Shep, he breathed passion. And that’s what she wanted. She simply needed to keep her heart out of it.
Easy.
Besides, she’d come to River Rock running on empty. Shep filled her back up. Literally.
She smiled, still on board with the decision she made last night. The coffee began to drip into the glass pot, and the phone rang. On the third ring, she grabbed the faded yellow phone handle with the curly cord, pressing it to her ear. “Hello.”
“Hi, sweetie.”
The familiar sound of her mother’s voice brought instant comfort, widening Emma’s smile. “Hi, Mom. How’s things?”
“Oh, everything is fine here,” her mother replied. “Work’s been busy. The suburban housing market is red-hot right now.” Mom and Dad, known to others as Kathleen and Jacob, owned Monroe Real Estate. Emma had worked for them all through high school, taking off the summers to come spend them with Grams, but real estate never interested her like it did her parents. “How about you, sweetie?” Mom continued. “How are things out there in River Rock?”
Emma considered telling her mom about the accident with Bentley, but Emma suspected she was already worrying her mother enough with the fact that she hadn’t come home yet. “Nothing much is new. I’m still working at the bar.”
Mom paused, then asked softly, “While I’m glad the bar is getting you out with people and you’re having fun, have you thought about when you’re coming home?”
Emma sighed, dropping down in the whitewashed wooden chair closest to her, crossing her legs. “I don’t know.” She knew she was running on fumes, not really sure what she was doing or where she was going to end up. Hell, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever go home. The damage to her image had been done. Sure, she could rebuild her reputation and prove she deserved her promotion, but she needed strength to do that. While she could lift her chin and barrel through it, she sensed the weak spot in her chest right now. She could have no weakness when she went home to face all those stares and the judgment.
Mom stayed quiet a moment, clearly lost in her thoughts. When she spoke again, her voice was full of warmth and love. “You know your father and I will support any decision you make, even if I selfishly want you home. If being at the farm makes you happy, then stay there. But please just ask yourself, are you staying for the right reasons? Is it because you’re happy there or because you’re hiding?”
The question was valid. Truth was, Emma didn’t know. She’d never thought in a million years that she’d live in River Rock. She’d visited Grams every summer until her early twenties when her job made her only able to go for a couple weeks each year, but her time there had been a quiet vacation, not something she could see herself doing forever. But that was also before her life fell apart. The thought of facing Jake again hurt. A year she’d been strung along, and she’d allowed that to happen. She needed to understand why before she stepped foot in New York City again. Knowing her mom awaited an answer, she replied, “When I find out the answer to that question, I’ll let you know.”
“That’s all I can ask, honey.” Emotion squeezed at Emma’s throat, and maybe Mom knew, because she changed the subject. “Anyway, Camille was asking about you at work the other day.” Camille had been Emma’s best friend during her teenage years. They’d been inseparable throughout high school. In fact, so close that Camille had caught the real estate bug and become a real estate agent, with Mom mentoring her. “Why haven’t you called her?” Mom finished.
Emma finally lifted her head from her palm, leaning back into the chair, staring at the branches of the mature pine tree waving in the breeze through the window above the sink. “I haven’t been really in the mood to talk to anyone.” Especially since she and Camille had drifted apart when Emma went to NYU while Camille got her real estate license. Their tight-knit friendship had turned into a Facebook friendship, with the odd dinner every once in a while to catch up.
“Emma,” Mom rebuked her. “You can’t let Jake destroy all your relationships. Your friends miss you.”
