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“I think I spotted a tickle monster,” his deep voice booms. “You girls better run and hide!”
Allie is back up and jumping, looking for somewhere to hide. She runs and circles around me as I sit cross-legged, unsure what to expect of their little game. She takes cover behind a few small couch pillows we put in the ‘bedroom’ of our fort, ushering for me to hide with her.
“Nenna, hide!” she whisper-screams.
I hop up on all fours, ready to crawl and attempt to hide my entire frame behind a piddly couch pillow the size of my head when Emmett claws open our cardboard gate. He grabs my ankle, pulls me down, and drags me across the floor toward him a hell of a lot easier than I thought someone would be able to manage. He pauses over me, and I don’t have time to figure out what he’s going to do next before a devilish smile crosses his face. His hand grips the tender area behind my knee, because of course, that asshole remembers the one spot I’m ticklish.
I cry out, temporarily paralyzed and giddy, not remembering the last time I had a true tickle fight. “Allie,” I scream in between squeals, “come save me!”
With a warrior's cry she leaps out from behind the pillows and onto Emmett’s back. He pulls her off with his spare arm and moves her around and under his body. He tickles her with his free hand as he blows raspberries on her neck.
She squeals, elated with the fight between us. He lets her go, only for her to turn around and wiggle her fingers at him, making some sort ofgitta, gitta, gittanoise as she does her best to poke and tickle him. He feigns injury, acting like each spot she’s hitting is the spot that’s going to take him down.
But he’s a faker, and Allie hasn’t yet found his secret spot.
“Allie, two against one!”
I rise to my knees and we both tickle him, me reaching to pinch that sweet spot behind his neck because, well, two can play at that game.
He laughs, a high-pitched, girly laugh.
Allie hops on his back, thinking she has found his ultimate weakness, and her jump catches him off guard. He starts to fall forward, reaching one hand behind him to grasp Allie so she doesn’t fly off, and they both crash on top of me.
We lay like that for a moment, me flat on my back under him, wondering how twenty-six somehow feels like I’m eighty-six when it comes to wrestling a two-year-old. Allie lingers on his back, head to the side now, giving him a hug before she crawls off. “Snackies?” she asks, crawling out of our fort.
“You okay?” Emmett asks as he turns his attention to me.
It’s all I can do to nod, because whether he realizes it or not, he’s on his elbows, forearms framing my head and his thigh is bridged between my legs and I’m thinking all sorts of thoughts about us in this same position, except no clothes involved.
I swallow a dry swallow and nod.
“Yeah.”
He must be able to read my body language, because he doesn’t move, even as we hear the snap of his lunch box lid open, followed by the rustle of plastic.
“She always digs through my lunch pail in case I didn’t eat all of my Little Debbies.”
“Oh.” It’s all I can manage to say, somehow making it sound like a question, as if I live in a world where I’ve never heard of Little Debbie snack cakes. But all thinking is rendered useless when his knee juts up further to push my thighs apart.
I reach a hand up to palm his cheek, loving the feel of his scruff against my sensitive skin. “Still weird to see you with a beard . . . but I like how it feels.”
I’d like it better in between my legs.
I reach the other hand up, so my hands frame his face, pulling my bottom lip between my teeth as I run my hands over his beard, through his hair and down to his jaw, brushing my knuckles along his the soft bristles on his chin.
He groans, bringing his thumb up to pull my lip from between my teeth but keeps it there, lightly grazing it back and forth, on the border of dipping it between my lips but holding himself back. Inch by inch, he lowers his body until his weight is on me, head dipping down a little, but he’s hesitant, always the gentleman and never forcing himself on me.
Six months ago, I would have sworn I’d never speak to him again even if I had the chance. Hell, a month ago I would have said my mom was right, that once we were older and into our twenties and had met other people, we’d lose interest in each other. I would have chalked any feelings I had up to dumb teenage infatuation and a memory of a boy who has now changed. But becoming his friend all over again, seeing him as a father, how much he cares for Allie and the responsibility he’s taken on . . . it only makes me want him more.
If it wasn’t blatantly obvious before, I realize now my mom had no fucking clue what she was talking about.
“Hey, Emmett?”
“Hmm?” he responds, eyes closed, half dozing to the feeling of my hands running through his hair.
“Kiss me?”
His eyes snap open, crystal irises darting back and forth between my eyes, a faint flush crawling up the sides of his face. “Fuck yeah,” he whispers roughly before grasping my jaw with his palm and crashing our lips together.
