All I Need (Hearts of the South) (25 page)

Keeping their hands linked, she led him to the formal dining room, which sure enough looked like a baby-rama. The room sounded like one too, as Hamilton was fully awake and not happy about it. Rob cradled her against his shoulder, pacing the length of the room and patting her small back while she fussed and grumbled.

Savannah caught Emmett’s eye, and he grinned. He leaned one shoulder against the doorway and released her hand.

“You think the kid has enough clothes?” Savannah lifted one small dress from the stack of garments. The white cotton had yellow flowers embroidered across the smocked front.

“Listen, some days she goes through as many wardrobe changes as we did for pageants.” Amy laughed and slid her fingernail under the tape on a brightly wrapped package. She lifted the top from the small garment box and parted the tissue paper. A smile tipped the corners of her mouth. “Oh, that’s cute.”

She held up a sleeper with “Daddy’s Little Girl” embroidered on the chest.

“Who is it from, dear?” Their grandmother waited, pen poised over the notebook where she was recording gifts and givers.

Amy pulled a vellum rectangle from the tissue paper and stilled, her mouth going tense and taut. Rob stopped midstep, his gaze on her face. His eyes narrowed. “What?”

“It’s from Jake Stringham.” She dropped the sleeper and card back in the box and pushed it away. “That’s just weird.”

Their mother glanced up at Rob. “He was one of your groomsmen, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.” The syllable emerged edgy and tight.

“You’re friends with Jake Stringham?” Surprise colored Emmett’s voice behind her.

“Not anymore.”

“Good. The guy’s a total a—” Emmett coughed. “Um, jerk. GSP let him go a few months back after some incidents, and he hired on at the EMS station a couple of months ago after he recertified as an EMT. They put him in an ambulance with Nikki Pantone for a probationary period. He lasted about a week.”

Rob’s entire posture went impossibly rigid. “He’s in Chandler County?”

“Yeah. None of the local agencies will touch him, and he’s working in the guard shack out at McGee’s.”

“Great.” Rob rubbed a hand over his mouth. He held Hamilton with the other, fingers splayed protectively across her back. “Just…great.”

“Rob, it’s probably nothing.” Amy shook her head. She cast a skeptical glance at the gift box. “Maybe it’s a peace offering.”

Rob and Emmett produced matching sounds of male disparagement. Rob pointed at the present. “I don’t care what you do with it, but don’t you ever put it on my daughter.”

“No,” Amy agreed, her voice small.

Despite their best efforts, the interlude left a shadow on an otherwise bright day. They passed the rest of the afternoon, finishing ooh-ing and aah-ing over baby gifts and finally leaving close to sunset. During the drive home, Emmett dozed off near Thomasville, and Savannah cast occasional glances at him, face relaxed in slumber. She flexed her fingers over the wheel, her ring finger not feeling as oddly empty as it had for months.

When she pulled into the parking lot of their complex, darkness hovered, broken by security lights. She killed the engine and rested a gentle hand on his knee. “Emmett.”

He roused, blinking, and scuffed a hand across his eyes. “Hey. Sorry.”

“For what?” She circled his knee with her fingertips.

“Falling asleep on you like that.”

“No problem.” She smiled, still caressing his knee. “We’ve both had a catnap, so we should be rested.”

“Yeah?” He grinned and shifted in the seat. “We might just have to find something to do.”

“Definitely.” She pulled her keys from the ignition and pushed the door open. He retrieved his phone from the console and tapped a quick text, one she knew without asking was to Landra. After a reply blipped on his phone, he met her at the sidewalk and grabbed her hand to pull her into a loose embrace. Her arms about his neck, she walked backward, drawing him toward her door. “As much as I like you in that suit, I really want to get you out of it.”

A lazy smile hitched up the corners of his mouth, and he played his hands over the small of her back. “I can arrange that.”

Keys in hand, she spun to unlock the door. He lowered his head to deliver a small love bite to the curve where her shoulder met her neck, and she laughed, her hands shaking too much to get the key in the lock. She leaned back into him a moment, desire a deep ache between her thighs. “You realize with the vasectomy, I can test us, and if everything comes back clean, we can dispense with the condoms. Imagine the spontaneity.”

He groaned, hips canted into her ass. “How soon can we make that happen?”

“Like tomorrow.” She managed to get the door open, and in the hallway, he backed her against the wall. Hands flat on the wall above her head, he leaned in and took her mouth. She opened her lips and sucked at the tip of his tongue. His groan vibrated through her, and he pressed in, deepening the kiss.

Still kissing her, he fought free of his jacket and pulled his tie off, both garments hitting the floor. Laughter and desire fizzing in her, she worked the buttons on his shirt free. “You should hang that up so it doesn’t get wrinkled.”

“It can go to the cleaners.” He trailed his lips along her jaw to find the sensitive skin beneath her ear. Parting his shirt, she pulled his undershirt free of his waistband and rubbed her thumbs over the indentations of his abs, his skin hot beneath her touch. He ran his hands beneath her dress, cupped her thighs, and lifted her against him. “Wrap your legs around me.”

She did, laughter spilling free as he carried her down the hall. “Are you sure you should be doing this? Your leg—”

“Is completely okay for me to do this.” He flexed his hands against her skin. “I told you, I won’t let you fall. I’m not going to drop you, either.”

In the bedroom, he let her slide along his body so she stood before him. She pushed his shirt down his arms, and he shrugged free of it, his own hands seeking her zipper. Her dress hit the floor and she stepped free. He made short work of her bra and cupped her breasts in warm palms. A lazy smile played about his mouth. “Tonight, you can leave the shoes on.”

With him thumbing her nipples and desire strumming through her, she couldn’t think of a smartass reply. Instead, she lifted her mouth to his, tangling their tongues together, and reached for his belt. He released her long enough to shed his slacks, then returned to making her crazy for him. Still molding her breasts, he backed them toward her bed.

“You wanted me out of my suit and you got it.” He sat on the bed and pulled her down with him. “Maybe you should take me.”

He was giving her control, and all that did was make her burn hotter.

“Maybe I should.” She pushed him back, and he folded his arms behind his head, eyes on her as she slid her panties down her legs and crawled up him.

“Nothing but pearls and heels on you,” he murmured, lifting one hand to stroke from her knee to thigh. He ran a fingertip along the string of pearls at her neck. “Damn deacons were so wrong.”

“What are you talking about?” She leaned across him to grab a condom from her nightstand, and he took the opportunity to scrape his teeth along her nipple. Passion clenched hard between her legs. “God, Emmett.”

He laughed, a dark sound deep in his throat, and moved his attentions to her other breast. “They were certain I wasn’t going to heaven, but I’m damn sure there.”

She clutched the condom as he nipped once more, his fingers dipping between her legs to the wetness there. He plunged them inside her, and she cried out.

“Wait.” She grasped his hair with her other hand, breathing hard to fight off a sudden climax. “I want to come with you inside me.”

That dark laugh curled through her, right to where he touched her so intimately. “You’d better hurry then, sweetheart.”

She grabbed his wrist and pushed his arm above his head. He was hard, erection pulsing against her thigh, and she sat back, gaze on his while she tore the wrapper open with exquisite care.

His eyes burned. “You are such a damn tease.”

She pulled the latex free and dangled it above him. “You love it.”

“I do.” Something soft and sweet twined with the hoarse desire in his voice. She stretched the sheath down over him, abrading both palms down him, and he shifted his hips, a half-laugh, half-yell escaping his throat. “Damn it, Savannah.”

“What, Em? Too much?” She reached for his hands above his head and lifted her hips over his, only to lower onto him with the same care she’d given the wrapper. He thrust up to meet her.

“Never.” He turned his head, his mouth caressing the inside of her elbow while she took him, sliding up and down on his hardness. “I could never get too much of you.”

There was that quiet note she couldn’t quite decipher. She closed her eyes, lost in the sensation of having him inside her, of the sweet hit of pleasure she took every time she went all the way down and the base of him pressed against her clitoris.

“Savannah.” He fought one hand free of her easy hold and pushed tangled hair away from her face. He thrust harder under her. “Open your eyes. Look at
me
.”

She lifted heavy lashes to find his gaze dark with desperate desire. Tension tightened between them, so she almost hurt with it. He tangled his hand in her hair and dragged her lips down, his tongue invading her mouth the way he took her body. On a harsh groan, he grasped her ass cheek with his other hand, using the leverage to push even deeper inside her. With a gasping moan, she came hard, with his tongue silencing her cry and him so hard and deep inside her she didn’t know where they were separated. He slammed up inside her again, pushing the climax into unbearable intensity, and he cried out into her mouth, swelling and pulsing within her.

She collapsed into him, face buried in his throat, eyes squeezed closed against a flow of stupid tears. A physiological response to extreme release. Nothing more. She breathed hard, trying to get oxygen into her system. His chest heaved under her, and he pressed her head against him. Tension strained in him a moment, then he relaxed under her. One arm wrapped around her, he kissed her temple, a gentle, barely-there caress that brought renewed tears to her eyes.

She needed to say something,
anything
, to break the emotion binding them together, but damn it, if she opened her mouth, she was going to cry for real.

And she wasn’t going to look at that, wasn’t going to think about what that meant. Instead, she kept her eyes closed and let him hold her.

Chapter Thirteen

She wasn’t quite used to waking up with Emmett in her bed, but she liked it. Savannah stretched against him, a distinctly feminine soreness between her thighs, and rubbed her foot over his ankle.

“Hey.” His drowsy greeting rumbled under her ear. “Morning.”

“Hmm.” She kissed his clavicle and flexed her hands at his waist. “What time is it?”

He rotated his wrist to squint at his watch. “About ten minutes until we have to get up.”

A giggle built in her throat. “Wonder what we could actually accomplish in ten minutes.”

“I can do a lot in ten minutes.” He rolled so she was beneath him, thighs hugging his hips. He pressed against her, morning erection sliding along her labia. “Let me show you.”

He kissed his way down her sternum, lips tickling over her abdomen, and buried his nose in the curls at the junction of her thighs. Anticipation curled in her lower belly as he shifted her thighs further apart with his shoulder. A gentle touch of his tongue to her clitoris almost did her in.

“Who’s a tease?” She tangled her fingers in the thick strands of his hair, and he laughed, the sound a sexy throb against her. He closed his mouth on her, tongue flicking, and he entered her with a pair of fingers. She bowed into him, the tension building quickly under his determined attention, and soon she called his name on a sharp climax.

A hand on either side of her hips, he did a pushup, crawled up the bed, and collapsed against the pillow. He looked at his watch. “Six minutes. Hell, I’m good.”

Boneless with the aftereffects of a shattering orgasm, she crowed with laughter and elbowed him in the abs. “Arrogant.”

He chuckled and pulled her to him. “Don’t hear you complaining.”

“No.” She relaxed into him, trailing her fingers up and down the center of his abdomen. She tickled the area right above his pubic hair. “Maybe we should compare time trials.”

“You’d win. I last, what, two minutes when you put your mouth on me?”

“I have a little bit of an advantage.” She smiled against his pecs and ran her hand down to cup his scrotum, pressing a finger against his perineum so he groaned. “I’m good at anatomy, remember?”

“You’re good at lots of stuff.” He glanced at his watch again. “You have three and a half minutes until the alarm goes off.”

It only took her two minutes, forty seconds. Knowing the exact location of the prostate gland was a help sometimes.

“Dear Lord.” Winded, he pressed a wrist against his eyes. “You cheat.”

“You benefit, though.” She smacked his hip with a light hand and reached to disable the alarm before it rang.