I Still Do (11 page)

Groaning, he edged up her chin with a finger beneath her bandage, lining up their mouths so he could give her the kind of kiss that definitely earned an untamed rating. His tongue slid into her mouth, warm and wet, and Emily squirmed on his lap, trying to find a way to get even closer to him.

His hand left her face and moved to the ankle of her uninjured leg. He trailed his touch up her shin, then swept it back down, creating another wash of goose bumps that headed toward her knee, then northward. Emily squirmed again, pivoting to wrap her arms around his neck and rub her aching breasts against his hard chest.

Will's exploring hand stole beneath the hem of her skirt, his warm fingers lighting fires along the ticklish flesh of her thighs. Emily parted them—she couldn't help herself—and when he touched her over her panties, she jerked against him. He broke the kiss, sliding his hot mouth to her ear. His teeth closed on the lobe just as she felt his firmer touch tease her right where she throbbed for him.

She responded with liquid heat, and she realized he could sense it as he followed the curve of her body and widened her legs for his hand. “You do want me,” he whispered, the hoarse tone rubbing against her nerve endings in yet another kind of touch. “I love to feel you, feel this. Feel that you really want me.”

One finger tucked under the leg band of her panties and she whimpered as he stroked the heated flesh there. “Oh, Will.” She wriggled her bottom on his hard thighs, and then ran her teeth along the edge of his jaw.

“Oh, Em.” There was a smile in his voice and she tried brushing it away with a kiss. But he took it over, turning it into something hotter, deeper. His tongue thrust into her mouth at the same moment his long finger thrust inside her.

Emily froze on a small gasp, startled by the sudden intimacy.

Will whispered against her mouth. “Too much?”

Her inner muscles answered for her, clamping down on him as she pushed her tongue into
his
mouth. He groaned.

“Too much for you?” she teased, empowered by the rough sound and the ready feel of his erection, hard and stiff against her hip.

He slid his hand free of her. “We'll see who surrenders first,” he said. “Let me know when you can't take the heat, honey.”

With that, he shifted her on his lap, drawing one of her legs over his hips so she straddled him, and so that their chests were flush. Her damp panties were pressed against the ridge beneath his jeans.

“Will?”

“Calling uncle already?”

“No.” She ran her palms up his chest, her fingers finding the hard points of his nipples. Though she didn't have Will's wild ambitions, his body, his reactions destroyed her inhibitions. It was daylight, in his kitchen, and yet beneath the hem of her skirt they were pressed intimately together.

It got even more daring and more intimate as he tugged at the stretchy bodice of her tank top to bare her breasts. The skinny straps pinned her arms to her sides and her nipples stood out, flushed and tight, and she saw his eyelids take on a sensual droop as he stared at them. He licked his lips, and then he bent his head, sucking one nipple into the hot confines of his mouth.

Emily arched, pushing against him so that his mouth widened to take in more of her flesh. She cried out with the pleasure of it, her fingers flexing against his T-shirt covered chest. He backed off for a minute to yank himself free of his shirt, and then his flesh was bare for her touch, too. She palmed his pectoral muscles as he went back to tonguing and sucking on her nipples.

Her head fell back, and she rocked against him, forced to move by the absolute goodness of his insatiable mouth and the need that was tightening all the muscles in her body. His hands snuck under her skirt again, and the sensitive flesh on her inner thighs twitched as he stroked them. And then his touch was gone and she realized he was working on the buttons of his fly.

Heat sizzled through her bloodstream. He wasn't…? He didn't mean…?

Here in his kitchen? On the straight-backed kitchen chair?

He
was
wild.

His mouth made a path of stinging kisses from her breast, up her throat, to her ear. “Lift a little, honey.”

Could she? Could she move? Could she do what he wanted
here?

The smile he gave her was a teasing one, but the light in his eyes was fierce with burning desire. “I have a condom if you want to take a ride.” The silky, hot flesh of his shaft brushed against her soft inner thigh and she suddenly—fiercely—wanted it all.

“You know I do,” she whispered, her voice shaky.

His smile turned more feral. “Lift up a little.”

When she did, he fingered away the crotch of her panties and then he was there instead, opening her.

Opening her heart.

Filling her.

Filling her chest with feelings that were half-remembered, and yet wholly new.

Under her skirt, his long fingers found her waist, and he directed her movements, encouraging her to slide down as he slid up. To roll her hips as he tilted his.

Theirs was a perfect fit: soft swells to hard planes, slippery heat to heavy thrust, masculine angles to womanly well.

Emily squeezed her eyes tight, trying to hold out, trying to hold on to this memory forever, but Will wasn't letting her off that easy.

“Open your eyes, Em,” he ordered. “Look at us.”

Look at them. Playing cowgirl and stud. Rowdy. Maybe even a little raunchy. There wasn't another man in the universe who could get her, Librarian Emily, to make love in a kitchen in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. There wasn't another man in the universe who could make her do something that felt maybe a little bit dirty—and revel in every second of the sweet, hot sexiness of it.

He made her feel so safe.

“Come for me, Emily,” he whispered, and one of his hands slid to the front of her body and circled and pressed and pressed and circled and her muscles clamped harder on the thick, satisfying intrusion inside her. She rode him, rode those circles of pleasure that spiraled tighter and tighter until she went…

Wild.

Wild for Will.

As her orgasm broke over her, her heart seemed to break open, already compromised by all the feelings Will brought out in her. Her chest ached as her body rocked and quivered. She let him take her mouth as he groaned in response to his own release.

She let him take her mouth, just as he had everything else. The sexuality that had been smoldering inside of her for so long was his. And so was her heart.

Maybe she could have grabbed it back if her wild lover hadn't been so gentle with her after. But the man who'd coaxed her to such an amazing completion in his kitchen now coaxed her into a warm shower. Then, once again bundled in his robe, he persuaded her between his sheets, where he held her against his damp, naked body, her head tucked into the curve of his neck and shoulder.

They dozed.

When she awoke he was putting a glass of orange juice beside her on the night table, and when he saw she was awake, he helped her sit up to sip the liquid. Then they snuggled together again, talking idly about everything and nothing.

She suggested he take his pizza skills up a notch by using pre-made crusts and his own toppings.

He mentioned she might find recruits for her film-and-book club through an outreach program the fire department had for teens.

They shared a lingering kiss.

It was a different kind of intimacy than they'd shared in his kitchen, she thought, rubbing her cheek against his warm, Will-scented skin.

And without a qualm, realized that her fresh start had led her back…back to an old love, now rekindled.

She was in love with Will. She glanced over at him, wondering what he thought of what was in store for them, and she caught him staring at her with an intent, considering expression in his eyes.

“What's on your mind?” she asked.

“I suppose we're heading for a divorce,” he mused. “Surely an annulment is now out of the question.”

O
wen turned his head to stare at Will as they neared the first mile-marker of their favorite five-mile run. “You didn't really say that, did you?”

Will grimaced. Though he hadn't told Owen what preceded his words to Emily, he thought he could forgive a faux pas. His brain hadn't been fully engaged at the time. His head had still been reeling by what Emily had done with him in his kitchen and what high plane that erotic act had left him on. And then, with her curled up at his side in his bed, he could only keep repeating to himself,
I married this woman!

And the lack of panic at that thought had…really sent him into a panic.

“I don't want to be tied down,” he said to Owen. “God, not now when I've just gained my freedom. As for Emily…she's the same. She doesn't want to be tied to some old boyfriend from the past when she moved here to make a fresh start.”

“Sounds good, friend,” Owen agreed, then he paused. “But you didn't really say that, did you?”

“Oh, hell.” Will hung his head so he could watch his running shoes slap against the asphalt. “Though she seemed to take it in stride, she left my place not long after. You don't know how much I wanted to kick my own butt after I heard the words come out of my mouth.”

Owen grunted. “I know another butt that needs some similar tending to,” he muttered.

Will shot the other man a look. Sweat had darkened his blond hair to a dull gold. He didn't look any happier than Will felt. “No luck reaching Isabella?” he asked.

Owen shook his head. “No luck at all.”

His buddy had taken time off immediately following the Las Vegas trip. The Marston family were big-time big shots from way back and on occasion the other man slipped out of his fire gear and into a tuxedo to please his grandfather. Owen had spent the last two weeks fulfilling one of these command performances at the family's vacation home in Lake Tahoe.

“Izzy avoiding you?” Will asked.

“You think?” his friend said. “Damn it all!” He stepped up the pace and it took a burst of speed for Will to catch up with him. “What got into us that night?”

“And the night before,” Will reminded him. He'd run into Emily on Friday afternoon and by Friday night both he and Owen had been sharing tables and kisses with the two women. It had seemed so easy, so natural, so exactly what he was looking for after all those years of sibling responsibility. A little sexy fun with an old friend.

A little sexy fun had turned into a lot of…

Hell, he didn't know what to term what was going on with him and Emily, or what he was going to do about it.

“Em e-mailed me the day after my stupid remark,” he told Owen. “We can still actually annul our wedding. We just have to come up with something like intoxication at the ceremony. Or current insanity works, too.”

Owen snorted.

Will could agree with the sentiment. Except, well, the nights he'd been with Emily in Las Vegas he
had
been intoxicated. With her scent, with the warmth of her skin, with the damn joy he'd felt in finding her again. Her mouth alone could make a man drunk.

As for current insanity…

She
was
making him nuts.

But that wasn't all on Emily. He slowed his pace because there was no running away from all this trouble taking hold of his life. “Call me a Luddite, but I'm thinking of dumping my e-mail account.”

Owen snorted again.

In this day and age, yeah, he probably couldn't avoid an Internet-reliant life. But did he ever want to.

Avoid how convenient it was for those siblings of his to send him messages that dragged him back into the fold. “Jamie's called in her marker,” he said. “Dinner on Thursday. No doubt the whole crowd will be there. But when she agreed to ask Em to her book group, I gave her an IOU.”

“And she called it in.”

“She called it in.” He glanced at Owen. “Want to come?”

“Why? You need a buffer?”

“You'll be my second,” Will admitted. “I invited Emily along, too.”

Owen didn't need to say a thing for Will to know the other man was baffled. He couldn't explain it himself. “Look, if you come with us, you can grill Em about how to deal with Isabella.”

“I think I'll work on my barbecuing skills all by my lonesome, thanks very much. Though I'm scratching my head at why you're setting up dates with the woman you want to be free from in the first place.”

Will glanced down at the face of his sports watch, noting the month and day. Once again he didn't attempt to explain his own fuzzy motives. He thought he could be forgiven for it because it was the time of year when nothing made sense to him.

 

Emily was comfortable at Will's sister Jamie's house. She was growing accustomed to his siblings, too, and the chaos surrounding the clan when the group of them got together. She wasn't at ease with Will, though. Not tonight.

Though she'd thought over that whole in-love-with-him thing and decided she'd been wrong about it. It had been a momentary lapse on her part, a little bit of her loneliness talking that had led her to believe she'd fallen for Will. The world didn't work that way, did it? It wouldn't be so unfair as to have a woman find herself in love with a man who wouldn't love her back.

So while she was in a better place about the emotional angle, it still wasn't going to be easy to have that long-postponed discussion about the dissolution of their marriage. It was definitely going to happen tonight, though, she thought, accepting the after-dinner mug of tea he'd retrieved for her and brought out to the deck at his sister's house. Sipping it, she studied him over the rim as he took a swallow from his bottle of beer.

Via e-mail, he'd asked her to accompany him tonight. Via e-mail she'd accepted. His second electronic missive had referred to the annulment and divorce information she'd sent to him earlier. “We'll get into this after Jamie's dinner,” he'd written.

But despite Will being on the verge of getting what he wanted—her out of his hair—he didn't appear any more relaxed in her company than she was in his.

Maybe it wasn't about her, though. Maybe he was just soaking up tension from the general surrounding atmosphere. Because the Dailey siblings, while as loud and energetic as the other times she'd been around all or some of them, were palpably on edge. Throughout appetizers and then the dinner itself, they'd slid looks at their brother and at each other, as if they had something up their sleeves. Something that had to do with Will, and they weren't sure just how he'd take the surprise.

Emily's stomach jittered and she found herself stepping nearer to him, even as she knew the closeness wasn't good for her heart. Keeping her distance would be better, but once she breathed in the warm spiciness of his clean scent she found it even more difficult to move away. Will himself shifted, his arm grazing hers, and their eyes met.

“You look beautiful,” he said. His voice was soft, but had a hint of accusation in it. “You always look so damn beautiful.”

Yet instead of seeing herself as she was dressed right now, in a pair of cropped jeans, sandals and simple, boat-necked white T-shirt, another image popped into her mind. Will, sitting in his straight kitchen chair. Emily straddling him, her little skirt draped over his thighs, hiding the secret, sexy business that was happening under the lightweight cotton.

Her nipples tingled, and she licked her lips, trying to solve the problem of a suddenly dry mouth. Will's eyelids dropped, his lashes hitting half-mast as he stared at her exposed tongue. Embarrassed, aroused, she popped it back in her mouth and lifted her tea. Maybe he'd think the flush on her face was due to the heat of the drink.

Shaking his head, he looked away. “That's one memory that won't be receding anytime soon,” he muttered.

She might have laughed about the twin ways their minds worked, if only he seemed more appreciative than irked. So, yeah, some space was what they definitely needed. With a breath, she turned her back on him to smile at the little guy now marching onto the deck, plastic forks gripped in each fist.

“Are you helping Mom, Todd?”

Jamie's son nodded his head, continuing on his journey to the two long picnic tables where they'd eaten their meal. “We're havin' cake. Birt-day cake.”

“Oh.” Emily looked around the assembled crowd. “I didn't know this was a celebration.”

The Dailey family quieted as one. This gathering was smaller than the first she'd attended—only the siblings themselves were present, without significant others, except for Jamie's husband, Ty, and their two children. They all looked at Emily, slid guilty gazes at Will, then looked down at their feet.

“What's going on?” Will asked, his voice sharp. “Nobody has a birthday this month.”

Jamie stepped onto the deck from the house, a rectangular bakery box in her hands. “You wouldn't let us do anything for you earlier this summer,” she said.

“This was all her idea,” Tom added, jutting his thumb in his older sister's direction. It wasn't clear if he meant to give her the credit or the blame.

“I don't want to blow out any candles,” Will said.

Todd rushed over to his uncle and strangled his knees with chubby arms in a sure sign of toddler adoration. “I do it.”

“Both of us need to stay away from flames,” Will said, leaning down to swing Todd up in his arms. “Right, buddy? Fire's dangerous. You need to remember that.”

Emily's heart clenched a little at how naturally he held the boy and how sweetly the child nestled up to his uncle's chest. Despite how hard Will tried to separate himself from this family, every one of them, from the oldest sibling to his baby niece, Polly, wanted him in their lives.

Why didn't he see how special that was? Why didn't he appreciate their stalwart affection?

Jamie slid the bakery box onto the nearest table beside a stack of paper plates. “It's not really a birthday cake,” she said. “Now, everyone, come back and sit down.”

Again, there was that odd sense of tension on the deck. Dusk was settling, and Betsy had lit votive candles that sat in glass holders placed along the center of the wood surface. The group returned to the places they'd taken before, Will in the center, Emily beside him, his brothers and sisters arranged around the other places.

As he took his seat, Ty replaced Will's empty beer with a fresh one, and Emily looked up, trying to gauge the other man's expression. But the shadows and the flickering candlelight made it hard to get a clear read. Did he think Will needed some liquid relaxation for what was coming?

Because something
was
coming.

Will sensed it, too, she figured, because his lean body froze. “What's going on?”

Jamie had retrieved baby Polly, and instead of sitting, was standing behind her spot, shifting from foot to foot as the infant dozed in her arms. “It's nothing bad, Will. It was just something we thought…we wanted to acknowledge…”

Tom piped up again. “This was all her idea.”

“Okay,” Will said. “Jamie's the culprit. But what the hell's the problem?”

Todd craned his neck to look up at his dad from his place on his father's lap. “Yeah. What d'hell?”

It should have been at least a little funny. But nobody on the deck laughed.

Betsy cleared her throat. “It's not a problem, okay? It's something…something that has to be expressed. After thirteen years…I think it's time we told you something, Will.”

Beside her, Emily felt his body stiffen.

Betsy continued. “You wouldn't let us talk about it at my graduation. You refused to let us have a party for your birthday this summer. But this month there's another important date—”

“No.” Will's voice was tight and tension radiated from his skin. The little hairs on Emily's body lifted in empathetic agitation. “Don't do this,” he said.

His youngest sister's voice rose. “Don't acknowledge and appreciate what you did for us? How you kept us together, a family? That's not right, Will.”

Leaning over, she whisked the top off the box to reveal a fancy bakery sheet cake, chocolate—Will's favorite—with letters in blue that read:

Thank you, Bird Brother

“
Bird
brother?” Emily echoed.

A sheepish Max raised his hand. “That's on me. When I was learning to talk, I mangled ‘big brother'. It sorta stuck. We used ‘bird brother' more often than his name until—”

“You didn't need to do this.” Will made an abrupt rise to his feet. “You shouldn't have done this.”

From his other side, Alex put his hand on Will's arm. “It's been thirteen years, Will. Thirteen years today. And—”

“I know what day it is,” Will's voice lashed out and he jerked free of Alex's hold. “I know goddamn well what day.”