Page 70 of On the Way to You
I knew it had to be in there, so I didn’t even let myself focus on what he’d written about me or about love before I was flipping back through the pages, searching for the mention of his grandma. The first entry I found was him remembering the one and only time she kayaked with the family in Santa Barbara before she was too old, too fragile to do it anymore. I was only halfway down that page when Emery’s voice called from the room.
“I know we just ate pizza like two hours ago,” he started, and I jumped, slamming the journal shut and placing it where I’d found it on the table. Kalo popped up and ran inside while I fidgeted with my hair, trying to seem natural. Emery rounded the edge of the sliding glass door, leaning his head out. “But I’m kind of hungry. I was thinking about ordering Chinese to be delivered. The Chinese food on this coast is incredible. You in?”
I forced a smile, heart still in my throat. “I never say no to sweet and sour chicken.”
“Or beef jerky.”
“Are you judging me for my love of dried meat?”
He shrugged. “Just saying, I’ve got more empty packages of Jack Links in the back of my car than they have full ones at the nearest gas station.”
I laughed, picking up one of the cardboard coasters on the table and flicking it at him. “Smart ass.”
“Be right back.”
Emery dipped inside, and I listened as he placed an order on the phone before joining me on the porch again.
His journal sat between us like it had a pulse.
For a while we just sat there, our eyes on the blacked-out beach, the sound of the waves the only one existing between us. I didn’t even notice him move until the porch light above us went dark, too, and Emery bent to his knees in front of me, positioning himself between my thighs.
“How do you feel?” he asked as my eyes adjusted, just the bridge of his nose coming into focus at first. Though the moon was nonexistent, the stars still fought to shine through the clouds, and the lights from the hotels around us glowed to the left and the right of our balcony.
“I feel amazing.”
“No,” he said, his hands finding each of my thighs. He slid them up marginally, thumbs brushing the hot skin between them. “I mean, how do youfeel. Are you sore?”
A tingle zipped its way up my legs from the point of contact where his thumb rested, like a shot of lightning injected straight into my nervous system.
“A little tender,” I admitted, my voice breathy and low.
His hands slid up higher, the cool breeze from the water rushing over the warm skin he left behind, leaving me covered in goosebumps. “I figured.” He paused, his fingers hooking in the band of my sleep shorts, and I lifted my hips before he could even tug on them. “I know you’re not ready to have me inside you again, not yet, but I can’t wait any longer to touch you,” he said, my shorts already halfway off as he pulled them down another inch. “Can I touch you, Cooper?”
A breathyyesleft my lips as my shorts hit my ankles, and Emery yanked them the rest of the way off, discarding them on the concrete base of the balcony. His eyes were barely visible in the dark, but I knew they were hot on me as he hooked his thumbs in the waistline of my panties next, sliding them off without breaking eye contact.
His hands wrapped around the backs of my thighs and gripped my hips, pulling until I hung off the wicker chair, the cushion moving with me. Then he ran one hand down my abdomen, his palm cupping me as one finger slipped between my lips.
“Fucking hell,” he groaned, the pad of his finger skating down to my opening before running back up to my clit. “I make you so wet. It kills me.”
I couldn’t respond, could barely breathe as he tested me, just the tip of his finger entering me as I arched into him. I cried out, more tender than I realized, but wanting him nonetheless.
A groan rumbled low in his throat, his finger curling just a bit before he withdrew it. “Yeah, you definitely need a night to rest,” he said, but he was already kissing my thighs, his mouth on a direct track for my core. “Maybe this will speed the healing time.”
His tongue flattened against that most sensitive part of me, that little button that seemed to be the detonator for my orgasms the night before, and he ran it long and hot over the bundle of nerves. I gasped, hands reaching back to grip the frame of the chair as my legs tensed around him. It didn’t matter that I’d had his mouth on me the night before, that I already knew how it felt — I knew right then I’d never get enough of it, no matter how much he gave me.
He moved until my good leg was draped over his shoulder, the other spread wide, and his tongue lashed me again, swirling and flicking before he sucked the detonator between his teeth with a hiss. That’s the best name I knew to give it, that little spot he touched, that tiny ball of sensitivity that sparked an electric wave each time he brushed it. And he was an expert, knowing just how long to touch me there before it became too much, before he would pull back and flatten his tongue again.
My orgasm mounted even quicker than the night before, blood rushing to my core in a rising tide with every lick. I squeezed my eyes shut, writhing under his mouth, hips grinding up and reaching. But Emery took his time, and just when I was on the edge of release, he pulled back, blowing softly on the swollen skin.
I collapsed, legs falling to the side as the orgasm I was so close to left as quickly as it had come, but the rest didn’t last for long before Emery’s mouth was on me again. It was shocking, the sensation of being so close and then cut off, only to have it rush back with a vengeance as soon as he touched me again.
“Oh, God,” I whispered, and Emery sucked harder, his hands gripping my thighs.
“Tell me,” he said, words vibrating through me.
“I think…”
“Say it.”