Page 83 of The Love Rematch
“Or better yet,” she whispers, her lips on his ear. “Show me.”
Jake shudders as if in surrender and pushes her back until she hits the wall. Her shoulders scrape against the rough stone of the building’s facade while his hands come to either side of her face. She’s caged between his arms. He doesn’t touch her except to bring their foreheads together, and they breathe across the silence.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Emily waits, too afraid to move, to speak, sure that anything she does will only scare him, a turtle retreating back into its shell.
After the longest minute of her life, he lowers his right arm. At first, she thinks he’s turning away and disappointment floods through her. It’s replaced almost immediately by a sudden rush of nerves as his fingers gently graze the inside of her wrist. Her heart pounds in her chest but she remains stock still as he slowly trails his touch up her arm. The path scorches as if drawn by dynamite as he moves past her elbow, across her shoulder, over her collarbone, up the column of her throat, until finally, his thumb comes to rest on the center of her lower lip. He tugs it ever so slightly into a pout.
“Em,” he murmurs. The sound makes her shiver.
He’s still fighting it, still resisting.
Until suddenly he’s not.
Jake grabs the back of her neck and closes the distance between them. He devours her, his mouth hungry and urgent as he lays claim to her lips, wiping all thought of any other man away. She grips the front of his shirt and pulls him closer, then tilts her head to deepen the kiss. Seven years of pent-up sexual tension explodes in an instant. His touch is fire. It sets her aflame as he drags his lips across her jaw and down her throat, to the spot near the base of her neck he clearly remembers. Her head falls back against the stone with a sigh. He slides his hand down her side and brushes the edge of her breast on the way to her hip, making her burn deep in her core. She needs something to do, something to hold, so she threads her fingers into his hair and drags her nails along his scalp until he groans. But she doesn’t have time to appreciate the deep rumble in his chest before his lips are back on hers, searing all conscious thought away. There’s only him and his mouth and his hands. Time fades as she loses herself in the moment, uncaring of the risks, of the consequences, of all the ways he once broke her.
But Jake remembers.
He retreats, panting. “We can’t do this.”
“We already are,” she says and pulls him back, because when they’re kissing, nothing else matters.
“You’re drunk,” he says against her lips.
“Only a little.”
“I made a promise.”
“Who cares?”
“Me,” he says and rips himself back. The sudden rush of cool air is like a slap to the face. “I care, Em. I made a promise—”
“Seven years ago,” she retorts, unable to believe he’s falling back on this as an excuse. “When I was seventeen, sober, and a virgin. And you damn well know I’m none of those things now.”
“That doesn’t change what I said to you that night. I meant it then, and I mean it now. I never want to be someone you regret in the morning.”
“Too late, Jake,” she seethes as she pushes past him. “You already are.”
He hooks her around the waist, not letting her go so easily. “What does that mean?”
“What do you think?”
“Are you seriously mad at me for not taking advantage of you?”
“Yes!” But because that comes out wrong, she then mutters, “No.” But that’s not right either, so she releases a frustrated growl and jabs a finger in the center of his chest. “I’m mad at you for taking advantage of me all the times I didn’t want you to, but not the one time I did.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“You’re being purposefully obtuse.”
He gapes at her.
