Page 24 of Cupcak
“I’m crying because I love you.”
I inhale sharply, still confused but filled with renewed hope all the same.
She keeps talking, “I love you, Drake. I love you so much. So much that it scares the absolute living crap out of me. Don’t you understand?”
I don’t, I really don’t, and I am still too shaken by her declaration that she loves me to really even try to understand.
“Everyone I love. Everyone who loves me. They all leave,” she cries, fresh tears coming anew. “Drake, I’m so scared you’ll leave me one day too. You think you won’t. But that’s what happens. People say I love you then one day, they just go. They go and they leave you behind, wondering what you could have done better to make them stay.”
“Oh, Emmy. That could never happen.” I breathe, running my fingers along the edge of her hair.
“You can’t know that. You can’t love me, Drake. I don’t see how you can. You’ll realize one day that I’m nothing but a silly girl, and then what? I barely got over what Mom did. But Drake, I love you so much. If you left, I couldn’t bear it.”
As her words tumble from her mouth, suddenly it all makes sense. We’re moving so fast and feeling so much that I scared her. To me, love is the ultimate emotion, but to her—a child who was abandoned—love is a thing of suspicion. I place my hands on either side of her face and hold her so she’s looking right at me.
“Oh, Emmy. My sweet, beautiful, Emmy. I do love you. More than I can possibly comprehend. And I know in my heart and soul that I could never even breathe without you, let alone walk away. But if it makes you feel any better, I won’t say it until you’re comfortable saying it back. And if it helps, I’ll tell you I hate you instead. Hell, I’ll say I hate you so much I want to keep you around forever just so I can torture you. Does that work for you?”
“That depends.” She sniffs, a slight smile pulling at her mouth. “How do you plan to torture me?”
I lean in close. “The same way I did last night. I like to hear you scream, cupcake. So to torture you so thoroughly would be my ultimate pleasure.”
“Torture me now,” she gasps, rolling her hips against me and very quickly waking me up.
“Now?” I look into her eyes, and she nods. Then my mouth is crashing down on hers, my hands plunging into her soft hair as I kiss her and lean her back on the couch.
“Oh, Drake.” Her hands work the buttons of my trousers, and she pulls the zipper down to release me, her hands wrapping around my cock and squeezing gently.
Driven mad with lust, with relief, and a feeling of euphoria, I lift her up a little as I tug her sweatpants down her legs, shoving them to the floor so I can position myself against her opening and slide inside her ridiculously wet and ready opening. Her head falls back, revealing the creamy length of her neck as she frantically rolls against me, my hips thrusting into her with equal fervor.
“Holy fuck.”
“Drake!”
“Emmy.”
We both climax, clinging to each other as we sag against the couch, gasping and reeling from our combined orgasm and the intensity of emotion that comes from being together.
“I love you,” Emmy sighs, her hands toying with a button on my shirt.
“Am I allowed to say it back?” I ask, kissing her softly before I press up on my hand and hold myself over her.
“As long as you promise never to leave me.”
“I promise,” I whisper, lowering my head and kissing her again. “But you have to promise the same. Because there’s something I want to ask you, and I don’t want you to take off again because I freaked you out, OK? But it’s important, and it’ll mean we’ll be together for the rest of our lives.”
“OK.” She smiles sweetly as her eyes search mine.
“Marry me,” I blurt out, taking a massive gamble and hoping it pays off. In my heart, I know she’s my one, but I’m taking the risk that this is the thing she needs to feel secure in our relationship.
“Marry you?”
“Yes. When I told you I loved you, that love didn’t come with a timeline or with clauses. I love you unconditionally and irrevocably, Emmy Townsend. I want to marry you, and be with you always. And if that means I live here or Pop comes to live with us at my place—or we get an entirely new house, then that’s what we’ll do. Whatever you want, however you want it, it’s yours.”
“And kids?”
“Kids? Hell yeah. I want you to have my children. One, two…six. Whatever God decides to give us. And I plan to practice making them with you too, a heck of a lot. Because you can never have too much practice.”
“So I hear.” Emmy’s smile grows wide as her eyes get misty again, but I shake my head.
