The Righteous and The Wicked (26 page)

They both moan as he enters her. The feeling of being wrapped around each other heightens the depth of what they’re feeling. She kisses him, overwhelmed with pleasure, holding his rough face in her delicate hands. She drags her lips across his stubble-ridden jaw to his ear.

“Last time, when you tied me up . . . can I do that to you?”

He stops moving, alarmed that her rising darkness is showing itself.

“I’ll do anything you want, Emma. Anything you want from me, it’s yours.”

He reaches in the night table drawer and finds the object she seeks. He dangles the handcuffs in front of her and she grabs them, swiveling her hips until she’s kneeling over him. She chains him to the bed. Now he belongs to her. If not forever, for now.

He smirks at her. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make you feel good, Eric.”

Emma’s demon takes its throne. As she lowers her head, her hair falls and trickles over his muscled stomach. Then she takes his cock in her mouth.

He jerks at the sensation. “Ah . . . fuck, Emma.”

She works hard to take him in, to give him unselfish pleasure, and to show him she can give him everything he could ever want or need. She savors the way he feels, the beauty of this part of him. Submerged in devilish desire, she slides her mouth over him, lost in heavenly sin.

“I fucking love your cock.”

“I’m gonna come in your mouth if you talk that way.” He struggles against the handcuffs, and Emma’s wet watching his fever for her increase.

“So hard and so good. I love the way you taste.” She takes him in again, using her hand to stroke him.

He bucks his hips and groans. “You look so fucking sexy with my cock in your mouth. That’s right . . . shit . . . just like that.”

She sucks and strokes him until she’s driving him mad. Then she stops and straddles him. Her skin is shimmering with sweat. “I want you inside me. I want to fuck you. Do you want me to? Tell me.” Her eyes are possessed. She’s the master and he’s the victim.

This is new for Eric, to give up control to someone else like this, and he likes it. “Yes, Emma. I want you to fuck me.”

She grins and opens a condom, then lowers herself onto him. Her hips rise and fall as she runs her hands over her breasts and into her hair. She rides him hard and her eyes fall closed.

He watches her turning over to her darkness, lost in sensation and the pleasure she feels. He sees a piece of himself in her. “That’s right. Let it take you.” He’s on fire watching her body. Letting go of control has caused him discomfort in the past, but witnessing her becoming his equal has his entire body tingling.

Her skin glimmers in the soft light as her full breasts swell and undulate. “So good . . . so fucking good.” She speaks to him and to no one. She speaks to the unchained prisoner who has been locked within her soul for so long, now set free at the hands of Eric. The wind slams against the trailer. It echoes the teeming pleasure that’s on the verge of blowing through each of their bodies. His climax is approaching, but he keeps it at bay, needing her to release his hands from the cuffs. He has to touch her.

As if seeing inside his mind, she bends over him, still working her hips, her wetness still sliding against his shaft. The cuffs clink and drop to the floor. He isn’t free a moment before he rises up against her and kisses her with a torrent of passion. He tangles his hands in her mane and pulls her head back. He’s possessed now, his own demon has awakened, but to remain himself, he must keep his gaze on her angelic face. He pushes her down on the bed and grips her knee, pulling it against his hip.

“No one has ever made me feel this way.” He pounds into her.

She cries out. “Harder . . . yes . . .”

He’s all too willing to oblige her request. She whimpers as he works her body. His copious experience has made him a master, and he bestows all his talent on Emma. He moves the way he knows she needs him to. A chill of sweat runs over him and he has to hold himself back. He fights to stop himself from releasing into her. He groans and leans back, holding her thighs. She gasps and arches and he feels her pulsing. He watches her face, and her body, as she comes. Then his own release is free to burst through him. He relents to it as his heart beats hard. The blood in his veins thuds and races through him and he collapses onto her chest. She threads her hands through his hair and holds him to her, his throbbing cock still buried inside her. His heart pressed against hers.

He confesses to her. “I love you. I love you.”

With heaving breaths, they revel in their shared bliss, cuddled together in luxurious silence. Emma feels moved to tears. She thought she was in love before, but she has never felt
this
. She has never felt this connected to anyone—ever. No one has ever seen who she is. No one has ever
loved
her for who she is.

“I was so lonely before you. Even when I was with
him
, I was always so alone.”

There is pain in her voice and he cannot bear it. He caresses her face and ghosts his lips over hers.

“But I’m not anymore. You see me, Eric, I know you do. And you
love
what you see.”

She kisses him and his living, beating heart feels as though it may burst.

“I do. I see you. No one else matters now. You are the one I want.
Eu te amo tanto
.”
¹⁰

They lie naked together, kissing and touching, as close as two people can be. They feel love. They feel peace. They feel the sweet relief that they both have long searched for, but more than anything else, they feel so grateful.

Chapter Twenty-Three

There are forces in this universe that seek out good and work toward its demise. There’s no rhyme or reason behind this force. It slithers like a snake in the grass, tainting and rotting some lives, but not others. It soils that which is clean, and ruins what is pure. When the pendulum swings too far to the right, when everything is perfect, it must swing back.

The violent and random wind seems to follow the white car as it stalks toward Emma’s house. The driver is unaware of the heartfelt declarations being made inside the silver trailer. Deborah turns off her headlights, now familiar with the street. Nervous tension churns through her . . . and she likes it.

Single-minded and unfazed by Eric’s rebuff, the scorned woman’s car crawls into Emma’s driveway. Because of her beauty, she has never had to work for a man’s affections. She has also never maintained an affair for very long, due to the fact that the men she’s with discover she’s walking a thin line between sanity and madness. At the end of each of these short-lived trysts, Deborah has exacted a plot of revenge, either on the man himself, or on the new object of his desire. She has sought petty vengeance on plenty of women who have things that she wants. Tonight, the focus of her demented schemes is Eric’s girlfriend. She gets out of the car, peeks in Emma’s windows and tries doorknobs, searching for whatever this woman has that she does not. Whatever it is, she will get it.

Emma awakes, caged in Eric’s arms. They tether her in place, and she doesn’t object to the sensation. Sighing with contentment, she snuggles deeper beneath the blankets with him, but then a horrible reality makes itself known.

It’s Monday.

She rolls over to face him, and his lips touch hers, though his eyes remain unopened. Emma giggles at his zealousness. The first thought Eric has is a wish to wake up to that sound from this day on. He squints at the clock, and then flops his head back down on the pillow, knowing Emma will have to leave.

“You should quit your job.” He yawns.

Emma gets up from the downy bed, leaving her place beside the remarkable, and gorgeous, half-naked man. She pulls his T-shirt off her body and tosses it at him. He holds it to his nose, breathing in her lingering perfume.

“And do what? Become your personal sex slave?” she teases.

“Yes. That is
exactly
what you should do. It’s your calling in life.” He teases her back, but then becomes serious. “You should call in sick. Stay with me, Emma.”

The way he speaks to her is so tempting. The way it sounds when he says her name . . . it’s like she’s never heard it spoken before, by anyone, until now. After several attempts at saying goodbye, she dresses and makes her way home through the blanket of morning mist.

Emma takes out her keys to open her front door, but it’s already unlocked.
That’s odd,
she thinks. She’s sure that she locked it. She goes up to her bedroom, and finds her closet door open. She’s sure that she closed it. She looks inside and sees that the wooden box, which bears her old initials, is uncovered. It glares at her. A chill runs up her back, but she shakes it off.
I must have opened it and forgotten,
she thinks, but she is lying to herself.

At work, she can’t conceal her smile, happy to know in her heart that Eric is in love with her. The students are all well-behaved. The day flies by. She goes shopping with Abby after work and actually buys herself something nice—new lingerie.

Abby is thrilled to see Emma happy and she knows just who will benefit from that gift. “So how are things with Eric?”

“I can’t concentrate on anything. I’m standing in front of my students and I’m supposed to be teaching them something, but I’m thinking about Eric. I’m just
consumed
with him.”

Abby smiles at the dreamy look in Emma’s usually dreamless eyes. “Sounds like love to me. I’m happy for you, you know.”

“Thanks, Abby. What do you think Danni will say?”

“Who gives a shit? She dislikes Eric for some reason, but I told her you’re a big girl. You can handle it.”

“I trust him. Maybe that’s naïve. Maybe I’m stupid, but when I look in his eyes . . .” Emma gets distracted thinking about the enchanting stormy blue.

Abby allows Emma to indulge in her reverie before responding. “I know. I get it. No one else knows what it’s like when you’re alone together. Only the two of you can ever know that. And that’s all that matters.” She smoothes a stray hair behind Emma’s ear and does her best to reassure her friend.

That night, Emma and Eric have dinner and spend time rolling around together on her couch, but she ends up sending him home. She needs to get some rest. She watches him walk home through her yard, and goes to bed, euphoric and exhausted.

It’s late, and the lights are off inside the white house. Deborah shuts her car off, leaving it on the shoulder of the road as she sneaks down Emma’s driveway once again. After making sure no one is watching her, she takes a knife out of her purse and jabs it into all four tires on Emma’s car.

The last time she was here she broke in and searched Emma’s home for secrets. All she found out was Emma’s full name, and a box with a picture of a man. A man who may have been her husband once, and could be the father of the child Emma was expecting in the photo. A child who is nowhere to be found. She also found a copy of a lease made out to some tenants at a Boston address, on behalf of Emma and Aaron Mallory.

Deborah’s plan is to make Emma’s life as uncomfortable as possible, and her first order of business is finding Aaron Mallory.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

Eric awakes to a knock at the door. He squints at the morning sunlight, surprised to be disturbed at this hour, but he knows it must be Emma. He was forced to be without her last night because she claims she can’t get any sleep when she’s with him, and it’s true. He opens the door and her pretty face brings him immediate happiness.

Instead of smiling back at him, Emma’s eyes are wide, her hands are trembling.

“What happened?”

“My car. The tires. Someone . . .
slashed
them. Who would do that?” She shakes her head from side to side, stunned by the act of vandalism.

Eric’s mind flashes to the white car, the unrelenting blonde. The sinking feeling in his stomach tells him his instinct is correct. He puts his arm around his girl and guides her into the trailer with his eyes scanning the woods.

“Just let me grab a shirt. I’ll drive you to work.”