“I can do that,” I tell her.
“Good. Because I’ve never even spent time with a non-stressed Emmy. She moved here in crisis-mode, and that hasn’t changed for two months.”
“Well, now she has me.”
“You good with relationships, Ace?”
I pause, knowing I don’t do long-term anything. I do hook-ups and hallways and hope I remember the girl’s name.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I just don’t want you to fuck this up,” Claire says, her tone genuine. “Emmy has been through enough already.”
“I won’t, Claire. I promise.”
I end the call, swearing to myself and to God and to my mother’s grave that I’ll make good on this promise with Emmy.
I won’t ruin this.
Dialing Denise, I tell her the plans I need made.
Get the helicopter ready for a morning takeoff.
Reservations at Bon-Air, the luxury spa resort in the Arizona desert.
I’ll take her away to a relaxing weekend at one of the most exclusive resorts in the world.
I smile, knowing she is going to be blown away with what I can offer her.
I check on Emmy in the bathroom, and I’m glad she’s made it to the shower. I see her silhouette behind fogged glass and realize it’s the first time a woman has ever been in this space.
“Ace?” she asks, rubbing away a circle of fog from the heavy glass door.
Her eyes graze over me, and heat runs through me, all the way to my growing cock, as my eyes meet hers.
I’m in such close proximity to the woman I love. She’s naked and she’s alone and I just want her with me. To be with her.
“You okay?” I ask, for what seems the like the thousandth time today. Have I asked her anything else? And why is it so damn hard for me to say anything more?
“Come in here.”
I blink slowly, feel my chest expand.
Emmy Rose has my fucking heart.
I take off my pants, unbutton my shirt, strip quickly. I don’t want to be standing out here alone on this marble floor; I want to be with her.
I pull open the glass door, and enter the shower built for four. The showerheads pour water down over Emmy, who stands in the center. Her long brown hair covers her breasts, as beads of water soak her, causing her skin to glisten, nice and slick.
I want to run my hands all over her, I want her to wrap her legs around my waist. I want her here, now. I want her forever.
“You are so beautiful,” I tell her. I’m still shocked to be here with her. To have found a woman so unexpectedly. So perfect. Perfect for me.
“Oh, shush, Ace,” she says, raising her face to a softly pouring showerhead. As she does, water pours over her face; her back arches, her tits ready to be devoured.
“You looked so unraveled at the hospital,” I say stepping toward her, my rod growing stiff as I take in more of her body.
“I was. I am.” She turns from me, grabbing a bar of soap. I move behind her, wrap my arms around her waist. Being close to her feels so right, so new.
“Are you always this broken?” I ask her, worried about her ability to keep her shit together if everything weighs so heavy on her. I want to make her life easy. I want to take away her fucking burdens. I just need to know what she needs.
She doesn’t say yes, but she also doesn’t say no. All I get is an Emmy Rose sigh. A sound that feels an awful lot like defeat.
“Ace, I told you this was a bad time for me ... but the truth is, there will never be a good time. I’m the sort of girl who will always have issues. A past. A present. And none of it will be clean lines and straight strokes.”
I wrap my arm around her. Reaching for her face, I cup her cheek with my hand. Force her to look over her shoulder and see my eyes.
She drops the soap to the floor.
“I’m not scared of your raw edges, Emmy,” I tell her, turning her body to face mine. As she’s wrapped in my arms under the gentle water, I swear she knows I will never let her go. “I’m not scared of someone with rough patches and stitched-together stories, of someone used to living in the fucking fray.”
“Stop talking like that,” she tells me, her face burrowed in the crevice of my shoulder, resting against the barrels of the guns tattooed on my body.
“Like what?”
“Like you know me. Like you get me.” Emmy’s arms wrap around my neck, holding on for dear life. “Like you won’t leave.”
“Maybe it’s fucking time to let someone stay.”
EMMY
He told me he loves me yesterday and he shows me he loves tonight.
His cock is amazing, his body a fucking rock. But the thing that brings me to the edge, to the place I wondered if I could ever let myself go, is his words.