Page 64 of For Emery

“Don’t go getting shy on me now. I need you looking at me when I say this.”

My eyes shifted back to his. They stared at me with an intensity I hadn’t seen since he was a kid claiming he’d play football at Alabama.

“Em.” His hand drifted from my chin to my cheek, cupping it gently. “We’ve been doing this dance for a long time now. And we were just never at the same place. But we’re both here now. You’re finally nineteen. And you just told me you’ve always wanted me—which I’ve gotta tell you, felt fucking amazing.”

Nervous laughter escaped me.

“And I think down deep, even when I couldn’t have you, I wanted you too.”

A ripple the size of a tsunami rolled through my belly as tears filled my eyes.

“Don’t you dare cry on me right now,” he said. “I want us, Em. I know my timing sucks with everything going on with your mom, but I couldn’t go on letting you think your feelings were one-sided. I’m not entirely sure how this is gonna work, us going from friends to something more, but I want to give it a try.”

I chewed on my bottom lip, stopping a big dopey grin from spreading across my face.

“Now I need to know one thing.”

“What?”

“Have you kissed Flip because—”

“Jordan? I. Don’t. Want. Flip.”

He was on me before I could blink, his mouth capturing mine. The same numbness that spread through my lips and down my body four years ago surged through me again. I opened my mouth slightly, and his tongue pushed inside, the kiss reaching all the way down to the tips of my toes. His other hand gripped my other cheek and he held me to him as we devoured each other, neither able to get close enough. Before I knew it, his hands dropped from my cheeks to my hips. Our lips stayed connected as he lifted me and dropped me onto his lap. I straddled him, my hands lifting to the back of his head, my fingers tunneling through his hair and holding him to me.

He pulled back slightly, his eyes riveting between mine. “Is this what you want?”

Though my body was a live wire ready to zap everything in a five-mile radius, I shook my head.

Jordan’s eyes narrowed, questions brewing behind them.

“You’re what I want,” I said.

He touched his forehead to mine. “And you’re what I want.”

I closed my eyes and let his words wash over me like a warm summer breeze. I wanted them to seep into every one of my pores and burrow there where they belonged. Where they always belonged. I opened my eyes to find his trained on mine. “I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for you to realize that.”

“Sorry it took so long.”

I pulled back and lifted my fingertips to his cheeks, letting them graze over his skin. Day-old stubble on his jaw tickled the pads on my fingers as they drifted down. “Will you kiss me, Jordan Grady?”

His lips slid into a knowing smirk as his eyes twinkled with amusement. “Like some day?” he asked, the same way he had the first time I asked the question.

I shook my head, loving that he remembered.

He grinned. “Just so we’re on the same page, I plan to kiss you whenever and wherever I want from here on out.”

I laughed as he buried his mouth in my neck and peppered my collarbone with open-mouthed kisses that sent my eyes crossing. He’d never done that before and the tremors rippling down to my core awoke something inside me. Something I didn’t know I’d been missing. I’d promised myself I’d wait for “The One.” And there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Jordan Grady was “The One.”

But...he was right about our timing. It couldn’t have been any worse. And I didn’t want our first time marred by the circumstances that had brought us there together.

Jordan pulled back and looked me in the eyes. “Where’d you go?”

“I’m right here.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I want this,” I assured him.

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