Page 59 of Make It Without You

Blindly, I make my way to the couch without tripping over something. Not trusting myself, I peek an eye open just as Emily trails her lips down my neck.

“Shit, Em. You can’t do that while I’m walking.”

I hasten my last couple of steps and sit on her couch. It seems that spurred Emily on. Her lips come back to mine and slides her body closer to mine. My arms wrap around her waist and I’m sure she can feel my erection bumping up against her legging-covered core. She sits up and moves closer, putting her pussy over my cock.

I rip my mouth from hers and pull back. “I’m trying to be good and take it slow. But damn you’re not making it easy for me.” I emphasizeeasyby rutting up into her.

“Okay, okay. I’ll stop.” She claims but latches her mouth onto my neck.

My eyes roll to the back of my head as her mouth suctions harder on my neck. Quickly maneuvering to where I’m on top of her, I place her arms above her head and hold them there. “Unless you want my mouth on your pussy, I need you to stop. I can only hold out for so long,” I say and don’t even recognize my voice. “And once I have a taste of you, you’re mine.”

Her chest is still heaving and her lips are red and puffy from the assault of our lips mashing together.

“Okay, we’ll wait.”

I hide my disappointment behind a smirk. “Three months. Once you’re no longer Dylan’s teacher, nothing is stopping me from claiming you in front of everyone.”

Her smile is rather bashful for someone that was writhing over my cock. “Okay.”

Kissing her one last time I pull myself off of her and relax on her couch.

“I need to tell you something.” I hadn’t meant to bring up my little research project last night right now. But if I don’t tell her now I never will.

Emily sits up but rests her feet in my lap. It makes me want to beat on my chest that she’s already comfortable like this around me.

“What is it?” Her eyebrows pinch in concern.

“Last night when you left, I was morbidly curious about you.” I feel her body tense and I place my hand around her ankle to hold her to me. “I looked you up and I saw the article on your fiance. It explained why you tensed up when I told you about Dylan being at baseball camp.”

“You could have asked me.”

I tilt my head and observe her. “Could I have?

She chews on her bottom lip as she mulls it over.

“I like you a lot, Emily. But you’re skittish around me. And maybe that’s who you are, but selfishly I don’t want that. I know you’ve had a traumatic past. I just want you to let me in more than what you’re giving.”

“I like you a lot too. Just so you know.” She says and takes my hand, holding it in hers. “I deal with parent abandonment if you haven’t picked up on that. Neglect if that’s the term you want to use. But my parents weren’t abusive. My high school and college years were spent with my housekeeper, Gloria, and James. Anytime my parents would come home it was to tell me they were working more or heading out of the country for a special case.”

Emily looks towards her record player but I stay looking at her. “I had many arguments with my parents when I was younger that resulted in me running to James’s house and seeking the comfort that he and his family brought me. As I got older, I no longer cared about what lives my parents were living when they weren’t around me. I guess that sped mine and James’s relationship up.”

A child fending for herself and living as an adult.

“We got engaged right after I graduated college. My parents weren’t there to celebrate with us, but his family was.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything else.”

She shakes her head. “I wanna tell you it all. The last day we were together, I was grading papers and he got a phone call from our friend Liam. Him and Kamryn, my best friend, had broken up for what seemed like the hundredth time. We spent a little time together and then went to help our friends.”

I tamp down the jealousy when she tells me how they spent their last day.

“I got to her house and she was a mess. That’s when she got a frantic phone call from Liam. I had this terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was frantically texting James and telling him to get Liam to stop his truck. Their yelling got louder and those last handful of texts I sent went unanswered. My last text to him was telling him I loved him. And when Kamryn stopped yelling into the phone, that’s when I knew that the truck stopped.”

She doesn’t continue. She doesn’t have to. The article had pictures of the truck her fiance was in, smashed into the back of an eighteen-wheeler. How she’s managing to find happiness again is inspiring.

“I also saw an article about your violin playing.”

She doesn’t look me in the eye. Instead, she flips my hand and traces the lines on my palm. “I haven’t played since I graduated high school. I spent years loving an instrument that walking away from it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. My parents may have introduced me to it, but I chose to keep pursuing it.” Emily looks up at me and her eyes are brighter. “Wow, that was deep.”

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