Page 24 of Grace on the Rocks

Chapter 11

Emma satin front of Kyle's home. Truth be told, she was surprised that he lived here rather than some gated community in Newport Coast, where the houses were several million dollars starting and were awarded with beautiful views. Her heart was hammering in her chest and her palms were sweaty as they held onto her steering wheel. She had told her father she needed to get out, and he was sweet enough to understand why. He never interrogated her or gave her a curfew; he trusted her, knowing her well enough to know that she wasn't about to go off and get into any kind of trouble.

It wasn't as though she was lying, either. She really did need to get out. Even though Justin seemed nice enough and Eddie was just trying to be there for his sister, Emma needed time to herself. It was too much for her, and the large home she shared with her father suddenly seemed overbearing. She felt as though she had been suffocating. Kyle's text had come at exactly the right moment and she felt a glimmer of happiness in a sea of stress at seeing him again.

"If you don't get out of the car, people are going to call the cops on you," she muttered to herself. "He invited you over. You want to be over. You want to see him and touch him and kiss him and..." She let her voice trail off, refusing to finish that thought.

Instead, she unbuckled her seatbelt and stood up, rubbing her palms on her thighs. Maybe she should have dressed up. She was in the same outfit she had worn to the game, with her hair thrown up into a quick ponytail, her bangs swept to the side of her face. She locked her car and put her keys in her purse and slid her phone in her pocket. She wasn't sure if she should knock, if she should text him to let him know she was here.

By the time she reached the front door, she shook her head. "Just knock, you weirdo," she muttered to herself. "This isn't rocket science."

She took in his modest home. There was a driveway with a two-car garage that wasn't connected to the home. It was modern, white with blue trimming. There was a gateless front lawn that seemed to be kept up nicely. The house was a single story - an older home but modernized and updated with current trends. If she had to guess, Emma would assume the house had four bedrooms and two full baths, maybe two and a half, and a sizable backyard. All the homes in the Westcliff/Dover Shores area were.

Emma took in a deep breath and knocked on the door. For whatever reason, she held her breath - which was ridiculous, since they were just supposed to be FRIENDS.

Except, the minute she saw him after he opened the door, his hair a strawberry blonde color thanks to the fact that it was still wet from a shower, wearing a long-sleeved, off-white thermal shirt that clung to his body with blue jeans that hung from his hips, and no shoes on his feet, she realized she didn’t want to be friends.

Not anymore.

Emma couldn’t explain what caused her to change her thinking, what inspired her to cast all of her carefully laid out plans out the window, but she was so taken with the fact that he looked absolutely beautiful standing before her that she wanted nothing more than to make him hers.

Kyle must have seen something on her face, something different that revealed these new, sudden feelings, because before she could say anything, before even chose to, he reached for her face and brought his lips down on hers, claiming them as his. His fingers were territorial, and he brought her across the doorway into his place before kicking the door shut. He didn’t break the kiss and, for that, she was grateful. She needed this, needed him, and she was afraid if anything were to interrupt them, she might come down from this high at just being around him. Logic would creep in and then she’d back away and push him from her heart and pretend the feelings she felt for him were purely platonic.

He seemed to know where he was going because she was backed into a couch and somehow, simultaneously, they both dropped on the couch, still clutching each other. The kiss turned passionate, his long fingers extending so he could tilt her head back and he could slide his tongue past her lips. He explored every inch of her mouth, while hers tried to duel with his for dominance.

God, he was causing stirrings in her she hadn’t felt… ever.

She wanted him.

Was it too soon? They had only gone on one date and that had been a disaster.

She didn’t care. She wanted him. They had been friends for a month.

When they were finally required to breathe, Kyle was the first to speak.

“Who was that guy?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “The one you went to the game with? And the bozo who kept staring at you five rows back?”

Emma needed a moment to realize what he was asking.

She stared at Kyle, taking in the slight wrinkle in his brow, the narrowed blue eyes, the thin lips pressed together in a somewhat tight line. She knew he wasn't angry with her. She knew he was curious and, quite possibly, a teensy bit jealous. Which meant that, perhaps, he had feelings for her that weren't quite platonic, either.

"Why?" she asked, slowly raising her right brow.

"Don't start," he told her. "Don't start playing games with me. Not you."

Emma felt her stomach pull apart. He was right. She wanted to hear that he was jealous and instead of simply being upfront with him, she decided to tease him and act coy, hoping he would reveal his true feelings for her that way.

"You're right," she said. "The guy I went to the game with is my cousin. It's the first time I've seen him since I was three, when my mother left and never came back."

There was a slight flash of recognition in his blue eyes and she remembered telling him something similar about not knowing what it was like to have a mom when they first officially met each other that day at the beach.

"Why was he with you?" His tone was clipped and she realized it was because he was being protective of her. He seemed suspicious of Justin motives. It might be because he dealt with long-lost friends that suddenly needed financial help once Kyle made it as an NHL player.

"My uncle brought him by," Emma said. This conversation wasn't conducive to setting the mood for intimacy, but as she talked to him about this, she realized she hadn't really spoken about this with many people, not even her circle of girlfriends. They all knew her mother took off and she wasn't too traumatized by it, but they didn't realize all of the feelings she had on the subject below the surface. There was something special about Kyle, something that made her feeling comfortable with him enough to open up in this way. "I guess my mom wants to see me."

"Do you want to see her?"

Emma shook her head. "No," she replied. "I like the life me and my father have together. I don't know how to add someone else into that mix. Especially not someone who left when I was a toddler and made no move to reach out to me for practically twenty years. People forget she didn't just leave me, she left my father who suddenly became solely responsible for his only child. I can't even imagine what he went through, but he held it together for me."

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