Page 89 of Troublemaker: The Big Picture Edition

“Yes, harder,” she whispers. “Faster. Alex. Don’t hold back.”

Oh. Baby.

I don’t hold back.

And she likes it. I can feel everything, and she’s trying to stay quiet, but her body is screaming and she likes it.

She leans forward even farther so I can go even deeper inside her.

I’m breathing so hard, but I let out some kind of sigh that I’ve never heard before. Ecstatic and disbelieving and grateful and sad. So many things, this woman.

I lower my head to rest my forehead against her back, becausefuckit’s good and I want to be closer to her. It feels good and it feels right and it’s what I want and I will give in to this. “You’re mine, Emilia.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to hide it.”

“Alex…”

I can’t tell if that was a confirmation or a warning, and I have no idea how long I’ve been thrusting in and out of her, but I’ve waited forever and I need to come. I need to come inside her because she’s mine. I take a handful of that silky blonde hair and tug at her scalp. She cries out. It’s not loud, but it’s not quiet, and it’s so hot.

She contracts, so tight around me and I put my hand over her mouth just as she screams into it. Those sweet, plump lips, they kiss my palm and then nip at it. I’m pressing myself against her, tensed up, and my knees start to buckle. I groan into the sweater on her back. I’m unhinged. The greatest rush, the deepest breath. I am completely vulnerable, disappearing into nothingness, but I channel everything into her.

“You,” I whisper. Because it’s all I can say, all I can think. “You.”

I lie against her back, arms around her, as we catch our breaths. She lifts my hand to her face again and kisses it. Ten, twenty times.

I would stay in bed with her like this, all day, if I could. But there are snacks to be fetched. There is a child in the house who is wide awake.

And I just fucked his teacher in the laundry room.

And I’m dripping down her leg. Onto her boots.

I carefully pull out of her and grab a towel from the dryer. Fortunately, I never got around to putting them away yesterday. I wet the towel in the sink and clean her off. She covers her face, stands up, still facing away from me. I can tell she’s embarrassed. That she’s standing before me here. In a sunlit room, bare assed, and I’m wiping her leg and between her pale, shapely legs. “You’re beautiful,” I remind her.

I could take care of you like this, in every way, if you’d let me.

I pick up her white silk panties and hand them to her and then clean myself off and pull up my jeans.

She steps aside to straighten herself up so I can drop the towel into the washing machine.

An efficient and effective quick fuck.

But also, so much more.

I cup her face in my hands. “In case you’re wondering…” I kiss her forehead. “I’m falling in love with you. Hard and fast, and I refuse to stop.”

She catches her breath. Her crystal blue eyes fill with tears, but I catch them before they fall down her cheeks. I kiss that trembling lower lip.

“Me too,” she says. She places her hands flat over my heart and nods. “You.”

The rest of the day is a sweet, postcoital, Macauley Culkin and junk food–filled haze. We order pizza. We have a long, impassioned discussion of our favorite holiday and family movies. Ryder insists that we have a movie marathon tomorrow and we each get to choose two favorites. Emilia agrees to “come back in the morning,” but I want her to spend the night, and it’s wrong that she won’t, all wrong. We take Atticus for a walk in my neighborhood. I don’t hold Emilia’s hand, and it is wrong, all wrong.

But when we both put him to bed and she reads Harry Potter to him, I get a glimpse of what’s right.

“Hey, Miss Stiles,” he says sleepily after we insist that one chapter is all he gets tonight and we’re going to turn off the light. “I’m glad you’re finally friends with my dad.”

“Me too,” she says. “Good night. I have to go home now,” she tells him.