Page 174 of The Wild Card

Emmie.

My Emmie.

She’s pressed against my back, her arm draped over my ribs, her face tucked between my shoulder blades. I can feel her breath through the thin cotton of my shirt, warm and slow and even. Her left hand is curled loosely against my chest, and the ring catches a sliver of light from the window. The diamond is modest—she didn’t want anything big, said she’d knock it against everything in the kitchen—but it’s there. Real. On her finger because she said yes.

I shift onto my back carefully, trying not to wake her, but Emmie has the spatial awareness of a heat-seeking missile when she sleeps. The second I move, she follows—rolling into my side, pressing her cheek to my chest, her arm tightening around me. A small, satisfied sound escapes her throat. Barely a hum. I feel it vibrate against my ribs.

I trace the line of Emmie’s spine through her sleep shirt. My shirt, actually. An old bureau academy tee that’s been washed so many times it’s soft. It hangs off one shoulder, and the exposed skin is warm under my fingertips.

“Time is it?” She mumbles into my chest, eyes still closed.

“Early.”

“How early?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s Saturday.”

One eye opens. Hazel, hazy with sleep, the gold flecks muted in the low light. She studies me for a second, then yawns, and presses her face back into my chest, and wraps herself tighter around me. “You’re warm. Stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Promise?”

“You’re wearing a ring that says I promise, Em.”

She smiles against my skin. I feel the shape of it—the slow curve of her lips, the press of her cheek lifting.

She tilts her chin up, and I know what she wants before she asks. I meet her halfway, pressing my mouth to hers in a kiss that’s slow and unhurried.

“Morning breath,” she warns, pulling back an inch.

“Don’t care.”

She grins and lets me kiss her again, and this time neither of us pulls back.

One second it’s lazy and sweet, her fingers curling against my chest and my thumb tracing her jaw. The next, her hand slides down my stomach and my breath catches somewhere behind my ribs, and the lazy part evaporates like it was never there.

She shifts, swinging one leg over me so she’s straddling my hips, and the covers pool around her waist. My hands find her thighs on instinct. She’s warm from sleep, and the oversized shirt has ridden up, and there’s so much bare skin under my palms that my brain just… empties.

She leans down and kisses me deeper, her tongue sliding against mine in a slow stroke that makes my hands tighten on her thighs. I sit up with her still in my lap, and the shift in angle presses us together in a way that draws a low sound from both of us. Her legs lock around my waist, her arms around my neck, and I’m holding her so close I can feel her heartbeat against mine.

I drag the shirt over her head and toss it somewhere behind me. She’s in nothing underneath—just bare skin and freckles and the locket resting in the hollow of her throat—and I have to stop for a second, because the sight of Emmie Marshall in the early morning light of our cabin hits me the same way it always does.

Like a fist to the sternum.

“Stop staring.” Her cheeks are pink.

“Can’t.” I press my mouth to her collarbone, and she arches into me with a soft sound that goes straight through me. I take my time. Kiss across her shoulder. Down the center of her chest. Along the curve of her breast, where her breath hitches and her fingers dig into my shoulders.

She tugs at my shirt and I pull it off. Her palms land flat on my chest, and she runs her hands over me like she’s appreciating the terrain—the muscle, the scars. All the things that make me me.

She pushes me onto my back, and the look on her face as she straddles me again—a mix of tenderness and intent that is uniquely, devastatingly her—makes my pulse hammer.

“Lie back,” she says. “Let me.”

I let her.

The rest of our clothes come off slow. No rush. No urgency. Just Emmie’s hands sliding my waistband down while she kisses my hip bone, my stomach, lower. I work her underwear off and pull her back up to me, and when she sinks down onto me, we both go still.