“Baby, a lot I’d do for you ’cause you’re my Emme, but lyin’ naked in bed with you sortin’ out your feelings for McFarland is not top of that list.”

What he said made me laugh out loud, holding him tight as I did.

When I finished, he was grinning at me.

I liked that so I asked, “You know what I like about this?”

“This?”

“Us.”

“The fact that I can make you come while I’m f**kin’ you, sometimes repeatedly?” Jacob guessed.

I started giggling again but shook my head. “No. Though that’s a bonus. It’s because we’re working things out, finding our way in a new way, but you always find a way to lead us back to who we were. Taking me to familiar. Making me know I won’t lose that. And I loved that. I lost it once, so I don’t ever want to lose it again. That’s what I like.”

He was not grinning when I was done talking.

He was looking at me in a way that made that pulse beat someplace awesome.

Then his head dropped and he was kissing me. Not hard and closed mouthed. Not slow and sweet.

Rough and hungry and claiming.

And after he kissed me rough and hungry and claiming, Jacob did other things to me that were rough and hungry and claiming.

And I came while he was doing them.

Repeatedly.

Chapter Ten

Sour in My Gut

Deck put the bowl of food on the floor and Buford stuck his nose in it immediately.

He rose and turned to face the kitchen, seeing Emme, hair wet and pulled back in a wide band, his t-shirt on, no panties (he’d copped a feel after dressing and following her there and made this phenomenal discovery), makeup half on, shoveling oatmeal in her mouth and sipping coffee, doing all this in a hurry.

Deck moved to his own bowl of oatmeal that she’d made him as Emme slugged back some joe, looked down at Buford and addressed a dog with a fresh bowl of food thus a dog who forgot she existed in this world.

“You need to tamp down your instincts to hunt, puppy, so you can come to my house because the drive to work from my house is fifteen minutes and the drive from here is twenty-five and I don’t like getting up early so I’m not a big fan of getting up earlier.”

“Emme, it’s ten minutes,” Deck pointed out.

Her eyes sliced to him, her head tipped and her brows went up. “Morning sex?”

He grinned. “Okay, forty-five minutes.”

“Right,” she muttered tetchily as the phone in her purse on the counter opposite him rang.

She glared at it and walked there.

Deck’s grin turned into a smile.

Apparently, the orgasms he gave her half an hour ago wore off.

She put down her mug, pulled out her phone, looked at the display and Deck’s gut clenched when her face lit up.

Fuck, she was gorgeous.

She put the phone to her ear and chirped, “Hi, Dad!”

His gut clenched again, but a different way.

This time it was just plain f**k.

Her face grew confused so this time he verbalized in a mutter his, “Fuck.”

She didn’t hear him. She was listening to her dad.

He knew what she was hearing.

He forgot, when he was putting the finishing touches on the case, and McFarland was definitely going down, he’d called Emme’s dad, Barry Holmes. This was before he knew Kenton Douglas had gone to Emme to question her and get back the ring.

He meant to tell her.

In all that happened, he did not.

Her eyes cut to him and they narrowed.

He repeated, “Fuck.”

“Yeah, Dad, I know but—”

She was obviously cut off. Two seconds later, her jaw got tight.

Deck sighed.

He knew Barry. He’d spent time with him at some of Emme’s dinner parties. He and Elsbeth had also been invited to their home for their annual Christmas party four years running and they never missed it. Now he knew he never missed it because it was a chance to see Emme. Then he just thought it was because he liked and admired Barry Holmes.

The man came from money, was given it and still, he worked for it. He was funny, shrewd, hardworking, honest, and he loved his family.

He made a mint but when his kids went to college, Barry paid room and board but his kids were responsible for tuition no matter how they had to go about that. Getting jobs, working for scholarships, applying for grants. It wasn’t heartless or miserly. He gave them their tuition back in full as a graduation present. He just made sure they worked for their education so it meant something to them.

They all did.

Elsbeth thought Barry was too hard on his kids.

Deck never agreed.

This was because he reckoned he’d do the same with his kids if one day he had the money but didn’t want them to grow up feeling entitled to it, like Elsbeth often demonstrated she felt.

But also because, with his kids, there was nothing hard about Barry Holmes. He might want to teach them life lessons and they might not be easy, but he often told them he loved them, shared wide and in their presence he was proud of them, and the family was close.

And last, even though he could afford country clubs and sprawling estates, his home was nice, large, well decorated, but it was warm and welcoming and not much more than a family of six needed. Just a solid, attractive, family home for him, his wife, two boys and two girls, a brood where Emme was the youngest.

Talking to Barry days ago, he’d called up the fact that losing Elsbeth had meant losing Emme and that had meant losing Barry, his wife, Maeve, and Emme’s loving but far-flung siblings (a sister in India, a brother in New Zealand and her other brother lived in Boston). All who, however far-flung, often came home to visit.

It hadn’t sucked as much as losing Emmanuelle. But it sucked.

“No, I’m not there because I’m, um… um…” Emme’s words brought his attention back to her. “Staying with Jacob.” Her eyes were big, pained, totally pissed and still on him. “Yes. Jacob Decker.” Pause then, “He’s… well, sure. He’s right here. We’re eating oatmeal.”

She made her eyes even bigger at him and if looks could kill, he’d be f**ked.

Then again, he was in danger of choking on the laughter he was swallowing.

“Sure, right, he’s eating,” she said as she made her way to him. “But he can talk.” She stopped two feet away. “Yeah.” Pause. “Okay.” Pause, then softer, “Love you too, Dad.”

The soft went out of her face when she took the phone from her ear and extended it to him.

“He wants to talk to you. And after you’re done, I’ll want to talk to you too.”