Novel Palace
Chapter 308
Chapter 308
He moved his body from hers and leaned in for another soft kiss, something he knew would be an addiction from here on in. Having this ability to just kiss her whenever he wanted was like all his birthdays coming at once and he intended to use it to its full potential.
“I’m still mad at you.” Emma slid her palms across his stomach, sending shivers of anticipation through him, her hands smoothing within his jacket which was open and sliding up across the muscles in his chest. He had to steel himself against the urge to turn to Jell-O. His eyes followed her progress and the tiny hint of a smile tugged at her lips, he couldn’t stop looking at her.
“I don’t blame you, bella.” He frowned. “I’m mad at me too,” Jake replied regretfully, smoothing her hair back behind her ear and taking a moment to focus on untangling a strand from the dangling diamond cluster earring. He needed to calm down his playboy impulses if he was going to romance her into a happy ever after. She wasn’t going to be some one-night piece of fun for him; Emma was all he had been waiting for in life. The other half to his soul. He watched her carefully, regret at so many lost months eating at him, knowing if he had just been honest with her long ago then he would have always had her.
Complete idiot.
“Makes a change from being mad at me, I guess.” Emma’s smile widened to a smirk as he regarded her. Lost in how many times he could have changed the course of their relationship by saying three little words to her.
“I only got mad with you because of how I feel about you, Emma. It was ripping me apart. I didn’t know how to behave around you or how to deal with all this crap inside of me. Over-emotional men are just snarky shits.” He softly smiled, knowing it was lame as apologies went, but he intended to spend every day for the next hundred years making this up to her.
“I get mad at you because you’re an asshole sometimes; nothing to do with emotions or love.” She joked, smiling widely with a hint of amusement in those gorgeous pale eyes. She moved to run her fingertips softly across his mouth again, drawing his attention to how perfect they gelled. Each touch tailored to the other almost perfectly and how she could weaken him so easily.
“We need to make this work.” Jake sighed. “I can’t walk away again … I don’t want to. This past month has been unbearable like I had my insides wrenched out.”
“Are you asking me to be your PA again?” she asked softly, looking him dead in the eye with a hint of the old Emma confidence seeping back in. He couldn’t help but smile at her.
“I’m asking for way more than that, miele.” His hands had moved back into that blonde curled hair he loved so much, fingertips grazing her scalp as he entangled its silky smoothness between his fingers. He loved that every time he touched her hair it not only felt good but released more of her delicious scent.
“Tell me what you want from me, be specific.” Emma had gone into full-on PA mode, that stern yet inquisitive look, she was waiting for him to lay his cards on the table before she let too much of her own hopes out. Typical Emma, still guarding her heart until she was sure he wasn’t going to trample on her.
I love you, bambino.
Jake did not hesitate in doing what she needed.
“I want you … all of you … I want us. Just you and me and no one else. No games, no hiding, no more misunderstandings. I want you to be the one woman I share my bed and my life with. I want a real relationship with you, bambino.” He didn’t think he could spell it out any clearer than that, and she deserved his full honesty after everything he had put her through. Somehow though, even knowing she felt this way too, it was still terrifying to just lay his soul bare out there.
Emma threw herself against him so suddenly it almost winded him and wrapped herself tightly around him like a child would to a parent. She squeezed him as tightly as she could.
“I want that too,” she whispered so softly it was barely audible and his heart swelled tenfold, he slid his hand back into her hair, resting her head against him and cradling her close.
“You better not be crying again,” he joked, warming more when she tilted back to look up at him with wide happy eyes and the most gorgeous of Emma smiles, the one thing that had always captivated her to him was that genuine smile. Even eons ago when they first met, any hints of her genuine smile had floored him. This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.
“No tears … Brownie’s whatsits.” Emma attempted some sort of disastrous salute that had him grinning like a kid, pushing her hand down with an indulgent look. She maybe wasn’t so perfect at everything she did, but she was perfect enough.
“This … us … it’s really happening?” Jake needed to say it aloud, needed to get to grips with the fact this was real, and she wasn’t just a dream, resulting from a major emotional breakdown at losing her.
“It looks that way.” Emma wiggled her fingers into Jake’s and pulled his hand to nestle against his own chest beside her face, he could feel the soft sensation of her breaths on his wrists and it was sending tingles all through him.
“You may need to pinch me a couple of times to believe it, shorty.” Jake slid her off of his body so he could bridge the height difference and kiss her once more, his hand freed from hers was now skimming across the softest expanse of creamy throat, across her shoulder slowly. Her skin felt like the softest velvet.
Emma looked suddenly so very serious, her facial expression dropping in an instant and her body tensing as quickly, she looked up at him with wariness.
“What about Marissa?” Her voice broke subtly, emotion under the surface and pain in the depths of those eyes, he cursed internally. Hating that this was one situation he couldn’t just wipe away, even for her.
“I don’t want her! I didn’t want her! It was a stupid drunken mistake. I’ll be there for the baby but as far as she’s concerned, she means nothing. It’s you, it will always be you.” It’s all he had, the best he could do, knowing that it was something he would need to deal with soon. He traced her eyebrow gently, trying so hard to erase that goddamn soul-crushing look of doubt in her eye. She was thinking about the one thing that could potentially ruin what they hadn’t even started yet.
“How do you feel about the baby?” she asked sheepishly, and he knew there was no getting around it at that moment. She wanted to feel secure, and it was his job to make her that way.
“I’d be lying if I said I was happy … I’m not … but I did this, and I need to take responsibility. I hadn’t ever thought about having kids, so this is all pretty overwhelming right now.” Jake screwed up his face at the thought of that wretched whore Marissa crossing his mind’s eye, all smug and repulsive.
“Don’t walk away from your child.” Emma blinked up at him earnestly, her mind obviously following through to what it was like in her own childhood with a guy who didn’t want a kid. Jake leaned in to kiss her again, this time to try to erase some of that self-doubt and heartache almost instinctively. He hated that guy for doing that to his beautiful girl.
“That’s not me, Emma … I’m nothing like your father. I won’t walk away.” He pushed her forehead with his reassuringly. “Can we drop this conversation for now as I have something I’d much rather be doing.” Jake grinned, determined to take her mind elsewhere and her body too if she was willing. Enough of the delaying and standing in a dark hall surrounded by strangers; he wanted to take her home and make this thing real.
“Such as?” Emma smiled warily, sudden doubt as to his motives and it only made him want to grin. Always a little unsure and childlike, it was something that had always drawn him to her and made him want to take care of her. She had no clue how vulnerable and naïve she often came across even in full- blown school mistress PA mode.
“Taking my girlfriend home and fucking her brains out. It’s long overdue.” He grinned, hitting her with a ground moving kiss in a bid to recapture some fire between them, hands sliding around her possessively and pushing her back into the wall to support them both.
Emma kissed him back with equal fervor and passion, her body molding to his and hands sliding up inside between the buttons of his shirt. Bodies igniting with raw lust and on the verge of losing control. He knew there was no stopping them now, he was taking her home as soon as he stopped kissing her and never letting her go again.
The end of The Carrero Trilogy book 1 , the next in this series is The Carrero Heart and Follows Sophie and Arrick.