Accidental Tryst (Charleston #1)(47)

With one more outraged yowl it disappears.

It's all over in seconds, and I stand there alone, in shock and utter silence, clutching my chest.

No, not silence, there's the muffled sound of Emmy laughing uncontrollably from the phone face down on the carpet. I think she's trying to ask if he's okay, but she can't breathe.

"If he's okay? What about if I'm fucking okay?"

I guess that was her cat.



* * *



We're still laughing about it a few minutes later when I turn off the downstairs lights and head up to the bedroom.

"I'm crying, Trystan. Actual, real tears I'm laughing so hard." She's had to put the phone down.

"I haven't heard you apologize yet," I tell her as I trot up her stairs.

"Me? Apologize? Why?" Emmy can finally breathe.

"It's your cat."

"Okay, I'm so sorry, Trystan. Especially as you told me you don't like pussies on your face."

Oh, she went there, and I'm not letting her out of it. "It would depend on the pussy, Emmy."

There's a sharp inhale.

An instant visual of Emmy over me, me looking up her sweet body with all its secrets on display, to all that glorious red hair surrounding her flushed face. Her sinking down to meet my mouth. God, I'd love to know how she tastes.

A punch of lust rips through my gut, and it almost brings me to my knees.

I look at the phone screen, but all I see is the hotel ceiling.

"Emmy," I say. My voice is rough to my own ears. She must know what's in my head.

"Don't go there, Trystan."

"Why not?" I ask.

"Because."

"Because why? Look at me, Emmy."

"No."

"Because why?"

"Fine."

The camera angle moves and her face, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, comes into view. I sink onto her bed. "Christ, you're beautiful," I say, cutting off anything she’s about to say.

She swallows heavily. "You're not so bad yourself."

"Why can't I go there, Emmy?"

"We don't ... know each other. Not really."

I stare at her. I've never bared myself to anyone the way I have to her. Probably because I thought we didn't really know each other. But maybe we do. Today, I heard her at her most vulnerable. Her most scared. And instead of running away, I ran toward danger. I've shared. She's shared. I'm in her home surrounded by her scent.

"I do know you, Emmy."

"You don't." She shakes her head.

"And you know me."

"No."

"Better than anyone alive." It's the God's honest truth.

"But I've only seen you once in my life. And it wasn't the greatest first impression if I'm honest."

I wince and blow out a breath. This is the pushing too hard too fast thing I've been doing. It makes her bolt. I have to reel it back in. Go slower.

"Okay. Maybe you're right. What don't I know about you that matters?"

"That's not how this works."

"Isn't it?"

"No."

"So tell me."

"You don't know what makes me cry—"

"David," I interject. "Families. Injustice. People who are alone. Christmas movies, I bet."

"You're guessing."

"Well. Am I right?"

"Partially. What makes me laugh?"

"Apart from me being attacked by your cat?"

She smiles. "Apart from that."

"The absurdity of life," I tell her. "You find the ironic and the absurd in every situation. Particularly the tough ones. It's what helps you through life."

Her smile falters, and she blinks. "How can you—?"

"But also people. Their quirks. Their gifts. Your friends. Your godson. You seek out the joy. You find it even when no one else can."

She blows out a long slow breath.

"Trystan," she says, and she props the phone up, presumably on the side table, and lies back on the hotel bed, rolling to face me. Her head is resting on her hand, and her hair is a tumble of red waves, her cheeks tinged pink. The robe gapes slightly showing me a curve of breast and the beginning of whatever she's wearing underneath it.

"Emmy." I breathe her name. And when I do, I breathe her in. Her scent is all around me in her room.

Knowing she's watching me on the screen, I lie back and turn my face into her sheets and inhale deeply. Her light floral scent intoxicates me, not sweet exactly, mixed with clean detergent, but also with a hint of something like vanilla that makes my mouth water. "You smell amazing."

She lets out a small moan, and I can almost hear her swallow before her lips drop open.

"What else don't I know about you, Emmy?"

"That this scares me, whatever this is happening here."

"I know that," I say.

I know because I'm scared too. But I feel like I'm base jumping. I just voluntarily threw myself off a cliff, and I'm living in the free-fall terror for as long as it will have me because it feels fucking amazing.

The screen goes gray. Video connection lost