Her mouth drops open in shock. “I’m not complicit in being kidnapped!” Emma nearly screeches.
“You’re complicit in whatever this has become!” I argue. “Don’t act like you’re just some passive victim here. You’ve been an active participant in this…this whatever the fuck this is!”
“What is this?” Emma demands, and suddenly her voice drops, going quieter but no less intense. Her hands grip tighter on my wrists. “Tell me, Leo. What is this? What are we doing?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, and the honesty of it feels like losing.
“You don’t know,” Emma repeats, and she’s staring at me like she’s trying to see through me. “You keep me here, but you don’t know why. You talk to me every day, but you don’t know what we’re doing. You look at me like?—”
She stops abruptly, biting her lip, her face nearly as red as her hair.
“Like what?” I demand, hyperaware of how close we are, how my hands are still on her shoulders and hers are still on my wrists. “How do I look at you?”
“Like you want me,” Emma whispers, and the words hang in the air between us like a lit match over gasoline.
“No, I don’t,” I try to deny it, but it’s so obviously a lie.
“You do,” Emma says triumphantly. “You look at me like you want me and I’m losing my fucking mind because I?—”
I don’t know which one of us moves first. Maybe it’s both of us or neither of us; maybe it’s just the inevitable result of three weeks of tension and anger and want that neither of us knows how to process.
But suddenly my hand is in her hair and her hands are fisted in my shirt and we’re kissing—or maybe fighting, it’s hard to tell the difference right now. Her teeth catch my bottom lip hard enough to hurt and I tighten my grip in her hair, tilting her head back so I can kiss her deeper, harder.
Emma makes a strangled sound and she’s pulling at my shirt like she wants to tear it off me, and I’m pressing her back against the counter because I need her closer, need more, need?—
Emma shoves at my chest suddenly, hard, and we break apart both breathing like we’ve been running. She’s staring at me with wide eyes, her lips swollen and red, her chest heaving.
“What the fuck are we doing?” Emma asks, and her voice is shaking.
“I don’t know,” I admit, my own breathing harsh. One hand is still on her waist and the other in her hair, more loosely, and I can’t seem to make myself let go.
“We can’t—” Emma starts, but she’s still gripping my shirt, still pressed against me. “What the fuck. This is—we’re?—”
“I know,” I agree, but I don’t move back either.
“You’re my kidnapper,” Emma says, like she’s trying to remind herself. “This—this iswrong. This is so fucked up.”
“I know,” I repeat, and then I’m kissing her again because talking is clearly not helping and at least when we’re kissing I don’t have to think about all the reasons this is wrong.
This time Emma kisses me back fully, no hesitation, her mouth opening under mine and her tongue sliding against mine in a way that makes my entire body go tight with want. I grip her hips and lift her onto the counter, stepping between her legs, and she wraps them around me immediately like this is something we’ve done before.
“Leo,” Emma gasps against my mouth, and the sound of my name in that breathless voice makes me want to hear it again, louder, screaming.
But then she’s pushing at my chest again, and this time when we break apart she actually puts distance between us, sliding off the counter and backing toward the door. Her face is white.
“I can’t—” Emma says, her hand coming up to her lips like she can’t believe what just happened. “I need to?—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, she runs out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there with my heart pounding and my control in shreds. I have absolutely no idea what the fuck just happened.
I pour myself another cup of coffee with shaking hands and drink it in one burning swallow even though it’s still too hot.
This is getting out of control.
I avoid her for the rest of the morning, hiding in my office and pretending to work while actually replaying our fight—and those kisses—in my head. The way she felt pressed against me. How she tasted.
Emma’s words echo in my mind.You don’t know how to end it.
She’s right. I have no plan. No endgame. I took Emma for revenge but I keep her because…because I can’t imagine this house without her anymore. Morning coffee wouldn’t be the same. Dinner alone sounds unbearable. Somewhere along the way Emma Brennan became too important to me.