Free Untouched: a Cedar Cove Novella by Melody Grace Page A

now, not when we’re having such a blissful time.
I push all my worries down, and trace the tattoos that wind across
Emerson’s bicep and side.
    “I should get one,”
I decide.“A bird maybe. A sparrow, or a blue jay.”
    “Jaybird, huh?”
Emerson repeats it with a smile. “You sure you’re up for it?
Hurts like a motherfucker,” he warns me.
    “I can take it. I’m
strong.”
    “Oh, really?”
Emerson laughs, rolling suddenly to pin me beneath him. My pulse
skips, feeling his delicious weight pressing into my wrists, my hips.
His mouth grazes down my throat, and I shiver, staring up at the
trees above us.
    “Sure. I could take
you in a fight,” I tease, closing my eyes. His tongue blazes a
trail down my chest, nudging my bikini top aside. I let out a soft
moan as he licks around my nipple, soft and hot against my cool skin.
His body tenses above me, fingertips digging into my flesh, and I
marvel I have this effect on him.
    The dark look in his
eyes is just for me. The catch in his breath, the low groan as I buck
my hips up against him… I’m doing this. I’m driving him wild.
    Suddenly, I push my
wrists out, breaking his hold. I flip, rolling on top of him so I’m
straddling his lap. I pin his wrists against the blanket, looking
down at him with a teasing smile. “See?” I tell him, laughing.
“I’ve got you now.”
    “You sure about
that?” Emerson thrusts his hips up against me, and now it’s my
breath that’s catching, feeling the friction, the ache twist
tighter. Yes. He breaks my hold, the weight of my grip nothing
to him. He sits up, wrapping his arms around me, trapping my arms
across my chest. I’m caught, helpless in his lap, feeling the heat
of his body all the way through me.
    “Surrender?” he
teases, grazing his lips along my jaw. I twist to try and kiss him,
but he ducks back, holding me in place, forcing me to wait.
    My heart races. Desire
is flooding through me, unfamiliar, but sharp and hot in my veins. I
want more of him. All of him. My body is aching, a way I’ve never
felt before, and everything I want is right here, in Emerson’s
eyes.
    “Make me,” I
whisper. His eyes flash dark, and then he’s tumbling me to the
blanket again, body hard against me, and California and my future is
far, far away again.

Emerson
    We spend hours out by
the swimming hole, talking and kissing and touching. But neither one
of us bring up the future again, and no matter how close we come to
going all the way on that old blanket, I hold us back from the edge.
    It doesn’t make
sense. She’s ready for it: curious and gasping under my kisses. All
I want is to possess her, completely, but something stops me from
taking that leap. I tell myself it’s to protect her: make sure
she’s truly ready, before crossing the one line she can’t take
back. The secret is, it’s not her heart I’m protecting here. It’s
mine.
    “I don’t want to go
home, not just yet.” Juliet sighs, as I drive us back to Cedar
Cove.
    I look over. She’s
heartbreakingly beautiful, sitting with her feet up in my passenger
seat. Her damp hair is drying in the breeze, and the afternoon sun
warms her skin. She’s smiling over at me, so carefree it hurts, and
for a moment, I think about skipping our exit on the highway and just
driving forever. Her and me, and the open road, nothing holding us
back.
    But we can’t. I have
Brit and Ray Jay, and my mess of a mom, and she has a tomorrow
planned out that’s got nothing to do with me.
    Pain strikes through
me, just thinking of her plans.
    “So what do you want
to do?” I ask, reaching over and taking her hand. I squeeze it
tight, like I can hold her here, right in this moment, forever. “We
could go back to mine, have dinner with Brit?” I suggest.
    Juliet brightens, but
then she pauses. “Are you sure that would be OK?”
    “Sure.” I bring her
hand to my lips. “She was bugging me about meeting you again.”
    Juliet laughs. “OK
then,” she agrees shyly, “That