I nodded, my eyes darting to his and holding. “In your bed, actually.”
Emmett’s gaze heated, slow and molten, and this time, I did nothing to stop the corresponding goose bumps that sprinkled up my arms.
“I’m sorry I missed that,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow. “You never would’ve tried anything, not if I was drunk.”
His eyes locked onto my mouth. “No. I would’ve slept on the floor like a perfect gentleman.”
Who was I kidding? If Emmett had been in that bedroom with me that night, he would’ve had to tie me down to keep from mounting him like a bike. I tore my gaze from his, exhaling slow and steady.
This was why I was afraid to be alone with him.
This pull that I always felt when he was around. The difference now was that I wasn’t the only one following the tug, the push of the magnets.
Realizing that had me asking the thing I couldn’t quite figure out, without pausing to consider the ramifications.
“Why did you come here, Emmett?”
My question had his expression softening, a tenderness in his gaze that I’d never seen before. It caused the same ominous rumbling as when he took my hand and led me onto the dance floor.
Something was changing, and I didn’t know what.
I wanted to know.
And I didn’t. The unknown of all this was terrifying in its bigness because nothing felt unimportant. Not a single exchange we’d had could be swept away or ignored.
Emmett braced his feet on the ground and spun his swing, the chains crisscrossing at the top and his big muscular arms moving to pull me into the same position. We faced each other now, and he braced his elbows on his thighs, clasped hands dangling between his legs.
The intimacy of the position, the surety in how he faced me, had my heart thundering erratically.
“I came here because your brother invited me.” His face was smooth and calm. But his eyes … his eyes were searing.
Right. It was the answer I needed.
“But,” he added, “the opportunity to see you … it was too good to pass up. Is that okay for me to admit?”
“Is that…？” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t even finish repeating his question.
Was it okay?
The guy basically just dropped a bomb over my head and expected me to have rational thoughts about rational things like … why my former crush was on the swings with me, giving me intense sex eyes and asking if it was okay that he was excited to see me.
Like he hadn’t gone five years without seeing me.
Not once had this man ever hinted that he might have feelings for me.
No, there were no rational thoughts about anything happening in my brain.
My heart, though … my heart was screaming, catapulting into some oxygen-thin stratosphere of girlish excitement. My heart wanted me to lean forward and see if his lips tasted as good as they looked.
My heart wanted.
But my brain, it kept me right where I was, a single seed of caution whispering through that thick pulse of attraction.
My brain remembered.
“Emmett,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t know what to do with that.” I had to force a dry swallow around the most truthful answer I could give him. “I’m not ready for anything. Not right now.”
Inexplicably, he smiled. Then he raised his hand to tuck an errant strand of hair behind my ear. “That’s all right.”
“But it is good to see you too,” I whispered.