Untouched A Cedar Cove Novella

perfect day, and I can tell from the new tension in Emerson’s body, he feels it too.
    Two weeks.
    How can things change so completely in two weeks? Or, even less than that. A day, the first day I met Emerson. The very first moment. We were strangers. I walked around in this world, not even knowing he existed, and now leaving the arms currently wrapped around me seems almost unthinkable. I belong here, I know it, with every instinct in my body.
    It’s too much to think about right 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.

E MERSON
    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 sounds