Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

I DON’T GET ON MY KNEES FOR NO—WHOOPS, I’M ON MY KNEES

“Fuck my mouth and tell me to swallow, this is way too much food.”

Cara my queen, I missed you

And then those eyes come to mine. Warm and bright, sunshine and summer heating me from the tips of my toes all the way up to where it gathers in my chest and crawls into my cheeks. Impossibly wide and full of awe, like he’s just discovered there’s an eighth wonder of the world, and she’s standing right in front of him.

For the first time in my life, I stand still and forget everything.

“Emmett

With a perfect, wide grin, Emmett Brodie deposits his phone into my hand. It’s opened to the New Contact page, except the name field has already been filled out. Mrs. Brodie. For the first time in my life, my heartbeat trips.

“C’mon, Mrs. Brodie. The quicker we get through the formalities, the quicker we get to the fun stuff, like my ring on your finger and you in my bed for the rest of our lives.”

Really? You were the fastest sperm?

“My ex. He wants to get back together.” “I see.” His eyes come to mine. “Well, go on. Tell him you’re taken.” I bite back my smile as I hold Emmett’s stare, so smug and sure as I type out a message. Me I’ve thought about it. It’s a no. “Good girl. That certainly wasn’t an I’m taken, though.” Twisting between his arms, I lean back against the counter. “Because I’m not.” “Aren’t you?” He tilts his head, playfulness sparking in his blue gaze. “Hm. We’ll have to fix that.”

“This is my favorite birthday ever,” he murmurs against my skin. “What? It’s your birthday?” “Mhmm. For another two minutes, at least. New Year’s baby, freshly twenty-seven. Feels a lot like the first day of my life, though.” “Happy birthday,” I breathe, heart pounding at the feel of him pressed against me, his fingers dancing down my hair. “What did you get?” His palm settles in the curve of my lower back, his whisper pressed to my ear. “You.”

Emmett Brodie waits there, head down, gripping the doorframe. There’s not an ounce of remorse in those beautiful eyes when he peers up at me from beneath thick lashes. Those eyes are nothing compared to the smile this man hits me with. “Good morning, beautiful.” The sweet words skate roughly down my sides as he steps inside, gently forcing me backward. “It’s tomorrow.” My jaw dislodges, and he grins, gripping it as my back hits the counter. “Ah,” he whispers, thumb tracing my lower lip. “I was worried my cock wouldn’t fit in there, but now I see. Perfect mouth, just like the rest of you. You’ll have no trouble, will you?”

“Tell me I can have you, gorgeous. Because it’s you or no one.”

As he grins, watching me moan and arch my back, inviting his thumb deeper, pussy clenching around the two fingers he sinks inside me, his trimmed beard glistening and his eyes dancing when he calls me his filthy wife and promises to spend the rest of his life fucking me wherever and however I want. I die, and I come, and I die, and I come.

“You have the most beautiful cock I’ve ever seen in my life.” “You know what?” His shoulders shake with his exhale as I rub myself over his thick length. “When I had my face buried between your thighs, I was thinking to myself, This is the most gorgeous pussy in existence.”

“This pussy was handmade by the gods.” “Gonna be destroyed by one too.” His thumb traps my lower lip. “Destroyed for anyone but me.” “You think you own it?” “Not yet, but I’m gonna.” A shaky exhale as he sinks further this time. He runs a hand over his mouth, eyes roaming my body. “I’ll tattoo mine on every part of you that belongs to me.”

“I’ve got a condom. Right there in my wallet. Always use one.” His tongue runs across his lips, and I can’t help but reach forward, touch his broad chest, run the tip of my finger across those immaculately carved muscles. “For the first time in my life, I don’t want to. No excuses, no lines, I’m just fucking desperate to feel all of you.” He drags a kiss across my collarbone, up my throat, stopping at the corner of my mouth. “Tell me to wear it. I already know I’ll never say no to you.”

“Because my heart stopped when I saw you. Because when you turned to walk away, my body said I think the fuck not.” Sweat trickles down his temple, and his mouth takes mine in a searing kiss that has me trying to crawl inside him. “Because never in my life have I felt the way I feel right now, inside you, like I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. I don’t know why, but I know every time I look at you…brain just keeps screaming mine.”

“Hypothetically speaking, if the world ended and you aged and turned gray, I’d still fuck you up against the wall.” “Presuming your cock still worked.” “Baby, my cock is always gonna get hard for you.” “A romantic king.”

My walls shatter, or maybe it’s the earth. My vision goes black, dotted with stars, and all I can hear is Emmett’s rough voice in my ear as I chant his name. “That’s my fucking girl.” “Such a greedy pussy.” “Drenched, just for me.” “Mine.”

Before I can catch my breath, he drops to his knees, hikes one leg over his shoulder, and buries his mouth between my thighs. Licks me clean. And when he’s done? He crowds me against the wall. Fists my hair in his hand. Forces my mouth open. And spits that masterpiece inside.

“You wanna be a mom one day?” he asks as he tries—and fails—to fix my dress, the mess of hair on my head, and I think it’s wild he’s asking me this when he still hasn’t asked my first name. “One day,” I manage, gasping as I stumble, legs officially giving up the fight. Emmett catches me around the waist, pressing his whispered words to my mouth. That’ll be the second-best day of my life, right after the day I make you my wife.”

There was Cara Hunter, the woman who was happy and capable of doing it all on her own. And then there was Cara Brodie, the woman who’d never need to do anything alone again, but with the man who reminded her day in and day out that she could. I was unstoppable before Emmett. With him, I’m indestructible.

Imagine that? You’d get the baby without having to do any of the hard work.” The hard work? Like making love to my husband, and seeing two parallel lines that tell us we made something beautiful together? Like getting to carry that reminder around inside me for nine months? Feeling it grow, getting stronger every day? Hearing its heartbeat for the very first time, and comparing one ultrasound picture to the last, marveling at the changes in such a short amount of time, the miracle growing inside me? That hard work?

Im already bout to cry

With his hand on my jaw, he brushes away a tear I didn’t know had escaped. Then, he covers his mouth with mine, and I let him in, because there is no other option for me. “Don’t let the voices win,” he whispers, pressing his forehead to mine. “They don’t know you the way I do. They don’t know your fight. My loud girl doesn’t let anyone else dictate the rules. Me and you, Care? We build our own rules.”

“You’re a bad fucking girl,” I tell her, fisting her hair, pulling her head back so I can drag my mouth down her throat. I find her nipple, nipping it through the satin, and she whimpers. Hovering above her, I cup her warm, wet pussy. “Whose bad girl are you?” “Mine.” I slap her clit. “Yours!” “There you go, baby. My bad girl, but such a good girl too, huh?”

“I don’t know anything about hockey.” “I don’t care. Just want you wearing my name on your back.”

“You’re so fucking annoying,” she says on a sigh, but it’s oddly…contented. She likes me annoying her. That’s good; I’m gonna be doing it for the rest of our lives.

THE VIBRATORS? WE KEEP THOSE IN THE KITCHEN

“That’s my girl. Give up the fight.”

But here? Behind closed doors, when he’s all mine and I’m all his? I love to give it up. The control, the attitude. Love to let him fuck it right out of me, watch that feminism leave my body as I wave goodbye to it.

“Bossy girl,” he murmurs. “Someone needs to teach you some manners.” He places his palm against the bend in the vibrator, pushing it deeper into me, rocking it as I gasp, chasing the motion. “Maybe I’m not in the mood for giving today. Maybe I’m in the mood for taking.” “No,” I whine, shaking my head. I reach for my clit, desperate for friction, but he bats my hand away, holding it captive as he pushes the vibrator deeper into my ass. “Maybe I’ll fuck this hole right here, fill it with my cum and watch it drip out of you. Rub your pretty little cunt, get you all worked up, but stop right before you can finish. Your pussy will be clenching all day, empty, searching for me.” His mouth moves up the inside of my thighs, trading kisses for soft bites, the lash of his tongue. He pauses at the top, spreading me wide. “That what you want, gorgeous?” “No.” My head shakes desperately. “God, no.” “Then lose the fucking attitude and ask me nicely.”

“There’s my sweet girl,” he murmurs. He winks, and fucking finally, he moves that perfect mouth to my clit.

“C’mon, Mrs. Brodie. Time to get dressed. We have a first date to cross off our list.” “I don’t know what to wear. Where are we going?” “I made two reservations, one fancy and French, one Mexican dive bar. My wife gets to choose which one she’s in the mood for tonight.”

Emmett chuckles, then stops abruptly. “Oh, fuck.” His hands go to the sides of his face, eyes wide, a little horrified. “I think…am I…?” “Dating the female version of Carter?” Adam winks at me. “Yup.”

“I can’t believe I’m spending our first date vomiting, and you’re still here.” “Still here?” Emmett smiles, crouching in front of me. His fingers thread through my hair as he gathers it on top of my head, securing it in a knot before tipping my chin up, guiding my eyes to his. “Baby, where would I go? I am wherever you are, no matter what.”

“I’m going to marry you, Cara. I see my future as clear as day.” “Yeah? What’s it look like?” Emmett cups my cheek, resting his forehead against mine. “It looks like you.”

“Every time you ejaculate, you empty your testicles. Your sperm count needs to rebuild. Since we don’t know ahead of time when Cara’s follicles will be the optimal size to induce ovulation, we give you a five-day window. Imagine Cara’s follicles are ready to release eggs, and you’ve had sex just eight hours ago, resulting in a sperm count so low that we need to cancel the procedure.” She shakes her head, sealing my fate and effectively ruining my life. “No ejaculation, period, for five days.” My jaw unhinges, and a scoff tumbles from my mouth. Cara leaps to her feet, smashing her pointer finger against the desk. “And just who in the fuck do you think you are?” I throw my arms in the air, because throwing my chair would be frowned upon. “The goddamn cum police?”

With trembling hands, she covers her eyes as I count to five in my head. “Your smile, your legs, that red dress you wore the night we met, your hand on my chest when we fall asleep each night, and the way you look first thing in the morning.” Slowly, she opens her eyes, keeping them on me as I remove the needle, capping the tip before I twist it off and toss it in the sharps bin. “What?” “Five things I love about you for every second the needle is in you.” I sink to my knees between her legs, gripping her waist in my hands and pressing a kiss to her stomach.

She’s a sight to be seen, but then she always is. A shiver runs down my spine at the devotion that shines in her eyes, and I reach forward, grabbing a pink window marker from the glass we keep on the counter. My writing is a mess on a good day, but particularly so when I’m buried eight inches deep inside a pussy that squeezes like it was made just for me. I drop the marker when I’m done, digging my fingertips into Cara’s hip and strumming her clit just right so she comes at the exact moment she reads my message. You are brave. You are fierce. You’re Cara motherfucking Brodie.

“Who are you?” I barely manage, balls pulling tight as my fingers scrape down her back. “Cara”—gasp—“motherfucking”—gasp—“Brodie.” “Yeah, you are.” I slap her beautiful ass, leaving behind my handprint, right where it belongs. “Now come for me, baby.”

“Oh, baby,” I murmur, watching as my cum drips from my favorite spot. I gather it on my fingers, fucking it back into her pretty cunt before making her suck my fingers into her mouth. “I love when we make a mess.”

“Yeah, me and Mittens were just a couple of sad, lonely bachelors before Len. Right, honey?” “So sad and lonely, baby,” Lennon calls back.

“I love you.” Her gaze snaps to mine. “What?” “I love you, Cara. And I don’t care that it’s only been three weeks, and maybe you think I’m a little crazy. I’ve been crazy since the day I took one look at you and told myself you were it for me, and I’ll be crazy for the rest of my life, because there’s nothing sane about the way I love you.”

My heart hasn’t been mine since the day we met.

“If we have kids⁠—” “When we have kids,” I correct again, and she rolls her eyes, knocking me in the arm. “When we have kids … a nursery. Shelves filled with all the books we’ll read them, sitting in the window, where the sun will shine through each morning and kiss their cheeks, where all the stars will dance above them night after night. We’ll sing songs and we’ll dance and we’ll laugh and we’ll grow. And when we put them to bed each night⁠—” I catch her around the waist as she spins around the room, hauling her against my chest, cupping her cheek as my thumb moves over her lower lip. “I’ll tell them that if the only stars in my sky were them and their mama, that would be all I need.”

One day, you’ll be snuggled up in this window, staring up at the stars above. Mama will hold you, singing to you about the way they shine like diamonds in the sky. And I’ll stand back and watch you together, knowing with absolute certainty … If you and your mama were the only stars in my sky, that would be all I needed. Love, Dada

I slap at the tsunami of tears rushing down my face. Emmett doesn’t bother with his. Instead, he sniffles, opening that velvet ring box, showing me the ring I asked for the day after we met. Three-carat emerald-cut diamond with a hidden halo and pear-shaped accent stones set on white gold. “I went four carats,” he murmurs through his tears. “You’re a four-carat kind of woman.” I bark out a laugh, followed by more tears. “So true.”

“I wonder, still, how our life would have been different. I would have done anything to fix my wife’s broken heart, and it feels like a crime that this world never saw a mini version of her. But I have my family. And you? Those boys back there, you ladies that keep me young, those kids … well, I wouldn’t trade you in for anything. You’re the family Ireland and I dreamed of, and I believe she gave me all of you when she passed.” “Hank, what the fuck?” I sob, swatting at my cheeks, rubbing at the mascara beneath my eyes. “My makeup was on point tonight.”

He kisses my lips, then grips my hips as he crouches at my belly. “I hope you’re in there, baby. Your mama’s got the most perfect home for you to cook in for nine months.” My heart pulls taut, and when he presses his lips to my stomach, I close my eyes and pray that our love is enough to will this baby into existence.

She loves without limits, without fucking conditions. She loves people for who they are, exactly where they’re at, and that? That’s exactly why I love her. Baby or no baby, that woman is my goddamn wife. My family. And I won’t stand here and let you disrespect her.” I haul the door open, and Natasha stares up at me, tears welling in her eyes as the bitter winter wind whips at our cheeks. “You’re fired. Get out.”