Breathe With Me (Playing For Keeps #5)

by Becka Mack

“No.” His jaw drops, and his teammates—and Debbie—snicker. “What? But I⁠—” “I can tell that word’s hard for you to comprehend, isn’t it? See, I said no, but I worry that what you heard was ‘please keep talking to me’.”

“Wait,” he calls as I head toward the back. “You forgot something.” I check my glossy red nails. “Can’t be all that important if I’ve managed to forget it.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong.”

“I know, I know. You’re never wrong, and it’s absurd of me to even suggest it. But humor me, just this once?”

“Proceed.” “You see, you forgot to get my name.”

“And it would be heartless of me to let you walk away without it.” “Mmm. A considerate man, are we?”

“Yup.”

“Emmett Brodie, at your service, my queen.”

“Now, since you never, ever forget important things…”

“You were about to give me your number.”

“My, you’re eager. Aren’t you going to ask my name first?” “Nah. Already know it.”

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.”

“But one look is all it took to know you had to be mine. I don’t deserve you now, but I’m gonna spend the rest of my life making up for that, and when I die, I’ll be a worthy man.” He tilts my head back, mouth hovering a breath from mine. “Tell me I can have you, gorgeous. Because it’s you or no one.”

This kiss is everything you ever dream of. It’s shaking

hands, biting nails, suffocating grips. It’s hot breath, lashing tongues, hungry moans, and desperate whimpers. It’s

realizing that everyone before him has meant nothing, because this? This is what it feels like to be alive. To want something so bad all semblance of control leaves my body on a single breath. I want to give it up, all of it, the power I always squeeze tightly in my fist, and let him take it, wield it however ...

“Because my heart stopped when I saw you. Because when you turned to walk away, my body said I think the fuck not.”

“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.”

“And you love it. You want someone crazy for you, someone whose eyes are gonna follow you whenever you’re in the room. Someone who’s never gonna shut up about you. Who wants you at your best, your worst, and when you’re old and gray.”

knew myself before him. Knew who I was, what I was worth. But when he walked into my life three and a half years ago, my fate was sealed. There would never be a me again without Emmett Brodie. 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.

“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.”

I was unstoppable before Emmett. With him, I’m indestructible.

I was unstoppable before them. With them, I’m indestructible.

Who needs sunshine when you have Emmett Brodie?

Being with him is like stepping into the light, lifting my face to the sky, and bathing myself in everything warm and good and safe, not knowing how I ever lived before my soul found his.

Keeps me up at night, just staring at you, because suddenly it feels like my world is centered around a single person, and I am terrified that without you … everything collapses.”

don’t want you to go away,” I admit, burying the fear in his neck when he loosens his grip on my wrists, letting me cling to him. “I like having you here, and I can’t fight off the girls when you’re somewhere else.” “Baby, you don’t need to fight off anyone.”

“But I can. I can take them, all of them. At the same time. I’ll do it, I swear.” A quiet chuckle, and Emmett touches a kiss to my lips. “There is zero doubt in my mind.” “It feels like you’re calling me crazy.” “It feels like you’re calling me yours.”

“You’re unhinged.” “You made me this way.”

“My thoughts, all of them lately, are about you. When I think about tomorrow, about next week, next year, or ten years from now … I think about you. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m going to marry you, Cara. I see my future as clear as day.”

“Yeah? What’s it look like?”

“It looks lik...

“If it weren’t for me, you’d be a dad already.”

“If it weren’t for you, I’d be alone and miserable. We both know I don’t exist without you by my side.”

“Do you know what you are, baby? You’re strength personified. You’re a forest fire, burning the bridges that hold you back. You’re a wildflower, rising again and again, growing without abandon, no matter the weather. You’re a firefly, baby. When the stars are tired, you light your own

way, and the way for everyone else, too.”

“You, Cara Brodie, are a once-in-a-lifetime woman, and you can do anything.”

“You’re brave. Determined. Capable.” I drop a feather-soft kiss to her lips. “And you have me. I won’t let you fall.” “Promise?” “I’ve got you, Cara. Always.”

There are some things we can’t do all on our own, and that’s all right. We hand the reins over to someone else, let them lead the way, and give up control. I

The way my heart pounds when she opens up the door, the way my blood simmers and my nerves settle the moment she’s in my arms. The way she tastes when she presses three simple words to my lips, three words I never knew I needed: I missed you.

“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.”

good man can’t be stolen. He knows who his heart belongs to, and no amount of promises of backflips on his cock will have him straying.”

marry you over and over again, every day for the rest of my life.

“That man is head over heels for you. It’s rare in life that you find someone so in tune with you, who loves you exactly the way you need to be loved. And you’ve found it.”

My heart hasn’t been mine since the day we met. Now, it wanders around outside my body, and that’s as powerful as it is terrifying.

He presses a kiss to my lips and my hand to his heart, and I feel it, the way he loves me, the depth of it. Infinite.