Untethered

5 | Sleepover

Hunger swept through her, settling low in her stomach, and she tried to deepen the kiss, but he held her still, keeping it light. Gradually, he pulled back, a small, lazy smile playing on his lips that made him look almost boyish.

"I s'pose we should head back to Ma's, eh?"

His voice had dropped a couple octaves, husky with sleep, and it sent a pleasant little jolt of electricity through Emma's body. She couldn't speak, so she just nodded.

"If I knew all it took to make you speechless was to kiss you, I'd have tried that ages ago," he teased her.

"I'd pay good money to find out what would make you shut up," she retorted acidly, finding her voice and leaning away from him.

"Shit," Ryan grimaced as he became more aware of what he'd just done. He'd been determined not to come onto her, and he'd managed to do so twice already in the same night. "I'm sorry, Em. I shouldn't have done that."

"No, you shouldn't have," she agreed, but she didn't get up right away, leaning back against his shoulder. "Did they take anything?" she asked, referring to the attempted theft.

"The cops didn't think so," Ryan answered. "Boxes were opened and some had been gone through, but it looked like they were looking for something specific—or they just wanted to see if they could find something valuable."

"Well, that's something," she replied. "It might not be valuable to anyone else, but it is to me."

"I know, Em. I'm really sorry... for everything."

"Ryan Cameron apologizing?" Pushing back from him, she stood up, looking down at him thoughtfully. "You are a very confusing man, you know that?" she asked softly, almost to herself.

"Good." He got to his feet, grinning down at her, "I like to keep you guessing." The crooked smile was back, and she punched his arm.

"Ouch!" He rubbed his bicep in mock pain.

"C'mon, you big baby, I am really tired. Besides, you deserved that."

"Yeah, I probably did," he agreed.

He preceded her out of the house and waited while she locked the door. When they got back to his mom's, he left her at the spare room door, and headed into his own room down the hall.

~*~*~

Once he left her, Emma began getting ready for bed, barely paying attention to what she was doing. Finally, she was sprawled out on the handmade quilted bedspread in the guest room, exhaling deeply. She should have fallen right to sleep. She was beyond exhausted.

Every time she closed her eyes, though, she saw a pair of teasing green ones smiling back at her, and then she was reliving the kiss. Both kisses! She had no idea what was happening to her. Thinking of Ryan romantically was something that she had written off long ago, when she banished him from her thoughts as a childhood crush. He was just Evan's friend. Her childhood tormentor... Wasn't he?

Her thoughts drifted to her brother. She was excited to see him, it had been almost two months since the funeral and she missed him. Running through the list of things to do the next day, she thought of the moving van. Who was the man that broke into the truck... and what in the world did he want with Grandma Edie's old stuff? Was it just a stupid kid?

Something told her it was more than that, but she didn't know what. She had caught a strange look on Greta's face multiple times this evening, though. A look that made her very uncomfortable and unwilling to just write the break-in off as a random occurrence, even if it didn't make any sense.

She yawned and crawled under the heavy bedspread. The thoughts in her head swirled and got more and more muddled until, eventually, she dropped into a deep sleep filled with weird dreams involving faceless thieves chasing her down, trying to kiss her.

~*~*~

A little way out of town, in a run-down roadside motel, the would-be thief cursed himself. Idiot! You're lucky you weren't caught, and luckier that bitch didn't recognize you! She had made eye-contact with him as he sped past, but she looked more stunned than anything. He groaned, maybe she did recognize me.

After he drove off earlier that evening, he thought the better of it and circled back. If what he was after was in that truck, he needed to know it. He didn't expect anyone to be out on the street, much less the kid and the neighbor girl. No doubt the cops had been called as well.

He groaned trying to figure out how he was going to get close again. The stuff had to be in that house, but he definitely couldn't risk getting caught. Back to surveillance, he sighed.

First thing in the morning, he was going to have to track down a different car. The description of his was likely in a police report by now. If all else failed, he was going to have to track her down. Not that he minded. He rubbed the scar on his chest absentmindedly trying to relieve the ever-present, dull ache. She had a lot to answer for, and her comeuppance was long overdue.

A/N:

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