Emily quietly opened the house's side door, still reeling from her conversation with Conrad. The weight of the keys felt heavy in her hand, the weight of regret even heavier in her heart. She had gone too far this time. The line between right and wrong is not as straight and well-defined as she had previously thought, and now second chances were being stripped away because of the error of her judgement.
When she rounded the corner into the living area, only some lights on, most off, Nolan was stretched out on the couch, remote in his hand. With the click of a button, Victoria's treasured artwork slid left on the hallway wall, revealing Emily's safe. "Come for this?" He asked, and it came out like gravel rolling under traffic.
Emily looked at him, really looked at him, and sighed. "No," she started, and then, "You were right." With this, she handed him back the keys to her safe, the trust she had in him and the belief he had in her. She tossed him the keys with a tiny cling of metal-on-metal, stepping back and watching her smoked bridges rapidly start rebuilding themselves.
Nolan caught the keys and stuffed them into his pockets, about to sit up when she kicked off her shoes beside the couch, stuck a knee between his body and the couch back and another knee between his legs. Settling down on top of him, Emily sighed, one hand pillowing her head on his chest and the other snaking around his neck.
One of Nolan's hands found residence at the small of her back, one threaded in her hair. This wasn't the first time Emily had sought comfort in him, but it was the first time anything had been this…intimate, for lack of a better adjective.
"Everything has gotten so complicated," she whispered into him, breath hitched on discomfort or emotion, neither could tell.
Nolan tightened his hands for a second, then relaxed. "It's always been complicated, Ems."
"Never like this."
And with that they hushed, the only sound in the quiet of Nolan's house being the crickets chirping outside, ever-present in the Hamptons but always louder in the summer. He toyed with her curls absent-mindedly, her with the buttons on his shirt. He took it as her own feelingless form of therapy, and who was he to refuse.
"You can stop right now, you know. Move back to Japan or something, hell, just get out of here." He took a breath in. Out. "You know, I'll cover for you," Nolan spoke into the folds of her hair, fingers at her back rubbing light circles at the bottom of her spine.
Emily laughed jadedly. "You're starting to sound like Aiden," she replied, and they slipped briskly back into silence. Suddenly, Nolan lifted his head up and turned hers towards him.
"The difference is," he said, his eyes glossed over with something soft and stern that Emily didn't have a name for yet. "I know I could never go with you." Pause. "No matter how much I wanted to." She sobered. One of her hands came up to cup the side of his neck, and he flattened his palms against her.
Time does not restart in situations like these until someone speaks. And against all better judgement, precautions against pain, emotionless movement fluidly through life, Emily spoke. "Did you mean it, Nolan?" She asked him, suddenly feeling like a child again, running barefoot through the sand, sticky salt waves against her legs. "What you said earlier?"
He licked his bottom lip. "Which part?"
She makes no hesitations. "When you said you loved me."
With careful attention to her sensitivity about emotions (well, kind of careful—since it looked like all walls were down anyway, he didn't make any moves to rebuild them), he slipped his arms even further around her, lifting up just enough to press a tiny kiss to her neck. "Yes, Ems," he breathed, moved his lips up so close to her ear that she felt the word before she heard it. A kiss landed there, on her helix. "Of course I love you." His mouth traveled to her cheek. Kiss. "I've always loved you."
Emily kept his eyes when he pulled back, just far enough to assess her reaction. His name came out like an exhale from her lips before they were met by his.
It felt a little like kissing her uncle, a little more like her brother, but at this point Emily didn't notice or care one, because through everything, Nolan had been her only constant. Not Aiden, who had his own problems to deal with and judgement too compromised to be safe for her or himself anymore. Not Jack, wrapped so tightly in lies and betrayal he feared the presence of a spider any minute, ready to bank on whatever got caught in her web.
From the moment she knew her purpose in life, the endgame she would ultimately wind up sacrificing everything for, Nolan had been by her side. Emily didn't know how she could have ever thought her soulmate was in another person.
She knew this wasn't the fierce, passionate love Nolan was used to quite yet, but she did know that surely it could could grow from whatever kind of love they now shared. And what better way, she thought, to set the cogs in motion.
When she threw the knee she had between his legs over to the front of the couch (against the will of her dress, which was slowly riding up her thighs), successfully straddling him, Nolan deposited a whimper into her mouth. She smiled against it, tucking the hand she had placed on his chest behind his neck, carding through the short hairs at his nape. When he said her name, he almost let slip a strangled Amanda, but stopped himself just in time. This wasn't Amanda, after all. Amanda was buried somewhere underneath the floorboards of the Stowaway, bits of her scattered in Sammy's grave, her ashes sprinkled with David's. Amanda was hidden somewhere deep within Jack Porter, somewhere so dark even he himself couldn't see it. But Emily, Emily was always Nolan's. No matter how many meals she ate at the Grayson's dining room table, no matter how many times she fucked the boy next door, Emily was always his.
Her tiny fingers started playing again with the buttons on his shirt, this time trying to get them undone. Nolan, however, was too busy licking the hollow of her neck to help. Finally pulling the fabric around the last two buttons, Emily pulled Nolan's shoulders up off the couch to slide the shirt from him. They were both glad he had foregone the added polo this morning.
Emily outstretched her hands across his bare chest, and they both stilled. Nolan's hands were tight on either side of her waist, and he slid them up to her neck (and if he brushed her breasts on the way, he was already too blissed-out to notice), pulled their foreheads together. Spent a few moments with sleepy eyes, breathing her air, listening to her pants. Emily didn't even think about the slightly alternate track of this earlier in the week with Jack, because with Nolan it was so different. There was no ten year long hiatus between them, no two year built, intense, all-consuming desire, but rather a strange sense of loyalty, the last remaining link to her father, her confidante, someone with whom she shared a profound bond that no one else would ever be able to understand.
Nolan opened his eyes to Emily's face, fingers still nimbly around her neck. Held her gaze. "You really could do it, Ems. If you wanted to."
She smiled. To her, it felt round. Nolan only saw jagged edges. "I think you know the answer to that." She put her head down over his collarbone and shifted her body weight against the back of the couch (still kept a leg slung over his). "Besides, what business would I have leaving you here alone?"
Nolan always knew her confessions of love. She pressed a feather kiss to his chest to set it in stone. That was all either of them needed at that point.
When he slid from underneath her to stand, tugged her up with him, it was only after they'd been dozing lazily on the couch for God knew how long. Her skin was starting to crease under the folds of her dress, so Emily silently thanked him for the change of position. She followed him to the bedroom (the only time she can remember letting him lead) and slipped off her dress and bra when he ducked into the bathroom, too fuzzy with sleep to even consider trekking home.
If she was at all uncomfortable with donning one of Nolan's old MIT t-shirts in place of pajamas, she didn't say anything.
When Nolan reappeared, he pointed down the hall to the guest bed. "There's a spare toothbrush and soap in that bathroom. Also, the sheets and pillowcases are clean, just let me know if you need more blankets." He looked younger, Emily thought, clad in old sweatpants instead of his usual suit, hair ruffled like he'd been riding in a convertible all day with no regards to appearances.
"I suppose that's my exit cue?" She asked, and Nolan paled, stammering.
"No, Ems, of course not—" And, "You're welcome to stay in here if you want—" And, "I thought you'd just like to—" And, "Ems, seriously. Stay."
She smiled at him (and he wasn't sure what kind of smile it was, not quite the one she gives Jack but nowhere near what she flashes at the Graysons) and turned on her heels, went down the hall for the toothbrush and soap and promptly brought them back to his bathroom. So okay, then.
When he got into the left side of the bed, she took the right, and neither said a word as he clicked off the lights with his remote, pulled the covers up to his shoulders and wondered if she was doing the same.
Their individual bubbles popped within five minutes, magnetic attraction pulling them jointly to the center of the bed. Nolan's arms curled around her tiny frame, and Emily tangled her legs between his, hooking one of her ankles around his calf. The only indication of emotion in her was her ragged breathing, a sharp intake when he growled, "Emily—Ems," before rolling on top of her and taking her mouth with his, driving his body into her so abruptly that her legs wound around his waist by reaction.
When her ankles locked behind him, he stretched one of his arms on down to grab her ass, keeping her flush against him with another hand to her shoulder blade. Her fingers gripped almost painfully in his hair, but he hardly noticed.
When she moaned his name, an unmistakable jolt of guilt shot through his spine and Nolan stilled, did not remove his hands but pulled back far enough to look her in the eyes. "Tell me if you don't want this, Ems, and I'll stop, we can stop," he said, but her face betrayed nothing to him.
"Everything I have done here has either been a mistake or part of the plan. Don't make this into one of those things, Nolan." She ran a finger up his cheek, smoothed it over the end of his eyebrow.
"Exactly. I don't want this to be another distraction," Nolan said, breath warm, entire body chilled.
Emily moved in close to his ear, whispered, "I don't want to think about that tonight," and pulled him down on her once again.
He surrendered with a whimper, but reinstated control of the situation back to himself. With the skin of Emily's thighs wrapped around the skin of his waist, he could feel himself growing harder by the second. Surely she could too.
Nolan slid his hand up to the top of her underwear, pushing the hem of his shirt up over her hipbone. Past her waist. Far enough that his thumb could graze the underside of her breast while the rest of his hand gripped her tight. He rolled his hips against her and she arched into him, throwing her head back so that her entire neck was exposed for him to kiss, nip, suck. Nothing too hard, he knew, because if she and Daniel were in as big a squabble as Daniel made it out to be, Emily could not show up anywhere with unaccounted for love marks.
Just the fact itself that he was able to mark her made blood flow to his cock. Emily Throne was quite literally the most powerful woman Nolan had ever known, and here she was, putty under him. He slid his other hand from her back to her side and folded up her shirt there as well, kept pushing it until she lifted up and he was able to toss it unceremoniously off the bed.
Her bare chest felt smooth and cool against his, and he spent a few minutes kissing her breasts just so he could listen to her breathy moans instead of swallowing them. When he slipped one of her nipples into his mouth, her spin stiffened, and she let out a straggled exhale as he sucked gently on it. At the same time, Nolan had one hand on her other breast, rolling that nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and one back gripping her ass.
Emily was happy to let him take control; for once she was tired of always having the lead position, and therefore at this time, she let herself be commanded. She did, however, push ever so slightly at Nolan's sweatpants, getting them down over his ass before he tore himself away from her chest, finished the ridding of them himself.
When he turned again to face her, she covered his smirk with her own, working at his mouth until it opened for her, running her hot little tongue over his teeth, twining it with his own. Deciding she was actually in favor of leading for a little while, she planted hands on both of his shoulders and flipped them so that he was now lying against the pillows and she was straddling him on her knees. Nolan made no time for pillow talk; as radiant as she looked, naked and hair splayed all around her shoulders, he would never tell her. At least, not now. Not while he was so afraid of her coming to and leaving of her own accord, not even for anything he might have done.
Anyway, he didn't have time to think about what or (more specifically) what not to say, because as soon as his fingers started winding in and out of her underwear, starting at her hipbone but gradually edging towards the center, her hands were pulling his boxers down, freeing his painfully hard erection. He kicked them off with little care, started working at her panties. She obliged.
When they were both fully undressed, they paused. A look passed between them that meant there was no going back, that any connection they had based on David paled now in the connection they had based on physical contact. Neither one of them spoke. Neither one of them needed to.
He grabbed a condom from the bedside drawer (to which she snickered: "Need those often?" and he playfully slapped her arm) and rolled it on. The world became quiet again.
Nolan slipped into Emily with little festivity, maybe a muffled moan escaping. She simply tightened her lips against it and squeezed her eyes shut, leaning back on Nolan and stretching her arms out on either side of his knees. He sat up, kept tight arms around her waist as she rode him, slowly at first but gradually quicker, harder, as little groans protruded from both their lips.
She took this as opportunity to tug again at his hair, and how she knew that was one of his turn-ons, he didn't ask. He, on the other hand, spent the time again licking and sucking her breasts, so blinded by what she was currently doing to his cock that he didn't even register the little noises coming from her as he nipped.
When they came to a mutual point of tension, Nolan held Emily's face in his hands and kissed her fiercely, passionately, like everything she knew he needed. After this, he pulled back, planted hands on her hips to serve as grips and thrust repeatedly into her, a steady rhythm of pulling out and pounding back in until she gave a small, startled cry and went limp in his arms, collapsing against his frame just as he finished inside of her.
For a long while, the only sound in the world was their combined breathing, the circulated air of the room filling and leaving their lungs. When Nolan pulled out of her, he rolled them onto their sides and stroked her cheek until she could open her eyes, could look at him. When she did, she turned away from him but slid back, snapping into place against him like puzzle pieces. He wound an arm over her waist. She covered his hand with both of her own.
"Please don't regret this," he breathed, and curled his naked body around hers like a question mark. Emily squeezed his hands, settled her head in the crook of his arm.
"I don't," she said, and Nolan barely heard her—barely, but did nonetheless. A kiss fell on the back of her neck. Time stilled. The window was open above the bed, but neither of them could hear the crickets chirping.