Emotion. It plagues us all. Some of us more than others. I am one of the worst. I can cry at the drop of a hat, get mad over something I can’t control, feel jealousy, envy, fear, etc… I think emotion makes us stronger sometimes, but it can also weaken us if we don’t learn to control it and how we react to it.

There’s also the emotion of love…lust…

It wasn’t soft and sweet. It wasn’t tender, even though he had the most tender feelings toward her. He couldn’t stop wanting her. No matter how many times he saw her, talked to her, fought with her, he couldn’t stop wanting her.

She was right in damning him. He was damned the moment they met. He was damned when she walked down the aisle to marry his brother. He was damned the day his brother was put in the ground. He’d been damned for years and would remain so. He coveted his brother’s wife, the one woman in the world he shouldn’t want but couldn’t live without having.

He held her for a long time until her breathing calmed and she lifted her head.

“We can’t be together.”

She was wrong. “I know.”

“And I mean it, this can’t happen again. This won’t happen again.”

“I know.”

“Stop being so fucking agreeable.” She pushed against his chest and scrambled off his lap. She righted her dress and backed away.

He knew the come would slide down her thighs. He’d used no protection and she’d asked for none. They both knew he couldn’t get her pregnant. “What do you want me to be? Angry? Sad? What, Caitlyn? What do you want me to be?”

“I want you to feel the same turmoil that I do, Jethro. I want you to hurt as much as I do.”

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Because you…you’re so distant, so callous, so in control.”

He stopped the swing and stood. His leg pained him today and had for the last week. It always did around this time of year moreso than at other times. It was the second anniversary of the day he’d pulled Marcus out of the upside-down Humvee. It was the day his brother died from war wounds. It was the day he let himself hope Caitlyn could finally belong to him. He hated himself sometimes for wanting her so much, but more than he hated himself, he loved her.

He took one step then another and another until he had her backed up against a post on the porch. “He was my twin. He was every other thought in my head. He was the one person I loved more than anything in this life besides you. He was the last of my family. He was your husband.”

Jethro kissed the corner of her quivering mouth and licked softly at the tear streaming down her cheek. “I do feel pain, every day. I have the physical scars to prove it. I have the nightmares that wake me up in the middle of the night. I have… Caitlyn, I have the broken heart beating inside my chest. I do feel pain. I do hurt. And fucking you today on that swing I made for us to share was the best and worst mistake.”

He pulled her bottom lip in between his teeth and tugged, sucked. He took her mouth in a scorching, searing kiss as he held her captive between his body and the wood at her back. He could drown in her taste…

“I have to leave.”

“Yes, you do. You have to keep running away from this. You have to keep being the strong one, the one able to resist.”

“You bastard. Be a man. Don’t let me go.”

She was crying harder now, beating on his chest with her fists, and he let her. He let her take it all out on him because he didn’t know what else to do. This time he was the one held captive. She had him pinned against the front wall of the house, her mouth devouring his, her tongue so, so deep in his mouth. The moment he started to wrap his arms around her though, she broke free and ran out to her car.

If you have some time today, go visit the following blogs for more emotional snippets…

Lauren Dane
Shiloh Walker
Mari Carr
Delilah Devlin
TJ Michaels
Leah Braemel
McKenna Jeffries
Taige Crenshaw
Felicity Heaton
Eliza Gayle
Caris Roane
Myla Jackson

~lissa