Page 108 of The Edge of Always

Luna wanted to laugh, because she wasn’t. She’d never been beautiful, but as Emmett turned her round and then helped her out of her shorts and knickers, she felt beautiful.

It was like an out of body experience, being naked in front of Emmett. Like, how did they get here? Luna realised that while she was naked, he still had most of his clothes on. It made her feel extra naked, but he was sitting on the edge of the bed, pressing kisses to her stomach now, and she was a bundle of nerve endings, incapable of speech.

Emmett guided her round to lie on the bed and Luna watched, enraptured as he took the remainder of his clothes off. He had to let her draw him, that’s what she thought. She’d never capture how gorgeous he was, but she’d die trying.

As he knelt over her, she thought that this must be it, but they weren’t there yet. There were more kisses, in places that Luna never dreamed anyone would kiss her. A soft groaning that Luna realised was all her. She was so loose-limbed and away with it that she felt like a fragmented bundle of feelings by the time Emmett pushed into her.

It was uncomfortable, for a short second, and he was whispering into her ear until she relaxed, welcoming the feeling of being so full. It was delicious, the low unfurling of heat in the bottom of her stomach.

‘Does it feel okay?’ Emmett asked.

‘Don’t… stop,’ was all Luna could manage in reply.

That encouraged him and he pushed faster, harder. Luna clung to his shoulders like they were a life raft in the middle of the ocean, thanking some higher being that one of them was so fit. They rode the wave of it together and Luna wondered, genuinely, why they hadn’t just been doing this the whole time.

When it was over, Emmett rested on top of her, pressing gentle kisses to her forehead.

Her thighs ached.

He turned his face towards her and she brushed a loose curl back off his head.

‘What did you think?’ he asked, starting to move as Luna pulled him back on top of her. She liked feeling his weight.

‘I think I loved it,’ she told him, alarmed to find that she was close to tears. It was just a lot. Surely she’d crossed some sort of a threshold here. She’d had sex, her, with Emmett.

He kissed the wetness away from the side of her eyes, murmured that it was okay, he had her. Asked if she was okay over and over. And when she told him that she was, for a brief, fleeting second, she let herself believe it too.

Luna wanted to tell Emmett that she loved him. They hadn’t said it. But Luna knew she loved him.

She didn’t say it.

‘What will you do, if they sell the cottage?’ Emmett asked her.

They were laid on Emmett’s bed, Luna’s head on Emmett’s shoulder.

‘I don’t know. Dad said he wanted it, so maybe there’s still a chance…’ She didn’t really believe this to be true.

‘It’s fucked up.’

‘I know. It’s weird, once we’re adults it’s like we’re meant to just be responsible for our own decisions, but how do you leave it all behind?’

Summer would be over in a week. Luna didn’t know what would happen, after.

‘I don’t know.’

‘I guess you try and learn from it?’ Luna wondered. She did know that she didn’t want a relationship like her parents had. She wanted what she and Emmett had, where they were everything to each other. Or he was everything to her, at any rate.

Emmett laughed. ‘I’ve learned not to become a heroin addict alright.’

‘And I’ve learned that dark eyebrows are like catnip for middle-aged women.’ Luna said this because she didn’t want to say what she really felt.

Emmett laughed again. ‘Ah well, at least we have each other.’

She rolled over to face him, traced the outline of his eyes, his nose, his lips with her finger.

‘At least we have each other,’ she repeated back to him and hoped that it would always be true.

‘Should we go check on him?’ Luna asked sometime later.