Healed by Rebecca Brooke Page B

hard to get everything done.
    We’d finally reached the break between semesters, something we both needed more than anything. Emily had been going crazy, working on all of the research for her thesis, and there were many nights when she was at the library until it, collecting all of the materials she would need for when it came time to write the paper.
    And that didn’t even include all of the work she had to do with her other classes. Every night I stayed up and waited for her, making sure she ate at some point. Emily had a bad habit of forgetting to eat when she got absorbed in whatever she was doing. There were many days when I’d drop something off to her when I was leaving campus for the afternoon. It was my job to take care of her and that was what I was going to do.
    For the most part my classes hadn’t been too bad. They were mostly about preparing us for our internship that would start in the New Year, long before the semester actually started for everyone else. Excited wasn’t even close to describing my feelings about the placement I’d been given. It was with one of the best engineering firms in the area. Caleb, also an engineering major, got a different firm, but still a terrific one.
    Last week, I’d gone down to the office to meet with the partners. When I walked in and saw the walls surrounding me decorated with pictures of all the projects they’d completed it was a bit intimidating, to the point where I trembled as I went to shake the partners’ hands. However, after a long talk with them, I felt much more confident in my abilities, and there was a lightness in my chest as I left the office. With only that meeting as a guide, I decided that was the place I wanted to work when I graduated. Although, the pressure to do well so they would consider hiring me at the end was pretty high, I had an entire semester to prove myself.
    Thankfully winter break was here, and I’d have at least two good weeks to spend with Emily without the pressures of school. Unfortunately, that didn’t excuse me from Christmas shopping. I still had to get some things for my family for the holidays.
    Who was I kidding? I had to do all of my shopping, so we decided to head out to the mall—one of my least favorite places, especially at Christmas time—and then meet up with Caleb and Angie for dinner. Nick had left for his parents’ house the night before, claiming that he needed a break from school. My only guess was that the something he needed a break from wasn’t school, but from Morgan—Lauren’s best friend and roommate. Who the hell knew what was going on between those two? I had no desire to get in the middle of it.
    Emily’s tap on my arm snapped me out of my thoughts.
    “I think we should get this one for Jess,” she said, holding up a light-pink sweater.
    It looked good to me, then again, so did everything in the store. I was terrible at shopping and usually just gave gift cards to everyone, but Emily was having none of that. In her mind, everyone deserved to open something on Christmas morning. Arguing with Emily wasn’t the best idea, but I tried to convince her that they’d have other stuff to open that day, but that only got me into the doghouse. The look on her face that day had me reluctantly agreeing—but only if she came to help me pick everything out. It helped that I’d already gotten her present and had it in our room, wrapped and waiting for Christmas morning.
    “Sure,” I said with a shrug.
    “Don’t ‘sure’ me. Do you like it or not?” The hands on her hips didn’t bode well for me, except she was sexy as hell when she did it. The one thing about Emily and her temper was that most of the time I could diffuse it.
    Taking a step closer to her, I bent down as if to whisper in her ear, the sounds of her breathing picking up pace letting me know I was getting to her. Slowly, I let my tongue slide across the outside of her ear. Her skin was so soft and smooth. If we hadn’t been in a