Sam winked, reaching under her skirt and then slipping her panties off in one deft move. “We’re going to be very quiet, so whoever happens to be working in that office or walking by doesn’t hear something they feel the need to investigate.”
“Quiet.” She nodded. She could do it. She hoped.
Sliding the chair from the corner to Ava’s side, he ran his hand over her thigh. “Put your foot on the seat, Ava.”
Her breath caught, but already he was guiding her into the position he wanted her, and she was letting him. And then he was going to his knees in front of her, pushing her skirt completely above her hips, and with one last word, “Quiet,” he kissed her in the place she’d been waiting for him to all night.
—
Ava was not a quiet girl. Just one of the many new and wonderful things the last week had taught him. That and when he put his mouth to it, he could make her come twice in less than five minutes flat.
Something he’d put to the test in the back bathroom of the club right before he planted a silver-dollar-sized hickey on the inside of her thigh, a bare inch above the bottom hem of her skirt.
The girl had wanted a little danger—well, that was about as much as the part of him that was practically hardwired to protect her could handle. The bathroom sex, easy enough. Plant a few seeds about the need to be quiet, when he knew she couldn’t be. Put her back against the door so there was no chance of anyone actually getting in. And as for someone hearing, there’d have to be someone out there who cared for it to matter. Not likely. Which left them with the hickey. It would keep her off balance for the duration of the night, keep her aware of how her skirt fell, so she didn’t give away the love bite he hadn’t been able to resist putting on her skin. Well, that and the panties he hadn’t given back to her.
So call it danger light; call it whatever. It had done the trick, getting Ava off in no small way. Which worked for him. Along with knowing her panties were tucked in his front pocket and knowing he’d left a mark on her, and knowing it was the trust and bond between them that allowed her to ask him for something she’d never been able to even whisper to another guy.
Shit. That worked for him maybe better than it should.
But it didn’t matter, because then they were back on the dance floor together with all their friends while songs about fresh-cut grass and ice-cold beer, and happiness, and being on top of the world pumped through the speakers. Ava’s hips were swaying, her arms overhead half making him worry about the hickey he should probably be feeling a little guiltier about than he did.
And after that they were on their way home, piled into a cab, too many people talking at once. Ava in his lap, because she was so petite and she always sat like that when they were stuffed in like sardines. And he was trying to figure out how it was possible for her to be laughing and rambling on like she always did when he was hard against her ass, ready to bust a nut thinking about what he was going to do to her once they were alone. For real alone.
When he was nailing her to the wall while her fingernails dug into his back and his name was the only word she could manage.
And somehow they made it out of the cab without the flag post in his pants giving them away. They made it past the security door. They made it up three stairs before Ava looked back at him over her shoulder and bit her lip. Before his hands were coasting up her thighs, pushing her skirt up and over the taut globes of her ass. Before she’d stopped climbing the stairs altogether and was rocking back into his hips.
Before he undid his fly with hands that were shaking with need, pulled out the hard-on he was pretty sure was going to kill him, and—holy fuck—
Sam jerked back, his gut climbing up his throat as he realized he’d been about to drive into Ava without a condom.
Chapter 21
“Sam?” Ava asked, sliding her skirt down as she turned toward the man who’d been a hairsbreadth from being inside her just seconds ago but now stood with his back to her, as if he actually thought it could put some distance between them in the tight stairwell.
“Ava, I need a minute, here. I’m sorry. I just—” He broke off with a rough curse and shoved his hands through his hair.
It didn’t make sense and she didn’t understand. And even though Sam was telling her he needed a minute, she couldn’t make herself give it to him. Not when they’d been the way they’d been, and now all kinds of panicky thoughts were bubbling to the fore.
“Is this because of what happened at the club?” She thought they’d worked it out, thought he’d been okay with what they’d done. But what if he’d been doing what he always did, giving her what she wanted, and really he hadn’t been okay at all? Had she been so caught up in her desperate attempt to live out every sordid fantasy she could squeeze in before Sam came to his senses and this little interlude ended that she’d been blind to Sam’s feelings about what was actually happening?
“I thought, once we talked and you knew how much that connection between us meant—”
“No, Ava,” he cut her off, turning back to her and starting up the stairs. “It’s nothing like that. The club thing—shit—it was hot. Inferno hot. And I was on board, believe me.”
Okay. But there was definitely something wrong. She could see it in the way his jaw was bouncing and how the lines around his eyes looked like something other than laughter had put them there. That, and he’d zipped up his fly and redone his belt.
Slipping into place under Sam’s arm, she walked with him the rest of the way up to her apartment.
Inside, she went to the kitchen and got them both a glass of water from the tap.
“So what just happened?” she asked, leaning against the counter beside Sam, who was scowling at the floor. “Because I’m not going to lie—it’s freaking me out a little.”
His head came up. “Yeah, I’m a little freaked out too. But I think I just need to cool off some. In the stairwell, I wasn’t totally in control. It was probably just the culmination of all those texts and whispers and knowing exactly what was under your skirt and what wasn’t.”
“You weren’t in control? How?”
He’d seemed to have the situation pretty securely in hand from where she’d been kneeling over the stairs, but possibly she hadn’t been in a position to judge.
He ran his palm over his mouth and jaw, and suddenly she recognized what she was seeing behind that worn-denim stare. Guilt.
“I wasn’t thinking. At all. I couldn’t see anything beyond getting inside you and I was a fucking blink away from being there—” He broke off, swallowed, and met her eyes. “And I wasn’t even thinking about protection. I didn’t have a condom on.”
Her breath caught.
“That doesn’t happen to me, Ave. Ever. I’m not some irresponsible asshole without enough respect and consideration for the women I’m with to suit up. And for it to happen with you, of all people. Fuck, I’m sorry.”
Ava nodded, getting it now. Safe sex was a big thing for Sam and he was religious about his use of protection, and had been from the very first. She supposed if she were forced to find one thing Sam’s father could be thanked for, that might be it.
She didn’t want to think about it now, but the day his father had shown up in town was one she’d never been able to forget. She’d been sitting with Sam eating an ice cream outside the Dairy Queen when his dad pulled up to the liquor store across the street. Ava probably wouldn’t have even noticed him except suddenly Sam had gone stone-still beside her and when she followed his eyes, she found Mr. Farrow careening toward them, wearing the same hateful snarl she’d seen on his face that first night.
Sam told her to go, that he’d catch up, but she wouldn’t leave.
His dad started in on Sam right there in the middle of Chestnut Avenue, reaming him out for being a worthless waste of space and going on about how Sam needed someone to knock the man into him. Calling him a chicken-shit pussy for running away. Getting closer and closer as he asked if Sam was going to run then. If he was
going to hide.
She’d been so scared. Scared for Sam, scared his dad was going to make him move back home, scared he was going to get violent. But Sam just sat there silently, taking whatever his father had to say. After a few minutes, it looked like Mr. Farrow was running out of steam, only then his bloodshot eyes landed on Ava and crawled over the length of her.
Sam shot to his feet, putting his body in front of hers.
She’d grabbed his sleeve and tried to pull him back, but Sam had been immovable.
And then his dad pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it at Sam’s chest.
“Word to the wise, girl,” he’d sneered, looking past his son to her. “Wouldn’t have been saddled with this worthless piece-of-trash kid nobody wanted if I’d bothered with one of those. Wouldn’t have been stuck raising him myself when his whore mother took off and ditched us both. Do yourself a favor.” He sucked something from his teeth and spit to the side. “If it ain’t too late already, don’t let this boy in without one.”
Ava stared at the dirty square packet lying on the sidewalk beside the cone she’d dropped. It was a condom. She was only fourteen, but there were a couple of boys at school like Brady Dugger and Phil Reese who’d been showing them off one day the year before, so she knew.
Mr. Farrow had been done then. Stuffing his hands into his pockets in what he probably considered was some superior posture, he meandered back toward the building with the banner for sale-priced beer and cigarettes sold by the carton.
Sam used his napkin to wipe up the ice cream and condom packet, too, throwing both in the trash. His cheeks were dark red, his eyes looking anywhere but at her.
Without a word they started back toward her house, Ava wishing she knew what she could say to make Sam feel better. And then just wishing she could think of anything to say at all.
After another half-block, she took his hand in hers and pulled Sam left when he would have gone right. Taking him back to the woods where their oak tree was and he could have some quiet, or maybe she could think of something to say.
But once they were sitting in the crooks of their favorite branches, it was Sam who spoke first. “My mom isn’t what he said. And she didn’t ditch us both.”
Ava turned to him, but Sam was staring across the clearing. “I’d never believe anything that came from that man’s mouth. He proved himself a liar with the things he said about you. We take the trash out at our house, we don’t invite it in, and hope it’ll stay.”
Sam’s jaw shifted, the corner of his mouth pulling to the side in something less than a smile.
“He wasn’t wrong about the not-wanting-me part. My mom got pregnant by accident and didn’t think she could take care of me on her own. That’s why she stayed with him for so long. Until she couldn’t stay anymore.”
More than anything right then, Ava wanted to swing down from her branch and climb over to Sam’s. She wanted to sit close to him the way she had when he’d first taught her to climb and was afraid to take his arm from around her shoulders, thinking she’d fall. She wanted to look into his eyes and let him see all the things she’d been hiding for too long. Let him know how completely wanted he was. How she would want him forever.
But instead she stayed where she was and asked what she’d never been brave enough to ask before. “Why didn’t your mom take you with her?”
Sally Farrow had been gone for eight years. And Ava remembered from the way Sam talked during those first years she’d known him that he’d thought she was coming back for him. He hadn’t mentioned her much and changed the subject whenever anyone else brought her up, but every now and then he’d get excited about something and start rattling on about a time when she’d be back for him and how great it was going to be. Only as one year rolled into another, she never came.
Eventually Sam stopped mentioning her at all.
The field grass rustled, undulating in the warm breeze blowing through.
Ava thought he might not answer her, and when he did, she almost wished he hadn’t.
“She needed to escape, and if she took me with her it would have given my dad ‘leverage.’ She didn’t have any people to go to, people who could have helped us. So she needed to figure things out. Get on her feet.”
Ava couldn’t imagine it. Her mom would throw herself in front of a truck before letting someone get between her and one of her kids, Sam included.
But there was no sense in pointing out the differences between her parents and Sam’s. It wouldn’t be kind, and it wasn’t like he wasn’t aware of them himself.
“Did you ever hear from her? You know, after she left?”
This time Sam didn’t hesitate. “No.”
He jumped down from his branch and walked over to stand beneath hers. Lifting his arms, he waited for her to drop down so she was hanging from her hands and then helped her the rest of the way, his eyes steady with hers as her feet touched the ground.
“She didn’t have a lot of skills, Ave. It’s why she was trapped with him in the first place. I don’t know what happened to her. I only know she never came back. I’m afraid to think about what that means for her.”
Ava swallowed past the knot in her throat and nodded, because what else could she do? Only one thing.
She hugged him as hard as her arms would let her.
Ruffling her hair, he gave her a wink. “Let’s go home.”
Now, standing together in her kitchen, Ava looked down into her water. “Sam, you know I’m on the pill, right?”
Rubbing at the back of his neck, he nodded. “Yeah, I know.”
“So that’s pregnancy. And as for the other risks—you also know, like you, I’ve never done it without a condom. And like you, I’ve got a clean bill of health less than three months old. Even if you hadn’t stopped—which you did—it wouldn’t have been a problem.”
Brows still drawn in a deep frown, Sam cast her a disconcerted look.
Those details were meant to reassure him, but she understood this man well enough to get that it wasn’t exclusively the risk of pregnancy or disease bothering him about this. It was his lack of control. It was that he’d been about to act without thinking. And for all Sam’s surface-level easygoing and fun, deep down, the guy needed control. People thought he rolled with everything. But he didn’t. Sam was a lightning-fast decision-maker. He was smart and quick, and if anyone bothered to ask him about some seemingly casual action he’d taken, he could lay down the pros and cons in short order, along with whatever tipped the scales in one direction or another.
And tonight, he’d been about to let impulse dictate action.
So yeah, she could see it eating at him. But she didn’t want it to. She didn’t want him to think himself out of whatever this was between them because for an instant, he’d been closer than he was comfortable with to giving up control. A control he’d ultimately maintained.
Sam cut her a look. “What are you saying, Ave?”
She took a sip of water, and then set her glass unsteadily down on the counter. “I guess I’m saying, maybe subconsciously you know we have the kind of trust between us where we could do something like that. And it would be okay.”
Chapter 22
Sam shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, thinking it had to be the best course of action as far as keeping from reaching out and grabbing Ava with both hands and—Jesus—doing what he was pretty fucking sure she’d just said they could do.
It had to be a bad idea.
Sure, she’d just listed the reasons why it wasn’t.
Her rationale was solid, and in his head it made sense. He wasn’t going to accidentally get her pregnant and steal her chance at the life she should have. She couldn’t catch anything because his body and blood were clean.
Still, the alarms were clanging, warning that what she’d suggested would be trouble. A mistake.
Shit—more than they should get into.
Only the idea of skin to skin, that purest contact, sinking into the tight, wet
heat of Ava’s body and for the first time in his life experiencing the ultimate form of connection—he wanted it. He wanted it with Ava.
She was right about the trust between them.
Down to his soul he knew she would never lie to him. Couldn’t betray him. And that was some powerful stuff.
But unprotected sex?
“Sam, forget I said it. In fact, let’s just forget the whole thing. The night, even.” Ava was smiling stiffly, shaking her head too quickly as she looked anywhere but at him. “Tomorrow’s a new day. How about we go our separate ways for now and tomorrow we’ll—”
For the second time that night, Sam was acting without thinking, dragging Ava into his arms, kissing her hard and hot and deep as he lifted her off her feet. And then he was walking them down the hall while she kissed him back. Thoroughly. Completely.
He licked into her mouth and slid against her tongue, the kiss coming slower and slower with every step until he was laying her on her bed. Until her knees where skimming up his hips and ribs. Until they were rolling across the pink floral terrain of her comforter together, with the sounds of Ava’s pleasure whispering past her lips.
And when their clothes were gone, when there was nothing between them but all the years and all the trust and all the love he didn’t have to worry about turning to poison because it was safe in all the ways other loves were not, Sam braced himself on his arms and looked down into Ava’s waiting face.
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes hazed with lust, her lips parted as her breath came in soft little pants. She was beautiful. Waiting.
Ready.
Jesus, she was so ready. He could feel her heat where he rested against her, and the slickness of her sex when he slid through. The pulsing of her need beneath him.
He wanted it. But this was Ava and what they were about to do, they couldn’t take back.
So he had to ask again, “Are you sure?”
Ava’s fingers sifted through the hair at the back of his neck, stroking up the base of his skull and making his eyes nearly roll back into his head.
Touch & Go Page 13