“I want her to see love when she walks in there,” Jack told Carey honestly. “I want her to see how much she’s treasured.”
“Tesoro,” Carey murmured, getting it. “That’s what that means.”
Jack nodded.
Carey went toward the laundry room, disappearing for a few moments. When he returned, he was carrying a small toolbox. “I’ll help you hang them.”
Epilogue
May—Late Night
The Whitney, Chicago, Illinois
S A M A N T H A
It had taken her longer than she would have liked, but by the time Sam returned to Chicago, she had a short list of CEOs to take over Mack’s position. She and Chris had also set up a trust for Wes’s work, managed by a talented young curator from Austin who was already working with the Met to set up an exhibition in honor of his most famous pieces.
She’d also, most significantly, made some decisions about what she wanted, and each of those decisions revolved around making peace with the past so she could focus on the present. As painful as the past weeks had been, between losing Wes and enduring the bitter hurt of Mack’s betrayal, Samantha had come to the conclusion that the only way she could move forward was to forgive. The venom of betrayal had seeped so deeply into her blood for so many years, it had become part of her subconscious. She’d made so many decisions based on that black, viscous emotion that she’d not even realized the extent to which she’d poisoned her own happiness.
She would never forget, but she would learn to let go of all the pain, hurt, and bitterness she’d held onto for so long. Sam felt she’d moved beyond the fray, and slowly, she would release herself from the albatross she’d been carrying. She didn’t need it anymore. In her heart of hearts, she wanted to rediscover faith. She wanted to feel the warmth of being loved and loving in return. She wanted to release the old anguish and allow herself to feel hope… and she wanted to start with Jack.
Sam landed in Chicago late, past midnight, and though she wanted to walk right up to Jack’s door and knock until he let her back in, she decided the kindest thing would be to wait until morning to pounce on him. Maybe she’d even surprise him with breakfast and convince him to play hooky for the day together. The very thought of seeing Jack again, of holding him and making love to him made her feel all sweetness and light.
Sam walked upstairs to her bedroom, carrying her bag. She was momentarily taken aback when she saw the door at the end of the hallway standing ajar. She always kept that door closed. The doors to her memories—and all the awful things she’d done.
She walked down the hall slowly, carefully, though she didn’t sense the presence of someone else in her home. When she reached the door, she pushed it open the rest of the way, flicking on the lights.
My God.
Her heart caught in her throat, the anxiety replaced by a vivid wash of emotions so tumultuous, she put her hand to her mouth to hold the sob in.
Wes’s photos of her hung on every wall of the room, each spotlit, highlighting his use of shadow and dimension. Gone were the paper cranes, each representation of her suffering and the suffering she’d caused others. She knew somehow that Jack had done this. He’d replaced each of her ugly memories with these tender portraits, with memories of a time in her life when she’d been young and innocent and happy.
Sam brushed back her tears, caught somewhere between happiness and sorrow and gratitude. That Jack could take away her sins and replace them with such an amazing gift, and that Wes had been the man to give it. Love and loss, in equal parts. Two men, two eras, one her past—the other her future.
Sam closed her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered, her heart aching. “Thank you.”
For a long time, she stood in the quiet confines of that room, looking at each of the photographs, remembering. Finally, she closed the door, walking downstairs to find some food, maybe a glass of wine. As she passed the windows overlooking the pool, Sam thought longingly of diving in—of washing away the residual emotions, floating in the icy blue moonlight, weightless, quiet… content.
“Why the hell not?” she murmured to herself, stripping off her clothes in the living room before stepping out naked onto the silent terrace. Goosebumps rose immediately, making her shiver in the biting late-night chill. Sam took a couple quick steps and dove straight into the water, thrilling in the warmth as it closed around her like a womb. She swam down, holding her breath until she came up at the other end, her fingertips grazing the gold and ivory mosaics glinting in the luminescence.
A sigh of pleasure escaped her, and she dove deep again, swimming not for the exercise, but for the sheer pleasure of it. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt happily adrift and unencumbered. She floated for interminable minutes, drowsy and relaxed, enjoying the warmth of the water and coolness of the air, caught pleasurably somewhere in the middle. She wasn’t surprised when she felt two strong hands slide underneath her—one between her shoulder blades and the other beneath her legs. She wasn’t afraid as Jack held and swayed her in lazy arcs around the pool.
Samantha opened her eyes. She looked at the man she loved.
“Here I thought I was going to get away with a midnight skinny dip,” she murmured.
“Tesoro, if you’re naked and in the same state, I’m going to know about it,” Jack answered with that sexy, toe-curling smile she absolutely adored. He looked arrestingly handsome in the moonlight, with his angular cheekbones and strongly marked brows, his incandescent eyes a kaleidoscope of emotions: love, longing, passion.
“I missed you,” she whispered.
“I missed you, too,” he whispered back as he continued to swirl her gently in the water, infinitely gentle for all his strength.
Samantha looked up, gazing at stars hanging over Chicago, winking over them like so many diamonds. She spread out her arms, gliding in the water.
“I met you here.”
“I remember,” Jack answered with a soft smile.
Samantha moved, dropping her legs into the water so she could slide up against him. She looped her arms around the hard, reassuring breadth of his shoulders.
“I’m yours, you know,” she told him, heart on her sleeve. “I’ve been yours from the beginning—just took me a little while to come around to it.”
“I was yours too.” He smiled, the light reflected off his skin, his lashes spiked from the wetness as he looked down at her like she was the most precious thing in the world.
Samantha kissed him with erotic gentleness, attuned to every breath, each pulse, the pace dreamy, like a good blues song that wrenched out her sadness and replaced it with a love story she hadn’t even known she longed for.
“Will you have me?” she asked after long moments, their gazes locked.
“Non so cosa farei senza di te nella mia vita. Ti voglio sempre al mio fianco,”53 he answered, touching his fingers to her face. “Don’t leave me again.”
“I won’t,” she promised, sliding closer so she could whisper into his ear: “If you promise to make love to me, laugh with me, fight with me, talk to me, hold me, and let me hold you back.”
Jack slid his hands around her thighs, hooking under her knees and levering her upward to meet his body. “Let’s start now, tesoro…” he answered, gliding easily into the wetness, twining her arms around his neck as she sank onto that glorious upward push with a pleasure-soaked groan.
They moved in a delicious, rolling rhythm, each motion a counterpoint until the sensations flowed so closely, Samantha couldn’t recognize which sounds were hers or his. She felt filled, possessed, adored. She slid in his tightening grip, driven by the accumulating pressure, caught deliciously somewhere between heaven and earth. Divine.
When she came, the climax was lush and intoxicating, and it seemed to her they were both floating now, delirious, anchored only to each other.
“Did you know you could love like this?” she asked eventually, resting her head against his shoulder as he held her in the water.
; Jack kissed her brow, her eyelid, her cheek, tender. “Only with you, tesoro. Only with you.”
Looking for More?
Go back to the story of when it all began…
Here are the first few chapters of
Goddess Rising: The Prequel
Chapter 1
August 1997
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas
W E S L E Y
Wes adjusted the aperture on the camera, his heart beating a little faster as the air whipped around him. The storm was closing in. He could hear the resonant staccato of thunderclaps roiling across the darkening sky. The air felt pregnant with electricity and ozone.
He smiled as he fiddled with the lens. He’d been waiting for a day like this to practice his time-lapse technique. Thunderstorms were a rarity in this part of Texas, but when they happened—Man, oh man, there was nothing like ’em. He set the exposure time on his Leica and watched as the spiraling torsion of blackening rain clouds undulated toward him like an upside-down tsunami.
A sudden movement at the edge of the viewfinder snagged his attention.
Wes glanced up and caught a glimpse of a girl in the distance as she passed the University’s Corp Arches, her stride purposeful and quick. At the last second, Wes adjusted the camera down on the tripod to include her in the shot.
As the girl crossed his path, their eyes clashed. Something in her gaze made his breath catch. He triggered the shutter before he’d even fully anticipated the action, watching as a rough gust of wind made her hair furl and ripple like wild ebony ribbons. The girl picked up her gait, her clothes snapping behind her like a sail.
She was passing him too quickly, and Wes realized that in another couple seconds she would disappear from view—
He called out to her, but the sound was lost in the squall. And in the blink of an eye—she was gone.
Wes stopped the exposure, looking up again, trying to catch her, but she’d disappeared around a corner. The storm released the first heavy raindrop, the rataplan of thunder in the distance. He broke down the tripod, stowing his gear and running for cover before the inevitable rain doused the dry, sun-scorched plains surrounding the university.
Hours later, in the darkroom of the university’s Viz Lab, Wes developed the shot. He saw the girl, her transit across the Arches captured in a way that made the movement both ethereal and mesmerizing. The fact that Wes had captured her at all felt like a prize, as if he might have merely dreamed her, only to wake and find that it really did happen.
Wes went back to the Arches every day that week, looking for her, waiting for another sign, unsure why he felt the need to chase her down, to prove to himself she’d actually been real. The strange attraction was baffling to him. And each time he looked at the photo, there was the sense of something indistinct and tantalizing hovering just outside his reach.
He eventually hid the picture behind his other pieces in the studio, unsure what he should do with it, yet unwilling to allow others to see her, to share the moment with him. He wanted her all to himself—because she’d become his own, private muse.
*
August 1997
Office of the Commandant Headquarters, Texas A&M University Corp of Cadets
S A M A N T H A
Sam dodged the rain as fast as she could, but she still managed to get drenched on her way to the university’s Corp of Cadets offices. She was early for her meeting with Colonel Sasser, but only just. She might have been earlier had she not been distracted by the photographer at the Arches. She’d seen him before, noticed him around campus. Impossible not to, the way he looked.
Her cheeks colored as she pushed her wet hair from her eyes. The photographer was a head-turner, certainly, but she’d dated some good-looking guys over the past few years and none of them had sent her heart racing quite like that one. Sam was still distracted thinking about it when she stepped past the lobby of the Military Sciences Building toward the ROTC Commandant’s office.
“Well, look who’s here.”
Her head snapped up at the sound of Alejandro de Soto’s voice. He stood in front of her, blocking the doorway to the office, a smirk on his face. He was dressed in his Class Alpha uniform, a khaki long sleeve shirt, black tie, and khaki pants. He actually looked like an officer rather than the senior cadet he was, standing there all tall and starched and handsome. But Sam would rather get raked over hot coals than admit that to anyone, least of all that rat bastard. Alejandro had become her own private tormentor in the brief year she’d been at A&M. The guy who’d single-mindedly dedicated himself to wearing her down her freshman year.
Sam wondered briefly why Alejandro was back on campus early, and then she realized he must be working to help prep the incoming freshman cadet class.
Those poor kids, she thought. A whole new set of fresh, baby-faced cadets for him to abuse.
“De Soto,” Sam said flatly, chin jutting up in unspoken defiance.
His eyes narrowed. “That’s ‘sir’ to you, pisshead,” he said, his voice low and silky—for only her to hear. Just the sound of it gave her goose bumps. There was a lot of bad blood built up between them from nine months of accumulated abuse, but she’d be damned if she ever let him see her sweat.
“Do not call me that,” Sam replied through gritted teeth, even though she knew it was pointless. All returning sophomores in the university’s ROTC program were known as “pissheads,” just like all freshmen were called “fish.”
“And you’re not in my chain of command,” she added, eyes narrowing.
“I’m in every sophomore cadet’s chain of command,” Alejandro countered, though that was only partially true. She wasn’t technically in the Army ROTC. She was still “undeclared,” so to speak, though if her father had anything to say about it, she’d be a midshipman cadet with the Navy ROTC before the year was out, continuing the Wyatt family tradition.
Alejandro was one of the best Army cadets at the university, a shoe-in for Ranger School, and his hubris went unchecked as talk of Delta Force intensified. He was a grade A asshole of the highest order, but he was good. And everybody knew it. Sam suspected that’s why he’d gotten away with the amount of hazing he inflicted on the underclassmen, particularly the freshmen. She suspected that’s why everyone turned a blind eye when he broke underclassmen down into sniveling, pathetic messes.
Everyone but her, that is.
She’d been the only one to withstand it, stone-faced and impassive in the face of his near-constant abuse. He’d had a full year to break her down. But she hadn’t budged—much to his consternation.
Alejandro stepped closer. He was tall, over six feet already, and strapping, despite the youth of his face. He was reinforcing his position over her, forcing her to tilt her head back to keep her eyes on him. Sam stood rigid, wet clothes dripping on the tile floor, listening distantly to the sound of thunder rumbling over the building.
School wasn’t starting for a couple more weeks, and the foyer outside the ROTC office was empty except for them. She’d deliberately scheduled her appointment with Colonel Sasser for the end of the day, hoping to catch him before he went home. She realized now that Alejandro must have known she was coming, deciding to head her off at the pass. Maybe scare her a little to set the tone for the year.
“Why are you here, pisshead?” he asked.
“I don’t see how it’s any of your business why I’m here.”
He crossed his arms and glared down at her. “I’ll block your early access to the Corp housing if you don’t answer.”
“I’m off campus this year,” she replied, lifting a brow. “I’m surprised your cousin didn’t tell you.”
She’d offered Marguerita Ramos, his cousin and her freshman-year roommate, a chance to share the apartment she’d rented just a stone’s throw away from campus. Rita was the only good thing that had come out of her early fallout with Alejandro. Rita was the yin to his yang, because the only reason Rita had come to Texas from Chicago at all was because sh
e’d followed her rat-bastard cousin here. And the only reason Rita had joined ROTC was because of her rat-bastard cousin’s influence.
Sam half-suspected no real harm had ever been visited upon her by Alejandro or his crew was because of Rita—because Sam and Rita had gotten on like gangbusters from week one. Two soul sisters from radically different walks of life who saw an affinity in one another and established instant rapport. What were the odds her best friend at college would also be the first cousin of her worst enemy? Irony was a bitch.
But Rita was at the university on an ROTC scholarship that covered room and board, so it’d been a moot point to try to get her to move off-campus in the end. After a year of enduring midnight wake-up calls only to be shouted at and berated, forced to run in her pajamas until sunrise, and having their room tossed during random searches, Sam’d decided the safest bet was to get out from under Alejandro’s thumb while the getting was good. She’d told her father she needed the space to study, but the truth was, if she’d stayed inside that box they called student housing for another year, she’d be arrested for murder at worst or arson at best. She knew that much.
“Cadets are supposed to remain in the Quad,” Alejandro pointed out flatly, referring to the Corps housing.
“I had a special exception,” Sam replied, neatly stepping around him before he could react. And she suspected her father had pulled all kinds of strings to receive it, but for once, she was thankful for his influence. Sam rarely pulled rank with the Wyatt name, for all it was worth inside a state like Texas—which was a lot—but in this one particular instance, she’d figured it was best for everyone all around if she had a little slice of peace to return to at the end of the day.
Sam walked right into the Commandant’s office, with Alejandro hot on her heels. She saluted Sasser’s adjutant, a lieutenant, explaining that she had an appointment with the colonel as she resolutely ignored Alejandro.
“Yes, he’s expecting you.” the lieutenant nodded, seemingly unaware of the tension between her and Cadet De Soto. “Please step in.”
Fearless: Complicated Creatures Part Three Page 52