by Lexi Ryan
It’s Sam.
Chapter Ten
Liz
I’m moving toward the front porch before I even realize I’ve gotten out of the car, and he’s walking down the steps to meet me. It’s as if our bodies are magnetized, pulled together without our consent by irresistible attraction.
We meet at the bottom of the steps leading to the cabin’s wraparound porch. He’s still staring at me. Still not touching me. I don’t know how to do this. Do I tell him I hoped it would be him? Do I want to know if he is surprised to see me here? What if he wishes I were someone else? I don’t want to risk knowing that I might be a disappointment to him. I don’t think I could handle knowing that. Do we spend the night talking, or do we—
His mouth on mine cuts off my thoughts. The kiss is hard, heavy, hot, and I don’t want to talk at all.
I kiss him back, take his face in my hands and slide my tongue between his lips. He tastes like a man. I don’t know how else to explain it, but there is something distinctly masculine about Sam’s taste. It’s clean and crisp without being sweet. Earthy. Real.
He moves his way down my neck, his hands tangled in my hair. He tugs, pulling my hair and drawing my face up to look at the stars to give him better access to my neck. My moan echoes off the trees and his attention turns from sweet to rough. His mouth opens and he nips at the tender skin with his teeth, sucks and tastes. I’ll have marks tomorrow, but if the price of this sweet torture is a couple of weeks of turtlenecks, I’ll gladly pay.
It’s too dark out here for me to see what’s in his eyes, but when he pulls away, he’s breathing hard—not at all like a man disappointed in the identity of his anonymous lover. Is it just lust there or something more?
Stop thinking.
“Come inside,” he whispers. Then he takes my hand and leads me into the cabin, where he surveys me in the low light of the foyer. He’s still in his tux pants and dress shirt, but his jacket is gone and his tie hangs loose around his neck. “You look amazing in this dress. I’ve been pretending all night that there’s something I want to do more than get you out of it.”
“What would you do with me if you got so lucky?”
“I’d keep you up all night, for starters.” He slides a hand into my hair and traces the side of my neck with his thumb. His groan rumbles through me. “Tell me what you came here for.”
I thought that was pretty clear. “I’m wearing extremely slutty underwear. What do you think?”
His nostrils flare and his breathing goes thready. “I think I’m going to have to up my game, because now I want to see it.”
I have to bite back a smile. “Good,” I say. My heart thumps out a beat, probably Morse code for please and thank you.
“How slutty is this underwear of yours?”
I lick my lips. “Oh, it’s damn near whorish.”
“Let me see it, Liz.”
I lift my chin and prop my hands on my hips. “Seriously? That’s all the seduction I get? Let me see it?”
He steps closer until I have to crane my neck to look at him, and holy hell he smells good. “What game are we playing here, Rowdy?” he murmurs against my ear. “Is this the one where we pretend we don’t want each other and sleep alone . . .” His fingers skim down my shoulder and my eyes float closed. “Or is it the one where I make you come so hard you scream my name and tomorrow you act like you want nothing to do with me?”
“Are those my only choices?” I ask, but I keep my eyes closed, focusing on the feel of his rough fingers dancing across my skin. The truth is, I don’t want to play either game. I’m done playing games when it comes to Sam. I’m done pretending I don’t want him when I do, and I’m done pretending our annual one-night stand is enough for me.
“Tell me you aren’t going to run away in the morning. Promise me you won’t shut me out again.”
I don’t know what that means, and I’m too scared to analyze it. My eyes are still closed when he takes my chin in his fingers and tilts my face up to his, still closed when he brushes his lips over mine and when I open under him because I’m helpless to this man’s kiss.
“Promise me,” he repeats.
“I won’t run away.” Then I unzip my dress and let it fall to the floor in a puddle, and my boldness is rewarded. Sam’s lips part and his breath escapes him in a rush.
He steps back and takes me in. The bra is strapless, black lace demi-cups that lift my breasts until they threaten to spill out. The panties—what there is of them—are a thong in matching black lace. Their fine lace straps sit in a sharp V high on my hipbones.
A ringlet of hair escaped my up-do, and he takes it between his fingers and twirls it around. I deserve a medal for not melting right here at his feet.
He hooks his index finger under the black bow between my bra cups. “Did you wear this for me?” His voice is a husky whisper that I can’t deny.
“Yes.”
His fingers skim my belly, trace over my hip, following the lace of my thong behind me to where the straps meet at the small of my back. My breath catches as he takes the fabric path over the curve of my tailbone and down, his fingers bringing every nerve ending to life as they pass. Electric pleasure whips through me.
“Fourteen months since I’ve touched you,” he says. “Fourteen months since I’ve gotten to hear the way you breathe when you’re turned on, since I’ve gotten to listen to you scream as I make you come. Tell me you haven’t thought about it.”
“I’d be lying.”
“Don’t lie,” he says, eyes hot and intense. “Just tell me you want me.”
“I want you.”
He kisses his way down my neck, slowly at first, then his mouth is hot, open, hungry at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, and he’s taking both of my hands behind my back, cuffing them in one of his. He steps forward, parting my thighs with his knee and positioning his leg between them.
When his mouth drops to my breast and sucks my nipple through the lace of my bra, I arch my back to bring him closer. I pull at my hands and find them already bound behind my back, and I gasp.
He lifts his head. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Isn’t this why you’re here?” His eyes are darker than before, but they’re also seeking permission. I could say no. I could ask him to untie me. I don’t want to end this. I want to give him the control he craves.
“I—” Can’t breathe for wanting you so much. For wanting this. Slowly, I trail my gaze down his chest and to his belt. “How am I supposed to unbutton your pants?”
He groans but doesn’t take the hint. Instead, his hands find my breasts and tease my nipples, making them tight, aching peaks that he watches intently. Not being able to touch him is pure torture—I want to feel the hard planes of his chest under my fingers, want to find my way down to his belt and cup him through his tux pants.
His mouth opens against the bare curve of my shoulder and he nips at the skin and nibbles a path toward the peak of my breast. I whimper at the pain-laced pleasure and take two steps back. He’s breathing hard. His hands are clenched at his sides, as if he has to keep himself from coming after me.
“Did I hurt you?” he asks.
I answer him by dropping to my knees. “I need you in my mouth,” I whisper. He stares at me, eyes dark. “I’m waiting.”
* * *
Sam
Liz Thompson on her knees in front of me, hands bound behind her back as she waits for my dick in her mouth. This is it. The fantasy. The basic facts of this situation have me so impossibly aroused I can’t wait to free myself from my briefs and feel her tongue on me.
She’s so fucking beautiful. Those blond curls have fallen in soft wisps around her neck, and the way I have her hands bound behind her thrusts her breasts out toward me, those sweet pink nipples visible through the sheer black lace. I can’t resist the request in her eyes.
Stepping forward, I slowly unbuckle my belt and pull it from my waist. The metal buckle clunks as it hits the floor, but she doesn’t flinch. Her eyes
are full of trust and need. I take another step, release the button on my pants, and free my dick from my boxer briefs. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips at the sight, and I about lose my shit.
Keep it together.
A final step, and her mouth is right there, a breath from my cock. Her lips part.
“Open wider for me, Rowdy.”
She obeys, parting those plump, pink lips for me. But more than knowing what’s about to happen, I’m turned on by the pulse thrumming wildly at the side of her neck as she waits for me. I love how much being bound turns her on. “Please?” she asks.
More blood pulses into my already impossibly hard dick. I wrap my fist around the base of my shaft and guide it toward her lips.
She leans forward, closing the distance and pressing her open mouth against my hip. She licks her way to the other side, dipping down toward my cock in the middle, only to come back up again. “Your body is so gorgeous,” she whispers.
I can’t reply because she’s found me with her mouth, her tongue stroking along the underside of my cock. I fist my free hand at my side, determined to let her take her time. She licks the head, pressing her tongue against the bead of moisture at the tip. Her moan buzzes pleasure through me, and when she opens and slowly takes me deeper, I release my grip on my cock and my hands find their way into her hair. Her moan vibrates against me.
Giving head turns her on—or maybe giving me head. I can see it in the flush of her cheeks, feel it in the way her throat opens to take more of me, the way her body sways toward mine, wanting to get as close as possible. She’s damn near the base of my cock, and I tug lightly on her hair, urging her back. “You don’t have to go so deep, baby.”
She sucks in response. Hard. Damn hard. And instead of moving her back, I’m bucking my hips and giving her more. My control snaps and I rock into her face, fucking her mouth. She moans her approval and sucks harder, working me over with her lips and tongue with every stroke.
“I’m gonna come, Liz.” She doesn’t hear my warning or doesn’t care, and the vibration of her moan takes my last thread of control, and I come, filling her throat as my hands curl into her hair.
When she finally pulls back, her lips are swollen and her cheeks are flushed. Her hair is a mess, half of it tumbling around her shoulders. I want a picture of her like that, turned on, lips swollen, eyes hot. But I don’t need one. I never forget a single second of my nights with Liz.
Chapter Eleven
Liz
He helps me to my feet. His eyes are all over me—my face, my breasts, my hips, the tops of my thighs. My skin heats everywhere his eyes touch, and I wait for his hands to follow, but they don’t. All I have is the heat of his hand holding mine.
“Do you feel okay?” he asks.
I nod. I feel incredible, as if every cell in my body has been hibernating, waiting for Sam, and now I’m buzzing as they all wake and stretch their arms. “What about you?”
He groans, a long, low sound that comes from his chest, and wraps his arms around me. “I haven’t felt this good in months.”
Something tugs in my chest, and I have to remind myself that he’s talking about the sex. He’s not talking about how it feels to hold me or look into my eyes or be with me. This is just sex, Liz.
He tugs on the tie binding my wrists, and my arms fall to my sides. Taking my hands in his, he brings my hands to his mouth and kisses the inside of each wrist. “Come with me.”
He leads me by the hand farther into the cabin and through a vaulted-ceiling living room to a massive bedroom with a four-poster bed, cedar plank walls, and big windows. There’s nothing but darkness beyond the windows now, but I’m sure there will be quite a view when the sun rises.
“This place is gorgeous.”
“It’s been in the family for sixty years. Dad led the charge in renovating it and adding the second story a few years back, but we all use it. Sometimes I come here and just spend the whole weekend in silence, looking out at the hills. Connor uses it a lot too—especially when Della’s in a mood.” His smile falters, as if he’s remembered my history with Connor. He looks as if he wants to say something else, but he just shakes his head. “Wait here a minute.”
“Don’t be long.” After he leaves, I climb into the bed and slide under the fluffy down comforter. Now that he’s not touching me, I’m too cold to be in nothing but my underwear.
When Sam returns, he’s armed with a bottle of red wine, a corkscrew, and two glasses. “Not much to eat here, but there's always plenty of wine in the cellar. Is Cabernet okay with you?”
“Sounds perfect.”
He pops the cork and fills both of our glasses before handing one to me. “You cold?”
“It’s okay,” I say, but my shiver betrays me.
“I’ll start a fire.”
I sip my wine and watch as he goes about the work of making a fire in the stone fireplace that faces the bed. The muscles under his shirt bunch and flex, and he adds wood and gets the flames burning to his satisfaction.
When he returns to the bed, he’s smiling. He lifts his glass. “To weddings.”
I giggle and tap my glass lightly to his. “To weddings.”
The wine is dry but smooth. Any tension I felt melts away as the alcohol spreads warmth through my chest and limbs.
I take another sip, then a full drink, drowning out the demons that tell me this will end after tonight. It always ends after the hookup. It has to.
I drain my glass and cling to the words he typed. You make me believe there could be more. You make me want something more. Now that he knows it’s me, does he still feel that way? And what is more? Commitment? Family? Or just more than a random hookup once a year?
“I’m glad you came tonight,” he says softly.
I have so many questions—like what he thought when he realized it had been me all this time, or if he knew before I stepped out of the car—but he’s pulling back the covers.
“If you’re going to be in bed with me, I want to be able to see you.”
“Did you . . . want it to be me?” I ask. I shouldn’t. There’s a rule about asking questions if you don’t want to know the answer. “When I pulled into the driveway, did part of you . . . Did you think I’d be the one coming here tonight?”
“You surprised me, I guess. Why?”
I shake my head, too insecure to explain why I need to know. I didn’t just want River to be Sam. I wanted Sam to want Tink to be me. When we’d exchange dirty messages, sometimes my whole body would go cold. Something about it would feel wrong. Off. But it was the thought of Sam that brought me back, that made the exchanges hot instead of mechanical. Arousing instead of creepy. But if that wasn’t the case for him—if spending the night with me is no different than spending the night with any other woman—I’m not sure I want to know. “Never mind.”
He’s studying me, brow wrinkled but a half-smile curving his lips. Like I’m a curious puzzle he’s trying to figure out. “Tonight, you were the only one I wanted to be with.” With his index finger, he traces the line of my jaw and the column of my neck, and a shiver races down my arms, leaving goose bumps in its path. His gaze dips lower and finds my breasts, my hard nipples, but then he looks me in the eye again and says, “I think about you. A lot.”
I bite my lip but I know he can still see my smile. “I think about you too.”
“You’re still cold.”
I nod.
“How about we check out the hot tub while that fire warms up?”
“Hot tub?”
He grins and nods to the French doors. “Right out there.”
Slowly, he removes my bra and peels my panties from my hips. Then he climbs out of bed, and I watch him as he undresses. My mouth waters at the sight of all that hard muscle and bare skin. I want to touch him. Taste him.
He offers me his hand. “Come with me?”
* * *
Sam
Liz waits for me in the hot tub as I gather our wine glasses and a few candles to p
ut around the edge of the spa that sits into the covered deck. There are lights on the deck, but I don’t want to turn them on and sacrifice our privacy. Tonight it’s just us, Liz and me, and the rest of the world is the silent darkness beyond. It’ll be waiting for us in the morning, and until then, we can ignore it.
“This is romantic,” Liz says as I climb into the gurgling spa. Candlelight flickers across her features, and the steam that rises from the spa has made the tendrils of hair around her face curl. If it’s possible, she looks even more beautiful now than she did at the wedding.
I hand her a glass of wine and watch as she takes a long drink and moans softly. I settle into a spot across from her, but I can’t take my eyes off her—her flushed cheeks, the rise and fall of her breasts just above the water. I didn’t believe I’d ever get another night with Liz. But here we are.
She sets her wine glass on the edge and swims across to me. “You’re too far away.”
“Is that so?”
She climbs onto my lap, straddling me and wrapping her legs behind my back. “That’s better.”
I groan as she shifts her hips and settles against the hard length of my cock. “Better and worse,” I breathe. Because it makes me want more. I could lift her by the hips and bring her down on me, could fuck her right here with the water bubbling around us and no protective barrier between me and all that hot, tight flesh.
I kiss her softly, nibbling at her lips and sliding my hands into her hair. More pins fly loose and her hair tumbles into my hands. My chest fills with a tenderness I can’t handle, and I deepen the kiss, knot my hand into her hair and pull until she cries out.
“God, please,” she murmurs as I latch on to her neck.
That tenderness inside me won’t scatter. Don’t let me use you, Liz. But this moment—in the steam of the spa, shrouded in night—this isn’t about the campaign or my appearance to the press. This is just about me, and Liz. It’s just about this undeniable chemistry we’ve always had. It’s about pleasure and need and nothing else.