by Amber Scott
Samantha was no clairvoyant, and she really couldn't say why, but something was off. Different. She didn't know how to articulate it. Not that Jesse would have listened. She had yet to reassure him of who she really was and who she was not.
The mare followed them, and Tommy's horse had disappeared over the top of the hill when Jesse stopped. He turned and lifted her in the saddle so she faced him. His mouth assaulted hers.
Assaulted was the best and only word to describe the impact of his kiss, physically and sensually. It knocked her back in both ways. Fire sparked to life inside her. Hungry, desperate, it fed off Jesse's hands and mouth.
God, so strong, so virile and male. He smelled so male and so needful, not only to touch but also to be touched. She hungered for it. For him.
It wasn't fair. She might leave at any moment. He thought she was a betrayer, a liar. Yet, he still wanted her. His touch told her so. While he might hate it, he was giving in to the same voice she heard. The same longing plea that begged her, turned her into a primal form of herself, ruled by nature and need.
Jesse tore loose her shirt and grasped both of Samantha's breasts. She moaned throatily, uncaring if the sound echoed and reached his brother-in-law's ears, believing they were free and alone and this might be her last taste of his deliciousness.
He massaged her breasts roughly, demandingly. Samantha bit his lower lip and gripped her hands in his hair. His mouth slanted over hers; his hips dug up into hers, spiraling pleasure through her.
She tore at his shirt, matching his demands with her own. She needed to feel his skin, touch his hardness in her hands, and show him how much he needed her.
Jesse flipped her legs upward so she dangled, cradled in his arms. “Your pants,” he said, his voice hoarse.
Samantha opened the button fly and shoved them from her body, getting one leg out completely. The air was cold on her skin, his arm warm, soft, strong. He returned her body to a sit but facing away from him.
While her heart broke a small bit, feeling turned away, her body reveled in his confidence and domination. Her core swelled and ached. She wanted it rough and sure. She needed it.
She needed to be mastered, to feel vulnerable. She needed to feel like a woman. Independent, capable, strong and swept away by something bigger than she.
She couldn't define what she felt, what was between them, though it coursed, vibrated. It stole her sanity and placated her fears.
Jesse's hands found her breasts again, and Samantha arched her back so her womanhood slid against his rigid flesh. Hot, steely hard. His hips answered hers and pressed back, gyrating in delicious rotations, sending shivers of pleasure through her.
Her pleasure sang out and fell inward into an ache for more. She needed to feel him inside her, delving to the last inch, filling the void he'd created. Samantha leaned forward and held tightly to the saddle horn. As Jesse positioned his body, he raised her hips, then impaled her on himself.
Sharp sweetness shot through her. It hurt so good.
Jesse ran a hand up her back and into her hair. He laced a handful of tresses into a firm grip. Her scalp tingled. Her body groaned for more.
She pressed. He withdrew. His cock was so godforsaken hard. Samantha bit her teeth down, ready for his next swift thrust. His thighs tightened under hers, his hands roamed and gripped in turns. She shoved back, meeting him, daring him, taunting him.
He answered her movements with authority, putting her back behind the invisible line she'd stepped across. She dared again. He answered again, harder, slower, deeper.
Her pussy throbbed in appreciation. God, but she needed this, needed him. She needed to fight back, to give in, to trust and dare all at once.
Samantha grasped one of his hands and brought it to her mouth. She suckled his index finger, biting the flesh, groaning as he drove in and out, in and out of her.
His fingers curled about her chin and teeth, cupping her face and mouth, pressing firmly back. She shook his hand away, reveling when he smacked her bare ass and caressed the scalded skin.
His cock swelled, impossibly harder, bigger, and she knew he would come in her. She refused to let him. Not yet. Not until she'd had her fill.
She pulled off him and twisted around. He aided her body and shoved himself back into the Heaven she'd denied him. It was like Heaven. Hellishly so.
Digging her nails into his shoulders, she took her pleasure from him. All the while, their gazes locked, and her body responded with an intense wash of pleasure. Wave after wave coursed through her, out of her, as she stared into his eyes. She recognized his frustration and smiled. She also saw his pleasure and drank it in until the oblivion of her climax took over, and she closed her eyes, riding it to the end.
She called out his name over and over again, Jesse being the only word fathomable to share all she had with him, to tell him the truth. Whether it could or not she couldn't know, but the act freed her, and when his cock shot into her, pulsing, reaching her capacity, and he whispered her name, she heard it down to her bones.
His answer. His truth.
"Samantha."
Yes. God, yes. Jesse. Yes.
She floated to earth on a cloud of satisfaction.
His horse shifted its weight. Color spread up her neck and flushed her cheeks with heat. What had come over her? The poor horse! After a moment, Jesse shifted, as well, Samantha braved a glance up at his face.
She didn't know what she expected. Not the stormy look of betrayal. A smile maybe, some uneasy or awkward nod, perhaps?
Her back went ramrod straight, and she matched his glare with one of her own. How dare he look so accusingly at her? It took two to tango or ride or whatever one called what they'd done among the trees and stars. Again.
"We need to get back,” he said, a puff of steam following his words.
Samantha nodded and adjusted herself. He helped her dress. Even though he was a criminal, he was obviously a gentleman, even in anger. One of the things her father so admired about him. He might have robbed and stolen, but he never killed, and he'd always been mannerly.
Wasn't that what all witness recollections said about the mass murderer who lived next door?
Now, of all the times and places, she had her father in her head. Memories of him, soberly (once or twice drunkenly) relating the details of what made a gentleman.
A man of character, who rode the line between right and wrong but never lost sight of his purpose or of simple human decency. Like the Brad Pitt guy in Thelma and Louise, she always imagined. Polite, simple in his dealings. He may have waved a gun and taken all they had but never hurt or terrorized anyone.
It pissed off the law, her dad had said. Right now, it pissed her off.
Why couldn't he be a brute? Why couldn't he yell, call her every insulting name he had in his arsenal?
Then she could yell back, fight back. If he spoke of it, she might have some avenue to defend herself against the bare betrayal he thought her capable of.
This was lunacy if there ever was. Total derangement.
She needed a straight jacket and some pills.
They rounded the top of the hill and began a slow traverse down. The moon hung full and round. Samantha sighed and adjusted her seat, holding her shoulders as rigidly as possible, and tried not to touch his body with hers other than when it couldn't be helped.
None of her attempts to draw him out worked. That made her blood boil all the more.
He was going to make her say it, wasn't he? He was going to force her to talk out of his sheer, dooming silence. She shouldn't have to. She had nothing to defend.
She'd done nothing wrong.
"If you met my dad, like you say, then you know I would die before hurting him. You would know he loved me. He might not have always been there for me, but he did the best he could. For you to think I would bring you harm after all the years I spent hearing about you ... after watching him put so much energy into finding out what kind of man you were—are—and admiring you ... Well, I
guess you're not as smart as my father thought you were."
"Shhhh."
Samantha inhaled sharply. “I cannot beli..."
Jesse's hand clamped over her mouth. His voice whispered menacingly in her ear. “Be quiet."
Be quiet? She moved her elbow, ready to ram it straight back into his belly. He wrapped his arm like a vise around her waist and both arms, effectively stopping her.
"Sammie,” he hissed. “Someone's coming."
She froze. All her senses seemed to begin ringing. Adrenaline. It rushed through her so loudly she couldn't seem to hear or see or think straight. Her heart thudded like a train.
It wasn't so much his words as how he said them. What he'd called her. Sammie. Not Sam. Not Samantha. Sammie. Familiar.
Affectionate.
Firm.
Something was very wrong. Whoever the someone was, it was not Tommy. Before she could figure out why or how she knew that, her world grew dizzy, and she sank into darkness.
She had a last, terrible thought of Jesse being shot in the back.
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Chapter Seventeen
A light so bright it hurt her eyes. Sunlight. A stark contrast to the dark of night she sort of fell out of, like a kid falling from a tree and landing on his backside.
She hardly had time to adjust to the piercing light, let alone the dizziness and headache. Samantha put a hand to her temple. Where was she? Better yet, when? As the vehicle drove by, a loud honking answered one of her questions.
Not sunlight. Headlights. A breeze, warm and stinking of pavement, swashed her face. Again, she tried to sit up and orient herself. Back to her life at the worst possible moment, and she'd landed in the worst possible place. Okay, maybe not the worst, but surely far from the best.
Once her vision lost its blur, she viewed her position on the side of the road. A painful turn of her head showed she was outside Carla's auction house, dangerously close to the street.
She knew better than to try and stand yet. While her mind went into full panic for Jesse's life, a rational part of it also recognized she was in no place or position to stop his death.
He was already dead. Had been for more than a century.
Tears burned her eyes, the salty drops coming so fast that several popped out before she could rub them back. Dead. Right now, he was being shot in the back. But not right now.
Even though it seemed impossible she might have caused or prevented it, she felt at fault all the same.
She had lured him out, despite being unaware of it. He'd seen something, probably her disappearing, and had become suspicious. His suspicions had thrown him, and he'd acted out of character. He'd left his sister vulnerable, and instead, he'd ended up being the one at risk.
God, why was this happening to her? How in the world had her father found a way to pass through time, and why would he put her through the same?
The palpable, physical side-effects told her that the way she felt wasn't natural. She hurt. Everywhere. In places she didn't know could hurt and in ways she'd never experienced.
She couldn't seem to stop the tears. She had to get back to him. She could be wrong. Anyone could have been coming, not Jesse's murderer.
She'd left him there, alone, and hadn't even gotten a chance to tell him how she felt. What would she have said if she could have? What?
Samantha didn't know.
She knew only one thing. She had to get back inside Carla's, get her hands on whatever drug sent her back to Jesse, and save him.
As she moved to lift herself from the curb's edge, dirt ground into her palms and under her nails. Another set of headlights blinded past her, the warm rush of air sending a wave of nausea through her system.
She rose up, her legs wobbly. Carla's storefront's windows gleamed blacker than the night sky. She looked higher, for a sign that the woman waited somewhere above, inside where they'd last seen each other.
She didn't care about answers any longer. She cared only about returning. Her legs ached but moved, and before long, Samantha stood at the door, banging, knocking, and preparing to yell “Carla” louder than Marlon Brando had ever yelled “Stella."
With every beat of her heart, another second of precious life might be slipping away a hundred and more years from her. She had to return to him. Jesse.
She had to save him. Who else would?
Another loud bang on the door, and a light lit inside the barred interior. Samantha sighed. She thanked God. The inner door pulled open with a squeak and then the glass outer. She stepped inside, amazed at how awake Carla looked, considering the time must be well past midnight.
"Send me back,” she said, unable to do anything but get straight to the point. “I need to go back now. They'll kill him.” She went to the stairs, uncaring that Carla hadn't answered, and only partly aware of her surroundings.
The lock clicked behind her; the chain dragged along its sleeve hold. Samantha stepped up another stair, glancing down at Carla. Was she going the right way? Why wasn't Carla coming, following like she should? Why was she looking that way, shaking her head, reaching out a finger as though to say...
"There you are."
Samantha stopped. She looked up the stairs.
"Charles? What are you doing here?"
"You forgot to pick me up at the airport.” He slowly plodded down the stairs.
Samantha nearly looked back, but her brain's calculations stopped her. She had to act normal. That much she discerned.
Whatever had happened to her in the last two days, Charles couldn't be aware of the truth. Carla knew, but Charles would never believe a word of it. He'd laugh his ass off.
She ascended the next step and stood on it until he joined her. She forgot to pick him up. That's what he'd said. Racing to keep up the deception, Samantha clapped her hand to her chest.
"I did,” she said. “Oh, Charles. I'm so sorry."
"Well, I have a hard time believing that."
He stood one step and quite a few inches above her. Carla had fallen too quiet behind her. Samantha wondered what had gone on in her absence. She decided she didn't want to know.
Deal with Charles; get Carla alone long enough to get the drink that would send her back. Nothing more had to be done.
"Why didn't you call my cell phone?” She wasn't sure yet where she was going with this.
"I did.” He crossed his arms in that nice-try kind of way, normally reserved for mothers catching their teenage daughters sneaking back into the house. Or so she imagined when she was one. “Five times."
"Five times?"
"Five.” He annunciated each letter and held up his hand. Clearly, he wasn't buying any story about her not getting the message.
Not able to do much else, she patted her pockets, as if her phone rested in one of them. “Oh, no. I don't have it.” She turned to Carla, who'd reached a lower step and waited, fingers twiddling the pendant on her necklace and looking like Samantha was on her own. “I must have left it."
"Where?” Charles asked.
"I must have been out of the service area, too."
Charles’ eyebrows arched. “Where?"
Good question. “The ocean."
"You were out on the ocean?"
Samantha nodded, keeping her gaze on his but not for too long. Some random class on body language and lying flashed into her mind, and she changed the steady gaze to a gushy, can-you-believe-I was-out-on-the-ocean eye-roll.
Charles's eyes narrowed. His lips twisted and pursed like he was turning her words over in his mind. Judging their quality like he would judge a wine. Testing their acidity.
"You bitch."
Samantha gasped, but Carla's was louder.
"I want to hear every last detail. Now.” Charles smacked her arm and, if he'd had long hair, she swore he would have switched it, along with his hips.
Samantha sighed like a lovesick fool, feeling more like that teenager than she cared to admit and followed Charles back up Carla's stair
s. At the top, she threw Carla a silent scream for help.
Carla nodded and shrugged.
"Where's the bathroom?” she asked, glad Charles had his back to them. She sent Carla a meaningful look and got another nod.
"Here, let me show you."
Charles sat at the table. “Hurry. I can't begin to tell you how worried I've been. I even reported you as missing to the police."
"Missing? Jeeze. I'll be right back.” Her body ached less, but she still moved stiffly. “Is he drunk?” she asked once they were in the next room.
"He should be. I fed him enough of my vodka to have him slurring."
"He's got a rather high tolerance,” Samantha said. Charles didn't matter. All that mattered was getting back. “I need more of whatever you gave me."
Carla shook her head. “I can't. It's too risky."
"You have to."
Carla pointed to the bathroom.
Samantha shook her head.
"Oh. I forgot it was a ruse so you could talk to me,” Carla said.
"Sorry. It's been an exhausting couple of days."
"Ms. Sanger, I'll take a refill, if you please,” Charles called.
"Carla. I need to get back to Jesse."
"Look,” Carla said. “Charles has been here for hours, and I've been keeping him occupied with a story about a made-up guy and a blind date, but he won't be willing to sit around if you leave again."
Samantha winced inwardly, noticing the lavender crescents under the woman's eyes. She didn't feel sorry enough for Carla to be deterred. “Jesse could die. I don't really care what you do with Charles. Drug him. Let him pass out. Whatever. Jesse's life hangs in the balance, and I don't know how much time will pass where he is while you and I stand here and argue about it."
Carla's shoulders slumped. “It's not just Charles. Your dad told me not to let you jump more than two times in a day. He said it's too hard on your heart."
"This is too hard on my heart. This powerless worry about someone technically dead."
"Your father entrusted your safety to me. Wait a day, two days, and I promise I'll give you the drink.” Her expression grew resolute. “But not until then."
Samantha gasped. She was right. Her dad had orchestrated this bizarre affair with a dead man. “Why did he do this to me?"