He’d stood still for a long moment, watching me, the most wonderful grin on his face.
The same way he’s looking at me right now.
I’m his muse.
“I’d like to go shopping with you,” I whisper.
His smile widens. For the first time, I see what Tom looks like when he’s truly happy.
My heart feels as if it’s going to burst out of my chest.
“Tomorrow?” He stands and picks up our dirty dishes.
I follow him into the little kitchen, watching his flawlessly proportioned backside. I’d rather spend my Sunday rubbing my hands over his ass again while nibbling on his little line of body hair descending from his navel to his oh-so-perfect cock, but shopping could be fun, too.
We chat about what he needs for his apartment as he washes and I dry the dishes. Twice, he leans over and kisses my cheek. By the time the last dish returns to the cupboard, we have all of Sunday planned.
It feels good. He wants to be with me, not just fuck me, and for once in my life I feel wanted.
He pulls me tight to his chest. “I’m happy you’re here, Sammie. I’m happy you decided to stay with me and not with someone else.”
Under my hands, his lower back feels strong and powerful. Against my cheek, his heart beats strong and comforting. Stubble rubs against my hair but it’s nice. He smells of cooking and washing dishes and the afternoon’s work, but it’s good. It’s life with him.
Once again, I feel luckier than I deserve. I kiss his jaw, hoping he understands how much I want to be with him. All of him is hard against me—his abdomen, his arms, the bulge in his pants. He strokes my back sensuously as he buries his face in my hair.
But he pulls away. “Mickles and I will sleep in the living room tonight.” Tom waves his hand before grasping mine. “So you can settle in.”
I blink. The hunger in his eyes mirrors the hunger I feel, but he’s not taking advantage. He’s not pulling me into the bedroom.
And I don’t know what to say.
15
Thomas
Sammie doesn’t say much as she unpacks her stuff in the bathroom. I hear clinks and clatters as items fill up the countertop and appear in my shower. Her toothbrush whirs and the water runs before she steps out again, wearing an old pair of sweats and a worn t-shirt.
With her hair down, her face fresh, she’s more beautiful than I’ve ever seen her before. Her skin glows. The t-shirt hugs her breasts and I want to pick her up and back her against the wall. I want to rip off the shirt with my teeth.
But she needs to feel that I want her here for more reasons than the promise of great sex. No matter how I feel, no matter what I say, I know I need to demonstrate my intentions. And I need her to demonstrate hers.
It’ll kill me to get into a relationship with her only to find out six months down the road she never really wanted one in the first place. I can’t lose my heart. Not like Dan did.
I fluff my pillow and the small and uncomfortable air mattress squeaks. “Good night, Sammie.”
She watches me with her big eyes for a long moment, then nods. Before I know it, she’s down the hall. The lights go out in the bedroom.
I turn off the lights in the living room. The room is still bright—I haven’t closed the curtains. Nor will I. The moon is full tonight and fills the sky with a silver sheen. If I’m to lay here on my brother’s squeaky air mattress, at least the heavens can keep me company.
Mickles appears next to my head, purring. I scratch his ears until he seems satisfied and walks away, down the hall. Looks like the kitty sleeps with Sammie, even if I don’t.
My mind wanders to memories of her moaning under me, her cheeks and lips flushed, her nipples tight nubs. Damn, she felt exquisite. So soft against my cock.
My hand finds my lengthening shaft. I could go in there. I could go into the bedroom and pull back the blankets. Strip off her sweats right now. Suck her clit into my mouth. Flick it with my tongue. Make her scream my name.
I want her rubbing me right now. I want to make her understand how much I want her.
From the other room, I hear the bed groan. My hand freezes.
Mickles meows.
I sit up and pull the blanket over my erection when I hear her walk down the hall. The last thing I want is for her to feel obliged. I know she likes sex—I like sex, especially with her—but it can’t be just sex. Not with her.
Sammie stops in a pool of moonlight, shimmering as if she’d descended from heaven. She’s more beautiful than any angel with her hair flowing over her shoulders and her skin glowing in the silver light. I blink, staring at her, unable to speak.
“Tom?” She shuffles slightly and I hear her bare feet on the carpet.
She took off the sweats. She’s standing in my hallway wearing only the t-shirt and her panties, my muse. My goddess.
I groan. I don’t mean to, but it escapes.
Her foot slides over the carpet again. “Thank you for being a gentleman.” Her hand grips the corner where the hallway meets the living room wall. “You’ve given me something no man has ever given me before—I feel valued.”
Her hand smooths across her belly and the t-shirt hitches up along her hip. I see her tiny panties and her lovely skin. But mostly I see her body language. I see the trust she’s giving me.
“Part of my head is screaming I don’t deserve you. But I don’t want to fall victim to that any longer. Because that’s what’s been happening. A part of me used to think Rick was right.”
“No, Sammie—”
She holds up her hand, silencing me. “But you’re telling me something completely different. It feels good, Tom. It feels healthy and so much better. I feel right with you. Happy. And…” A small sniffle pops between her words. “And I want to see you happy. I want to be your muse.”
She steps forward and her feet move out of the pool of silver. The light travels up her long legs, over her torso, and across her breasts. And when she stops, I see her face clearly.
She’s looking at me with more affection than I’ve ever seen from a woman. More caring. More desire to make this work than I could ever hope for. And more genuine desire for me.
Her hand extends and she reaches. For me. “Please come to bed.”
I’m off the damned air mattress and in her arms before either of us can take a breath. I scoop her up.
“Sammie,” I whisper. Her breath tickles my neck as she wraps her legs and arms around me. I grip her backside, holding her up as I back her against the wall.
I kiss her with everything I feel, on her lips, her cheeks, her neck.
She moans, gasping, and pulls me in for a deeper kiss. Our lips dance, our tongues touching, mingling. She tastes of mint and femininity; smells of sweet soap and sex.
My beautiful Sammie tangles her fingers in my hair and I feel the fire of her skin, the hard buttons of her nipples, the heat of her body pressing against my cock.
And I want her so much I grind against her belly as I hold her to the wall. It’s too much. I’m going insane.
“Take off the t-shirt.” She moans again as she paws at the fabric covering my torso.
I lean back enough for her to pull it up. Wiggling one arm out, I switch the hand gripping her ass and she pulls the shirt over my head and down my shoulder.
A low growl rolls from her throat when she runs her fingers over my biceps. “Damn, you are gorgeous.”
I chuckle and nip her earlobe. “I’m going to fuck you unconscious.”
The low, stuttered breath of a response almost sends me over the edge. Right here, with me holding her on the wall and rubbing against her through my flannel pajamas and her damned panties.
I drop her legs to the floor.
She holds tight to my neck, refusing to let go. “Tom! Now. Please.” Her mouth works across my chest and she scrapes her teeth first across one nipple, then the other.
I don’t usually like such play but when she does it, it feels like she’s setting off a volcano
under my skin.
“Damn, woman.” I pull her t-shirt over her head, stopping for a moment when the fabric curls around her wrists. Her breasts thrust out at me, wonderfully etched by the moon’s shadows, and I drop my mouth to her left nipple.
“Don’t stop.” She’s breathing heavy now, almost panting.
I tongue her nipple, suckling and biting. She shudders under my touch and I barely hold it together. I need to be in her. Now. But first I’m going to prove to her that she made the right choice.
Her t-shirt drops to the floor as I drop to my knees in front of her. I hook the lace of her panties and yank, pulling them down her thighs.
The last time when I went down on her she tasted sweet, and I want more. I grind the heel of my palm into her clit and she moans again. Her fingers tangle deeper into my hair and flex against my scalp.
I lick.
“Oh my God the real you is a thousand times better than any fantasy.” Her fingers flex again.
Surprised, I stop tonguing her beautiful, sweet pussy. “What?”
Sammie blinks, her face saying what she doesn’t vocalize: Oh, shit.
“You fantasize about me?” My inner teenager is dancing around yelling That’s right, baby! and Oh hell yeah! Sammie thinks about me when she gets off. Not that douchebag and not some movie star. Me.
“For four years.”
I blink up at her, stunned. Four years? That means… “Since you saw me on campus? When I drew the first picture of you?”
She nods.
The stupidest thought possible parades through my head: I win. I won before I even met her. I won the lotto four years ago and I’m just now finding out.
I must be smiling like an idiot because she is smiling at me, her beautiful face warm and happy. She tugs on my shoulders and this time I don’t argue. I stand, taking her in a new, deep kiss.
“I think…” I’m kissing her so hard, she can barely speak. “…I’ve always…” I pinch her nipple. She shudders and I pull her breath from her with another kiss. “…known it would be you.”
She feels right against me, holding me, wanting me. And I think, finally, all the ugliness that asshole made her feel has vanished. She’s here with me. Completely, totally with me.
“I’m falling in love with you, Tom.”
16
Samantha
He didn’t let go when I said it. He didn’t drop me or pull away or run. He picked me up again.
My wonderful Tom, his eyes as silver and beautiful as the moonlight spilling in through the balcony door, holds the naked me against his rock hard body, his face buried against my neck and his stubble rubbing the delicate skin of my shoulder.
“Promise me you’ll stay.” I barely hear his whisper. “Promise me you’re not going to decide in a year and a half that you’re bored.”
What am I supposed to say? I would never—
The realization of what he means drops on me like a cascade of rocks. This is about his brother’s divorce.
He might be holding me in the air, his arms curled around my body and his hands gripping my bottom, but he’s the vulnerable one, not me. If I’m careless, I’ll rip his heart to shreds.
I will never be careless with this man.
“You are not boring.” I kiss along his hairline. “You are the opposite of boring.”
He chuckles against my neck and his deep baritone vibrates over my skin. I moan, feeling an orgasm build out here in the hallway, in this pool of moonlight.
I’ve found what I’ve been missing all these years. What I’ve been looking for but never thought I deserved. “I’m the luckiest woman alive.” I found Tom.
“Sammie,” he whispers.
I kiss him with everything he’s given me. “You are better than any fantasy and I really do love you.” With everything I have.
I drown in his next kiss. How can I be so lucky? He’s with me, around me, and I so very much need him inside me.
“Please, Tom. Now. Don’t tease me anymore.”
“Tease you?” He’s growl-chuckling in my ear. “You wear a matching indigo bra and skirt and you accuse me of teasing?”
He paid enough attention to notice? “I want you right now, Thomas! Now! Damn it—”
I drop toward the floor, fast. He’s flipped me and I’m about to skid on the carpet, but he slows my descent. I land with the most beautiful man on the planet looking down at me, his face intense and fierce and showing just how much he wants to be with me.
“Tom!” I’d rather die than hurt him. He’s everything. My soul.
“Sammie.” He frees himself from his flannel sleep pants and the next thing I know the head of his hard shaft is pressing against my opening.
My nails dig into his buttocks. He moves into me slowly, sliding carefully, making sure he’s not hurting me. His lips glide over to my ear. He kisses, his breath hot and full of desire.
“Sammie, I love you.” He pumps, filling me completely, and I slide along the carpet, my back heating.
I’m with him. Where I should be, in a splash of moonlight under an open window. With my Tom. “I love you, too,” I say, loud and clear. “I love you.”
He pulls almost completely out. I feel the head of his cock rub around my opening and then he’s inside me again, burying himself all the way to his hilt.
I almost scream, he feels so good. I’ve never had a man so deep before, never so intense. He fits inside me perfectly, stretching me almost to the point it hurts, but not quite. Tom holds me just before the pleasure becomes pain.
My back arches when he pumps into me again and I moan, shuddering. His mouth descends to mine and all my breath leaves me, lifted away by the god who takes me hard, right now, on the carpet in the hallway of his tiny apartment.
“Tom,” I whisper. His name is all I can say.
His gaze never leaves my face. He thrusts and I moan and I don’t want this to end.
No man other than Tom will ever touch me again. No man could possibly match what he does to me.
My orgasm knocks me back and I lose all sense of the world. I feel only Tom’s body pressing into mine, hear only his ragged groans. It floods me but I know he’s building toward his own climax. He doesn’t stop and I don’t want him to. I want him to come inside me. I want to see his face in ecstasy.
He kisses me again, breathing into my mouth. His breath is hot, full of desire. Full of passion. And I kiss him back.
Groaning, his back arches. His orgasm rocks through his body and I feel myself responding, another taking me. They reverberate between us, and we both gasp, holding tight to each other.
Tom is beautiful, his handsome face full of happiness and life. Tom, my lover. Tom, my love.
He drops on top of me, his strength spent. But I don’t push him off. I pull him closer.
We lay on the floor, curled around each other. His body regains its center and he smiles, his blue-green eyes warm and happy. His fingers trace my cheek.
I’m happy for the first time in years.
“So much for taking it slow.” He kisses the bridge of my nose.
I grin, my fingers tracing his cheek. “I think I like being a cougar.”
Tom laughs and his cock bobs inside me. It’s one of the most wonderful sensations I’ve ever felt.
His face takes on an expression of mock seriousness. “You liked that, didn’t you?” Seriousness and hunger.
I can’t stop a moan from escaping. My younger lover isn’t going to let me rest. Smiling, I run my hands up and down his spine. His eyes flutter and his shoulders release. Tom drops again, his full weight pressing down on me.
“You liked that, didn’t you?” I’m just as mock serious.
Grinning, he kisses me again. “I don’t want to sleep on the air mattress tonight.”
He’s never sleeping anywhere except next to me. Not tonight. Not tomorrow night. Not any night.
When we stand in the moonlight, I curl into his embrace. I run my palm over his arms, his solid shoulders, a
nd up onto his head. I wrap my fingers in his hair.
Tom kisses me with more passion, more real desire than any man ever before has and I know this is right. This is perfect.
The moon glides across the sky. When we finally sleep, he lies next to me, sated, his arm over my belly.
I kiss his forehead, just as sated.
And finally, after all this time, happy.
17
Thomas
Andy hands me a glass of champagne. Like Sammie, he’s far too smart to be working in Campaign Relations but he waves his hand in the air and says some cliché about “house payments” any time someone brings it up.
Except when Sammie asked for his help after she took on repping my work. He spent a full hour looking at my paintings and drawings and by the end of the day he’d called five of his contacts.
That was seven months ago. Now, when he’s not fetching booze, he mingles with the guests at my first gallery show.
“So, you two set a date yet?” He points with his champagne flute at the life-sized painting of my fiancé. In it, Sammie leans back, one leg dipped into a lake and the other propped up, her luscious body covered only in a black bikini bottom. One arm covers her breasts. But the true beauty of the painting isn’t her form, it’s the happiness I captured in her face. The golds, oranges, and reds of the sunset cascade over her skin, but she’s looking at me. And she’s smiling.
“We’re thinking spring.” I’d marry her right now but her family in Grand Forks will never forgive her if they can’t plan the whole affair.
To my surprise, they don’t seem all that put off by the number of nudes she has sat for, though her father, who’s already consumed three full glasses of champagne, has spent the entire evening blushing.
Andy nods. “If you two elope, I will never forgive you.” He frowns and nods toward an older couple I don’t recognize. “Your adoring fans want an event.”
I chuckle. Without Sammie’s communications work and Andy’s contacts, none of this would have been possible.
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