Sam rolled onto his back. He pulled her up along his side. Keeping her hand locked loosely in his fingers, their arms rested above his heart.
“Then allow me to introduce myself. My name is Samuel Montgomery. I was born in Houston, but when I was baby my parents, Mark and Aubrey, moved to Austin. My father worked for NASA before he left to start his own company with his partner, Allen Mahon. Eventually, my father bought out his partner, but the name stuck. MMI, have you ever heard of it?”
“It sounds familiar.”
“My father was always away on business. He’d fly off to all sorts of exotic corners of the globe, leaving my mother and I back home, but I really didn’t mind that much because I was a complete momma’s boy. My mother was absolutely fabulous. She was gorgeous, vivacious, the consummate hostess, basically a divine goddess, and she was, without a doubt, the light and sparkle of our home.”
“Was?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute, but first I have to tell you about Willie Simons. Willie was our neighbor, and for his seventh birthday his parents threw an over-the-top, rodeo-themed birthday party. I was only six at the time, but I remember everything about that day. It was the first time I ever saw a clown. He was dressed up like some grotesque, country-western bum, and I was terrified. I caused such a scene screaming and crying that we had to leave. When we got home, my mother told me makeup was never something to be afraid of. She took me up to her bedroom, and we sat together at her dressing table. She washed off her makeup, and I was mesmerized because it was the only time I could remember seeing her fresh-faced. Of course, she was just as beautiful without the paint. I begged her not to put any more on, but she insisted. We sat together for nearly an hour while she demonstrated the process of putting on her face. She told me about all the products and shades. What colors were more appropriate for daytime and what hues should only be worn at night. A few weeks later, she was dead.”
“But how? What happened?”
“At the time, I didn’t know. No one would tell me the truth. I must have assumed she was ill, but I can’t remember. I just knew that she was gone. My father shut down. The day after her funeral, he flew out to Hong Kong and left me with the servants. They tried their best, but I missed her desperately. Eventually, I went to her room. Everything was exactly as she left it. Nothing had been touched. I found her discarded negligee lying near the bed. When I picked it up, it still smelled like her. It was like I found some part of her still there with me. Day after day, I returned and stayed for hours. One day, I sat at the dressing table and thought if I could just paint my face like hers, I could see her again. Well, as soon as my father came home and found his only child dressed in his mother’s nightgown painted up like a whore, he tore into me. I was literally dangling by my arm as he spanked me all the way from her room to mine. I was so young and naïve, I couldn’t understand what I had done that was so terrible, but as soon as he flew off the next time, I was right back in her room, dragging my seven-year-old self up.”
“Good God, what was wrong with your father?” Kate hissed with disgust.
“Oh, I don’t know, I suppose he overreacted, but he had just buried the love of his life,” Sam murmured. “Eventually, I grew up wilder than a March hare. Fell in with a very fast crowd and by the time I was sixteen, I had been in and out of four different rehabs. None of them stopped me. For my eighteenth birthday, I planned this massive party. Thought I would enter adulthood with decadence. And…hmm.” Sam suddenly grew silent.
“And?”
“And I overdosed. Lucky for me, my neighbor at the time, a world-renowned cardiologist, was home at the time. He was able to stabilize me until the paramedics came and shocked my heart. I was in the hospital for a few days. My friends came to visit and we laughed about where my father would send me this time—Colorado, Palm Springs, or Miami. But he didn’t send me to any of those places. He kept me in town in the kind of rehab facility that you only went to under court orders. For two weeks, I was surrounded by serious, hard-core, steal your grandma’s social security checks, sell yourself on the streets, kinds of addicts. Obviously, my father was trying to make a point, but I didn’t see that at the time. When he came for a family therapy session, I was all ready to say the right things. I would say this. He would say that. Blah, blah, blah, I would come home. We’d been through the drill enough times it shouldn’t have been that complicated. But my father threw me for a complete loop when the therapist started questioning the root cause of my drug use. Bold as brass he proclaimed, ‘My son wants to be a woman.’ Well of course, I vehemently denied it, but my dad threw me under the bus, spelling out all my dirty little secrets. I was furious. I hated him, absolutely hated him, at that moment. The therapist started bombarding me with all these questions about my sexual orientation. He just wouldn’t let it go, until finally he told my father that perhaps my cross-dressing was just a way I was expressing myself. Finally, my dad said, ‘Sam, I don’t care. I don’t care if you want to wear fishnet tights and black bras, I just don’t want you to die.’”
“No one knew?”
“I wasn’t out there marching in any parades,” Sam chuckled. “But it was sort of liberating, and besides, by then, most of the people I ran around with had already fried half their brains with coke and didn’t seem to care or notice what I was wearing. Of course, I had to rub it in my dad’s face on account of him being such a dick about it. Whenever he would have dinner parties, I would stroll in, in full makeup, but he never once flinched. He’d only say something like, ‘Are you going out tonight? Well, have a good time then.’ A few weeks before my twentieth birthday, I was still partying more than I should have, and my father asked me to go hunting with him.”
Sam quietly chuckled. He rolled to his side and pulled her close. Stretched side by side, they made a perfect fit.
In the dark, Kate could barely see his face. It looked both so familiar and so foreign, yet strangely she felt calm, relaxed. His fingers reached up and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“What was the old man thinking, right? I thought he had lost his mind. What was I supposed to wear—sheik-hunter orange or country-English tweed? I almost told him no, and still now, I don’t why I didn’t, but I’m so thankful that I didn’t because before I met you, that weekend was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Sam admitted quietly while he lightly stroked her cheek.
“When my dad picked me up, the back of his Land Rover was packed full with a bunch of equipment. I thought to myself, Good Lord, are we hunting small animals or people? After we found a campsite, my dad started unpacking all that stuff and it turns out he was something of an amateur photographer. That weekend I slept maybe a grand total of two hours. We spent the rest of the time talking. He taught me everything he knew about light and shadows, textures, capturing the moment. It was so amazingly profound, and that weekend I fell in love with the camera. On the way home, he told me that he had an inoperable tumor, and then thanked me for coming with him because he wanted at least one good memory as father and son before he died. By the winter, he was on hospice. For the last two months of his life, I stayed by his side because I didn’t want him to die alone. But I also realized that here was a man, who on some level I spent the majority of my life despising, that turns out to be amazing to me and I didn’t want to waste another moment. Before he died, he told me that my mother had died because of an accidental drug overdose. She had insomnia whenever he traveled, and her physician prescribed sleeping pills. I’ll never know what really happened, but he and I both believe that she woke in the night and mistakenly took too many pills. Losing him was horrible, but physically I felt better than I had in years because I hadn’t used the whole time I was there. That was six years ago, and I haven’t used anything since. And that is who Sam Montgomery is.”
Chapter 7
Sam moved closer and rested his lips against her cheek. “He also happens to be your best friend,” he kissed against her flesh. Moving across her face wit
h tiny wet kisses, he affirmed, “The man who adores you.” Sam kissed across her jawline and his hand slipped to her waist to pull her close. “The man who worships you.”
Kate arched against his affections. He was spinning the sweetest spell, like being lost in a sea of confections. She didn’t even think to resist when he pulled at the waistband of her pajama pants and pushed them down the length of her legs, along with her panties. He carefully pushed her legs apart and settled between her thighs.
“The man who loves you,” he whispered against her parted mouth.
He caught her hands and held them above her head. Their fingers intertwined and rested against the pillow. As his tongue stroked her mouth, his cock filled her with slow, deep strokes. His lovemaking wasn’t nearly as urgent, as savage, or as carnal, as the first time, but it was just as deliriously intoxicating. He wasn’t just filling her body, he was filling her soul.
“I don’t think I will ever be close enough to you. If it was possible, I would slip inside your skin and stay there forever,” he murmured.
Kate could only incoherently moan. She couldn’t find the words to explain how she felt—only that she felt complete, very, very complete, for the first time in her life. He stroked her unhurriedly, as if he was content to spend the rest of the night making love to her. And he was doing just that, making love to her in every sense of the word. With his body, his words, his heart, his whole being. It was a spiritual climax, and in that moment, Kate knew with an undeniable certainty she was so very much loved.
When Sam began to gently roll his pelvis deep inside her, the physical side of her nature demanded her full attention. As much as she yearned for release, Kate tried to deny it because she didn’t want this feeling to end.
“Come for me, babe,” Sam said urgently against her ear.
“Not yet,” Kate cried.
“Come for me,” he said again. “I want to drink your sweet juices.”
It proved too powerful a temptation to resist. Kate shattered, squeezing him tightly with her inner muscles. She started to whimper when he pulled away and disappeared under the covers, but seconds later she felt his lips suck her clit and then lavish her vulva with long, light licks. His fingers slipped inside her hot entrance, which was still quivering from the first orgasm, and Kate came again harder, more intensely than the first time.
Sam kissed his way up her torso until his head popped out from under the sheets and then settled beside her.
“Aren’t you going to too?” she protested.
“I want to,” he readily agreed.
“Did you want me to…hmm…do that to you?”
When Sam rolled onto his back, Kate thought she detected a smile before he answered, “Do you want to do that…hmm…to me?”
“I’ve never done it before.”
“You don’t have to,” Sam said quietly. “You could use your hand if you wanted to, or I could use my hand. I just didn’t want to take the risk of getting you pregnant. Obviously, what we did wasn’t entirely safe either, but I wouldn’t be able to pull out in time.”
“Oh, I hadn’t thought about that,” Kate frowned. “But I’m sure we’re safe because my period is due any day.”
“Two days, you’re regular as clockwork,” Sam corrected.
Kate smiled. “What a very strange man you are, keeping track of my menstrual cycles. I’d like to try, but if I’m horrible, you’re not allowed to tell me.”
“At this point, you could blow on my cock, and I would come. Trust me—you will undoubtedly give me the best blow job I’ve ever received.”
“Mr. Montgomery, such language,” Kate playfully clicked as she slipped under the covers.
“I could burn the ears of the most hardened sinner, Miss Logan. If you want me to talk dirty, you only have to ask.”
Kate begrudgingly admitted this whole business might be easier if she could see what she was doing. Of course, if she could see what she was about to do, she wouldn’t be doing it. She reached for his cock, and was stunned to discover Sam had been speaking the truth. She had to peel his heavy erection from the tight, taunt skin covering his stomach.
Poised above him, she truly had no idea where to begin. There was no way she would able to take all of him into her mouth. It was just not physically possible, so she decided she would start by tasting him first. She slowly stretched her tongue and licked him head to base. The feel of his steely, yet silken, flesh was a pleasant discovery. Growing bolder, she slipped the tip of his cock between her lips. As her tongue flicked across the rigid erection, a salty-tasting juice seeped from his head. Savoring the flavor so much, the flavor of Sam, Kate opened her throat wide, trying to taste more of him.
Sam’s breathing quickly turned harsh and heavy. “Come here,” he groaned.
Reluctant, Kate didn’t want to stop as she loved the feel of him in her mouth, the taste of him dripping down her throat. She started to protest when Sam leaned up and reached for her waist.
“I want to taste your sweet ass,” he explained and positioned her so that she was straddling his waist backwards.
When Sam pulled apart her cheeks and his lips settled upon the tight flesh, Kate tried to moan but couldn’t because he was filling her mouth. She spat his erection out of her mouth and said, “If you keep doing that, I won’t be able to do this,” even as her hips backed up against him.
Sam’s finger slipped inside her core. “That wonderful bit of skin is filled with nerve endings for both woman and men,” he explained and took her back into his mouth.
Kate leaned over and took him into her mouth but had an awful time concentrating because of all the wonderful, wicked sensations emanating for her lower region. Sam spread his legs apart, and Kate knew what he wanted. But could she do it? Could she touch him there? Deciding to be bold, she cupped his testicles and gently rolled them against her palm. Her fingers stretched down and settled upon his taut ridge. As soon as she started caressing his perineum, Sam’s bold administrations grew urgent, and Kate knew he couldn’t hold out much longer.
While his thumb was rapidly rubbing against her clit, he groaned, “Please, babe, hurry. I can’t last any longer.”
Knowing she had caused this desperate state in him was all the aphrodisiac she needed to come again. As soon as her muscles started to clench, Sam pulled out of her mouth just before he came across his belly.
Later that evening, Kate fell blissfully asleep in Sam’s arms. The next morning as the layers of sleep began gently unfolding, Kate felt a weight holding her down. Still half-asleep, she mistakenly assumed she was tangled in the blankets. She tried to wiggle free to no avail. Coming instantly alert, her eyes popped open, but she couldn’t focus on the truth of the moment. All she saw was a terrible, horrifying flashback of her nightmare from day’s past. Fighting with all her might, she leapt from the bed with the sheet wrapped around her body and let out a piercing, bloodcurdling scream.
Seconds later, Jenner crashed through the door. “Katie, what is it?” she rushed.
The horrific sound would not stop emanating from her throat until she saw Jenner. Seeing through Jenner’s eyes, she looked back over to the bed and saw Sam sitting up with the blankets covering his waist. The tortured look in his eyes was impossible to ignore.
“Oh God,” Kate groaned and dashed through the door, only stopping once she reached the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
Jenner followed closely behind and pounded on the door. “Kate, are you all right? What’s going on?”
With her face buried in the toilet, Kate tried to answer as she retched, “I’m fine. Go away.”
Several moments later the heaves subsided. Kate lay limp on the bathroom floor. Her insides felt wrung dry as a wet dish cloth, but that was nothing compared to her breaking heart. She knew she had to face him, and once again apologize. After dressing in her bathrobe, Kate rinsed her face with cold water, brushed her teeth, and then left the bathroom. She discovered Sam and Jenner standing in the kitchen, murmu
ring quietly as they drank coffee.
“Sorry about that,” Kate said shakily. “I had a bad dream.”
“More like a night terror,” Jenner answered calmly. “You scared the wits out of me. Do you want a cup of coffee?”
“Yes, please,” Kate said quietly and then dared to look up at Sam. Leaning beside the counter, he silently watched her and then put his cup of coffee down. “I’ve got to go. I have an early appointment,” he explained and walked over to her. Leaning down, Sam tried to kiss her lips, but Kate moved her face away and his lips landed against her cheek instead. She felt his sad smile against her skin. “I’ll call you later,” he said quietly and then walked out.
As soon as he closed the door behind him, Jenner let out an excited squeal. “Oh my God, Kate,” she gasped. “Don’t you dare try to say all the two of you did last night was sleep in that bed.”
“No,” Kate agreed sullenly.
“He’s so blindingly gorgeous I could barely stand to look at him. I always suspected he was under all that makeup, but I never saw that coming. Do you think he falls in love with his reflection every morning? I know I would if I looked like that straight from the bed. Wait a minute…” Jenner’s babble ceased suddenly, “…why aren’t you happy? Wasn’t he any good?”
“He is a phenomenal lover.”
“Then why aren’t you floating on cloud freaking nine right now? You hit the jackpot, Kate. He’s beautiful, sensitive, caring, filthy rich, and would be a personal shopper any girl would die for.”
“I know, I know…” Kate cried. “I know all that. Sam is sublime, but you saw what happened this morning, how I behaved. He probably thinks I’m insane.”
“Let’s put this in perspective, Kate,” Jenner said calmly. “This is Sam we are discussing. Sam—the cross-dresser. I’m sure he’s seen more than his fair share of crazy. Besides, it was just a bad dream. Everyone has them for time to time. Just go to his studio later this afternoon and talk to him.”
Hook, Line, and Garter (Bitches and Queens) Page 6