She pulled back just enough to look at him and the years between them just melted away. All the questions and misconceptions and heartaches they’d accidentally caused each other faded into utter insignificance.
It was like… coming home and at the same time setting out on a new adventure. The perfect mix of past and present.
He’d been enamored of the girl she was then but he was blown away by the woman before him.
SEEING the truth of his feelings in his eyes, Sam’s entire body went liquid. She flowed into him, her lips effortlessly meeting his, a soft kiss brimming with promise. Her hormones quieted, her heart calmed, her blood slowed and thickened in her veins. There was no more sense of battle. For one perfect, shining moment what was between them was simply… right.
But the kiss quickly came to a boil, their eager bodies reaching flashpoint. Hormones and need and lust and love all combined in a sort of frenzy.
Sam went after him with her tongue.
A low growl erupting from his throat, Josh maneuvered Sam onto the granite counter. Plenty more where that came from, he thought. And a whole night in which to do it. A whole lifetime in which to do it, if things continued to go his way. He shifted the angle of the kiss, pressed more firmly between her thighs. It was all he could do not to mount her right there on the counter.
“You’re wearing my shirt again,” he murmured when they were forced to come up for air. He brushed a hand around the lower curve of her breast, and Sam gasped and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she exhaled. “I think I took it with me because a part of me couldn’t bear to let you go.”
His hand stilled, and Sam opened her eyes.
“I like that,” he told her thickly. “But it’s time to take it off.”
With a gratifying lack of protest Sam lifted her arms over her head. Josh slid the shirt up and off, tossing it toward the heap of his own clothing. “You’re beautiful,” he told her, eyes never leaving her face. One finger traced the curve of her cheek. When she started to protest he pressed that finger to her lips. “To me, you’ve always been beautiful.”
And then he lowered his head to put his lips against her flesh.
HE slid his tongue along the lace edging her bra and Sam watched him with disbelieving wonder. Not gay, her hormones cheered again. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Then he took her peaked nipple between his teeth through the sheer fabric covering and she cried out at the rush of pleasure. Josh’s teeth. Those were Josh’s teeth nibbling her breast.
She slid her fingers into the silk of his hair, gathering him to her. The sensation was so sharp it was almost painful, and he murmured something soothing against her skin. That clever mouth found its way into the curve of her neck, and her hands drifted to his well-defined shoulders. She explored the taut muscles while he nuzzled her ear, stopping suddenly when she encountered his scar. It was roundish and puckered, both front and back, where the bullet that could have killed him had torn through him. Sobering instantly, Sam drew back.
“I’m so sorry.” Her eyes unexpectedly filled with tears. “I… I feel like I should have been here.”
He smiled softly, hands cupping her cheeks, and brushed at the wetness with his thumbs. “You’re here now,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose with infinite tenderness, “and I just thank God that I’m still here to be with you.”
The tenderness with the passion was so foreign to her that Sam had to close her eyes. “Me, too,” she whispered, simply holding him.
But their physical desire couldn’t be ignored for more than a moment.
“I want you,” he told her, pulling back. “I want to be inside you so badly it hurts. But not here,” he inclined his head toward the countertop. “At least not this time.”
Wordlessly, Sam hopped off the counter, stood submissively while he bent to relieve her of her pants. He could dress her, undress her, have her wherever and whenever he wanted.
Because he was the only man she’d ever loved.
“Come with me.” He extended his hand and she accepted, padding nearly naked across the floor. The ebony hardwood was littered with the remnants of his tuxedo, and Sam maneuvered around it.
He’d stepped on it, she realized in disbelief. He’d trodden on the jacket without giving it a thought.
He wasn’t telling her not to chew on his shoes.
“What?” he asked, pausing at the bottom of the stairs when she laughed.
“Delirium,” she told him with another laugh. “A byproduct of the shock.”
Squeezing her fingers, Josh led her to his bedroom, a space she’d tried not to look at too closely before. But now she drank it in. She was greedy to absorb every detail of this unbelievable night. And if she was dreaming, at least she’d have a vivid picture painted in her head, one she could pull out often and cherish.
There were skylights over the bed. The harvest moon cast the creamy sheets and black iron headboard into a mass of shadows and tempting pools of luminescence.
The walls were beige painted brick punctuated with several framed paintings and one pencil sketch, larger than the rest. It hadn’t been there, she was sure, the last time she’d been up here.
She moved toward it.
Then turned to look at Josh with her heart in her throat.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, coming up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist. He looked at his own work with pride and love. “I told you so.”
It was her, a sketch from the class for which she’d modeled. But instead of an exploration of various parts of her anatomy, he’d chosen to render her face. She was looking over her shoulder – there was a curve of waist and a hint of breast. A butterfly fluttered on her hip. But they were background. It was her expression that demanded attention. Her hair, longer then, was piled on top of her head, loosely depicted but not defined. Her eyes were shuttered, almost coy, but there was a hint of vulnerability captured in their depths. So much detail. So much truth.
A light smile lifted one corner of her lips, seemingly just for the artist.
“You drew my face,” she stated simply.
The arms which held her tightened. “How could I not, when it was the most magnificent face I’d ever seen?”
Instead of tears this time, a warm sense of happiness suffused her. This man, she allowed herself to admit, this man actually saw her. “I love you,” she confessed, maybe too readily, but it just seemed impossible not to as she turned herself in the circle of his arms.
This time it was his eyes that flooded. “God, Sam.” He dipped his forehead down to hers. “I think I’ve loved you since the moment you walked into that classroom.”
He swept her into his arms, the easy show of strength making her heart flutter. It was girly, she mused absently, but so what. The cool sheets hit her back just before his lean body warmed her.
There were no more words, no need for them, nothing unspoken left between them. Their lips found each other hungrily as they helped each other out of what remained of their clothes.
IT was heaven, Josh thought, in that small part of his brain that could still think at all, just to watch moonlight shimmer along her generous curves. Samantha Martin was naked beneath him, and all was right with his world.
Because it was so tempting to bury himself in her, to drive and drive to the finish, he forced himself onto his elbows and lifted his weight off her soft resistance. This was her time, he decided, and he wanted to give her all that he could.
He kissed his way down her body, blazing a trail through the valley between her breasts. He wouldn’t ignore them, certainly, but he also didn’t want to make them all-important. Too many men had seen the breasts and not the woman.
He wouldn’t make that mistake.
So he contented himself by dipping his tongue into her navel. She smelled of lavender, he realized, as he made his way continually lower. And when he slid one finger into her wet heat, his entire body trembled.
“JOSH,” Sam gasped out, unnerved
by the intensity of the sensations. No man had ever given her this.
“Please,” he said, lifting his head when she tried to close her legs against him. “Let me?”
How could she refuse him anything? She slumped back against the pillow, tried not to cringe when he pushed her thighs wide. With only one eye half open she squinted in his direction, watched his dark head as he bent low.
It was so hard. So hard to trust enough not to feel vulnerable.
But soon all thoughts of resistance faded away as Josh manipulated her with fingers, caressed her with his tongue. When he slipped two fingers inside her, there was no buildup to release, no gentle spiral or tingling warning. Just a great wave of sensation that swamped her in satisfaction and left her battered along the shore. “God,” she gasped. “Oh my God.”
Josh smiled against her thigh.
Then he levered himself back over her, brushed at a lock of hair clinging to her sweat-dampened cheek. She looked at him with unseeing eyes, still glazed from the surfeit of pleasure.
“You’ve blinded me,” she told him, not unhappily.
He laughed and dropped a kiss on her lips. “Only fair, since you gave me a speech impediment.”
“I’ve noticed that you’re recovered.”
“You will, too,” he assured her. Wickedly. “Just in time for me to blind you again.”
“Well, then.”
JOSH chuckled softly, kissed her deeply. He was holding onto his control by a thread, but he wouldn’t allow it to break. Not yet. He liked her blind, and he’d have her deaf and dumb, too. She’d rocked his world eight years ago and it was time to return the favor.
He ran a hand over her hips, following its voluptuous path with eager eyes. Her body was a wonderland of feminine bounty simply waiting to be explored. He’d be sure to cover every inch of it before the night was over. “You have cute toes,” he said, surprising her.
“I… what?”
Not what she’d expected, obviously. “Mmm-hmm,” he assured her, edging toward the bottom of the bed. It was nice to have her off balance. “Great feet all the way around. Long and lean, and your little toe does that curvy thing.” He demonstrated by bending his finger.
“They’re bony,” she said dryly, moving her feet away from his seeking hands. “And my toe’s crooked.”
“Cute,” he corrected. “I’d like to kiss it.”
So he did, capturing her evasive appendages with a strong grip. But when he worked his way back up her legs, lingering to plant wet kisses in the hollow behind her knees, she stopped him before he reached her thighs.
“Josh, please.” She sat up and touched him. Wrapped her fingers around his hardened flesh. “We’ve waited long enough.”
Yes, they certainly had.
He knew what she wanted, and it was what he wanted, too – what he’d dreamed about since the first moment he saw her.
He fell on her with a ferocity that startled him, and she responded equally and without restraint. Their bodies came together, arms and legs intertwined, mouths fused by the heat. He rolled until she was on top, but stilled her hips when she raised herself high.
“I don’t want to use a condom,” he admitted, flesh quivering from the need to join. But there were things that needed to be said here, and now was the time to say them. He wanted no questions, no misunderstandings ever again. “I don’t have anything you wouldn’t want to catch, but you wouldn’t be protected from getting pregnant.” His fingers bit into her hips. “I don’t want to protect you from getting pregnant.”
“I…” Whoa. Sam swayed, but he steadied her.
“I just wanted you to know how things stand.”
He was saying that he wanted something permanent. Kids… probably marriage, the whole nine yards. A man like Josh would want to do things properly.
And he wanted to do things properly with her.
“This isn’t about sex, Sam. This is about us loving each other enough to do this. I want it all. But if that’s too much for you, I’ll gladly get a condom.”
If their relationship had stalled eight years ago, it was flying along at warp speed now. Sam stared down at him a moment, trying to get her bearings.
He wasn’t gay, he’d confessed.
He loved her, which was even better.
And he cared enough that he was giving her this choice. It was killing him, she realized, studying his tense expression. The waiting, both physical and emotional. Wondering what she would do. But for the first time in her life, there really was no question. Her hormones, her mind, her emotions, her heart – everything was in sync. She’d been in love with this man for almost a third of her life, and it was pointless to even hesitate.
So she took his hands in hers, brought them to her hips, and sheathed him from tip to hilt.
“Have mercy,” he groaned, squeezing his eyes shut against the rush of pleasure.
But she didn’t want to, so she started to move. Gently, at first, then like a freight train she gathered steam. He tried to slow her down, but the sense of empowerment was too amazing. Sam reveled in watching the gratification, the sheer pleasure contort his face. He’s beautiful, she thought, pleased beyond measure. And he was hers.
JOSH wasn’t going to last another minute if she kept that up, but they were both enjoying it too much for him to stop her.
He’d lost control, he mused before his thoughts scattered. She’d snipped the thread.
Sam cried out as Josh angled himself up against her chest, seeking her lips in a kiss that was carnal. He thrust into her, hard and sure, filling her inexorably, body and soul. “I love you,” he told her, eyes heavy-lidded with pleasure that was rapidly reaching its peak. “I always have.”
THEY shattered, first her, then him in rapid succession, and Sam closed her eyes as she felt her body milking his. His seed, and the thought was almost unbearably erotic. Her womb. The timing wasn’t quite right, but there was always the possibility. In forgoing any form of protection they’d embraced the biological reality of the act.
They’d done it, she realized, absolutely replete and utterly exhausted. There was no backing away from this now.
They collapsed, bodies cooling, heartbeats slowing, though Josh wouldn’t let her extricate her body from his. “Not yet,” he crooned, kissing her forehead. “Maybe not ever.”
He managed to grab one end of the comforter, which he tucked around her shoulders to keep her warm. Then they just lay there, sated and sleepy.
“I’ll see about a marriage license on Monday,” he murmured, his voice thick with impending slumber.
Sam smiled, too tired to respond. She was still smiling as she drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“SO this is what sex is supposed to be like,” Sam mused, trailing a boneless finger through the cooling sweat on Josh’s chest. The first rays of morning brightened the shadows in the room, gentling the air. It had been easy, during the dark night, to wonder if this was really happening. But as daybreak began to shimmer on the horizon, and she’d awakened to find Josh ready to love her a final time before morning called them both to other duties, she’d realized that she hadn’t been dreaming.
Josh was real.
Not a fantasy any longer, but a flesh and blood man who loved her. He’d shown her time and again throughout the night. A voluptuous shiver washed her superheated flesh and Josh helped her to burrow beneath the comforter. It was on the floor, now.
So were they.
Josh turned his head to face her. “Sam,” he caught her finger in his hand and pulled it to his mouth to be kissed. He had the most incredible lips. They did the most incredible things. “I know your relationship with Collin was emotionally abusive, but were there things you didn’t tell me? Physically, did the bastard hurt you? Because I can track him down if he did.”
Sam tried to smile, but her heart wasn’t in it, and Josh’s eyes brewed up a storm. “I’ll kill him –”
“No.” She laid her finger against those lips. “
No, you won’t, and no he never actually hurt me. He just…” Sam had to swallow her pride to speak of it. They’d covered this ground before but she’d been drunk, and fully dressed. She was sober this time, and naked, but somehow she was less exposed. There was trust, now. Josh wouldn’t use what she told him against her.
“Collin liked to crush my self-esteem. It was his particular expertise. He made me feel that… giving it up to him was all I was really good for. And that I wasn’t even all that good for that. He stopped kissing me.” And it had been unbearably hurtful. “Like I didn’t deserve the most basic foreplay. Just straight, humiliating sex.”
Josh held himself very still. “I’m in no position to question, and I don’t want you to think that’s what I’m doing, but –”
“You want to know why?” she surmised, rolling away from him. “Why I was stupid enough to stay in an abusive relationship?”
“Stop it.” He pulled her forcefully back toward him. “You’re not stupid, and you never have been.” He cupped her chin, lifted it so that she faced him. “What happened” he asked, gentle now “to make you think you deserved it?”
He’d hit the nail on the head. It was disconcerting that he understood that much already.
“Your father.” He saw the truth of it in her eyes, and something dangerous flickered in his. “He abused you.”
It wasn’t a question, though Sam nodded her head. Shame washed over her, staining her cheeks. Despite all the years which had passed. She’d never told anyone – it had been her and Donnie’s dirty little secret.
But this man had just asked her to share his life with him. So surely she could share this.
“My dad was a long-haul trucker, so he wasn’t home very often. When he was home, he dictated how things should be. Knocked us around when one of us didn’t go along. He had this… this insatiable need for control.” It was so hard to talk about objectively. “I don’t know for certain, but I’m pretty sure he was abused also. It’s a fairly predictable cycle.”
“But that doesn’t make it okay.”
The Southern Comfort Series Box Set Page 80