by Fiona Murphy
When I get home, Sam isn’t in the living room or our bedroom, I find him in my studio. He has a laptop open and he looks up when I step inside.
“Perfect timing, come take a look.” Sam moves away from the computer and I look at the screen and freeze.
It’s my website but it looks amazing. Pretty, wispy font and four different types of paintings can be clicked on to take a look through. In the middle of the page an automatic run of every painting loads and then cycles back through. I turn to him and I burst into tears.
His arms come around my middle and he picks me up and walks me to our bedroom. He settles on the bed and holds me while I cry.
I’m finally able to form words. “Thank you, you didn’t have to do that. How did you do all of that?”
“I’m going to tell you right now, the sight of you in tears is extremely painful to me so you are going to have to learn how to smile and laugh when I make you happy. It was easier than I thought, I found the guy for the photography, his card is taped up in your studio. I went through your browser history and found the web page. The girl who built the page was nice and promised a web page quick and easy to use. You can call her when ever you need something. Her fee includes unlimited calls for the first month, after that she’ll charge per hour.”
“Sam! I can’t help it, I’m not used to being so happy! I was going to tell you I sold the paintings at the gallery and I was already happy about that but then I come home to this.
This is too much. All of that work and money, I don’t want you to take care of all of this, I can take care of myself. I’ll pay you back, with the money from the sales I know I can pay you back.”
He throws back his head and laughs and pulls me closer to him, so that I’m straddling him. “You aren’t paying me back and I’m calling bullshit and taking care of you.” His mouth comes down on mine and his kiss is demanding. I give in without a thought. When he breaks the kiss, the world is still hazy for me. “I believe we had this discussion before. Who does your body belong to? Who, Zoe, who does your body belong to?”
Wet heat floods me, “You.”
“You’re mine?” He asks softly.
“Yes, Sam. I’m yours.”
“Then there’s nothing more to talk about. Just like I take care of your body and make sure you only have pleasure I’m going to continue to see to all your other needs. I have to take care of my trucks oil changes, I have to take care of you. I want to take care of you. You happy and succeeding with this website gets you closer to your goal of quitting and painting full time. Those things are necessary to your happiness so I need to make sure you have what you need because then I feel good when I know you’re good.”
“But you can’t be responsible for my happiness. I have to take responsibility for that.”
“So if I went to the strip club with Taylor and stayed out until the sun came up, would that make you happy?”
“Of course not!” The thought has me pushing away but he keeps a tight hold on me.
“Then again, I’m calling bullshit. I know the things that will make you happy and the things that won’t. Now if the things that made you happy didn’t make me happy, then we might have a problem but they don’t. So there’s no problem.”
I sag against him and lay my head on his shoulder. Had he really compared me to his truck? It doesn’t matter, I understand what he means. Just like I had started to learn to cook his favorite things and taken to buying the things I knew he liked because I want to make him happy I get why he did the website and did the things he did.
“I was never going to win an argument with you, was I?”
“You can try, I’ll always let you try.” Then his mouth comes down on mine and I pull him out of the sweats he’s in and come down on him and all is right again in our world.
Sam is coming out of the shower and I watch as he dresses and I don’t want to argue and hope it won’t come to that. I sit up and pull the sheet up with me, I don’t want it to seem like I’m using my body to get what I want from him.
“What’s the matter?” His voice is low and husky as he sits beside me on the bed. It’s still unsettling how easily and quickly he reads me and my eyes go down to my hands.
“We’re still short trainers and I’m pretty sure I can talk a trainer who left last year to come back but he’s in Dallas. I want to go up there and see him tomorrow.” I pause, hating but knowing what I need to do. “Can I please go up and see him tomorrow and ask him to come back to work?”
A finger moves over the lines in my forehead and tucks my hair behind my ear. “We’ll both go tomorrow, when I get off work. We’ll take my truck because I don’t trust your car.”
It’s exactly what I had hoped he would say, and I sigh with relief and kiss his cheek. “Thank you.”
Chapter Seventeen
The drive is quick and easy with Sam at the wheel, I’m thankful for it because I-35 is hell on earth to me. Between the asshole drivers in their big trucks and the eighteen wheelers I hate the drive to Dallas and I don’t go unless I have to.
We pull into the driveway of the address I had been given by one of the few employees that had kept in touch with Dean. It isn’t a regular apartment complex, it’s a retirement community. This is going to be easier than I thought. Sam finds the building they are all one story with what looks like four apartments in one building.
“There’s nothing I can say that will make it so you’ll stay in the truck, is there?”
Sam doesn’t even respond to the question, he simply turns off the truck and slides out and I sigh and wait for him to come around and lift me out of the truck, like he always does. He opens the door and catches me around the waist and sets me down. I’m in loose jeans and a long loose blue tee shirt given away at one of the company’s events for the charity Taylor had created. It’s as sexless as I can be but as we walk toward the apartment, Sam’s hand is on my ass and I feel pretty damn sexy.
I knock and it’s quiet for a few minutes. The door opens and a white haired woman, tiny but cranky eyeballs me with distrust. Sam, she recognizes for the same kind of man as her grandson and nods grudgingly as she steps back.
“Dean, you got company!” She yells.
“Hi, m’am I’m Zoe Lawrence and this is Sam King. I used to work with Dean and Sam-“ The woman shushes me and points down the hall.
“First door on the right, he’s probably got those damn earphones on.”
Respecting the elderly is always harder when they’re assholes is all I think as I walk down the short hallway. I knock and wait for an answer but nothing so I open the door. Dean is laying on the bed staring up at the ceiling, whispering along with Mazzy Star and I try really hard not to laugh. Forcing it down, I step into the room and I finally catch Dean’s eye. He pulls off the earphones and looks at me with hope and embarrassment.
“Zoe, what are you doing here?” Long and lean, his light brown hair is scruffy and there are bags under his light golden eyes. It’s a huge difference from the pretty boy image he loved to flaunt before he met slut, I can’t remember her name, she’d always just been the slut to me since I caught her on Taylor’s lap.
“Hey Dean, this is Sam King, we took him on as a trainer a few weeks ago. He came with me because when I told him I wanted to talk to you about coming back he seems to think he can’t let me out of sight around a man. We’re together and he’s just a little possessive so no bear hugs okay?” Dean and I had been friendly as he was practically Taylor’s best friend and he thought I was adorable because I was so small and his usual greeting was a bear hug where he lifted me up and spun me around. When he had sat up and stood, I had stepped back against Sam and he had quickly wrapped his arms around me.
Dean just nods and smiles and sits at the edge of the bed. “I’m happy for you Zoe. So you know about me and Sasha? Does everybody know?”
I shake my head, Dean had always been just a little too proud, a little too cocky for his own good. “Exactly what happened? No. All Tay
lor and know is that you broke up, which wasn’t a surprise. She had dollar signs in her eyes when she looked at you. I won’t tell Taylor anything, your private life is your private life. I’m sorry she hurt you, I know it’s been a long time since you thought you were in love and I think that was the real appeal for her. You wanted to love her and there’s nothing wrong with that.”
Dean looks down and his hands go over his face, “Zoe, that’s the think about you I always liked. You just know and you don’t make a big deal out of it. I wish I had listened to you that night and for a little bit I wondered but then Taylor comes at me all loud and telling me I’m stupid and I just dug my heels in. I got what I deserved, you two were my friends and trying to help me but all I heard was don’t do it and I was damned if anyone told me what to do.
She bled me dry and then some, the credit card bills come and I can’t bring myself to open them. All I have left are some CD’s I had in the bank that are so small that cashing them in would be more of a pain than waiting until they mature.”
“Dean, Taylor really needs you right now. We need you very badly, I told you I won’t tell Taylor anything and I mean it. As far as I’m concerned if he had kept his mouth shut like I told him to, you would have seen who she was without feeling like you had to get away from it all and come to Dallas. I’m sure you can talk him into the raise you missed out on. Come stay at the house and go in on Monday with me and you two can talk. Just don’t do that cocky thing you do where you overplay your hand.”
“Damn Zoe, I’ve missed you. Okay, let me get dressed and packed.”
“We’ll be in the truck.” Sam’s words are clipped as he opens the door.
Dean nods, “Yeah, grandma isn’t exactly a sweetheart.”
Sam leads me out with an arm around my waist. The old woman is no where to be found and we make our escape. Outside, Sam lifts me into the truck. I move as close to him as I can get and there will be barely enough room for Dean. A curse word is an exhale on Sam’s lips and I know he’s looking at the same thing I am, the small amount of space for Dean. I reach up and kiss him.
“Don’t worry, Dean can be as possessive as you so he’ll cling to the door and won’t make any sudden movements.” I caress his cheek and he looks down at me. “Plus, I kind of don’t care about Dean, all I think about is you.” He likes that and his kiss is hot and hungry and it doesn’t stop until the door to the truck closes. Embarrassed I pull back and Sam eyes Dean with annoyance.
The drive back to Austin isn’t as tense as I had feared. Sam and Dean talked about their shared background. Dean was a former Green Beret and they had been in the same spots. I let their talk float over me, happy that Dean is coming back and knowing that Taylor would be too.
Once we get home Sam tugs me into our bedroom and brings me down on him. “I can’t fucking believe I’m asking this because it will just piss me off but have you been with him? Does he know your body?”
Laughing is bad but I can’t help it. “You are such a caveman and I’m pretty sure some feminist is going to knock on the door and take my card away because I don’t know why but it turns me on. Why is that?”
“Boundaries create safety, when it’s clear that boundaries will be enforced the feeling of safety is deeper. Now has he touched you?”
Shaking my head I kiss his chest. “No, I did tell him no bear hugs because he would hug me and twirl me around because he thought it was hilarious how small I am but no, no kissing either.”
Sam sighs and I smile, then he grows serious again. “It’s killing me, I want to know but I don’t. How many men have touched you? You go down on me and I wonder how many have known the pleasure of your mouth and I want to break them all.”
I laugh, I can’t help it, I am so wet at his angry words I want him inside me immediately. I straddle him and take off my shirt and my bra follows fast. “I have only been with three other people, two men and the first one was the one who made sure I knew all I needed to know about taking you in my mouth. And when you’re inside me and touching me they fade like a bad memory.”
He goes still and rolls me under him. “You’ve been with a woman?”
I blush and nod. “But not for long, it was a mistake. I used her and I shouldn’t have.”
His face hardens, “That bitch took advantage of you.” It’s a statement.
Shaking my head in shame, it’s hard to meet his eyes. “No, Sam, I took advantage of her, I used her. After my first boyfriend, the sex was so painful and abusive I didn’t think I would ever want that again. She was safer and I wanted to know if I even could be with another person after that.”
“Bullshit, how much wine did you have to force down before you let her go farther than a kiss and coping a feel.”
“How do you know that?” I’m so stunned the words slide out.
“Because you weren’t attracted to her like that and she says you used her. It was bullshit, she was shooting the shit back at you that she was feeling.”
I’m shaking my head, that can’t be right.
“Damn it, Zoe, were you drunk when you came down on me and got so wet your panties were soaked? Were you drunk before you let those other men touch you?”
I had a glass of wine before I knew Troy would make his move but I hadn’t emptied nearly an entire bottle of wine the way I had with Tracy.
“When you want someone you don’t have to get drunk to be with them. She knew you weren’t really interested the way she was but you weren’t running so she basically did what she had to do to get you to do what she wanted.”
He’s right and all the guilt I had for using her flows right out of me. I look up at him and pull him down to me. “Thank you. I’m sorry if it annoys you I’ve been with other people.”
Shaking his head he exhales slow, “It doesn’t annoy me and don’t apologize. I told you I’m possessive and yeah I want to break them for having gotten to you first but you could have told me you’d been with a football team and I wouldn’t have cared. That was then and this is now, now it’s just me and that’s all that really matters.”
It’s what he says but again and again he takes me, as if trying to imprint his body alone on me and I love it. I love when he pulls me on him and he’s so deep there’s nowhere inside me he isn’t touching. He moves me on him but I see it and feel it, he’s holding back from me.
“Let go, Sam, give it all to me.” I demand as I stop moving and lean down and kiss him hard.
Shaking his head his jaw clenches. “This is all I need. You’re too small, too fragile.”
“No, I’m not fragile, you won’t break me. Give me all of you, you demand it of me and I give it. Don’t deny me all of you, please, I need you.” My eyes are locked on his and his eyes darken until they’re almost black. He’s giving in and he let’s go of his control. His hands tighten and he pounds up into me and I collapse on him. His mouth finds my neck and sucks hard and bites me as if he’s ravenous, until I cry out, “Yes, more, oh god!”
A hand goes into my hair and pulls me roughly back, leaving my neck open to his mouth. His teeth find the hollow of my throat and sucks hard and I climax in deep, violent shudders against him but he’s still hard. Sam rolls me under him and pulls out, his hands aren’t gentle as he forces me on my knees. Even though my knees are shaking from my orgasm I push my ass back toward him. I’ve unleashed him and I love it, love his greedy, rough hands and mouth and I won’t deny him anything.
When the smack comes down stinging my ass, it doesn’t surprise me and I moan and wiggle in invitation for more. Another smack to the other cheek and I’m so wet I’m dripping, I tell him this and beg for his cock inside me. My answer is another smack hard and I can’t hold myself up and go down on my elbows. His hand slides along my inner thigh, finding the truth of my words. A smack rings through the room and he cups me, feeling my pussy clench and quiver with need.
“Everything, baby, you want everything?”
“Everything, Sam, I want it all.” I moan, the words
hard to form in my need and I know they sound slurred. I’m drunk on him, intoxicated from him. I feel him move away from me and I hear the drawer slide open. I think he’s going for a condom but I hazily wonder why, he hasn’t used one the last two times he’s come inside me. Then he parts the cheeks of my ass and he begins to lick to me deeply and I push up against him, opening myself wider to him. I’ve never had anyone there, I whisper in warning as I lay my head on the bed and press back against him.
“I’ll make it good.” His tongue buries itself deep and I breathe slowly, allowing tension to flow from me. I want him any way he wants me and there is no fear of what will come next.
A finger slick with lube, that’s what he had taken from the bedside table I realize now, pushes into me easily. My eyes fall closed at the feeling of him and then he moves the finger out in a slow mimicry of what his hard and thick cock will soon be doing. After a few minutes he adds another finger and I come up off my elbows, it feels good and I push back, silently begging for more. He works the two fingers inside me longer until I finally ask him for his cock.
“I promise you’ll come for me with my cock inside your ass.”
His fingers pull out of me and both his hands are on my hips and his thick cock is beginning to push inside me. My head goes back and I whimper, two fingers are nothing compared to his thick cock and pain ripples through me. With a slow exhale I fight my tensing body, I want him here because it’s where he wants to be, I can do this. Slow and steady he’s pushing into me and I’m shaking with the effort to say up right. When he pushes in until we are skin to skin and there’s no room, I sigh in relief. I feel almost unbearably full and pain, the pain is just low enough to keep me from crying.
Sam is still, allowing my body to get used to him. Once I begin to breathe deeper and am feeling at ease with him inside me, his hands begin to roam over my body. Lightly, he teases my breasts and then his touch isn’t light and he’s rough again, twisting and pulling and I’m moaning his name. Then a hand travels down to my pussy and slips inside, he toying with me. One finger and then another slides inside as if it were him fucking me.