Goddess Rising

by Alexi Lawless

  “Good grief, Dad, I already had this talk with Aunt Hannah back in high school when I got on birth control—”

  “You were on birth control in high school—?” her father interrupted loudly.

  So loudly, Wes choked a laugh back behind his hand, eyes wide with amusement as he sat up beside her to press his ear against the receiver. Sam rolled her eyes, swatting him back playfully.

  “The point is, yes, I’m being safe, Dad.” Given her dad’s choked reaction, she didn’t bother mentioning she and Wes had both gotten tested at the university clinic as well. “If this is going to be weird, I won’t bring him—”

  Wes nipped her shoulder in retaliation.

  “Now just hold on a minute,” her father huffed. “It’s hard enough to know my little girl is getting pawed by some boy at school. Now you’re going to sit him down right in front of me. Just give me a moment to get adjusted here—”

  “You’ve met.”

  “What?”

  “You already know him.”

  She heard her father sigh. “A certain photographer, I presume?”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  A couple seconds passed. “Well, you can’t sleep in the same room if you bring him out here,” he told her, resigned.

  “We won’t,” Sam assured him. “I don’t want to have to explain anything to Ry yet anyway.”

  Wes glanced at her curiously, probably wondering what she’d agreed to.

  “He better treat you right,” she heard her father mutter.

  “He does,” she promised him. “Now may I speak with Ry please?”

  “Gladly,” her father huffed. Sam listened to the muffled sound of the phone changing hands.

  “Sammy!” her brother practically shouted into the phone. “Dad’s letting me have a hayride! We’re gonna do a barbeque, make s’mores and have a campout!” he told her excitedly. “Carey and I’ve been planning it all weekend!”

  “Am I invited?” she asked with a grin.

  “Are you kidding me?!”

  Wes got up and wandered into her bathroom. She listened to the pipes squeak as he got a shower going.

  Sam listened to her brother’s plans, laid out in breathless and painstaking detail. She helped him come up with some good party favor ideas and promised again and again that she’d be there right after class on Friday.

  When they were finally done talking, Sam followed Wes into the bathroom, slipping into the shower as he rinsed the shampoo from his eyes.

  “So you’ve got a standing date with your family every Sunday, huh?” he murmured, slipping his wet arms around her shoulders.

  “With Ry, yes,” she nodded, kissing his wet chest. “It’s not like me to forget it,” she admitted. “Guess that goes to show how distracted you’ve had me all week.”

  Wes leaned down, giving her a lingering kiss. “The feeling’s mutual.”

  Sam ran a hand down his smooth cheek. “You shaved.” She’d noticed he’d brought over a toiletry kit this time, liked the look of his stuff mingled with hers on the bathroom counter.

  “You said it tickled,” he murmured, nuzzling her a little.

  “Maybe I liked that it tickled,” she whispered back.

  Wes pulled away to pour some shampoo in his hands. He rubbed it into her hair gently, careful to keep it from her eyes. His tenderness melted her, and Sam leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his heart as he massaged the lather into her scalp. She was falling hard and fast for this guy, like tumbling headlong down into Wonderland. And unbelievably, it didn’t scare her.

  “So, you got any plans this weekend?” she murmured.

  “Besides working and studying, you mean?” he asked, knowing full well what she was working her way around to.

  “Would you, by any chance, be interested in hanging out with a bunch of screaming pre-pubescent kids?” she asked, a hitch her in voice as she tried to play off how important this request was to her.

  “Um…what now?” Wes pulled back with surprise.

  “It’s Ry’s birthday next weekend,” Sam explained. “I’ll be leaving Friday, coming back Sunday. If you can swing it, I’d like you to come with me,” she told him, feeling suddenly a little shy as she squeezed her eyes shut against the spray, oddly thankful for the coverage.

  “You really want to take me home with you?” Wes asked, his voice a combination of pleased and surprised.

  Sam opened her eyes. “Only if you want to…”

  A look crossed his face so quickly, she almost missed it. “And your dad?” Wes asked, sounding anxious.

  “He’s okay with it. He just doesn’t want us to stay in the same room, which I think is fine,” Sam assured him quickly. “Don’t think I’m ready yet to explain to my kid brother what we’re up to.”

  Wes dropped his lips to her collarbone, and her hand came up to stroke back his hair as he laid down a gentle row of kisses. He said something against the tender skin of her neck, but it was too muffled for her to hear him clearly.

  Sam pulled back just a little, looking into Wes’s eyes. His lashes were spikey from the wet, cheeks a little flushed from the heat of the shower.

  “I’ve never met anybody’s family before,” he confessed.

  “Well, technically, you’ve already met my only living relatives. The rest are the extended family, and they’ll love you,” she assured him.

  Wes pulled her closer, hands sliding over her hips.

  “And what about you?” he asked.

  “What about me?”

  “Do you love me?” he asked her frankly, pushing her back against the tile, catching her back with one hand as he blocked the spray from the showerhead.

  Sam wondered briefly if love was like a parachute, softening the inevitable fall and no-doubt painful landing, or if it was more like paragliding, weightless and heady—and completely deadly if done incorrectly.

  Wes wedged himself between her hips like he’d been made to fit there. He teased and nuzzled her, tongue licking the droplets running down her neck. Sam realized in that moment she didn’t care how bad the landing might actually be or if she hit the ground at all. Because the idea of living without the experience of soaring with this incredible emotion was far worse than the risk of loving Wes.

  “Do you love me?” he asked again, withdrawing enough to look at her, his eyes probing, like he could see into the very heart of her.

  And so Sam took a breath… and she stepped off the cliff.

  *

  October—Sunday Night

  Sam’s Apartment, Texas A&M

  W E S L E Y

  “I think I’ve loved you for a while now, Wesley. I just didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

  If he was being honest, it wasn’t the first time a girl had said she loved him. But this was the first time he didn’t feel the pained discomfort of unrequited emotion. And it was absolutely the first time he felt his heart swell so much, he suspected it might burst. Because Wes loved her too. Adored her, in fact, his dark-eyed beauty. The girl who’d been his muse since the moment he laid eyes on her.

  He could only describe what he was feeling as wonder. Wonder that so much happiness was within his grasp, and for the first time, that he could grip it with both hands. It wasn’t an outlandish dream or a distant wish. She was right here. In his arms, locked against him. Warm flesh and velvet skin. Cherry-red mouth and eyes as dark as bittersweet chocolate.

  And she loved him.

  Wes kissed her hard, a rush of euphoria filling him. “You’re the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me,” he admitted when he finally drew back. “I want to finish what we started.”

  “Ah…I believe we’re actually in flagrante.” She said with that husky laugh of hers that always sent a riff of awareness down his spine.

  “I meant the night you told me you weren’t ready,” he clarified, reaching back to shut off the water. He toweled them both down quickly before he carried her naked into her living room.

  “Wes—what the heck—?”
she asked, holding onto his shoulders as he deposited her atop the kitchen table, pushing everything off of it with the swipe of one long, damp arm.

  Wes glided his fingertips over her body, teasing out sensation, leaving a trail of goose bumps as he followed each stroke with his mouth, his teeth closing tenderly on her soft skin, tongue teasing out shivers as the water cooled and dripped onto the table. Wes worked his way down, discovering more intimate tastes and deeper, more sensitive angles—shocking her with urgent tugs and sharp nips, then soothing with soft swirls on all her most sensitive and secret places.

  “Wes—” Samantha gasped, rising off the table, clutching his hair, her whole body radiating heat. Wes wondered if steam was rising off of both of them as she gripped him, riding the edge of the sensations he’d been the only one to draw out of her.

  “Are you ready now, Sammy?” he asked, straightening over her as he marveled at how breathtakingly sexy she looked, poised at the brink.

  “Yes, yes—God, yes—”

  Wes moved forward, smiling against her skin. “Not yet.”

  “This is torture,” she groaned, head falling back, wet hair streaming behind her.

  “But it’s the best kind of torture,” he murmured as he bestowed tender kisses on the inside of her elbow, the taut tip of her breast, the tiny dip of her belly button, and the valley between her breasts. He loved her with absolute absorption, spreading her open and lifting her long, slim leg so he could kiss the sensitive indention behind her knee. First one, then the other, making her shudder, fingers gripping the edge of the table as if she were holding on for dear life.

  “Now where was I, before we were so rudely interrupted by your father… ?” he teased, smiling as she narrowed her eyes, knowing she’d take her retribution later.

  Wes pressed his mouth against the hot, humid heat of her, his breath searing and soft, his kisses full and searching. He felt the tremor of desire in her hands as she clutched at his head, her fingers threading tight through his hair, flexing and kneading with each firm, damp articulation of his mouth. Wes spread her wider, manacling her legs to the table as he searched her slowly, reveling in the taste of her, the way she cried out and squirmed against each exquisite invasion.

  It was so good. So—Damn—Goooood. Wes had always loved sex. But the way it was with Samantha was something different altogether. It was another level of intensity. Like standing right next to a blast furnace.

  Wes felt the telltale signs of her coming as he worked her with erotic, succulent kisses, listening to her low, savage sounds of pleasure, feeling the tremors in her thighs and breasts and belly. He used his fingers to drive her crazy, maddening and teasing her until the pleasure became disorienting.

  He felt the exact moment Samantha tipped into a rich, overwhelming orgasm, heard her cry out his name with her whisky rasp. He watched her hands gripping and opening as her head fell back against the table in a tense and pleasured arch.

  It had been absolutely worth the shave, he thought with a predatory smile. Wes strummed her clit gently, making her shake as she rode out the last of her spasms, her sounds a soft keen in the quiet stillness of her apartment, their haven. He hooked her legs over his arms, levering her lower body upward to meet him, gliding easily into the wetness, his pace deliberate and dreamy…

  I love you, Sammy… I’ve never loved anyone until you—

  Wes took his time until he couldn’t, the sheer pleasure becoming too much. Seeing Samantha spread out beneath him made everything just that much more urgent, every throb and pulse and breath bringing him closer to the brink. At some point, Wes lost all restraint, his movement deep and jagged and visceral, blood pounding in his ears as their eyes locked while he mounted her, faster, harder.

  All he could see was Samantha. All he could feel was Samantha. Everything in his life had become about this girl—everything—she’s your everything—

  Wes drove himself into her again and again, drawing her up so he could feel her arms around him. He lost himself in the sleek undulations of their bodies entwined and entangled like a hot, silken knot. Samantha met each vital ingress, a perfect counterpoint, the sensations flowing so closely between them that he wasn’t sure anymore which were hers and which were his.

  He pursued her, pushed her to the edge with him, bringing them faster toward a pinnacle higher and stronger than anything he’d ever experienced with anyone else.

  “Are you ready?” he panted. “Are you ready to let go now, Sammy?”

  But she had already reached the summit, so Wes buried his face in her neck, letting himself crest at the apex, his release so powerful that his legs weakened, knees buckling. Samantha rippled around him, the heat of him flooding into her in violent pulses. Another first for him. But Sammy was the only one he’d ever wanted to be unprotected with. The only girl he trusted enough to chance himself with.

  When Wes finally caught his breath, he realized he was holding onto Samantha for dear life. Her arms were looped around him, head lolling against his shoulder, her chest rising and falling with her shallow breaths. As they lay haphazardly on her kitchen table, it stunned him how close he felt to her, how full his heart felt—near fit to bursting.

  Oh God, it was wonderful, to love this girl so much.

  Wes hadn’t comprehended before—the difference between sex and making love. He’d thought it was just semantics—a prettier title for a visceral, essential act. But with his body wedged inside her, flesh still intimately locked, the salty scent of clean skin and hot sex surrounding them—Wes understood how different and how life altering the two things really were. He squeezed his lover closer, his mouth drifting up her neck.

  “Did I mention that I think I love you back?” he whispered into her ear, his arms tightening over the sleek muscles of her back.

  Samantha released a shuddering laugh. “I might have picked up on that when you were shouting it out.”

  “I did?” Wes asked, surprised.

  “You did,” Sam confirmed with a little smile, dragging a fingertip along his cheek. “And I liked it. More than you know.”

  Chapter 29

  October—Friday Afternoon

  Wyatt Ranch, Texas

  W E S L E Y

  When Wes had been doing research for the article he’d intended to write on Sam, he’d discovered Robert Wyatt was the largest private oil owner in the state of Texas. Wyatt Petroleum was the main bulk of Robert’s impressive empire—the source of what Wes could only imagine was obscene amounts of money. But Robert was also an early investor in renewable energy technology and owned an impressive amount of real estate in Houston, including his own office complex of high rises. Wes also learned Robert was the purveyor of some of the finest Limousin cattle the Southwest had to offer—a truly diversified business, and home to a working ranch that was nearly as big as the county it resided in.

  So when Samantha invited him home with her for the weekend, Wes imagined an elaborate, rambling mansion with Doric columns and the kind of neoclassical façade only a bundle of money could make look authentic in the middle of Texas. He figured on an impressive stable of luxury cars and an equally extraordinary stable of fine thoroughbred horses worthy of Churchill Downs.

  He was understandably shocked when Sam drove up a neatly maintained gravel road to a fully working, down-to-the-roots cattle ranch complete with a large corral, big red barns, and a lovely Spanish hacienda-styled ranch home that was just big enough for a normal-sized family. Wyatt Ranch was warm, welcoming and nothing like the outrageous estate he’d been expecting.

  As Sam parked her Mustang in the circular driveway in front of her childhood home, Wes saw a group of ranch hands baling hay atop John Deere tractors. Lean and weathered cowboys rode past, heading out to pasture, tipping their cowboy hats to them in acknowledgement as they trotted past—like an old John Wayne western.

  “You look surprised,” Sam remarked as she rounded her car to open the trunk.

  “Where are the Maserati’s? The helicopter
pad?” Wes joked, reaching in to pick up their duffel bags. “Shouldn’t there be a manservant somewhere to greet us?”

  “Dad keeps all his favorite cars in storage, and the chopper just lands in the field next to the house,” Sam answered by way of explanation, pointing out at the large patch of closely cut grass near the house. “And if you call Aunt Hannah a manservant, she’ll slap you upside the head so hard, you’ll probably get a concussion,” she finished with a grin.

  “So the Wyatt’s are pretty much salt-of-the-earth despite being richer than sin?” Wes teased.

  “You’d better believe it, son.” Wes turned at the sound of Robert Wyatt’s voice. Sam’s father walked toward them with a tall, blonde man who looked like a Viking descendant, except bigger. They were both in old jeans, denim work shirts, and cowboy hats.

  The Viking swooped Sammy up in a big bear hug as Robert pulled off his deerskin gloves, eyeing Wes with an expression that said are-we-cool-here? Wes didn’t think he’d ever come close to liking Samantha’s father, but he figured causing friction with the man would only result in grief for Sammy. And Wes didn’t want that for her, even if the guilty weight of his secret agreement with Robert felt dirty. In that split second between shame and decision, Wes nodded tightly. All cool here. A look of satisfaction filled Robert’s eyes, and Wes turned away, swallowing his sudden agitation.

  “This your beau?” the blonde man asked as he set Sam back on the ground again.

  Sam nodded with a broad smile, her eyes bright. “Uncle Grant, I’d like you to meet Wes Elliott. My boyfriend.”

  The pride in her voice as she made introductions warmed Wes through and through—almost enough to soothe the hot sting of his deal with the devil.

  A pretty woman about his mother’s age came out onto the porch, smiling broadly as she brushed flour from her apron. As Sam introduced her beloved Aunt Hannah, Wes turned on the charm, making the lady laugh and blush attractively as he complimented her on the scents he caught coming from her kitchen.

  Sam gave Wes a brief tour of the house as Hannah set up iced tea and snacks in the sprawling garden he’d seen from her father’s study. The ranch house was deceptively large, laid out in a sprawling U-shape with heavy oak beams. It was built for comfort and made to last, with beautiful wool rugs and black wrought-iron light fixtures. There were expensive items here and there—a large antique Chinese vase, a brass telescope, European oil paintings lined up with Japanese watercolors—but it only added to the overall soothing effect. The place looked lived in and loved, like a real home, with the smell of fresh-baked goods wafting from the kitchen and the sounds of the ranch mingling with a wind chime tinkling gently through the open windows.