Sam pushed back thoughts of Wes as the waiter delivered their dishes, listening as Travis regaled her with stories of growing up the youngest in a family full of sisters, confessing to a profound love of New Orleans jazz, and a deep-seated desire to try skydiving if it weren’t for the fact that it required him to jump out of a perfectly good plane.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Sam said as she bit into a succulent grilled shrimp seasoned with just enough spice to give it a kick.
“Everyone says that until they’ve hit the earth at terminal velocity,” Travis pointed out amicably.
“I’m sure there are fail-safes.”
Travis leveled her a look. “Falling that hard and that fast can never be safe, Samantha. I reckon that’s why we’re all so fascinated with it. Gravity always wins, but for that sweet set of weightless seconds, you might actually believe you’re flying.”
Her thoughts unwittingly returned to Wes. That’s exactly how it’d felt with Wes after all. Falling hard and fast, aware of the tremendous risk, but uncaring because it felt so seductively good those few exhilarating seconds. She longed for the rush, wished, despite the pain, she could experience the best parts of it all over again.
Sam wondered briefly if she’d be able to replicate that potent weightlessness with Travis, if only for a moment. She watched him run his fingers through his mink-brown hair, imagining the strands were as soft and silky as they looked. Sam considered kissing him again—wondering whether it would help her get past Wes, as Rita had suggested.
“What are you doing in town for the rest of the weekend?” Travis asked as he poured them both another margarita.
“No plans really. I thought I’d do some shopping, maybe hit the spa.” Sam shrugged lightly. “After getting punched and kicked the past few weeks, I’m ready for someone to be nice to me.”
“Now a spa day sounds more like the girls I know,” Travis teased. “Though not the punching and kicking part.”
“Yeah, well, I’m generally pretty low maintenance, but I like to treat myself to something extravagant every now and then,” she admitted.
“I don’t know any low-maintenance women,” Travis confessed.
“Maybe that’s why you like me so much,” Sam flirted, surprising herself.
“Among the many reasons…” Travis smiled confidingly, like they were sharing a secret.
They did justice to their meal, but unfortunately not to their margaritas, and Travis drove her back to Wyatt Towers with the practiced ease of a guy who made the commute daily. Sam sat back in his car, enjoying the quiet luxury of her surroundings and the pleasure of his company. They chatted inconsequentially about this and that with the familiarity of longtime friends.
Travis leaned toward her after he pulled up to Wyatt Towers, taking her face into his hand.
“I didn’t ask the first time, but I will ask the second,” he murmured, his pale blue eyes mesmeric. “May I kiss you, Samantha?”
And she let him with a brief nod, because she was curious, and perhaps feeling like he might do some justice to the hollow feeling, and because tonight she felt better than she had in ages in Travis’s warm and easy company.
He tasted warm and delicious and a little salty from the margarita. Just like before, Travis proved again he was a talented and masterful kisser, his lips coaxing and gentle. And just like before, Sam felt that reluctant skittishness as his long fingers moved to her neck, bringing her closer. When she resisted, Travis drew back, misinterpreting her hesitation.
“Can I come up?” he asked, his voice husky in the cool quiet of the car.
Sam stared at him in the shadows, and Travis looked back at her in warm bemusement, his handsome face patient, as if he understood it was a big precipice for her, though he was still hoping she’d say yes.
As she looked into his eyes, Sam was suddenly aware of her power over him, a seductive prerogative over someone older, worldlier, and considerably more experienced than she was. It was heady, like the first time she’d ever sat behind the wheel of her Mustang, and Sam wondered if she was up for it—if she’d be able to give herself over to anyone besides Wes.
But she didn’t say yes. Not after the seconds rolled by, and not after she found her mouth unable to form the words. Her hands remained still, locked in her lap. But he knew a roadblock when he saw one. Even if she didn’t fully recognize it within herself.
“You’re not as free of Wes as you’d like to believe, are you?” he asked gently, stroking her cheek with the back of his knuckles.
Sam exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
“No,” she answered honestly, arriving to the realization. “I guess I’m not.”
“Well, then he’ll be relieved to know that,” Travis said, his eyes tracking over her shoulder as he nodded toward the entrance of her father’s building.
Sam followed his gaze to see Wes step out from the glass doors. She saw him push his hands into his pockets, shoulders hunched, his expression hidden in the darkness. Her hand was on the car door before she realized it.
Travis stilled her before she could leave. “I’m not happy he’s the reason I won’t get a chance with you, Sam, but I want you to know—if Wes ever disappoints you again, you know exactly where to find me.”
She looked into his pale blue eyes. “How did you know Wes disappointed me?”
His answering smile was wry. “You’d never have gone out with me otherwise, would you?”
Sam squeezed his hand gently. “Thank you for dinner, Trav.”
“Anytime, Sam.”
She let him go and stepped out of the car, her heart beating fast. Samantha felt breathlessly alive and sentient all of a sudden, like the fog she’d been moving through the past weeks was lifting. Her eyes clashed with Wes across the granite sidewalk in the dim evening light. Sam stepped toward Wes as he moved toward her. She didn’t even hear the purr of Travis’s engine as he pulled away from the curb.
They met somewhere in the middle, staring at each other, emotions too raw to verbalize. Sam felt that now-familiar aching hurt, centered in the intensity of all the love she still had for him. She thought of the anger, the frustration, and the sorrow, shocked to feel it flagging in the face of the relief at seeing him standing in front of her again—solid, real and substantial.
“Samantha…” Wes murmured, his voice hoarse. “I don’t even know how to begin to say I’m sorry—”
“Did you come back to apologize or to ask me to take you back?” she interrupted, blood rushing in her ears.
“Both,” Wes admitted as he advanced, and the next thing she knew, she was wrapped up in his arms. Sam’s hands clenched his sides, opening and closing as her eyes blurred with emotion. It was too much to process—too much feeling, too fast. Tears clouded her eyes.
She slid her arms tentatively around his familiar form, fingertips tracing the soft cotton of his shirt under his jacket, feeling the hard, ridged muscles of his back, the soothing warmth of his skin. Sam squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her face into his chest, breathing hard and fast, like she was holding onto a buoy in the water, slippery and uncertain, but so incredibly relieved it was there.
Wes kept his arms wrapped around her, seeming to understand she needed the grounding. “I’m here,” he whispered, as they held each other tight—I’m here. I’m here. I never should have left. I’m sorry—so sorry I hurt you…
Sam couldn’t say how long they stood there in the shadows of the building, the feel of him surrounding her calming as she pulled herself together.
“You came back,” she murmured, her cheek pressed against his chest.
“I’ll always come back to you, Sammy,” he promised, his hand stroking down her back.
Sam pulled back from him to look into his eyes. Wes watched her in the darkness, his expression pained, golden eyes troubled.
“Am I too late?” he asked. “I saw you with Travis.”
Sam shook her head. “We’re just friendly is all
.”
“He wants to be more than friends with you, Sammy,” Wes replied on a grimace. “And I basically stepped aside for him, didn’t I?”
Sam stepped back. “Did you come here to talk about Travis or did you want to tell me why you’re back?”
Wes’s gaze dragged slowly down her pretty dress to her strappy sandals. “You look beautiful, Sammy.”
Sam met his eyes, unsure of herself and uncertain of him. “Why are you here, Wes?” she asked bluntly. “You made it perfectly clear how you felt about me the last time we spoke.”
“No, I don’t think I did,” he answered, reaching out to take her hand. Wes led her slowly toward a granite bench near the front of the building. When he had her situated, he looked into her eyes. “I never told you how scared I was to lose something I never even realized I could have to begin with,” he confessed. “I couldn’t understand how I went from being this guy who didn’t really give a damn about anything to falling so hard for a girl I barely knew. I went from nothing to lose to having more than I could have ever imagined, and all I could think about was when you’d wake up and everything would end—”
“You were trying to protect yourself from me.” Sam frowned, pulling her hands from his. She didn’t know what more to say. She didn’t know how to reassure him that what she felt for him was more potent than the whim of attraction, and that she’d been certain of them, even when he wasn’t.
“I can’t tell you how sorry I am, Sammy,” he went on, voice throbbing with emotion. “I can’t take back any of it, but I want you to know you’ve changed me. You’ve changed me forever. And even if you don’t take me back, I want to be the kind of guy who is worthy of a girl like you—” he choked off, blinking back his emotions. And for the first time, Sam saw another side of him—the extent of his vulnerability, the sorrow that had brought him back to her.
“Wes, has it occurred to you that I never asked you to be anyone else? That I fell in love with you as you are?” She shook her head at him. “The only person who keeps measuring yourself up to some imaginary yardstick is you—”
“I was certain I wasn’t enough.”
“And I’m certain you are…” Sam looked away. “If you just wanted to be.”
“Sam—” Wes drew her back to him with a gentle finger under her chin. “I want to be more than I can ever tell you.”
“I don’t want you to tell me, Wes.” She met his eyes. “I need you to show me.”
Chapter 41
October—Friday Night
Wyatt Tower, Houston, Texas
W E S L E Y
Relief flooded him. Wes gripped the back of Samantha’s neck, pulling her closer as he kissed her like his life depended on it. She tasted like some divine permeation of lime and salt and her, though perhaps best of all, Samantha tasted like love—hot and sweet and undiminished.
She pulled back, taking a quick breath as if she couldn’t quite believe it was happening.
Welcome to the club, he thought. “Does this mean you forgive me?” Wes asked, a smile pulling at his mouth.
Sam didn’t answer, but she took his hand, leading him into the lobby of the building. She nodded briefly at the security guards, who greeted her as Ms. Wyatt, watching Wes with professional curiosity as he followed her to the elevator banks. Sam pressed a discreet keypad and a private, wood-paneled elevator slid open with a quiet whoosh.
Wes followed in after her, dazed. When the elevator doors opened on what appeared to be a private apartment, he was momentarily awed by the sweeping, panoramic views of Houston twinkling in the distance. The city lights glowed like multicolored strands of diamonds against a black velvet backdrop. Wes wondered briefly if Sam’s father was here, but the penthouse was silent, and he could tell immediately from the cool stillness of the place that they were absolutely alone.
Sam took his hand and led him down a hallway to an elegant spare bedroom decorated in muted colors. He breathed in her jasmine scent as she closed the door behind them, her dark eyes expressive.
“Wes…” she took a breath, clasping her hand behind her neck. “I need to get this out—”
He stood across from her, trying to give her the space to say what she needed to say before he snatched her up again. “Say what you need to say, Sam.”
She dropped her hand, looking him in the eye. “You hurt me, Wes. You really, really hurt me.”
“I know I did, Sammy—” his voice caught. “I won’t do it again.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” she murmured, but Wes just shook his head.
“I don’t want to hurt you for the world, Sam. I mean that.”
“There’s something else.” Sam took a quick breath, turned around again to face the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. “I forgave my dad,” she told him quietly.
Wes paused, waiting.
“What you said to me that night—it wasn’t entirely wrong,” she continued, fingertips touching the glass.
Wes shifted on his feet. “I said a lot of stuff I didn’t mean that night.”
Her laugh was soft and mirthless. “You meant it.”
Wes stood there, torn between wanting to go to her and give her the space he suspected she needed.
“Point is, I was holding onto all this anger—years of pain.” Sam shook her head as she stared out into the night. “And I kept asking myself why when everyone else forgave him—why I couldn’t let it go?”
“He hurt you,” Wes told her simply. “The worst kind of hurt a parent can give, leaving you when you needed him most. I understand that.”
“I know you do.” She finally turned around to look at him. “But all that pain was warping me, and I realized as much as I thought I was bucking his control—I was just hurting myself.”
Wes’s heart ached for her. He knew how much this confession cost her—the vulnerability she hated exposed to yet another person in her life who had hurt and disappointed her.
“I don’t want to be locked in the past. I want to move forward.” She reached out to him and Wes went to her, cradling her face in his hands as she looked up at him, her dark eyes expressive. “I want to move forward with you—”
Wes caught the rest of her words in his mouth, relief flooding him as he kissed them both breathless. Sam’s fingers slipped beneath his shirt, finding and tracing the muscles of his stomach, sending a shiver down his back. He winced a little when she touched his sore ribs, and Sam looked at him in question.
“Chris’s work,” he confessed. “I can honestly say I’m glad I don’t play football. I can’t imagine what getting tackled by him must feel like.”
Sam smiled a little gingerly, her fingers moving back to his front, deftly undoing the buttons there.
“But I deserved it,” he continued. “And I need you to know that I know how badly I messed up—”
“I missed you,” she interrupted, putting her fingers on his mouth. “I think being without you hurt far more than anything I could have imagined.” Her breathing was unsteady. “But I’ve lived without the ones I love for so long—” Sam stopped, emotion shining in her eyes. “What I’m saying is I love you enough to risk it, Wes. You’re worth the risk to me.”
Wes’s heart swelled. Against every odd, she was forgiving him and taking him back. “Samantha—”
She stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him, taking his words into her mouth like she could taste them. Wes tugged at the silky material of her dress, finding the zipper and lowering it until he felt the smooth, soft skin of her back. Sam responded in kind, pulling open the remaining buttons on his shirt before she shoved it all back, fabric tumbling away as they moved clumsily toward the bed.
Her dress slid to the floor, and Sam stood in front of him in nothing but lacey panties and her pretty sandals, a vision as remarkable as the first time he’d laid eyes on her. Maybe more. Because now he knew he loved her. Loved this girl beyond anything. And he knew now how shockingly good it felt to be loved by her.
“Y
ou’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Wes whispered fervently, pressing a line kisses along her clavicle.
“Show me,” Samantha whispered back, a little breathless. “Don’t say it, Wes—I need you to show me—”
Wes hooked his fingers around her panties, drawing them down her legs as he urged her to lie back on the bed so he could undo the dainty buckles on her sandals, kissing her instep. Sam tried to tug at his clothes, but Wes wouldn’t let her, pushing her back gently so he could strip them away on his own. Urgency and emotion made his hands shake, his self-control vanishing after what felt like months lost in the desert. Wes knelt on the bed, and Samantha held her hand out to him. He lowered himself beside her, one hand finding the cool, round weight of her breast as the other slid up to cup her cheek.
“I love you, Sammy. I will never love anyone more than I love you—I swear it.”
“You’re the first,” she whispered back, eyes as bright as hellfire.
“You’re the only,” Wes promised, reveling in the feel of her as she hitched a long, lithe leg over his hip.
Wes coasted his hand over the smooth skin of her thigh, wedging himself in the V of her legs. Samantha kissed him deeply, her unbridled passion making him smolder. She was so beautiful, so intoxicatingly arousing, he longed to slide into her, root deep so he’d be forever part of her. But he took his time instead, relishing in every sound of pleasure, each bias of movement.
He was surprised when she pushed him back, her face lit with passion and determination as she fitted him to her, taut and heavy, her hellfire dark eyes capturing him as she allowed him back inside inch by delicious inch. Wes followed her lead, reveling in the low, heavy slide until he was once again anchored in her sublime heat. Wes could barely stop himself from manacling her to the bed and hammering into her. Each time with Sam was stunning, galvanic.
“You’re it for me, Sammy,” he whispered, cupping her face as he stared at her. “You’re it.”
She closed her eyes, pressing her mouth into his hand as he moved within the tight constriction of her body, the slow back and forth a balm as they rediscovered one another. She whispered how much she missed him and he responded in kind, kissing her passionately, showing his love.
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