She stilled, biting at her lip, something fierce taking over her expression. “Have you? Have you really? You weren’t just pretending?”
A frown cut between my eyes, and I shook my head in question. “Of course I loved him. He’s about the coolest kid I’ve ever met. In all these years, don’t think a day ever passed that I didn’t think about him.”
That I didn’t think about you.
The doubt in her expression turned wistful, and a smile wobbled at the corner of her mouth. I realized how close we’d gotten, the lengths of our bodies pressed together, so close I could feel her heart beating beneath her shirt.
Rueful laughter slipped almost unheard from between her lips. “Do you remember when you took him skateboarding for the first time? He still says that was the best day of his life.”
Quietly I laughed and tucked her closer. “I almost had a heart attack when he fell. Scraped himself up good. He was such a brave little man. Didn’t want to cry in front of me.”
Blue eyes glistened, shimmering in sorrow and love.
Was it possible for her to still feel some of that love for me? After all the shit I’d done?
I swallowed over the lump lodged in my throat. “And you,” I said, my voice hoarse, “you took the fall for us all, telling your mom he tripped on the sidewalk when you were walking him home from tutoring.”
She trembled a grin. “Tutoring I was supposed to get him to, but you had better plans.”
Smiling, I swept her hair from her forehead, her hand still warm in mine. “Stewart thought it was a better plan, too.”
“Yes, he did… and he still does to this day.” Her voice deepened with meaning. “You were his favorite person in the world.”
Emotion tugged at the edge of my lips. “He’s always been real high on my list, too.” On my fingers, I could count the people in my life who really mattered. Ella. Aly and Jared. My family.
Stewart.
And the girl shivering in my arms.
“I’m so scared for him… scared of what my life might look like without him in it.” Samantha could no longer hold it in, and she sobbed quietly into my shoulder, clutching my shirt.
Tears soaked through. I pulled her closer, wove one hand in her hair, cradled the back of her head. I’d give anything to take some of her pain away. “Shh…”
She struggled to get closer.
“I’ve got you,” I promised, my touch gentle as I ran my fingers through the length of her soft-as-silk hair, threading them in.
I don’t know how long she cried for, but eventually she took in a couple of gasping breaths, shuddering as the heightened emotion and alcohol in her system steadily drew her toward sleep. I kissed the top of her head, giving her whatever comfort I could.
She shifted, and her nose dug into my collarbone as if she were seeking a way inside. The words were choppy and rough, barely audible. Still they tore through me as if she’d screamed them in my ear. “I miss you.”
She exhaled heavily, the smell of candied alcohol filtering over my face. I would have laughed had it not hurt so bad.
I held her close, listening to her breaths steadily even out, and this girl dragged me right along behind her, lulled me with the sweet smell of her hair, the slow rhythm of her heart, and the goodness in her spirit.
And for the first time in my life, I drifted off to sleep next to Samantha Schultz.
“Oh my God,” Samantha gasped.
Blunted fingernails scraped against my chest. Disoriented, I shot up in bed in the same second Samantha scrambled off of it, ripping all her perfect warmth from me when she did.
Horror etched her face. In the muted light, wide blue eyes watched me with flat-out mortification and shame, and I jerked my attention down. Somehow I’d lost my jeans and shirt in the night. There was nothing worse than sleeping in your clothes, and I must have fumbled out of them in my sleep.
So there I sat, covered up by nothing but my underwear, trying to blink off the best sleep I’d had in years while Samantha gaped at me like she’d just realized she’d been kneeling at Satan’s seat.
“Oh my God,” she said again, tearing her eyes away from my bare chest, hands shaking as she began to search frantically for her phone in the covers.
“Samantha.” I said her name, trying to break into whatever freak-out she was having, but I didn’t make a dent.
“What did I do… what did I do?” she mumbled miserably, chanting it repeatedly like a petitioned prayer. She almost sobbed in relief when she finally found her phone. Clutching it to her chest, she darted around the bed, ducked down to grab her shoes, then broke out into a sprint as she ran from the room.
What in the ever-loving fuck?
Everything kicked into gear, and I jumped from the bed and dragged on my jeans. I didn’t take the time to bother with a shirt or shoes.
By the time I made it out into the living room, Samantha was already flying out the front door.
I raced after her, tearing the door open when she slammed it in my face.
“Samantha,” I hissed out, just barely above the dull drone of crickets, trying to get her attention without waking up the neighborhood. Terrified, she looked over her shoulder at me and increased her speed.
Barefoot, in the middle of the night, and she was running away.
You have got to be kiddin’ me.
I was right behind her, and I grabbed her elbow in an attempt to talk some sense into her. She flung my hand off, held her shoes and phone to her chest like a shield of protection.
“Stay away from me.”
“What the fuck, Samantha? You’re going to walk home in the middle of the night without any shoes on? Are you out of your mind?”
“Apparently so.”
I moved to keep up with her, hissing in pain when I stepped on something so fucking sharp I was sure it was now impaled in the bottom of my foot. Goddamn emotional women.
“Come on, Samantha. At least let me give you a ride home. It’s not safe for you to take off like this.”
“I’m not safe around you,” she shot back.
I glanced back toward my house fading in the distance, then back to Samantha, who ran down the sidewalk, ducking her head with her shoulders hunched as if it would hide her.
I swung at the air, an aimless punch, confused and frustrated and straight-up pissed off.
Evidently, I couldn’t do one single thing right.
But the one thing I was positive would be wrong was letting her stumble home in the middle of the night.
It took me all of two minutes to run back to my house, grab my keys, and jump in my truck. I tore out of the garage, the engine thundering when I threw it in gear and hit the gas, another thirty seconds to gain on the girl who was about to make me lose my mind.
Beaten down, Samantha limped along the sidewalk. Visibly she cringed when I pulled up beside her. I rolled down the passenger-side window. “Get in the truck, Samantha.”
She shook her head emphatically, refusing to look my way.
“Come on, Samantha, this is absolutely ridiculous. You’d rather walk two miles in the dark than let me give you a ride that will take all of five minutes? You hung out with me all night. What could five more minutes hurt?”
She stopped, slowly turned her head in my direction. Her face was soaked with tears. “Everything hurts.”
My heart squeezed and my stomach dropped, and I sighed in frustration. “Just get in. You know I can’t leave you out here by yourself.”
She averted her gaze to her bare feet, and I saw the second she gave in. Cautious and slow, she shuffled forward and climbed in my truck. She shut the door with a soft click, the darkness that always seemed the safest swallowing us up, just the muted green lights on the dash giving light to her face, that gorgeous silhouette I’d memorized so long ago.
I didn’t want it to just be a memory anymore.
In silence, I drove to her house, pulled up at the street in front. I threw it in park but didn’t cut the engine.
I could barely look at the home that outwardly was almost identical to Aly’s, the walls that housed her life a place I’d never be welcome in because she shared them with someone else. Someone I knew in my heart was wrong for her, someone I couldn’t help hating.
Because she belonged with me.
Anger and resentment burned through my blood, her reaction to waking up in bed with me tearing me in two. Those fucking sick visions assaulted me anew, the ones where I couldn’t keep from picturing what happened inside this place, the tragedy of this girl being touched by hands other than mine.
I fisted the steering wheel.
Samantha just sat there, staring at her lap.
I bit back the bitterness and leaned toward her, my head cocked to the side in an attempt to get her to look at me. To see me.
She seemed to be gathering her courage. Cautiously she looked my way, worry and guilt snuffing out all the light.
And that shit pissed me off, too.
Her tongue darted out, making a swift pass along her bottom lip, the plump flesh glistening with moisture.
Hunger pelted me, my straining cock cutting off all sensible thought to my head.
What the hell was happening to me?
I didn’t know up from down because this girl had twisted me inside out.
“D-d-did we…?” Samantha stammered the words as if they were her dirtiest, darkest secret, her blue eyes all awash with a girl so full of loyalty it meant she shunned what she really wanted.
Because it was there, too… longing. Like somewhere inside she was hoping it was true.
My dick jerked, and I shifted close enough so my face got all up in her space, so close I could taste each of her panted breaths.
“Do you have no recollection of what went on tonight? What was said?”
She swallowed, and my eyes darted to watch the movement along her delicate neck. “I remember being at your house, talking about Stewart, lying in your bed.” Her brow cinched in sadness. Then she slipped right back into that nervousness that bounced her knee. “But then I blacked out.”
A groan of anger and sexual frustration rumbled in my chest, and I inched even closer. I clutched the back of her neck, my fingers in her hair and my thumb running along the angle of her jaw. The words were raw, abraded. “After everything that happened tonight, the parts you do remember, you honestly believe that I’d turn around and take advantage of you?”
My voice dropped like a threat. “I can promise you one thing, Samantha.” I leaned in close to her ear. “When I fuck you, you’re damned well going to remember it.”
On a gasp, she made to pull away, but I held her tight, forcing her to look at me.
“You didn’t black out. You fell asleep. In my arms.” I fingered the neckline of her shirt. “These clothes you’re wearing… they never came off. I’d never hurt you like that.”
Her expression hardened, the same as her words. “Wouldn’t you?”
Shame sliced through me, cutting me in two as she threw the biggest mistake of my life in my face. “That person wasn’t me, Samantha. Back then… everything was being taken from me, everything important stripped away. Most importantly you. I lost it. But I never would have —”
She cut me off. “I trusted you.” Like a barrier, her eyes dropped closed, and she shook her head. “I’m not sure if I can ever fully trust you again.”
“Are you in love with him?”
She jerked with the change of subject, her eyes flying open. “Ben respects me. Cares about me.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
But I didn’t need an answer, because I saw it all over her face, saw it in the way she looked at me like my question caused her physical pain.
He was nothing more than a security blanket. Something easy when she didn’t want to face all the important shit that was hard.
She’d never stopped loving me, and I’d bet that she’d never come close to really loving him. Not the way she did me.
She just refused to acknowledge it.
She unlatched the door, fisting the handle. “I already told you, you don’t get to do this to me. I told you we could try to be friends, but I don’t know if I can handle all of this.” Agitated, she gestured between us. “What you did… what I saw. That can’t be erased and that hurt can’t be undone. It scarred me in ways I’m not sure you can ever really understand.”
Confusion knitted my brow as the deepest hurt swam in her eyes. “What in the hell are you talking about, Samantha?”
Disbelief coated her coarse laughter. “You can be a real asshole, you know that?” She climbed down from the truck, stood there with the overhead light shining down on her face, her lips pressing into a hard line.
My confusion thickened, and I raced back through every memory, trying to get to the one she was talking about. What she saw?
She continued, uncertainty and affection woven in her tone. “Then you go and show me you can be the sweetest man. How do I know which one’s real?”
“Let me prove it to you.”
“I have a boyfriend, Christopher, someone who was there for me when you weren’t.”
“Let me be there for you now.”
Shaking her head, she backed away, like she was drawing an invisible line. “I don’t think I can be anything more than friends with you. And sometimes even that seems impossible.”
Impossible.
Now, that I agreed with.
But I wasn’t about to concede to what she was saying. That she couldn’t tolerate being in my space.
“I can’t deal with any more tonight,” she finally said, cutting off my dissent. “My head hurts and I just want to lie down.”
I gave her one terse nod, because I was pretty sure tonight she wouldn’t accept anything I had to say, and she shut the door and ran up her sidewalk to her house, glancing back once before she ducked inside.
Movement rustled at the side of the window, her silhouette blanketed in the sway of the sheer drapes as she peeked out at me. When she dropped them, I threw my truck in gear and forced myself to drive away.
Five minutes later I was pulling up the driveway of my house. The faintest hue of light threatened at the horizon, the last minutes of the night clinging to the darkened sky. Without her in it, the house echoed back the loneliness, the stifling quiet more than I could bear. I went straight for the shower in the bathroom adjoining my room, turned it on high as I peeled off my clothes.
I half sighed, half grunted when I freed my erection that had been raging all night.
With my eyes closed, I stepped into the spray.
I could still smell her, hear her, and that mouth was smiling as I imagined her dancing just for me.
I banged my forehead against the cold tiles. “Fucking Samantha,” I groaned.
Fucking Samantha.
She made me insane, tore me to shreds, and I knew she was the only one who could piece me back together.
I gripped myself, making hard, punishing strokes up and down my length.
Since the night I’d kissed her, I hadn’t touched another girl, and I came fast, moaning her name toward the ceiling.
The entire time, I imagined just what it was going to feel like when I finally got to make love to her for the first time.
We’d been robbed of it. Something that was supposed to be special. Just for us. What no one else could ever have.
A promise of firsts and lasts, because we were supposed to be forever.
Standing there, panting like a teenager, I made another promise.
This time I promised her God I was taking her back.
NINETEEN
Christopher
January, Seven Years Earlier
Samantha slid up my body and draped herself across my chest. Uncontrolled, my heart hammered, my racing pulse skipping beats, a thunder of love and devotion pounding through my veins.
I’d never imagined I could share something so intense with another person.
Feel so close
to someone.
Like we were connected on another level.
And we hadn’t even had sex.
Did I want to? Did it just about kill me to stop when she was offering herself up?
Hell yeah.
But I respected her way too much for that.
But this? Maybe it was even better.
Telling her I loved her for the first time and knowing she trusted me… knowing I could trust myself with her… made me feel like someone different. Like someone I wanted to be.
Gentling my fingers through the locks of her still damp hair, I kissed the top of her head. Contentment seeped from between those lips that had been my complete undoing. “I love you,” I murmured quietly, reiterating the admission that had come so naturally.
I’d finally realized it when the worst kind of fear had torn through me when I saw her floundering in the pool. It’d been a physical type of pain. Gripping. Suffocating. There’d been zero hesitation, and I’d jumped in after her.
I hadn’t come close to understanding just how severe her fear was until I’d dragged her out. Weeping and trembling and completely in shock, Samantha had fallen to pieces in my arms. It’d killed me seeing her like that.
What I really wanted was to kill the person who was responsible for it.
I squeezed Samantha protectively.
Jasmine.
That fucking bitch.
I’d never met anyone so vile. So vicious. Every chance she got, she was in my face. Unrelenting. Acting like a temptress when really she made me want to puke. She was so delusional she believed she could somehow lure me away from the best girl in the world.
Not a chance.
Samantha had nailed it.
Jasmine had made her the target of her jealousy because somehow that bitch had her sights set on me, like she thought me different from any of the other guys she’d gotten on her knees for.
Her mission had become making Samantha miserable.
But even I couldn’t believe what Jasmine had pulled tonight.
Soft fingers trailed along my collarbone. “I love you so much,” Samantha whispered, peeking up at me.
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