Sam
They stay up late and play cards together, she, Paige, Cory, and Simon. It’s a rare and very strangely quiet moment on the farm, almost surreal. The children are all staying at the neighbor’s house. By the time they got home and finished the chores and rechecked the perimeter, it was late. Paige suggested they leave the children in place. A quick call over to the Reynolds farm confirmed the little ones were all tucked in for the night. It was unanimously decided to let them sleep.
“You are one dirty poker player, Miss Samantha,” Simon teases with a smile as she tosses her winning hand of a straight flush down on the old dining table. She even celebrates by throwing her hands in the air and wiggling in her chair. Her tight black leggings allow her to slide back and forth doing her silly dance. She’s wearing a long white tank top with a pale pink, soft sweater over top. The big house is warm and cozy tonight. The company is good, even though the normal noise from the children is missing. It feels odd but also different in a way like they are just four friends hanging out and nothing is wrong in the world. She can tell that Paige feels the same by the smile on her pretty face.
“I win! I win! You lose, Simon!”
“Don’t gloat,” Simon warns with a glare that doesn’t really hold much conviction since he’s grinning at her.
“Well, guys,” Paige announces. “I’m beat. Let’s go, old man.”
“What?” Cory asks with a big smile for his wife. “I’m not old yet.”
“Depends on what you consider is old.”
“I’ll show you in a minute how old I’m not,” he promises and smacks her bottom as they leave the dining room.
Sam smiles as she gathers the cards and replaces them to their cardboard box. Then she stows them in the china hutch. When she turns back, Simon is standing in the doorway of the dining room, holding one hand on the frame above him. He is grinning crookedly.
This morning at the fort, she’d awakened on his chest. The covers were in a tangle around her ankles. He was dead asleep, so Sam had a chance to examine him at her leisure. A fine stubble had grown over his jawline, a darker auburn than his hair. A lock of that dark hair had fallen over his forehead. The stress that is always so present on his handsome face was gone, replaced by his boyish, innocent good looks again. But even though Simon has an innocent, youthful appearance, there is something else there now. And it’s not just the deadly look he gets when he needs to get down to the business of being the sniper in the family. Something she has noticed over the last few months is also there. He is still, calm, and more in charge of everything around him. His presence has become more commanding and confident. So much so that Sam sometimes feels a little intimidated by him. He definitely also makes her feel off-kilter and confused.
“Ready for bed?” he asks, his voice more husky than normal.
Instead of answering, Sam walks to him and stutters, “Um…um, uh, sure.”
“Tired?”
“No, not really.”
He smiles. “We’re unsupervised. It’s a first-ever moment around here. No interruptions. We can do whatever we want.”
“Whatever we want?” she asks, her mouth going dry and falling open. She snaps her jaw shut. There is a definite suggestive tone in his voice.
His head tips to the side. “Within reason, I suppose.”
“I think I’m going to get another cup of tea,” she says, her voice cracking. “Excuse me.”
He pauses, grins and steps to the side slightly, still leaving his hand above the doorframe, forcing her to walk underneath it.
“Want to do something?” he asks as he follows her to the kitchen.
“I’m not sure what you’re hoping I’ll say,” she admits truthfully.
“Anything you want,” he says. “We’re alone. Want to talk?”
She offers a chuckle full of sarcasm. “Uh, no.”
Sam removes the tea kettle from the stove and pours herself another cup. She carries it to the pantry where the honey is kept and turns and almost runs into Simon’s chest. He grins and reaches above her head to retrieve the jar of honey for her.
“Um, thanks,” she says with a scowl. When she’s done, she says, “Excuse me.”
Simon steps aside and lets her pass again. “Where are we going?’
“We?” she asks. “I’m going wherever I want to go.” She picks up the sketch she was working on earlier and left on the hall table as she walks into the music room.
“Mind if I tag along?”
“Does it matter?”
She receives a chuckle in answer.
Placing her sketch and hot tea on an end table, Sam crosses the room and unwinds the two braids she’d done to her hair earlier after her shower to keep it from dripping on her back. She turns her head upside down in front of the fire and tosses it around with her fingers. Some places are still just barely damp, but it’s mostly dry. The braids have made it just barely wavy. Cory started a fire earlier in here, and Simon walks over and places two more logs onto it.
“Careful of sparks,” he warns.
She nods from her bent over position and continues to finger fluff her hair. Simon is giving her a funny look. Or maybe he’s not. From this position, it’s hard to tell, so she stands erect again. No, he’s definitely giving her a strange look.
“What?” she asks bluntly.
He continues to stare at her. “I’m so glad you grew your hair back out.”
“What do you mean?” she asks confusedly.
“From when you sawed it all off,” he answers, causing her to flinch. “It’s ok, Sam.” He reaches out and touches her arm gently. “It’s ok to talk about it.”
She shakes her head. “Not for me.”
“Someday, we’ll talk. Doesn’t have to be tonight…”
“Or ever,” she corrects.
He smiles softly and removes his hand from her arm. “Need help?”
“With my hair? No?” she replies in question form, not sure why he would offer to help with her hair.
He turns his back to her and walks away. “Too bad.”
A single lamp is on, along with the light from the fire, all other lights on the entire first floor extinguished for the night. Conservation is still just as important as it’s always been. He retrieves a few additional small logs and pushes the others around. Once he has the fire stoked, Simon sits next to her, closer than necessary, on the sofa.
“What are you working on?” he asks and leans over.
“That same drawing of Grandpa and some of the kids,” she answers.
“That’s great,” he remarks and indicates the vertical line in the foreground. “This is the house?”
She nods and points with her pencil tip. “See? It’s the edge of the house.”
“Yes, and the porch pillars. I see it. This is really coming along.”
She shows him an area in the background that she also started laying out, “There’s the horse barn. It’s not done yet. There are a few of the kids in the barnyard. Grandpa is holding Mary on his lap.”
“Amazing,” he says and looks directly at her, their eyes meeting. “Nothing new.”
It makes her heart swell just looking at her family, even in a drawing. Having Simon stare at her that way also makes her heart swell but for different reasons.
“I hope everyone always stays here together. It’s home. It’s safe.”
Simon frowns at her and says, “You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Sue and Derek might be leaving,” he answers. “And their children, of course.”
“Leaving? Leaving the farm? Why? Where would they go?”
“I thought you knew,” he says and rakes a hand through his dark hair, leaving some standing on end. He isn’t wearing his glasses this evening, and Sam can see the blue of his eyes so much better, which makes things so much more difficult.
“Knew what? What aren’t you saying?”
Simon sighs and replies, “I talked a while back with Herb about it. He said they were going to start telling people. He said not to tell anyone. Guess it’s too late for that. I thought you might know already or I wouldn’t have brought it up.”
“Simon!” she declares with exasperation. “Tell me what the heck you’re talking about!”
“Sue and Derek are leaving the farm. They’re going to live at Fort Knox. Robert isn’t going to make it much longer. Doc discussed it with me after our last trip up there…”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks, hurt he’d hide something this monumental from her. Sam slams her sketchpad on the floor in front of them and turns, tucking one leg under her so that she can face him better.
“You don’t always live here, either, remember?” he points out.
“So? You still have to tell me stuff!”
He smiles as if he’s being patient, which pisses her off.
“What?” she asks in a huff.
“I’m sorry,” he says, still smiling. “I recall you saying that you moved on. You have a new life over there now, remember?”
“Don’t be a jerk!” she says through her teeth. “Were you not telling me on purpose?”
“No, you just didn’t seem like you cared about the goings on at the McClane farm anymore.”
“So you did keep it from me on purpose,” she states angrily.
“Not necessarily, but I can’t exactly call you on your cell phone and tell you every little thing that’s happening here.”
Sam rises and paces the room. She’s so mad.
“You also said we aren’t friends anymore, either,” he reminds her, shoving his hands into his ripped-up jeans pockets so casually.
“Simon!” she says with irritation.
“And that you hate me and I irritate you and that you don’t want to talk to me anymore,” he says, his biceps flexing, visible in his short sleeve t-shirt.
“Shut it,” Sam orders, to which he chuckles and keeps going.
“And that you have this great new life over there with exciting new friends and a new boyfriend and you don’t need us anymore. That I’m not even your friend now?”
“Stop it,” she says, glaring with her arms straight down at her sides, her fists clenched.
“And you weren’t interested in me at all. And that I was a jerk and an ass and a bad person and you were sick of me, remember?”
She stomps over to loom over him. “Shut up.”
“I just assumed your new boyfriend would’ve told you everything you needed to know in life. He’s the one you want to talk to now, isn’t he?”
Sam stamps one foot on the floor and says, “Stop.”
“The one you want to confess all your secrets to.”
She kicks his foot with her own, which hurts her big toe.
“And the first one you want to talk to when something big happens.” He removes his hands from his pockets and laces them behind his head, displaying his arm and chest muscles.
“I swear…” she warns.
“And the last one you want to talk to at the end of the day.”
“Don’t say another word,” she threatens between her teeth.
He looks directly up at her and says, “The last one you want to kiss goodnight.”
That’s it. He has pushed her too damn far. She flies at him, and Simon raises one knee to protect himself. It doesn’t matter. She manages to get past it and begins pounding his shoulders with her closed fists and ranting incoherently at him. Simon grasps her wrists in his and yanks her down. She sprawls against him. Holding onto one of her wrists, he whips it behind her back and manages to flip her onto her back and beneath him on the sofa in a flash so fast she hadn’t a chance to stop it from happening.
Sam gets one hand free and pounds at his chest and shoulder again only to have him trap it above her head on the sofa.
“Who do you want to talk to about things, Sam?” he asks quietly.
She doesn’t answer and refuses to look at him. Instead, she turns her head to the side so she doesn’t have to look at him staring so directly, so intensely down at her.
“Who do you want to tell important things to, Sam?”
Again, she ignores him.
“And run to when something’s bothering you?”
She harrumphs.
“And the person who consumes your thoughts, Samantha?”
This one causes her to frown.
“And kiss in the morning when you get up?”
She shakes her head.
“And kiss goodnight?”
She turns her head back to find his mouth so close to hers.
“Who makes you feel this way? This all-consuming fire that feels too overwhelming to be real?”
She is panting lightly and tries to bring her breathing under control. It doesn’t work. Simon is breathing the same way, which doesn’t help her to calm down. She is highly aware of his heavy body on top of hers. It doesn’t hurt. He is supporting most of his torso on his elbow.
“That feeling that you might just explode if you can’t be with that person? Can’t touch that person? Can’t talk to them? Can’t kiss them?”
Where is timid and shy Simon and what has this stranger done with him?
“The feeling in the pit of your stomach that spreads and creates tingles throughout your body at just the thought of them being in the same room with you?”
He bumps the tip of his nose gently against hers. Sam looks up into his eyes.
In a husky tone, he adds, “The feeling that you want to consume them, body and soul and consummate that flame, fan it, breathe life into it just by being together?”
“Simon,” she whispers, her voice coming out hoarse and weak.
“For me, that’s you, Samantha Patterson,” he says softly.
She doesn’t answer and tries to shake her head. She’s not sure it even moves.
“You’re so much a part of me. I tried to get you out of my life, throw you away, bury the memory of you somewhere and never have to think about you again.”
This momentarily causes her to feel that spark of anger toward him for doing precisely that.
“But it didn’t work,” he confesses. “I’m more in love with you now than ever.”
This causes her to inhale sharply.
“I love you, Sam. I’m never going to love anyone or anything more than you. You have stolen every last bit of my heart and every fragment of my soul, and I’m the better man for it, too.”
“Simon,” she says shakily, feeling a tear slip from her right eye.
“You can have it,” he says. “You can have everything I have. It’s yours. Me, my heart, my love, every last bit of anything I have to give someone. It’s all yours, Sam.”
She doesn’t speak. It’s too painful, too complicated, too frightening.
“I know you’re afraid,” he says. “So was I. I’m not anymore. I want you, and I know you want me, too.”
She tries to shake her head again, but this time Simon stops her with a chuckle. She wrinkles her brow.
“He can’t make you feel like this. I know he can’t. Only I can.”
Sam’s mouth falls open with shock.
“Admit it,” he prompts.
This time, she manages to shake her head.
“Admit it, and I’ll kiss you,” he tempts.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip. She doesn’t answer him, though.
“Admit it, and I’ll do more than kiss you.”
Sam swallows hard. Her eyes widen with the implication. It causes his mouth to twitch with a stealthy grin.
“Admit it, and I’ll prove to you that I’m the only one that can make you feel like that.”
She can’t. It would mean he has won. She can’t allow that. She can’t be weak again where Simon is concerned. Getting over him the first time was too difficult. This time, it could kill her.
“No?” he asks. “Hell, I don’t need you to admit it. We both already know it.”
He dodges her mouth and nuzzles behind her ear.
“I already know,” he whispers against the spot below her ear. “You were always meant to be mine, Sam. Just mine and nobody else’s. It’s why when I kiss you here,” he says, pressing a kiss where his breath is hitting, “you shiver.”
Her body betrays her with the responding shiver he’d predicted. His hand imprisoning her wrist above her head slides forward until he has linked their fingers.
“Or here,” he says, pushing his nose into the opening between the base of her neck and her sweater and kisses there, too. She tips her head back when his mouth presses more firmly against the underside of her jaw. “Or there.”
He hovers above her mouth, the expression on his face one of a restraint so great that it looks painful.
“And we both know,” he says, touching the tip of his nose against hers, “that this,” he continues, just barely pressing his lips to hers, “is like an ignitor to that flame.”
Sam tries to raise her chin with indignation. It only serves to press her chest into his more closely. This time, Simon is the one who seems uncomfortable.
“Are you ready to admit it?” he taunts. “No? You must need further demonstration then.”
This time, she does shake her head. Only she is too late in doing so. Simon’s mouth comes down on hers with a gentle ferocity that ignites that spark between them like a volcano about to erupt. He squeezes her hand as his tongue plunges into her mouth to explore. His other hand slides down from her shoulder to her waist where he lightly clasps her there. Then it moves down her hip and underneath her to cup her bottom. Her feelings are becoming overwhelming and unmanageable again, so Sam presses her free hand to his chest.
It works. Simon pulls back and stops kissing her. All at once, she feels relief mixed with disappointment. If she thought he was going to stop, she was very wrong. The hand under her bottom tightens. Simon lifts her off the couch and up against his groin. His head dips to the cleavage above her tank top and deep vee sweater. She should’ve worn a button-up. Tenderly, he presses his mouth to the tops of her breasts before setting her back down.
While still holding her hand above her head, Simon slides his other hand back up over her hip and furtively right under the hem of her shirt and sweater, pulling it up at the same time. His lips trail kisses up her chest and come to a resting place at the base of her neck. His mouth moves swiftly to her own as his hand covers her breast. Sam sucks in a sharp breath against his lips. Her resistance is gone. All her hard work at getting over Simon is dissolved in a moment. And he knows. He’s always known he holds this power.
Simon groans against her mouth and lowers himself back down where he can kiss her breast through her thin bra. Her free hand sinks deep into his hair as she pulls him closer. In another blur of movement, Simon wraps his arm around her waist and picks her up so that she is straddling him and he is sitting back against the sofa. Then his mouth is on hers again. Sam grinds her hips against him, causing Simon to moan.
His arm wraps so tightly around her middle that Sam has difficulty breathing. Or maybe she is just having trouble breathing because of the way his other hand is squeezing her breast between them. He’s taking too long, so Sam grabs up the hem of her sweater and whips it off in one motion. Then she grasps for his hand and places it back against her right breast. Simon, instead, slides it upward until he has hooked her tank top and bra strap with his thumb. He agonizingly slow pulls it down and kisses her bare shoulder.
Sam gets frustrated and removes the tank top, too. Simon meets her gaze. The passion she feels is met there in that shared look between them. With a strength Sam hadn’t known he possessed, Simon grips her waist and lifts her above him. He presses his mouth to her bare stomach. Then he lowers her, inch by methodical inch, his tongue lashing out against her skin all the way back up until he finds her mouth again.
“Simon,” she cries out when his hips lift off the sofa and grind into hers.
“I want you,” he whispers throatily against her mouth.
“Yes,” is all she manages in return.
“This is all I’ve ever wanted,” he admits. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”
Sam pushes down against his lap harder, letting him know what she wants. “Yes, yes, now.”
She impatiently tugs at the waistband of his black t-shirt and has her hands sliding up and onto his chest and over his thick pecs.
“Wait,” he says. “We can’t. Not yet.”
Sam kisses his neck and nods, “Yes, now.”
“No, Sam,” he insists. “Not yet. We aren’t married.”
She doesn’t really hear or pay attention much to what he’s actually saying. All she knows is that her hands have found the waistband and button of his jeans. Before his hand can stay hers, Sam has them unbuttoned and unzipped.
“No, we need to stop, take a breather here,” he says, trying to regain his calm composure. She likes it so much better when he loses that annoying and overrated trait.
“No, now,” she argues and slides her hand into his pants. The evidence of his state of readiness is firmly present in her hand.
In an instant, she is on her back again, this time on the carpet in front of the fireplace. It is dizzying being moved around so quickly. She places her hands on his chest, which he moves and secures above her head, both captured there by one of his.
Simon lies casually, calmly again beside her. He has regained his control. Then he proceeds to trail his fingertips down her forehead, her nose and stops on her lips, which she parts. He replaces his fingers with his mouth and lavishes her with deep kisses that sear into her soul. He continues to keep her hands restrained while his other travels and explores at a more leisurely, more calculated pace than before. Her bra strap is still clinging to her forearm, and he pulls it down further until she is bare before him. Without moving his mouth away, Simon touches her breast and circles her nipple with his fingertips. Then he mimics the motion with his mouth and tongue. Sam cries out.
“Yes, now,” she begs, not caring anymore for self-control or any of those other objections and silly things she was thinking about earlier and of which she has now forgotten the importance.
Simon’s fingertips tease around on her stomach until they dive lower and cup her through her very thin leggings. She wishes they were on the floor beside her shirt and sweater. Her back arches as he leans over her, pressing his chest against her and kissing her other breast the same way, this time through the thin lace of her bra, which is somehow even more sensual than being completely naked. The lace creates an abrasive barrier that abrades her skin when his mouth and tongue move against it. She can’t focus on it long enough, though, because his hand has traveled north again to the waistband of her leggings. Then she feels his fingers push down and sneak beneath the material.
Sam cries out again, the sound of which he captures in his mouth as he kisses her soundly and thoroughly.
“Do you like that?” he whispers raggedly against her mouth.
She manages a nod. Or, at least, she thinks she does. She feels him smile against her lips before plundering again.
His fingers work magic against her through her cotton panties. If she’d known this was going to happen, she would’ve rummaged her drawers for something more appealing. He doesn’t seem to notice, though. His fingers are doing a delicate dance of exploratory swirls against her right before he slips them beneath her panties. The feel of his bare fingers against her most sensitive and equally bare skin causes her to whimper and moan against his mouth.
“Do you like this better?” he asks in a soft, teasing voice full of promise and tenderness. She can’t answer. She is floating out of her body. “No? I can stop if you don’t.”
“No!” she blurts.
“No, you don’t like it?” he asks in a mocking yet sexual tone.
“Yes, yes, I like it,” she responds finally and arches her back, causing her head to tilt backward. Simon doesn’t seem to mind that she has broken their kiss, however. He simply resorts to kissing her neck. “Yes, yes, please.”
He releases her hand above her head, but when she attempts to move it lower to touch him, Simon grabs it and puts it back above her head again.
“No,” he whispers against her mouth. “If you listen, I’ll give you something you want.”
“Yes,” she says greedily and doesn’t care. Finally! It’s finally going to happen. She doesn’t care that they are in the music room on the floor where people could see them. Her brain isn’t working on a logical level at the moment. “Yes, please.”
It almost sounds like he chuckles, but she can’t be sure because her eyes are closed, and all she can even focus on is what he is doing with his fingers. The next thing she knows, he is kissing her breast, pressing inward with one of his fingers on her down low, and then pulling her nipple into his mouth. She bites her lower lip so hard she’s afraid she’ll draw blood.
“That’s it, Sam,” he praises, for what she doesn’t know.
Simon works his fingers in a faster motion against her and kisses her mouth, her breast, her stomach, her neck and pushes her hands away when she attempts to touch him. It is the most agonizing thing she’s ever felt as if something is just out of reach. She’s reaching the peak of something she can’t quite get to.
“Like this?” he asks, although she’s not sure why he’s asking her anything because he sure seems like he knows exactly what he’s doing. She nods just the same lest he might stop again. “Here?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
He continues to tease her with words of promise and feelings that course through the very center of her. And then she crests up and over and cries out more loudly as her body shakes and quivers with shockwave of pleasure after shockwave of emotion. Simon takes her cries into his mouth and offers her his tongue instead. Her body feels spent and relaxed and tense all at the same time as she floats back to earth on euphoria and sensual pleasure.
“Yes?” he asks against her ear, where he presses his mouth.
Words aren’t at all a possibility right now, so she swallows and nods. She draws one knee up and runs a hand over her forehead with her eyes still closed. Beside her, Simon shifts because a cool draft hits her.
“Yes,” she finally is able to say. A slow smile forms on her mouth. She never dreamed something that intense even existed or could come from her own body. Then something dawns on her. She’d been so intent on having sex with him that when he started touching her that way, she just assumed they were going to finally consummate their relationship. Then he just pleasured her and stopped. She knows he wants to have sex with her, as well. She’d felt the evidence with her hand. She’d felt it pressed against the places he just touched so intimately. Just remembering how he’d felt against her, even with all their clothes on, makes Sam still want him. “Simon…”
She rolls to her side and opens her eyes. He’s gone.