“If I don’t achieve then I’m as worthless as he thinks.”
“Your father can’t possibly think you’re worthless.”
“Not me, per se, but daughters. I was born with the wrong genitalia, and so I must work harder to be accepted, validated.”
“That’s a bunch of bull.”
“Not in the Lakefield household.”
Clenching his teeth, Sam rubbed a hand up and down her arm. They were lying in his bed, sunlight just barely beginning to peak through the blinds. They’d made love all night, intermittently talking and laughing, like long, practiced lovers. If felt so right Sam almost moaned. Instead her words were stoking something inherently protective in him.
“I find it hard to believe that a man as intelligent and successful as Paul Lakefield would take such a Neanderthal approach to his children. He couldn’t control the sex of his kids no more than any other man on earth.”
“That didn’t stop him from wanting sons.”
Her head rested on his chest, her fingers absently moving over the light brush of hair on his chest.
“But he got daughters, intelligent daughters who as far as I can see are doing a kick-ass job running his business.”
She chuckled and a whoosh of warm breath slid over his skin. He hardened instantly, wondering if he’d ever get enough of this woman.
“He’s not a bad man,” she started talking again. “At least from my mother’s viewpoint. I mean, in retrospect, he’s been a good father. He’s always provided for us, raised us to be loyal and dependable. And if you let my mother tell it, he’s the sun, the moon and the stars.”
It was Sam’s turn to smile and laugh just a bit. “She loves him, huh? Go figure.”
Karena swatted playfully at his arm. “I’m not saying it like that. Of course she loves him, we all do. I just think she loves him too much.” She was settling against him more closely, lifting a leg to twine with his, scooting her hips so that her warm, still-moist juncture was against his hip. It wasn’t a seductive movement, although his body definitely heated in response. No, it was more of a protective stance, a desire to bury herself, her thoughts, in the closeness of him. As if that in some way might make what she had to say go away.
“She’s given him everything,” she said quietly.
Sam remained quiet. Waiting.
“Her whole life has been dedicated to being a wife and a mother. Until she doesn’t know how to do anything else. And she wants to. I know, I saw it in her eyes yesterday. She wants to do something else, be someone else. But she’s afraid. Afraid of what he’ll say, if he’ll approve. It’s such bullshit!”
Now she was fired up, her leg sliding from his as she attempted to roll away. But Sam caught her, letting her fall to her side as he spooned her from behind. “Your mother’s life is exactly what she wanted it to be. You can’t blame her for that,” he whispered against her ear.
“I don’t blame her,” she said, still squirming to get away from him. “Well, yeah, I do. Why didn’t she put her foot down, tell him she wants more? Why does she let him dictate her every move, tell her what kind of woman he wants her to be?”
“Is that what you think he’s doing? I mean, have you actually heard him tell her what to do and how to do it?”
She stilled and grew quiet. “No. I’ve never heard them argue. Not even raise their voices at each other in anger.”
“Respect,” Sam said, his arms folding comfortably around her. “They respect each other and their place in their children’s lives.”
“But still she’s never worked and I know there’d be things she’s good at. She said she wanted to work with the foundation, but then she was afraid. Afraid to try. Afraid of what he would say.”
“Is that what she said?”
Karena sighed. “No.”
“Then how do you know that’s what she’s thinking?”
“Because that’s just like her. All my life she’s taken care of him, ironing his clothes, picking out his ties, going to all the business functions on his arm as if she’s some sort of decoration instead of his wife.”
“Like his partner. A wife is a husband’s partner.”
“She’s still a woman. She should still be her own woman,” she said adamantly.
“And she can be, but you can’t dictate what or who that woman will be. Some women are content being just a wife or a wife and a mother. It doesn’t make them any less than a woman who goes to the office every day and brings home a six-figure salary.”
She shifted, looked back and up at him. “What are you, some type of therapist?”
Sam laughed. “No. I’m just a guy on the outside looking in. And I’m thinking that maybe you’re a little too hard on your mother and in turn on yourself.”
“I am not,” she said defensively, turning her face away from his.
He touched a finger to her chin, moving her face so that she could look at him once more. “You are and it’s making you miserable.”
“I am not miserable,” she said with a slight pout.
She was. On the inside she was suffering because of what she thought her mother’s supreme sacrifice was, for what she swore she would not become. In this one night her entire life’s dilemma had been laid out for him, and true to his nature Sam felt the overwhelming desire to fix it. To make everything better for her.
But for right now, he knew he wouldn’t accomplish that by continuing with this conversation. As they’d lain here she was already beginning to pull away, her body stiffening beneath his gaze and his words.
Only one thing could relax her, could bring her back to the place where he wanted her to be.
With that thought Sam kissed her, brushing his lips over hers lightly as his body shifted until he was on top of her.
“You’re a terrific woman, Karena,” he whispered between kisses, between swipes of his tongue over her lips. “A beautiful, vibrant woman who’s smart and successful.”
She was loosening beneath him, her palms going to his chest, her mouth opening to his wordless command.
“You’d be a great wife, a great complement to the right man.” To him, his mind roared but smartly remained quiet.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head but snaking her own tongue out to touch the tip of his. “I don’t want to complement a man. I want to live my own life, on my own terms.”
With deft precision Sam let his tongue duel with hers, their eyes remaining fixated on each other as they touched. Dipping his head he deepened the connection, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth, pressing her head farther into the pillow.
She sighed and moaned into the kiss, giving him exactly what he wanted. What he sensed was all she thought she could give. If she only knew, Sam thought, with a moan of his own.
It was her turn, Karena realized, and she stretched an arm to his nightstand where he’d wisely left a stack of condoms. She ripped one open and rolled it onto his length, loving the feel of his arousal growing harder, warmer beneath her touch.
Then with his knees he spread her thighs, let his aching erection seek and find the wet warmth it was searching for. When his thick tip touched her entrance, she gasped. He sucked her tongue, pulling it deep into his mouth as his arousal slipped slowly, deeply, inside her sugared walls.
In that instant Karena felt something within her snap. Nothing painful or harmful, but an opening, a breaking through of sorts, speared by this man’s dominant entrance into her physically and, unfortunately, emotionally.
He moved over her with a painful slowness, his erection stretching her, opening her, molding her perfectly around him. He lifted her legs, planted the soles of her feet on his chest and pumped inside her deeply, slowly. As if he had all the time in the world to stroke her.
Her eyelids felt heavy with the haze of lust and something not so easily described hovering throughout the room. As the thick slashes of sunlight slipped through the miniblinds at the window, falling over Sam’s bronzed naked body and giving him an ethereal look—like a Greek god—Karena felt the first ebbings of fear.
Not the kind that said he would hurt her, use her, leave her. But the kind that told her that inevitably she would do those things to him.
She closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut the truth out of her mind, to concentrate solely on the delicious feel of him. He lifted one leg, held it away from them so that she probably looked like a member of the Olympic gymnastics team with her limbs spread in weird contortions. But the act gave him a different angle, let him sink his erection into her seemingly deeper. Her center oozed with desire, coating them both, the sound echoing, mixing with her slow moans and his guttural groans.
He pulled her leg back to his chest, stroked his tongue over the sole of her foot, stopping to take one toe into his mouth for a French kiss unlike any she’d experienced before.
Karena’s body shook uncontrollably. What was he doing to her?
Again Sam shifted until he was sitting in the center of the bed, pulling her on top of him and wrapping her legs around his waist. Their chests were entwined, his thick length sliding upward into her waiting center. He pulled her down on his length slowly, keeping his eyes fixated on hers as he did.
Karena was lost. For now. For this moment, she was simply lost. All inhibitions, arguments, defenses, were gone. As he’d said over and over again throughout the night, it was just him and her.
And for now, for this moment, she would take that. She would take him, she thought, lifting slightly then settling down on his thickness with a contented sigh.
He hugged her to him tightly, almost too tightly, but she didn’t mind. She let her forehead fall to his shoulders as their centers thrust and gyrated together. It was so sweet, too torturously good to stop, but she knew she was growing closer.
And as Sam continued those lethal thrusts of his hips, pushing his thickness deeper into her, she let out a tortured moan then found herself biting the taut skin of his shoulder as if she was some bloodthirsty vampire. She moaned, her eyes closing as the sweetest, most intense orgasm ripped through her.
Sam followed immediately, holding her bottom so that his member was glued inside her, his orgasm ripping from him to mingle with her own. He closed his eyes and whispered her name, over and over again as his feelings, emotions, trickled out with his essence, entering her, touching her, whether she wanted them to or not.