^{ 12 }

A hint of expectancy lingered as Sam and I walked in silence to the car after the movie. It was as if Alex and Chantelle were having a conversation inside my head and though I was nervous I had to try not to laugh, or bang into any cars.

“They’re gonna do it, Chica.”

“About bloody time.”

“He really likes her, you know.”

“He’s still a smartarse.”

A cute one though.”

According to dating rules, we probably should have had sex way before now, but somehow, something had always interfered. Not this time, it seemed.

“Do you want to come to my place for dinner?” Sam asked, his eyes smiling. Dinner didn’t really mean dinner.

I stopped next to the passenger door of the car and looked at his profile, set against the backdrop of stars and streetlights. Apprehensive didn’t describe the way I felt at that moment. I mean, there was no doubt he liked me, that I was more than a number in his mobile phone. We’d reached the stage of boyfriend and girlfriend. And how I felt about him was a given. Every time I saw him I became incompetent. But how serious was Sam? Despite his reassurances and compliments, I wasn’t sure he’d want me after the deed. Sam was a man with a past and my experience in no way measured up to his or to the women who’d graced his bed before me. What if I was a failure? It’d been quite a while between drinks, after all.

Sam gave me a curious stare. “Well?”

“I’m not sure.”

He took a step closer, pressing me against the car with his body. The muscles of his thighs leant into my leg. They were hard and yet soft, somehow. I trembled as the warmth of his palm skirted along my side, stopping at my hip, pressing me closer. I relaxed and tried to breathe, to enjoy it. I wasn’t going to be pathetic about this. He’d chosen me. He wanted to be with me.

Sam’s head tilted, his mouth was a whisper from the corner of my lips. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed. My heart lurched in my chest and my hands crept up onto the soft folds of his t-shirt. He smelled so good.

“I don’t know. It’s nothing.” How could I tell him I didn’t want to be the one girl who’d be a let down? How could I tell him I was scared of the turbulence building in the pit of my stomach?

Sam’s body leant fully into mine. The weight of his chest left me breathless, his hands slid up from my hips, grazing the underside of my breast. They skittered along my collarbone, my neck. Then he clasped my face tenderly in his hands. “You won’t regret it,” he murmured.

No, but he might.

He bent to claim my mouth. His lips were hot and insistent, his tongue melded with mine. Then, as I began to mewl with pleasure, his lips left mine to chase across my chin and around my lobe. He sucked gently. “You know you want to...” His voice was barely audible as he moved his lips back to mine.

Yes, I did want to. And that was what scared me the most. I couldn’t think, my mind was blurred by desire. His mouth was on my throat, his fingers tangled through my hair and slid to cup my face.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Yhis was a dangerous game, but one I found I couldn’t resist.

“You have to make a decision, Mill’. Now.” His voice was earnest. He kissed me again. Hard and demanding, then long and slow.

“Why?” I gasped, my mouth barely able to form words.

“Because if we don’t leave in thirty seconds I’m going to have to fuck to you on the back seat of the car and I think we’re both a bit too old for that.”

Nobody, and I mean nobody, had ever made anything so dirty sound so appealing.

*****

 

On the open road of the freeway, Sam drove like he was a contestant at the Australian Grand Prix. The moment between us was gone. He was back to his old self. I wasn’t game enough to ask if he always drove like that, or if he was in a hurry to get me to his place fast. Neither explanation would have appeased my nerves. Worried to the point of fainting, I gripped the seat with my free hand, wishing we’d caught a taxi, as any trace of the lust that had consumed me earlier disappeared into the leather of the seat.

“You alright?” Sam yelled through the wind, as we zoomed towards his house, dodging the traffic. He’d seen my whitened lips and was trying to show concern. It was sweet but it didn’t help.

“Fine,” I grimaced. It must have set off his alarm bells. Thrice in one date was not a good sign.

“Want me to slow down?”

“Please.”

Sam swerved in beside a red BMW and I clutched the seat tighter, hoping they weren’t going to drag race each other. He looked over to the driver of the other car and nodded, acknowledging their mutual good taste in wheels. Then he turned back. “Sorry. It’s not me, it’s the car, makes you feel like you’re going faster than you are, being so close to the ground.”

“I thought it was because you were auditioning to join the Australian Formula One team,” I said, peeking at the speedometer. We were only doing the 100kph limit.

He was telling the truth. Again.

After what seemed like the shortest drive in history, I stood in the middle of the living room of Sam’s flat. It wasn’t anything like I’d imagined it would be. It was small and white and well… minimalist was being kind. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in sight except for a sofa and a massive plasma TV. Instantly, my heart melted and I felt sorry for him. I forgot all about the hair-raising ride and the myriads of women who’d survived it before me. All I saw was a man who had nothing to sit on but was too proud to say so. Sam had been in Perth for ten months, give or take and all he could afford was a TV.

Sam shut the door and turned on a lamp. He walked towards to me. He took my hand in his and touched his lips to the tips of my fingers. He hooked his arms around my waist and looked into my eyes. His face was so close I could feel the breath against my cheek and I thought I was going to explode because his scent was seeping into my head, invading my bones. The lack of furniture was no longer important. Nothing existed in that moment except him and me. We were closer than the air surrounding us.

“Has anyone ever told you, you’ve the most amazing eyes, Mill’?” he asked, as he brushed a stray lock of hair from my face and tucked it behind my ear. His green eyes were dazzling in their brilliance. They surely out shone mine.

“No,” I replied, trying to ignore the finger tracing along my spine and in and out of the curve of my lower back. No one had ever told me that because it was cheesy and I would have laughed them out of the room. But it didn’t sound cheesy when it came from Sam’s lips. It sounded heartfelt and sincere and that was the most worrying thing of all. I didn’t want to fall for it. My life plan didn’t have a contingency file labelled ‘hot boyfriend.’

“They have these dark blue rims around the outside of the green bits. They’re so round.” His voice was gravelly. It grated against my skin in the most erotic way. I bit my lip and swallowed as he placed a delicate kiss on each of my lids. I could feel my lungs tightening as his hands moved down to cup my buttocks. I prayed for the seduction to be quick. I didn’t think I could stand this delicate torture.

“You’re trembling,” he whispered, as he leaned down to kiss me.

Of course, he’d kissed me before, restrained goodnight kisses, the odd peck on the cheek and the melt-in-your-boots-bowl-you-over kiss at the car park but nothing like this. This kiss was hot and wet and lacking in restraint of any kind. I had no choice but to tremble beneath it. It was the type of kiss that made me want him. It made me want him more and more. His lips were soft and gentle at first, like tiny droplets of mist on my cheeks, then hard and fast, urging me to surrender. They were igniting a fire in me like I'd never experienced. It smouldered as a ball in my stomach, a single ember that swelled, intensifying with such magnitude that soon my blood was boiling. Trembling? My entire body was engulfed with a desire so strong I thought I might collapse if he hadn’t been holding me up.

Before I knew it we were nearly naked on the floor, not that I cared by then. I was lost to the sensation of his hands on my skin and his words against my ear. I was imagining the things that would follow. I had forgotten the hundreds of women who had been before me. All I wanted was Sam. To be with him and have him in me. To please him. I sighed as those fingers I'd dreamt of trailed along my side and onto my hip, pushing me into the cushions he’d thrown around us. I murmured as his tongue slid over my calves and onto my ankles. I squealed as he took the tip of my toe in his mouth and sucked, ever so lightly, tickling the edge of my foot with the tip of his tongue. I watched entranced, consumed by his seduction, wanting that tongue to torture me again and again. My mind had done a back flip. I never wanted this moment to stop. The moment was everything.

“Sam, please,” I moaned, as he flicked my knickers aside and ran his palm across my naked torso, and into the tangle between my legs. His tongue lashed, his fingers slid in and out and I writhed beneath him. I’d never felt pleasure like that before.

Then he raised his head. “Now, Millie?”

“Yes, now. Please now.”

And he was moving inside me, thrusting and pulsing, filling me with an indescribable pleasure. I couldn’t speak for I realised I’d lost my mind... somewhere between a Die Hard Marathon and the sex.

*****

 

Languidly naked and gloriously smug, Sam strolled to the bedroom and grabbed his doona trailing it into the living room after him. His strong thighs flexed as he padded across the carpet and lost myself remembering the pressure of them against mine only a short time before. He was a magnificent example of manhood.

“That should be a bit warmer,” he grinned, tucking the doona around me and tumbling underneath beside me. “Your skin was goosebumpy.”

I snuggled into him, his warmth surrounding me. Sex with Sam hadn’t been so scary. He was wonderful. He was able to push buttons that until this evening, I had been convinced were the stuff of fantasies. I only hoped he thought the same about me. I rolled to face him, my cheek leaning into my hand. “I suppose you do this sort of thing all the time, then?”

Those moves were not something he’d learnt in the last half an hour. Oddly, though, I didn’t feel jealous of it, merely curious as to where he’d learnt such extraordinary skills.

“What’s that? Entice young ladies to my place on the pretext of dinner and seduce them on the living room floor?” He paused, a devilish glint appearing in his eye. “No, not all the time. Sometimes I go to their place—especially if they have furniture.”

“But you’ve slept with lots of girls?” A man who could do the type of things with his tongue that Sam did had to have had tonnes of practise.

“A few.”

A few. Clearly, as Mel had stated, Sam was not one to kiss and tell. But what did he mean? How many were a few? Ten? Fifteen? Fifty? As if some irrational hormone had triggered at the words, suddenly, I had to know. I needed to see that magical number in my mind’s eye to reassure myself that I was not going to go to the internet and find I was another entry in his blog of adventures while shagging around Australia.

“So, your ballpark figure would be?”

“I dunno, two hundred or so.”

I stiffened under the doona. He had to be exaggerating. He’d have to be having sex every minute of the day to rack up that number. Even James Bond wouldn’t have had time for two hundred women and he’d been doing it for nearly half a century. Sam was only thirty. “You’re having me on. Aren’t you?”

“No. What about you?”

Eyes narrowed, I studied his face, not sure if he was taking the piss. But if he could sleep with two hundred women I could turn back the virginity clock a decade or so. All was fair in love and war. “I was a virgin until an hour ago.”

“Yeah. And I’m the captain of the Wallabies. Come on, tell the truth.” His mouth covered a spot near my left nipple and he began to tease. “If you don’t, you’ll suffer the consequences.”

“I don’t know, I can’t remember.”

“Liar. Girls always remember that stuff.” His teeth nipped into the skin of my nipple. It was not helping.

I pushed his head away. “I can’t think, you’re distracting me.”

“Liar. You’ll pay if you don’t tell.” His teeth returned to my flesh, biting only hard enough to confuse me further. He sucked and I went spiralling into oblivion.

“Okay, okay. Ten, thirteen. Something like that. Now, stop.”

Sam ran his tongue over my breast. Then he paused. His eyes grew larger than I’d ever seen them. He rolled to sitting and pushed a hand through his hair. His eyebrows knitted in confusion or possibly anger. “Thirteen? You’ve had sex with thirteen blokes? Fuck me.”

I wished I’d never told him. Talk about double standards. Lying next to me was the man who’d seen more naked women’s behinds than a Bendon underwear sale and he was implying I was a slut. I knew this would happen. I should have kept my mouth shut.

Tears pricked at the corners of my lids. I could feel a quiver building in my lip. I was going to cry. I had wanted this time to be special and now Sam was making me feel like shit. “AND?” I spat, wiping the back of my hand across my eyes. He was such an arsehole.

Sam flopped back to the floor. His laugh was devilish, his amusement at his own joke complete as he fell about amongst the pillows. “Jeez, Mill’ you should see the look on your face. It was a joke. I don’t care how many blokes you’ve had it off with. I was only teasing. Don’t go getting all emotional on me.”

I glared at him. “You bastard. I thought you meant it.”

“Well, you have been a bit of a tart,” he laughed.

“You can talk, man-whore.”

Reaching over, Sam gathered me to him. “What we did before doesn’t matter to me, Mill’. The past is the past. This is now and you’re the most important thing in my world. Besides,” he added to no one in particular, “I had to sleep with every chick in the pub while I was waiting for you to get your act together. My sperm would’ve dried up if I didn’t. So I guess that makes us even.”

He had to be joking. That was truly taking it too far. Pushing myself to a sitting position, I grabbed the doona from him and wrapped myself in it. Bugger if he was cold. “You’ve slept with every female staff member at The Lederhosen?”

He had the decency to look a little sheepish. “Yep. Some of them weren’t that good either, and Donna was seriously stalking me for a while after. She set up a not-so-covert video operation outside the apartment. I thought I was gonna have to take out a restraining order. Lucky you did me that favour and agreed to go out with me. It was the only way to get rid of her.”

I shook my head in disbelief. No wonder they’d been looking daggers at me. “Even Alex?”

“Yeah... and let me tell you... all those dirty little promises she made never came to fruition. It was like having sex with a fish. A dead fish.”

Oh. My. God. This could not be true. I hadn’t scored a boyfriend; I'd bedded the communal stud. “But why?”

He shrugged. “I’m irresistible, I s’pose.”

“Don’t be a smartarse Sam, I meant why did you sleep with them all?”

I threw the doona aside and began to scramble for my underwear. Images were forming, thick and fast, inside my head. And they were ugly. Most of the girls I worked with at the pub—and I say this in the nicest possible way—didn’t fall into the lingerie model category. In fact, some of them were downright ghastly. I could not believe that he thought so little of women.

“It was only sex, Mill’,” Sam said. “Besides, you wouldn’t go out with me. I had to keep myself busy.”

“And you couldn’t have taken up backgammon? Watched a few rugby replays or something?” By this time I was standing, still semi-naked, with my hands on my hips, my foot perilously close to his penis. Angered, my lips pressed themselves into a position where the blood could no longer flow. “So you assumed I'd hook up with you? What if I'd wanted to remain a virgin until marriage?”

Sam looked up at me and burst out laughing. As he struggled to his feet, freeing himself of the doona I’d thrown at him, his grin grew wider and even smugger. “I think that train was gone long before I got to the station, babe. Besides, it was inevitable. No woman yet has been able to resist my charm.”

He was so utterly full of himself. There was no way this relationship could continue.

*****

 

“Did you sleep with him?” Alex quizzed. She’d been firing off questions in rapid succession since the beginning of our shift but none had been as personal as that one. Three heads looked slowly up from the other side of the bar. Three sets of ears cocked in readiness for my response. Two days previously, I wouldn’t have given the answer a second thought but now everything had changed. I was stunned at how a simple statement could generate such interest. I mean, under normal circumstances, Dianne didn’t give me the time of day, except to reprimand me for breaking something.

“Yes,” I hissed under my breath. “But can you keep it to yourself, please? It seems I wasn’t the only one present to the ride the Sam stallion and I will not be put in the same stable as the rest of you, thank you.” I narrowed my eyes and glared at her.

“Oopsie.” Alex picked at the bar mat. She knew I knew and that was all that would ever be said. It wasn’t her fault Sam had played her and half the women in the place but it didn’t mean I was going to be played as well. I had no time in my schedule for that sort of rubbish.

Sliding my hands through my hair to readjust my ponytail, I continued, “And you weren’t the only one, in case you were wondering. Sam’s been a very busy boy. Ask Dianne.”

“Her, too? I thought it was only Donna, Chantelle and me. Doesn’t he have a modicum of decency?”

Wryly, I raised my brow. “Not when it comes to sex. There was Kylie from the kitchen and Karen and Anna from the Saturday shift. I wouldn’t have put it past him if he’d had a crack at Jason while he was at it.”

“Holy shit. He’s had sex with the entire staff.”

“Not me.” Bob had appeared in the doorway from the bottleshop and strode behind the bar. “And before you ask, no, I am not going to sack him. He’s good for business. If you two were stupid enough to sleep with him that’s your fault. Now, get back to work, both of you.”

Chastised, I scurried back to the servery.

“And Millie,” Bob called after me. “This had better not affect your work. Donna was insufferable for a fortnight after he had his way with her and you’re on your last chance as it is.”

What was it with men? Did Bob not see that Sam was a tart? Why didn’t he care the way we did?

“I’m going to have to dump him,” I said to Alex.

“But you two are joined at the hip. You can’t get rid of him because of one little indiscretion before you went out with him. Maybe he’ll settle down now he’s with you.”

I rolled my eyes at her. The entire staff of The Lederhosen—with the exception of Bob and Jason—did not qualify as one little indiscretion. Sam was a womaniser. He wasn’t going to change. “I think there’s a higher chance of Tom Cruise denouncing Scientology.”

“But he’s so cute.”

“So are Chanel handbags but I can live without them.”

“What about the great sex?” she asked, taking two plates from the shelf and some cake forks from the drawer.

“I’m not sure great sex is compensation enough for his other faults.”

I couldn’t see her face but I could hear her deep sigh as she cut two slices of Chocolate Bavarian. “What, like having a perfect torso and smile, buying you gifts and being chivalrous? Why are you ignoring all the nice things he does? So what if he slept with two hundred girls. He made it clear that you’re the only one he wants.”

“For the minute.”

“There’s never been any indication that Sam is a cheater or a player. I’m pretty sure he’s a one woman man when it all boils down.”

“Yeah. One woman at a time. In a big long queue around the block.”

“Did you expect him to be a virgin?”

“Of course not, but I didn’t think he’s have had that much sex. It’s wonder he’d not the size of a stick for all the calories he must burn.”

“But if he only has one relationship at a time—”

“I think I’m falling in love with him.” My voice trailed off. I took up the cream and squirted two dollops onto the plates, adding a cut up strawberry for garnish. Every instinct told me that Sam did not fit into my life schedule and yet I couldn’t resist him. I was so weak.

“And the problem is?”

“I have plans. Alex, you know I do. I can’t throw it all away for good sex. My pre-loan approval came through. I’m all set to buy a house. In another country.”

“Sounds like an excuse to me,” she remarked with a snort. “I think you want to dump him because you’re scared of what might happen. He might even make you stop thinking about your bloody life plan and have a bit of fun for a change. Plus, you don’t like the thought that you love him but he might not love you.”

She was probably right.

Taking the desserts, Alex strode out onto the floor, giving me a quick glance as she left. “If you do decide to dump him can you let me know first? Dianne would love another crack and Donna still has his picture as the wallpaper on her phone.”