Chapter Twenty-Five
Maisa stopped at the top of the stairs. God, what was she doing? She stared blankly at the simple platform king bed. Beside it was an old wooden footstool serving as a bedside table with a small lamp on top. A massive antique chest of drawers stood against one wall next to a straight-backed chair, and that was it for the furniture. There wasn’t a bedspread on the bed, just a Hudson’s Bay blanket on top of red flannel sheets. She laid her hand on the cream blanket, stroking over the scratchy red, green, and yellow stripes. It looked warm and inviting.
Maisa shivered and stepped away.
She should go back downstairs, maybe see if there was room for her on the futon with Becky. Anything she might do up here would be very, very foolish. And yet…
And yet there’d been something in his face tonight that she was unable to walk away from. Doc had been shot. That was just—
His steps sounded on the uncovered wooden stairs leading to the loft, his pace unhesitating. She snorted to herself at the thought. Had Sam ever hesitated at anything in his life?
He stood just at the top of the stairs watching her. The only light was a soft glow from downstairs. She’d forgotten to flick on the light up here and his face was partly in shadow.
“He didn’t mean it,” she blurted. She wasn’t sure if those below could hear them up here, but she kept her voice low. “He likes Doc.”
He didn’t say anything, just watched her, and she felt immediately angry with herself. This was why she’d vowed never to defend Dyadya: other people didn’t understand his motives, didn’t believe he was anything beyond the tattoos on his hands.
“Forget it.” She huffed an impatient breath and moved to stride past him. “I should go sleep downstairs.”
“May.” He caught her arm. His grip wasn’t hard—she could’ve pulled away had she tried—but she stopped dead.
She looked up at him in the dimly lit room. He should’ve looked sad and lonely and hurt because of what had happened to Doc. She should’ve felt sorry for his vulnerability. Should’ve felt sorry for him.
Except he looked anything but vulnerable.
The breath caught in her chest. If anyone was vulnerable it was she. “Let me go.”
“Never,” he whispered, and pulled her against him.
His mouth was hot and tasted of hops. He combed his fingers into her hair, holding her, bending her back so she felt off balance. Relying on him to keep her upright. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, and she heard herself moan. Her hands fisted the soft chamois of his shirt, as he angled his head and pried her lips wider. He was a winter storm, overwhelming and relentless, and she was only a woman. Only a mortal. There was no way she could be expected to withstand someone like him. She could only hang on and hope to keep her sanity in the face of such an assault.
She whimpered at the thought, and then the backs of her knees hit the bed and she realized that he’d been bearing her toward the bed all this time.
She fell, out of control, and he came down, too. He landed on her, his hands braced on either side of her shoulders, and immediately brought his mouth to hers again.
He bit her. He caught her lower lip between his teeth, gentle, but with a definite threat, and tugged.
That shouldn’t have turned her on. Only a woman with very strange tastes in bed would be turned on by that. But an electric shock shot through her, hitting that place between her legs, so maybe she was that woman.
She arched up and tore at his soft shirt as if she’d lost the ability to figure out buttons.
He chuckled, deep in the back of his throat, and that would’ve normally made her mad, but right now it just made her want to get all his clothes off. It’d been so very long since she’d felt his skin against hers.
She gave up on his shirt and went straight for the front of his jeans instead, wriggling her fingers between their bodies, shoving, twisting, until her hand held him. Until she found the long, hard length of his penis through his clothes and squeezed him.
He stopped chuckling.
Oh. Oh, this was very nice. How long since she’d held all his strength and want quite literally in the palm of her hand? She was an idiot for refusing this. For staying away from Sam.
She ran her fingertips over worn denim, exploring delicately, blindly, panting against his teeth, until she reached the head and squeezed.
He groaned into her mouth.
She wanted more. Wanted… wanted… everything.
Tomorrow, half an hour from now, she might come to her senses. Might talk herself out of this, and she wanted—needed—to feel all of him before that time. Needed to have something of him to keep when she went back to her lonely, solitary existence.
She pushed his shoulders, and at first he wouldn’t move. That only made her frantic, and she heaved against him, shoving at his great big, heavy, male bulk until he must’ve realized she wasn’t going to stop.
He gave way and rolled off her and onto his back on the bed. “May, sweetheart, don’t—”
But whatever stupid protest he was going to make died in his throat when she climbed on top of him.
She sat on his legs, leaning over him, and went for his fly. And wonders of wonders, her fingers, which had been unable to figure out shirt buttons, turned out to be pretty swift with a zipper. She pulled it down, popped the tab, and paused to take a deep breath of greedy anticipation.
She carefully—tenderly—laid wide his fly. He wore gray knit boxer briefs. His cock was clearly outlined beneath, pointing up and to the side. She touched her tongue to her upper lip and pulled down the elastic waistband. Slowly, because she wanted to savor this, the pulse beating strong at her neck and in her ears, her thighs clenching, and because she’d named herself a bitch and in that, at least, she’d never lied: She liked to tease.
She heard him mutter something that sounded impatient.
The head of his penis poked out of the waistband of his underwear and it really was a lovely sight. Fat and cut, reddened with the blood that made it hard, the slit just slightly damp. She crooned at the beautiful thing, running her fingertip over the top, petting like it was her favorite toy.
Oh, he was hot—so hot. And she could smell his musk, this close to all that was most vital about him.
She couldn’t help leaning down to flatten her tongue against the warm, bitter tip.
“Jesus, May,” he rasped, and she glanced up to see that he had a hand in his hair as if to keep himself from grabbing her. At her look, though, he reached down with his other hand and softly brushed his fingers through her hair.
She met his eyes and took the head of his cock in her mouth.
“God,” he breathed, his hips bumping up just slightly. As if he couldn’t help himself. As if he teetered at the very edge of his control.
She liked that thought. She closed her eyes and tasted his skin, swiping her tongue back and forth over the top of his penis, not trying to give a proper blowjob. This really wasn’t for him.
It was for her.
She suckled softly, inquisitively, tasting more salt, smiling in secret when his hips jerked again. She ran her hand under her chin and into his briefs. It was close quarters there, but she could feel his balls, drawn up needy and hot, and she rolled them tenderly in her fingers, such delicate things on a man. The very center of him held in her palm.
She pulled his shorts down farther until she exposed all of him, cock and balls, in the V of his jeans. Oh, he was beautiful: his penis heavy and veined, nestled on the blue of his chamois shirt. There was something obscene about his crude nudity there—only there—while he still wore shirt, jeans, and socks. She’d debauched him, her clean-cut cowboy. She smiled to herself, secretly, as she mouthed his length, tonguing the large vein that snaked down the underside of his cock. His penis leapt beneath her mouth, alive and hot, and she scraped her teeth gently—so gently—against him before burying her nose in the juncture of balls and cock and inhaling.
He had both hands in her hair now, moving restlessly, lightly, as if he only just kept himself from taking over. She liked this feeling—that he held himself back with the thinnest of threads, that any moment his willpower might break.
That she might make it break.
She lifted her head, tugging at his jeans. She wanted him naked. “Off.”
“Yes’m,” he drawled, his voice like gravel. He tilted his hips, helping her to shuck his jeans and sat up to pull his shirt over his head. Apparently he couldn’t wait for buttons, either.
She scrambled to stand at the foot of the bed, rapidly tearing off her own jeans, shirt, bra, and panties. She didn’t take her eyes off him the entire time, and when he lay back, nude and waiting, she stood for a moment, just looking. Sam West was long and lean with shoulders that made her want to touch: wide and muscled. He didn’t look like an overly ripped gym rat. He looked like a man who used his muscles to work. A man who was real. There was hair on his chest, sparse and curling, circling his nipples and navel, trailing down his belly to end in a tangle highlighting that gorgeous, ruddy cock.
He watched her watching him, and the corner of his mouth lifted, a wry twist. “So I’m not the biggest you’ve seen.”
“I didn’t say that,” she whispered, climbing onto the bed to kneel by his side. “I just said I wouldn’t tell you if you were.”
“No point in inflating my ego.” He nodded as if that made sense and trailed his fingers over her hip. “I guess I’m not that worried about your ego. You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
Her lips parted at the blunt words. “You don’t have to tell me that. I know I’m just ordinary.”
He cocked his head against the cream blanket. “No, you’re not. Not to me. You’re the only one for me, May. Don’t you know that by now?”
Any other man and she would’ve eviscerated him for lying. For thinking her so naïve she’d fall for false flattery. Except this was Sam and his flattery… wasn’t flattery. He was telling the truth as he saw it.
“You’re not supposed to say that,” she whispered.
“Why not?” He trailed his fingers down her bare side. “Why shouldn’t I tell you how much you mean to me? You think trying to hide it makes it any less so?”
“No.” She shook her head, almost frightened by his bluntness. “But I don’t understand why. Why me?”
“Because.” Something close to anger crossed his face. “Anytime you walk in the room I can’t take my eyes off you. Anytime you walk out I have to physically stop myself from following you. I like your bitchiness. I like that you get right in my face. And sweetheart, I adore the way you stand by your criminal of an uncle. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, May.”
“I don’t know what to do with that,” she whispered, the words pulled from her very soul. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Don’t you?” he asked and his thumb brushed her nipple. “Maybe you should just kinda stop thinking about it. Just do what feels right.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t think I know right from wrong. I only know who I care for.”
“Okay.” His hand cupped her breast. “Then care for me, May.”
“I can’t. I have to—” She gasped, arching under his hand “—have to…”
“You don’t have to do anything, sweetheart,” he said so tenderly she caught her breath. “You can care for anyone you damn well please.”
“That’s too simple.” She bit her lip to hold back a whimper.
“Is it?” He shrugged. “I guess I don’t think so. Just let go.”
She shuddered. At his hand, at his words, she didn’t know anymore.
He watched her as he weighed her breast in the palm of his hand, dragging his thumb back and forth across her nipple until it hardened.
She glared at him. “Do you have a condom?” If he didn’t she just might kill him.
Without looking away from her, he reached under the mattress and took out a strip of condoms.
“Suave,” she mocked.
He tilted his chin at her, chiding. “Put one on me, May.”
The sound of the packet tearing between her fingers seemed very loud in the loft and for a moment she wondered if anyone below could hear.
And then she decided she just didn’t care.
She sat up on her knees and unrolled the condom onto his cock. Her fingers trembled, but he made no comment at her weakness. She held him upright and swung her leg over him so that she straddled his hips.
He moved finally, then, placing his big hands on her hips. “May, I—”
But she gave him no chance to make any confessions. That wasn’t what this was about tonight. She lowered herself, surprised at how slippery she already was, and rubbed him through her folds. Up to her clit, down to her entrance, and back up again, the sound of their flesh sliding together wet and obscene in the darkness.
He closed his eyes. His fingers gripped her hips, and she wondered if he was that close already.
She smiled at the thought.
Then she notched him at her entrance and bore down.
There hadn’t been anyone else since last August—though she’d die a thousand deaths before telling him that—and the feel of him stretching her made her inhale. She shifted, lifting up a bit, before lowering herself again, working him in slowly.
She wasn’t quite seated fully when she placed her palms on his chest and leaned forward, her breasts dangling in his face. He turned his head and mouthed one, and she had to arch her head back and bite her lip. So good. So good to have him inside, to feel his hands on her, his mouth making love to her breasts. This feeling with him was something she could get lost in, forget all that she’d fought for before.
If she let herself.
She inhaled and lifted up again, careful not to let him slip entirely out. He seemed content to let her take the lead—or at least he was good enough to hold himself back. She twisted her hips a bit as she screwed down on him. This time she took him all the way inside, until her pubic bone met his. Until her clit rubbed sweetly against him.
Oh, that felt nice.
She flattened herself against him, sliding back and forth, grinding a bit.
He let go of her breast and switched to the other, sucking her nipple strongly into his mouth.
She moaned breathlessly.
But then he was sneaky. He slid his palm inward toward her center and slipped his thumb between their bodies. She lifted up just a little, and then he was pressing just there, against her clitoris, and the spark of pleasure, the sudden wave of pure, exquisite feeling, was so strong that she bent and grasped his head between her hands.
She kissed him as if he were oxygen. As if she sucked life from his lips. And she moved. Not well, not gracefully, because she half lay on him now, but she wanted the sensation, wanted his lips, too. Wanted everything that he was.
Something broke then, the thread that had held him back, perhaps. He surged up against her, his hips moving fast and hard, thrusting into her.
She sobbed into his mouth, giving up the control of their lovemaking even though she remained on top. She held on and kissed him and braced herself so that he could move strongly between her thighs.
Sam. Sam. Sam. He was the whole and the entirety of her person right here, right now, and she never wanted this to end.
But it must; they couldn’t struggle so sweetly together forever like this. He was slippery beneath her now, sweat filming his chest as he labored under her. His thumb stroked wetly against her, and she threw back her head, gasping, grinding her hips against him frantically. Just there… just there.
She saw lights, blue and yellow and white, behind her eyelids as she came. Her body shook with hungry pleasure and then shook again on another wave. Endless, endless, pleasure.
She opened her eyes finally, with great effort, and saw him, his teeth bared, his eyes wide, the blue almost glowing as he hissed out a long, silent breath.
She watched Sam West come inside her and was afraid.
Afraid of how easy it would be to love him.