CHAPTER 5
SAMANTHA
After I’d done more vacuuming and cleaned the bathrooms, I finally sat down in the family room with a diet soda, trying to collect my thoughts. The shattered pottery Xander had left had been swept up soon after he’d gone.
Maybe it was a good thing that he stormed off. Not for one second had I been afraid of his rage, because I knew that the person he was actually pissed off at was himself.
My encounter with Xander this morning had been disturbing. I hadn’t come here looking for any deep connections. My purpose was to help him in any way I could, and he wasn’t ready for any kind of real relationship. I just wanted to be his friend and his confidante.
I’d ended up shaken by the emotions that had risen up inside me while he’d held me, so close, but yet so far away from the pain he’d carried for so long.
“I’m not sure how to get through to him,” I whispered to myself.
It wasn’t that I doubted my persuasive skills or my determination. Hell, I’d offered him my body to get him to let me stay. If that wasn’t desperate, I wasn’t sure what else would qualify.
I sighed and leaned back against the couch, wondering what approach I needed to take to try to get Xander to open up to me. Obviously, it wasn’t friendship. We’d gotten a taste of comfort and support this morning, and the first thing Xander had done was run away.
I understood why he’d gone. Honestly, our brief encounter had shaken me up a little, too. But Xander’s instinct was to push away anything that interfered with the wall of defenses he’d been building for the last four years.
I startled as I heard the front door slam, then looked up as Xander entered the room. He didn’t say anything. He just stood and looked at me with a hunger that shook me to my core. “What’s wrong?” I asked anxiously.
“I want to fuck you. You said you were willing. Does that offer still stand?”
His voice was rough and raw, and as I gaped at him standing at the entrance of the room, I nodded slowly.
I didn’t say things I didn’t mean. If screwing Xander was the only way we could communicate right now, then I wanted it. Maybe we couldn’t be friends, but maybe we could communicate as lovers.
“Strip,” he ordered, surprising the hell out of me with his demanding tone.
“Here?” I wasn’t exactly some kind of femme fatale. I’d had a few boyfriends in college, but my experience was limited. No matter how much I’d insisted that unemotional sex was fine with me, it really wasn’t. I’d never been nonchalant about being intimate with another person.
After this morning, I knew I might not be able to distance myself and still have sex with Xander.
“Right now, if you’re really willing,” he said, his jaw clenched, and his body tense.
I got to my feet, knowing I couldn’t back down now. His words were a challenge, possibly wanting me to prove that I hadn’t just used the promise to gain entry into his house and his life. Beneath his carnal desire, I knew there was anger, a fury that wouldn’t die down until he finally started to heal.
My offer had been sincere. I was attracted to Xander, but I’d hoped for more time so I didn’t feel like I was fucking a stranger.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t going to get that time. If I backed down now, I’d just be another person who’d lied to him to get what I wanted. He was determined to call me on my offer because he didn’t think I’d follow through.
Pulling the sundress over my head, my gaze hardly strayed from his face. Something had changed, some kind of elemental shift in his behavior that I couldn’t name.
He pulsated with desperation, but I wasn’t sure if it was from craving my body, or just needing some kind of release.
Obviously, breaking that mug earlier just hadn’t cut it for him.
I dropped the flimsy dress onto the floor, standing there nearly naked, clad only in a pair of lacy, emerald-green panties. I wasn’t hugely endowed in the breast department, so I could get away with not wearing a bra most of the time.
I shivered as Xander strode forward, his powerful body coming to a stop in front of me. “Beautiful,” he said huskily. His hand reached down to grip my panties as his dark-eyed stare drilled into me.
One swift tug, and I was naked, my underwear quickly joining my dress on the floor.
I heard a swift intake of breath as he boldly ran his eyes over my naked form, obviously aroused by what he saw.
His kiss was rough once he swooped down to claim my mouth, but I didn’t care. My hands speared through his hair and gripped the dark locks firmly. He plundered and I opened to him, allowing him free access to anything he wanted.
I moaned as I felt his touch between my thighs, his finger brushing lightly against my clit.
“You’re already wet,” he rasped against the side of my face. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”
I did what he asked, then suddenly found myself pinned to the wall as he fumbled with the button on his jeans. I wrapped my arms tighter around his neck, shocked by the swiftness of his actions.
Before I knew what was happening, Xander had impaled me with his cock, making me bite back a whimper of pain.
He was big, and it had been a long time since I’d had any kind of sexual contact with a guy.
It hurt, but Xander was already lost in his own rhythm, and I just held on.
For a moment, I relished the sound of his harsh breathing, then the tensing of his muscles as he pounded into my sore sheath at a frenzied pace that I had no hope of matching.
He was done before it ever really began. He found his release quickly, then stepped back so I could put my feet back on the floor.
As he pulled back to remove the condom I’d never seen him put on, then put his sizable cock back into his jeans, I felt an emptiness I’d never experienced before.
God help me, but I’d offered him everything, and he’d taken it.
It had been cold and emotionless for me.
I think it had been nothing more than a release for him.
And it had all happened in a matter of a few moments.
There really was no intimacy. It was just one unsatisfying screw.
“Are you okay?” he asked in a husky voice.
Was I all right? I honestly wasn’t certain. I looked up at him, my heart beating so hard that I could hear it pounding in my ears.
I’d hated what had just happened, but it was nobody’s fault but my own. I’d thought I could handle just having sex with Xander to scratch his itch, and to convince him to let me in.
I’d been dead wrong.
Nothing had prepared me for the devastation of having sex just because I could.
It hadn’t felt good.
It hadn’t felt right.
As a matter of fact, I felt . . . used.
“Samantha?” Xander queried in a brusque tone.
“I’m fine,” I replied flatly.
My hands were shaking as I reached for my ruined panties and my dress.
“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” Xander said.
Maybe he hadn’t. He’d expected me to refuse. Was it a test? I was pretty certain it was.
“I offered,” I said, not blaming anyone except myself. “And I delivered on the promise.”
If my heart was aching, and my soul was feeling empty, it was all because I’d thought I could easily handle it.
Turns out . . . I couldn’t.
“Samantha, I—”
“It was nothing,” I interrupted, holding my clothing up to my bare breasts to cover myself.
That was, after all, a true statement. What had just happened was literally . . . nothing. I’d gotten just what I’d asked for: sex with no strings or emotions attached.
We’d been completely detached.
My eyes welled up with tears that I didn’t want Xander to see, so I did the only thing I thought I could do.
I fled.