CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

SAM

“You need to know something.” I’ve been biting my tongue all evening. All through dinner with Summer and Dylan and Gabe. All through the crazy game they made up, Cards Against Charades, where you’re given a sentence and have to act out the silly answers. Through the hour and twenty minutes of incredibly bad karaoke that came next, until I couldn’t stand another second of it.

Ash stares out at the empty lot while she waits for me to unlock the back door to the restaurant. She’s been avoiding being alone with me since I overheard her confession to Summer about Talon. I’d bet my last dollar on the charades and karaoke being her idea. Is she upset that I heard her, or does she assume I am? All these years I believed she loved that asshole so much she couldn’t bear to talk about what happened, so I bit my tongue.

I push open the door and wait for her to enter.

“’Night.”

She heads for my office, and I grit my teeth while I take off my jacket and hang it over a hook. If I let her shove me away now will she disappear out of my life again? “Hey.” 

Ash stops to glance back at me. “Sorry?”

“Bed’s up there.” I point at the ceiling above us.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She holds her ground, gaze flaring. “I think maybe I should stay down here.”

“And I think it’s probably about time we have a long overdue conversation about what really happened with Talon Whyte.” 

“You didn’t hear enough?” she asks, affecting the same kind of arrogance she used to treat her nannies with. It would be disarming if I hadn’t seen her turn her nose up and narrow her eyes all her life. She could make a grown man beg for his job before she was eight. I’m not that man. I see her spikes and understand why she keeps them up with other people, but haven’t I earned more than that?

“Two things.” I grind my teeth until my jaw pops, then soften my voice. “What happened to Talon wasn’t your fault. Whether it was an accident or not, it wasn’t because you were driving. He was dead before impact.”

“He was?” A flicker of pain crosses her features. It must be a struggle to reconcile her patchy memories with the truth, especially after so long.

“The autopsy showed he most likely died an hour before you crashed, due to an overdose. You didn’t know that because you were stoned out of your tree. But that’s why the manslaughter charge didn’t stick. There was too much evidence to the contrary, even before the coroner’s report.”

“Overdose?” she echoes, her chin moving in an almost imperceptible nod. She knows that I’m right, even if she’ll never recall the details herself.

“You didn’t kill him. You didn’t even hurt him. He chose his own path.”

“I don’t know,” she says. “I’m not good for the people around me.”

“Bullshit,” I spit, crossing the floor. “That’s bullshit. You think people get hurt if they love you because you’re not worth it, but that’s not fucking true.”

“Isn’t it?”  She looks frightened, shrinking in on herself. “Talon died, my dad won’t talk to me, and you can’t trust me. How much can I really be worth?”

I grip her shoulder, tell myself to breathe. Not because I’m angry, but because there’s something else I need to ask her, but finding out the truth... I’m scared of the answer. “When you told Summer you weren’t in love with Talon, because you couldn’t fall in love, what did you mean?”

“Nothing,” she whispers, unable to look me in the eye.

“I swear, Ash.” I shake her shoulder, before pulling myself together. I need to know if she’s never felt like I do about her. “Tell me right now.”

“Or what?” She glares at me, her mouth set in an angry little line. “You’ll kick me out? You’ll stop talking to me? You’ll give up on me?”

I release my grip on her body, let my arms fall to my sides. Could I do any of that? What would it take? Would knowing she never loved me do it? Maybe.

She exhales sharply and places her hand on the front of my shirt. “Do you know how old I was when I realized you weren’t just my best friend’s older brother?”

“No.”

“Eleven,” she says. “You were all muscles and manliness when I was surrounded by boys. I didn’t know what that meant, but I was pretty sure it meant you were better than they were. And then your dad had his second heart attack. I found you in the bathroom, remember? Summer and I were having a sleepover and I woke to the ambulance lights in your driveway.”

“I thought that was going to be it. There was no way he was going to make it through another one. He was only in his early forties.” That was when I realized even if he did get to come home we were all just waiting for the inevitable.

“I’d never seen anyone so lost before,” she muses as she plays with the buttons on my shirt. “And you always had my back. I always imagined that if I loved Summer like she was my sister, then I must have the same type of feelings about you. I mean, surely there was too big an age gap between us for it to be anything else.”

“I had no idea,” I tell her, holding her hands on my chest.

“I know.” One side of her mouth flicks up in a sentimental smile that crinkles her eyes. “I was just that pain in the ass that never went home. But that night I was the closest thing you had to grab onto. Boy, did I know that feeling.”

“I don’t remember.” No matter how hard I try the memory doesn’t rise to the surface. All I see is my dad lying on the floor of his office.

His skin was this weird shade of gray and his face was contorted in pain. He whispered something. Maybe doctor. Or ambulance. I don’t know. Christ, my knees were shaking, though, as I picked up the phone on his desk. I don’t recall anything in detail after that point.

“You were sitting on the side of that big old clawfoot tub, a bottle of scotch in your hands. It was half empty, and I didn’t know if you’d spilled it, drank it, or bathed in it. The smell was everywhere. I remember staring at the stag on the label, and the 21 years and wondering if it tasted as bad as it smelled. And then I touched your shoulder and you looked at me for the longest moment before you put your arms around my waist. I’d never seen a man cry before. I wasn’t sure how to handle it when you sank to your knees, clinging to me, and put your face to my belly.”

“I shouldn’t have put that on you,” I whisper. She was only a kid and she saw me fall apart, when I was supposed to be the one who kept shit together that night. “Did I scare you?”

“No.” She shakes her head, her eyes suspiciously bright. “When I left that bathroom, I was eleven years old and absolutely certain that no one else’s arms would do. It took another three years before I realized that I’d been in love with you since that night and even longer to work out that my body wanted more than your arms. You had no idea though.” She takes a breath and a few seconds to let her story sink in. “That’s why I couldn’t love Talon. I couldn’t feel that way about anyone because it was always you.”

“Hell,” I murmur. How did I not know this? How did she hide it from me for so long?

“What?” she asks, tugging her hands free of mine. “Do you not believe me?”

“I believe you.” My heart hammers at my ribs, begging to be hers. Surely, she can hear how loud it is. “I just can’t believe how much time I wasted. I thought you needed time to deal with heartbreak. I thought you needed time to live on your own. When you were so serious about us I figured it was because you were struggling with everything else. I had no idea how wrong I was.”

“You weren’t wrong.” She tucks some hair behind her ear as she turns to walk away. “Wish that you were, but you weren’t. I wasn’t ready to get married. Could you imagine me settled down, Sam?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s as ridic…” She slowly stops and twists around to face me. The grooves on her forehead deepen. “Sorry?”

“Yes.” I take a step toward her. “I can imagine you settled down, Ash. I can see you in my bed every night, and I can picture you in my kitchen with your belly round from our kid. I can imagine it because I saw how happy you were when it was just you and me. And I know what it looks like because I listened to every dream you had for yourself, and for us.” Another step. She glances at my feet, her lashes fluttering so minutely I almost miss the surprise, and the longing. “I just didn’t understand that you knew what you needed.”

“Sam.” She exhales my name as she moves to one of the clean work surfaces. I catch her eye in the copper pots hanging above. “Let’s be serious.”

“I am.”

“You can’t be.” She turns to face me.

“Why shouldn’t I be? Do you think I don’t know exactly what I want? You’ve been here nearly two weeks, but it only took me days to know you still belonged in my bed. I made a mistake when I pushed you into leaving all those years ago. I want you in my life, Ash, and I’ll fight for it, however you need me to fight.”

“You are serious, aren’t you?” Her pupils flare and there’s a tremor in her voice, a breathlessness at the idea that I might mean what I say. Or is it because she’s scared to hope I mean what I’m telling her? “I’ve watched you go too many times. I won’t do it again.”

I stood aside while she packed her bags and refused to look me in the eye. Clutched at the pain in my chest that left me reeling and uncertain of recovery. Each time I could have asked her to stay, I chose to let her go. I let her believe that I could do without her, instead of holding onto her with both hands the way she wanted me to, because I told myself her excuses were valid points instead of things she knew I would believe if she told them to me.

I crush her to me. Silk strands tangle around my fingers and wrists like strings of a spiderweb as I hold her face between both hands. Eyes wide, her lips drift open under my gaze. The tip of her tongue swipes across them, leaving them glistening pink and juicy like a summer peach. With a groan I lower my mouth to taste her and dip my tongue between those generous lips that fall further apart to let me in. Resisting what’s between us is futile. It always was. I scoop her up and deposit her on the countertop so that I can get closer to her. 

Her legs part to me, her knees knocking against my hips while she tilts her head back and teases my tongue deeper into her mouth with her own. She’s malleable and at the same time in control. Her lips command me to own her as much as they tell me I’m hers. A tiny whimper escapes her as I bite her bottom lip, pulling it between my teeth and leaving it glossy and swollen. She’s absolutely stunning with her eyes closed and her mouth, still wet from my kiss, separated to her winded breaths.

Hell, I can’t catch my breath. My chest tightens with how much I need her. No one else has ever come close to her.

She winds her arms around my neck and tangles her fingers in my hair, tugging at the roots. “Do you know how many times I wished to hear you tell me you wanted me to stay, instead of always believing I didn’t know what I needed?”

“I’m telling you now.” I wrap my arm around her waist and brush my fingers along the bumps of her spine, taking note of each one. “I’m asking you to make this your home. Here. With me.”

“Don’t you understand?” She presses her mouth to mine, desperately, again and again between words. “I can’t escape you no matter how hard I try. All I ever want is to come back to you. You’re more my home than that house I grew up in, or the people who pretended to give a damn about me because they were paid to.”

Cradling her chin, I skim my lips along her neck. “That’s because this is where you belong. With me.”

“Remind me,” she says, her hands moving from my hair to my shoulders to my chest. They flatten on my pectoral muscles momentarily before drifting to the buttons on my shirt and undoing first one and then another. “Remind me how I belong to you.”

I’m fascinated. Rendered speechless. Motionless while she undoes each button and drags the edges apart. She bites her lip and squirms where she sits, lifting one thigh and then the other as though she couldn’t possibly sit still. The insides of her knees rub against my legs, the heels of her boots dig into my muscles. Christ, I missed her intensity and her passion so much.

“Do you want that?” I ask, curling my fingers around the nape of her neck. “Is that what you need to be happy, Ash? Not just a home but someone to keep you?”

“You do.” She shrugs as though she’s speaking common sense while she skims her fingers, the red tips so bright, along the hem of my white undershirt and pushes it up over my abs. “You always have. What do you think you were doing every time you dragged me out of trouble? Every time you saved me from myself? Every time you fucked me like it was the first time or the last time? I’ve always been yours, Sam.”

Closing my eyes, I press my forehead to hers. I’ll get down on my knees and beg the entire universe to just let her stay this time if it’ll make a difference. Only I’m not sure it will, because this is about me and her. I can only put stock in us.

“Fuck yeah, you have.” I say it like a prayer, because it is one.

“Show me,” she says, biting her lip invitingly. “Take me to bed.”

“No.” I growl as I swoop in on that lip she holds hostage. “I’m not going to do that.”

“You still don’t—”

I hear the wobble in her voice, the insecurity she tries to hide. The way her hands bunch up before they relax against my abs while I kiss the daylights out of her. I grip her hips and pull them closer, scrape my thumb across her thigh where the hem of her dress sits just waiting for my attention. I push it up an inch and her skin goose bumps under my touch. Damn, that’s pretty. So fucking sweet.

“Don’t want to fuck you?” I drop a hand to one of her knees and drag her leg up higher on mine as I work the black velvet up a little higher to reveal more of her tanned thigh.

Glancing at her, I catch her watching me. Her eyes are dark and hidden behind thick lashes. “Or, or you’re punishing me? Christ knows I deserve it.”

“Deserve it?” I scramble to find the logic she sees, try to pull my focus away from the route my fingers are taking to her panties while I yank more of her dress up over her heart shaped ass. I can see the two thin, black straps that narrow to one above the line of her ass. They curve around her hips to a small, satiny triangle in front. “No, you don’t deserve it.”

“Then what?” Her bottom lip drifts lower on a harsh little whimper as I stroke a knuckle down the front of that triangle between her legs. She swallows harshly. “Oh God.”

Dampness wicks into the fabric, leaving it darker just above her pussy. I love the way she responds, the way her arousal makes the whole room smell like sex. “Open your legs.”

She shifts immediately, leaning back on her elbows and spreading her thighs for me, showing me where the satin clings to her pussy between her legs. “Here?” she asks. “Like this?”

“Fuck, yes.” I fumble with my pants, get them down my hips. Can’t stand how long it takes while she’s waiting for me. Her tongue taps the dint in her bottom lip and I immediately recall how wet her mouth was, and how hot and tight she felt when she sucked me off. It was so hard to not pull her up by her hair, slam her against the wall and plunge into her willing pussy. My cock throbs and I give up on undressing the second my erection springs free. Leaning right over her, I balance my weight on one arm while I curl my fingers around that tiny piece of sating and drag it out of the way.

“Fuck me hard, Sam. I want to feel you all the way to my toes.”

With a roar I ram home.

Hot muscles grip me tight, and her hands on my ass urge me deeper.

“I missed this so much. I missed you. The way you feel inside me,” she whispers, rolling her hips to mine. “Feels so good. Better than good. Like I’m yours again.”

I grip her neck and drag my lips across hers. “You’re my girl. My dirty sweet perfection. My fucking everything.”

“Yours,” she says. “Always.”

“Tell me what you are.” I slide my arm around her waist, hold her so I can adjust the angle of our bodies and stroke her deeper.

“Your dirty sweet—”

“Everything, Ash. You’re my dirty sweet everything, and I’m never going to let you forget it again. I promise you that. Now rub that juicy clit, I want to see you come all over my cock.”

She slides a hand between us, presses a finger to that spot above where I’m fucking her. Her fingers slip and glide through her wet pussy lips, touching me where I enter her. It feels so fucking good when her nails scrape my skin. The sound of our damp bodies slapping together fills my ears along with her whimpers and pants as she brings herself close. 

“Come for me.” I groan in her ear and kiss her neck. “And I promise I’ll make the next one even better.”

Her eyes glaze as she cries out, her inner muscles squeezing tightly around my cock and her fingers begin to slow their circular motions. “Oh God. More.”

“Come here.” Sliding out of her I pick her up and deposit her on her feet in front of me. Her back turned to me, I capture her hands and place them on the counter before I enter her again. She pushes back against me and I almost explode with how good it feels. Brushing her hair from her neck I nip along her spine while I fuck in and out of her the way we both need. 

She drops an arm from the counter to my ass, gripping it, begging for me to scratch those spots she needs most. Begging for another climax with every mewling breath. Begging me to fill her.

Christ. I can’t hold back. Can’t keep my senses. And when she orgasms it melts my brain. Her pussy spasms again and again, sending pleasure rippling up my spine and down to my toes while I come deep inside her. Thick, hot jets of cum leave me shuddering and empty.

“I don’t think I can stand any longer,” she says as I pull out of her.

She’s leaning on the counter with my cum coating her pussy lips. There’s something incredibly satisfying about that. It’s like a rush inside my bones. I pull up my pants from where they’re twisted around my ankles and manage to do up the button before I scoop her up. Kissing her mouth, I head for the stairs. “Time for bed then.”

Winding her arms around my neck and squeezing, she pouts. “I didn’t say I was too tired to fuck.”

“Oh, I’m not done with you yet.” I smirk as I bound up the stairs.