Chapter Twenty-Two
Sam couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something so complicated and life-embracing. This kiss was both, and a million other things.
It wasn’t at all like the desperate, greedy campfire kiss. No, he had time. He had light. He had Hayley molded to him, from her thighs to her mouth and all the wonderful spots in between.
He had to remind himself, over and over, that there was time. Time to explore, to learn every inch of her mouth—except he’d memorized that in that one kiss in the firelight. Every second of that kiss was seared into his brain.
But he hadn’t had the chance, or the wherewithal at the time, to learn her body. Every smooth curve, every compelling dip. Now was that time, which meant that slow was the name of the game.
If he could manage.
He smoothed his hands down her arms, which were now wrapped around his neck. She was like silk under his fingertips, and a dearth of soft and sweet in his life—not just in the last few years but maybe forever—made it all that much more potent. A texture he wanted under his hands always.
She curled her fingers into his hair, like it was some kind of anchor, and he’d gladly give her a sturdy place to land if she needed it.
He’d lost the tie, but he’d kept the suit jacket on to ward off the chill of an evening in the mountains. Hayley’s hands slid down his neck and under the jacket, giving it a nudge as she splayed her hands over his upper back.
It was unbearably erotic, her hands between his shirt and his suit jacket, those long fingers pressing their warmth into his back. He wanted to do the same, but instead of slipping his hands between two layers of fabric, he nudged his fingers under her dress, running his fingertip along the first few bumps of her spine.
She shuddered, and he grinned as he nuzzled his lips against the side of her neck. She smelled like clean mountain air and that faintest hint of coconut that always seemed to linger around her.
Her arms spread across his back, pushing the suit coat slowly off his shoulders, and he shrugged so it would fall to the floor.
Her mouth curved as she ran a finger down the line of buttons of his shirt. What little blood he had left in his head immediately rushed to his dick, a throbbing, delicious pulse of need.
It wasn’t slow, and maybe it wasn’t even smart, but he needed to be inside her. He needed her underneath him and naked for him.
“You don’t really belong in a suit,” she said, her voice hushed in the quiet of her apartment, her fingers toying with his top button.
“No?”
She shook her head, looking up at him under her lashes. Whole worlds existed in the gold flecks in her eyes, worlds that would have scared him not all that long ago. Maybe he was still a little scared, but he wasn’t a coward. Not anymore.
“You look better in flannel.”
“I thought you were going to say naked.”
She laughed, her eyes twinkling, her cheeks turning that endearing shade of pink. “Well, I haven’t seen that yet. Maybe I’ll change my mind.”
He wondered how much he could make her blush, and where. So, he didn’t back down, or even lower his mouth to her smiling one again. Instead, he raised his hands to where her fingers fiddled with his button, and swiftly did the work she had been toying with.
His gaze never leaving her, he undid the complete row of buttons. It only created the narrowest of gaps in the white dress shirt, but that’s where Hayley’s eyes were transfixed.
She reached out, an odd hesitation in the move until she seemed to will her hand forward, to make contact with the slim column of exposed skin. But no matter how timid the touch, it had impact. After only seconds he was desperate for those warm fingertips to smooth everywhere.
She didn’t disappoint. In slow, fluid movements she spread the fabric of his shirt apart, fingers drifting across his chest, her fingernails gently scraping against the hair and skin. She slid her hands up, taking a step closer to move the shirt off his shoulders.
Goosebumps rose up over his skin, like diving into a freezing lake. Her touch was jarring. Potent. Maybe even deadly, but swift and tempting and liquid. All of that was building inside of him, centering in his erection and spreading slowly outward—wherever her fingers trailed . . . down his back, across his abdomen, up and down his arms.
“Okay, naked is slowly winning,” she said, offering a lopsided grin as her palms smoothed over his biceps, then shoulders, then languidly down the center of his chest.
“Slowly?”
“Well, you’re only half naked.” She grinned and he couldn’t stand the thought of slow. Torturing himself seemed like the last damn thing he wanted to do when it had been so long. So long since he’d touched the softness that was woman—skin, hair, sex. It was all such a contrast to the life he’d been living.
But it wasn’t even just sex. Hayley was her own special person, and he had a feeling whether it had been a decade or yesterday, being with Hayley would be different. Special. Something bigger than just the end of some self-imposed drought.
But there had been a drought. A distinct and significant lack of naked women in his life, so he didn’t wait for Hayley to move down to his pants. He reached around and undid the zipper of her dress.
He watched the way her dark lashes fluttered as he slowly pulled the zipper down the length of her back. Her hands continued to explore his exposed upper half, so he mirrored her pattern, but on her back instead, spreading the fabric of her dress apart and coasting his hand over every delicate, soft inch of skin.
He pressed a kiss to her temple, letting his mouth linger there as he pulled the straps of her dress down over her shoulders. He closed his eyes, briefly, if only to regain some kind of brain function at the thought of having her completely naked. Skin to skin, body to body.
It felt like his heartbeat was roaring in his ears as the fabric fell down her body. His hands weren’t steady, so he clamped them on her shoulders, bare and warm, smooth and strong.
When he finally had the wherewithal to open his eyes, to drink in the sight of her, he realized there would never be enough wherewithal in the world.
She stood only inches away from him, wearing nothing but delicate pink underwear and her high heels. Everything about the sight caused whatever remaining brainpower to grind to a complete and utter halt.
There was only Hayley and miles of skin and lace. He let out a breath, trying to find some sense of calm. “You’re perfect.”
She made a sound, some mix of scoff and laugh, and the blush in her cheeks spread down her neck and chest, a hue of rose under the expanse of light brown, something about that contrast between them tugging at that tightness in his chest.
He wanted to be on top of her, inside of her, until they were a tangle of mismatched limbs and colors.
“Just how much alcohol did you have to drink at this reception?” she teased.
But he wasn’t feeling light-headed in the least. “Not one drop,” he said, and though his voice was nothing but gravel, his tone was firm. He made sure his hands were steady as he smoothed down her arms, then up her sides, across her abdomen as she had done to him.
She shivered, and swallowed, and looked up at him as though he were the anchor to all this, but it was her. Always her.
“I don’t have any kind of . . . protection,” she said. Her hands had stopped exploring; one held steady to his forearm, the other had curled under his waistband, at the side—way too far away from where he’d like it to be.
“I do.”
“You do?”
“I was the one who drove to pick up the wedding suits. I made a stop.” He cleared his throat and dug out the condom packet he’d shoved in there before hopping in his Jeep and driving toward the Solace Falls trailhead.
She blinked at it, as though it were some magic or foreign object. She was quiet for so long, and Sam couldn’t unravel whatever it was that was going on in her head. He felt like he was missing some piece to a puzzle, and was a little too lust-addled to find it.
Those golden-hazel eyes finally stopped staring so hard at the condom in his hands, and returned to him. “This is important, right?”
He traced the spiral of one of her curls. It was a hard question, because there were no simple answers. Important could cover a slew of things.
“It doesn’t have to be, I just . . .”
“Of course it is. You changed the course of my life, Hayley.” It felt too heavy, those words, the truth in them, but she was looking for something, searching, and he wanted to give it.
“You changed the course of mine,” she whispered, clearly moved.
But he couldn’t quite believe her words. “You were a storm determined to do damage. I think you would have managed to blow through without me.”
She shook her head, holding on to him even more tightly. “No. You’re the first person it was ever like that with. I’d always been so afraid to speak up or stand up, for fear . . .” She trailed off.
“Hayley—”
“It was just you. Something about you or us or . . .” The fraught look on her face softened into a smile. “Maybe it was the mountains.”
“Let’s go with that.”
She looked up at him with too-wide eyes, a hazy mix of lust and something else that wasn’t quite so easy to read. Uncertainty, maybe? Except, she seemed certain.
He drew his thumbs back and forth across her jaw until she shivered in response. He could watch that shiver over and over again, memorize it until it joined that kiss as part of his memory forever.
“Everything okay?”
“I’m just nervous, I guess.”
“I’ll slow down.”
“No! No. Jeez, that’d make it even worse. I’d rather get it over with.”
“Get it over with? Not on your life. I’m taking my time with you.” He grinned and she laughed, though he could hear that tinge of nerves.
“I wasn’t going to tell you . . .”
“Tell me what?” He pressed his mouth to the space under her ear, smiling against her neck when she made a little squeaking noise in response. He smoothed his hands down the sexy curve of her back, over the sweet swell of her ass, pulling her tighter against him.
“I . . . I haven’t done this before,” she said in little more than a whisper.
Sam’s head whipped up so quick they nearly collided. “What?”
“Oh. No, if you’re going to be weird, I take it back. I’ve done it a lot. It’s great. I’m a total pro.”
“What it are you talking about here?”
She gave him a doleful look, but it was the fear that lurked behind it that had him softening. Not fear at what they were doing, but fear at his reaction, and he couldn’t stand that thought.
He took a deep breath, trying to let it out slowly enough that he’d know what to say when he got to the end of it. But she hadn’t ever had sex before. Ever.
He would be her first.
It felt fitting and wrong, all at the same time. It scared the hell out of him even as it stroked the last embers of his tattered pride.
He knew better than to ask her if she was sure. Her shoulders were already squared, her eyes that burnished gold of certainty. She wanted this, and he wouldn’t deny her, and yet . . .
“Are you sure you want it to be . . . me? It’s important. Or supposed to be. Or something.”
She ran her fingertips over the length of his beard, her eyebrows furrowed before she raised her gaze to his. “You are important.”
How long had he been avoiding being important to someone, so he couldn’t let anyone down? So they couldn’t disappear when bad things happened.
But she was right, something about her, or them, or those mountains, made it more important than that fear.
* * *
Hayley hadn’t planned on telling him she’d never had sex before. She’d hoped to hide it and never have to admit it.
A look of utter horror had crossed his features, which made her curse herself for opening her big, idiot mouth, but then he’d softened. Inch by inch, degree by degree, until he was pulling her closer again, with a gentleness that melted every last inch of her.
He kissed her temple again, his hands smoothing down her back, and she leaned into him, this strong column of support. Part of her wanted to stay there, comfortable and warm, nothing new or scary on the horizon.
But that part of her that used to be in charge had shrunk, and now it was the bolder, stronger, demanding version of her that led, that she wanted to lead. She clasped her arms around his neck, sliding her arms along his skin until she was clamped around him, pressed against him.
His thumbs stroked her jaw, and his eyes were somehow darker than usual. A pool of unfathomable blue. His mouth touched hers, unbearably sweet, light, his eyes never once blinking closed.
He held her gaze as he brushed drugging kisses across her mouth. The hard press of his chest against her much softer one. The way those big, strong arms slowly came around her, enveloping her in what felt like an infinitely safe and good place.
It was like a dream, and she was more than okay with that. In dreams she didn’t have to worry or be nervous, she could just let him lead.
Let him nibble kisses down the length of her neck and shoulder as his hands traced the outline of her bra. She molded against Sam, holding tight around his neck, brushing her fingers through his thick waves of hair.
Sam undid the clasp of her bra and pulled it off of her, which meant she had to release her grasp on him. Though the room was warm, her skin popped up with goosebumps, and she was reminded of all of those times that she and Sean had fooled around in college, and how very nearly obsessed he had been about the differences between their bodies.
But Sam didn’t seem obsessed or even interested in a way that made her feel uncomfortable. This was all appreciation and want, and that was giddy-making enough that as he traced the shape of her breasts, sending all sorts of ricocheting sparks through her body, she brought her hands down to his belt.
If he was going to explore, she wanted to too. So for every move he made, she made one as well. He cupped her breasts and rubbed his thumb across her nipple. It was a dart of such pure, almost sharp pleasure that she nearly jumped out of her skin.
When he grinned at her little squeak, she undid the clasp of his belt and unzipped his pants, making sure that her finger trailed across the hardest part of him. It was funny how perfect this all felt. An adult choice. Not kids grappling in the dark, but something real.
An expression of feeling. Which made it somehow less scary. Less about the act, and more about them. Less about all the ways she’d been convinced sex was awful and damaging, and more about how she just wanted to be with Sam.
She wanted him to hold her, and when he dropped his mouth to her nipple and sucked it deep into his mouth, she wanted more of that. More of his hands slowly edging the lace of her underwear down her legs. More of the way his fingertips seemed to trace every dip and curve and texture as if he was memorizing her. The way it all skittered along her skin, the way it coiled tight and deep. Edgy.
She gave his pants a little tug so they would fall off his hips. Because if she was going to be naked, he was darn well going to be too.
“I think I need you on a bed.”
“You think?”
Sam grinned, and it was addicting, that boyish curve of his mouth. That flash of humor, and a flash . . . Not of who he must’ve been before, but of the man he was, deep under all of that guilt and regret. A man with a sense of humor, a man who could be amused, who could feel. Deeply, both the good and bad.
She wanted to know everything about that man. Most especially how it would feel with him fitted to her.
She stepped out of the underwear he had nudged down her legs, and he stepped out of the pants she’d tugged off him. She’d never been completely naked with someone before, and it was not as scary as she thought it’d be. She led him to her tiny bedroom, and her very tiny bed, and studied it with some humor.
“You know, I don’t think you’ll fit.”
“I’m used to small spaces.” His eyes zeroed in on hers. “Lie down.”
The order was so deliciously bossy it gave her a little shiver. She happily did as she was told, sliding onto her bed and lying on her back. Self-consciousness was slowly starting to creep in, but the way Sam looked at her helped ward it off. As though she were some precious gem, some perfect thing he couldn’t take his eyes off of.
Or the first time he’d seen a naked woman in years, but she was going to go with the precious gem thing.
He kneeled at the edge of her bed, but she shook her head no. “Lose the boxers first.”
He arched his brow. “Are you sure about that?”
“If you get to see everything, I get to see everything.”
He pretended to think about it, or maybe he did think about it, but eventually stepped back and pushed the boxers off his hips.
She’d never seen anything like Sam. Sam naked was like a whole new universe. He was so big and broad and just strong. His strength all but radiated off of him, and every part of him looked hard and sturdy. The trail of chest hair that led down the white marble of his skin, the way the beard on his jaw could obscure his grin, and then there was . . .
It was silly to be in this position and be embarrassed. But she was slowly turning what had to be an unmistakable shade of red all over at the thought of his erection. He was large. Thick. The idea of that being inside her was . . .
But she wanted it. She wanted him.
He kneeled on the end of her bed again, and this time she sat up, determined to take and touch and do what she wanted to do. So she scooted toward him in the bed, sweeping her hands over his shoulders, and down his chest, his abdomen.
He didn’t move, possibly didn’t even breathe, he watched the path of her hands, all the way until she curled her fingers over the thick, hot length of him.
Sam watched her hand with a glittering intensity. So she stroked, watching him, and then her gaze drifted down to the satiny steel in her palm.
It was strange to find this erotic. Oh, she knew it was supposed to be, but it had never been anything more than curiosity before. But this was more than curiosity. It was a want and a need she’d never felt with Sean in all those youthful make-out sessions.
As she stroked, alternating between watching his face—tense and hard and intent—and the way her slim fingers wrapped around his thick erection, Sam’s fingertips moved up her calves, a light, swirling pattern that had her breath shuddering out, then catching on its way in. She didn’t stop the slow, gentle stroke of her hand, even as his fingers trailed higher and higher up her inner thighs, slowly spreading her legs open.
She felt unaccountably self-conscious, and yet, as she focused on what she was doing with her hand, it was less scary to think about what Sam was doing with his.
Stroking, finding ways to make her gasp or groan, and then slowly one finger pushing inside of her.
It was unlike anything that came before, and she forgot what she was doing with her own hand, overcome by the shuddery pleasure he was causing with his. His fingers were magic, searching and exploring and most importantly finding all of the sensitive spots that had the pleasure spiraling tighter and sharper, changing over from that bouncy, giddy thing to something focused and necessary.
She could feel the pleasure build and bloom, until she had to actually lean back, lie back. How could she be upright with all of this feeling inside of her? Sam hovered over her, his fingers slowly but expertly entering and withdrawing, and he leaned down and took her breast in his mouth.
His mouth at this sensitive spot, his fingers inside of her, his other hand stroking a pattern over her side. It was overwhelming and perfectly pleasurable and druggingly wonderful. She wanted to stay in this moment forever. But he changed some angle or hit some spot and suddenly the pleasure sparked sharper and harder each time he slid his fingers inside of her. Everything dimmed except the slick slide, and everything she wanted centered in the core of her.
His hands never leaving her, he moved closer to her mouth, capturing it with his. No sweet gentle brushes, but a rough, brutal claiming. He used his teeth and his tongue and it was overwhelmingly big and complex and important. That word he had used most especially—important, important, important.
She let herself fall into the spiral, the bright orgasm shuddering through her from the center out and back again.
When Sam withdrew his hand, she realized she wasn’t the only one shaking. But he was the only one who hadn’t had release.
“Do you want me to—”
“I want to be inside you.”
Even though she had just reached that peak, his voice and those words shuddered through her, making her want that too. She wanted him to take out that rough need inside her, over and over again.
“Get the condom.”
He scrambled off the bed and grabbed the packet he had placed on her dresser. Without waiting, he opened the packet and rolled the condom over himself and was back on the bed before she’d barely taken a breath.
“If it hurts, if it’s too much, you tell me to stop.”
She pushed up onto her elbows, looking at where he kneeled at her feet. She smiled at him the best she could. “You will not stop. Consider that nonnegotiable.”
He shook his head with a little laugh and crawled back on top of her. This time the blunt edge of him teased where his hand had just been.
“You might change your mind,” he murmured gently.
“I won’t.” She trailed her fingertips over his face, his hair, then his beard, and looked him right in the eye. “I absolutely won’t.”
He eased his way in, and at first it wasn’t bad at all, though every inch was a little bit more . . . uncomfortable and harder to take without reacting by tensing up.
He kissed her jaw and slid his rough palm down her side and her hip, then back up again. He murmured sweet words and endearments, encouraging little it’ll-be-okays.
“I know. I know.” Because she did know. It would be fine, it would even be great. She just had to relax and trust the process. Trust Sam. That wasn’t hard at all.
When he finally buried himself completely inside her, he rested his forehead against hers and she wrapped her arms around his back, pulling him closer and tighter. They were joined. They were together and it was exactly what she’d hoped it could be. It might still sting a little, but this was more than just the sex. He was her first, and she was his . . . reentry into the world.
For this moment, this was all bigger than just sex. Maybe, well hopefully, there would be moments later on when sex between them would be about lust, a quick and dirty antithesis to moments like this that meant the world.
But for today, it was a big thing, bigger than what happened inside her body, and all about what happened inside her heart.
Sam sighed against her cheek before opening his eyes and studying her face. Part of her wanted to shrink away from the depth of . . . maybe it was foolish, but it felt like he could read every thought, every emotion, and understood them better than she did.
“Hayley, I . . .” His expression was so serious and very nearly grave, Hayley thought maybe something was wrong. She wanted to reassure him that everything was fine, but she didn’t have the words in the face of that serious, concentrated stare.
He skimmed fingertips over her cheek, still not really moving inside her, which at least gave her the time to adjust and relax and enjoy.
“I’ve never said this to anyone, and I’m not even sure I should. But if not now, when?”
Confused, she trailed her fingers through his hair and down his bearded jaw. “I’m not following.”
“I am . . . I fell in love with you, Hayley. Against my will. Against everything I’d built to fight the world, and I think that’s why it was so quick and potent, because the walls were already crumbling and you are exactly what I needed to kick away the debris, I guess. I’ve got to stop talking in metaphors.”
Hayley couldn’t breathe or even pretend to laugh at that. She had never wanted to hide tears more, but they were pooling in her eyes, all this confused emotion coiling and tightening in her chest. She could almost forget he was currently deep inside of her. Naked.
She had feelings for Sam—deep, complex ones. But to say something, to have to understand what he was saying, she’d have to understand how it was possible.
Love? Everyone she’d ever loved had moved on to something better, or looked at her as this extra they weren’t sure what to do with. She was the secret, the afterthought. Love had never meant understanding, it had always meant a certain kind of responsibility. Grudging at times.
She didn’t want to be Sam’s responsibility. She didn’t want to lose all those layers of understanding between them. And you’re so sure you would?
“Let’s put that aside,” Sam said gently.
“Put it aside? How can I—”
His mouth closed over hers, hard and unrelenting. Coaxing her to forget all about words and feelings in the past and focus on what was between them. Here. Now.
He moved inside her—finally—slow, painstaking strokes that didn’t even hurt. It was amazing, but each glide was easier and eventually he pulled her hips down and angled himself differently above her, and when he sank deep it hit exactly where it needed to for the keening edge of bliss to echo through her body.
His fingers dug into her hip, a hot, rough centering point to the way physical desire could blot out all of the emotional mess in her brain.
She grasped at his shoulders, arching to meet him and trying to find that perfect friction to give her and him what they both needed.
He said her name, something like a growl. The gravel in his voice smoothed over her skin the same as his fingertips.
She held on to him, arching to meet him as his thrusts became harder and deeper. She kept squirming to try to find the magic release point and when she did, when the bright white of an orgasm sparkled out around her like its own aura, she felt Sam tense and groan with one final, deep thrust. It rippled and ebbed through her, its own raging river of release.
He was all but crushing her into the mattress, but she didn’t care. She wanted to hold them there and somehow wrap her brain and heart around everything that had just happened.
He tried to move, but she held on tight, wanting him to stay on top of her. This comforting certainty he was here. That he wanted to be, and that those words were . . . real.
She closed her eyes, keeping a death grip on his neck, and he held her too. Staying firmly in place, exactly where she needed him.
The orgasm was still pounding through her, but so was this new thing. A kind of panic. She thought she probably loved him back. How could she be here if she didn’t? How could it be important if she didn’t? But there was more to it. Hearing the word love during this was overwhelming.
So she’d hold on to him until she could figure it out.