CHAPTER TWELVE
Danny
“This is the true measure of love:
when we believe that we alone can love,
that no one could ever have loved so before us,
and that no one will ever love in the same way after us.”
-Goethe
I hold my breath as I round the curve in the trail and the river comes into view.
The spring fed pool is tucked into a rock formation above the riverbed, between a bluff pock-marked with mysterious looking caves and the finely pebbled bank. The runoff from the spring warms the water for several hundred feet downstream, increasing the growth rate of river algae until it looks like a dark green, underwater shag carpet.
I have to wade through a particularly slimy patch to get to the spring, slogging through the shallows in my waterlogged tennis shoes before I start the climb up the rocks. I’m halfway to the top when Sam’s curly head pops up and her blue eyes peer down at me over the edge of the dark stones.
“Took you long enough,” she says, grinning. “I was worried I’d be poached before you got here.”
Her cheeks are flushed from the hot water, her face dewy with sweat, and her blond curls have become a fuzz ball that frizzes around her head like a cotton swab that’s been through a blender. She looks wild and so stunning I stop and stare. I want to memorize everything about this moment, from the exact pink of her lips, to the glitter in her eyes, to the way she’s looking at me like there is nothing else she needs to be happy.
She blinks, her smile fading as the silence stretches between us. “Is everything okay?”
I nod. “Very okay. Just stopping to admire the view.”
“The view of my white girl afro?” She fluffs her curls. “It’s even worse now that I’m blond.”
“It’s beautiful.” I climb the last few feet up the rocks, bringing my face even with hers. “You’re beautiful.”
“You too.” She leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips that sends longing surging through my body, making my knees weak. “Get in. The water’s amazing.”
She pushes away from the rocks, drifting back to the other side of the pool, granting me my first glimpse of her body beneath the clear water. When I see the one-piece polka dot suit she’s wearing, I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.
If Sam were naked beneath the water, I don’t know if I’d be able to resist reaching for her with both hands.
“You can put the clothes and stuff on the towels,” she says, motioning to the left side of the pool, where she’s spread out three towels, side by side, flanked by whirring bug repellent lanterns. With the cushion of ferns underneath and the soft glow of the lanterns, the makeshift bed would be the perfect place to pull Sam out of the water and make love to her beneath the darkening sky.
I can’t look at it without imagining Sam naked and reaching for me, so I keep my eyes on the river as I undress. I chuck off my shoes, toss my cabin key and phone onto the towels, and strip off my tee shirt before sliding into the water with a hiss.
It’s hotter than I was expecting, but the heat feels good on my shoulders, which are still aching from all the paddling this afternoon, and it only takes a few seconds to adjust to the heat. When I do, I look up to find Sam watching me with an amused expression on her face.
“What?” I ask from my side of the pool.
“You left your board shorts on,” she says, lips pushing into a pout.
“You have your swimsuit on,” I point out, motioning toward her beneath the water. “I was following your lead.”
“I only have my suit on because I didn’t want to be naked if someone other than you showed up.” She stands, her shoulders and breasts rising out of the water, steam swirling from her suit as the hot, damp fabric makes contact with the cooler evening air. “And I don’t want you to follow my lead.”
She reaches up to the tie behind her neck and slips the bow free. I watch, mesmerized as she lets the newly loose straps dangle down the front of her body and brings her hands to the top of the suit, just above the swell of her breasts.
“I want you to take the lead,” she says as she draws the fabric slowly down, baring her breasts. “And take me.”
My breath rushes out and my pulse pounds in my throat.
All I want to do is pull her into my arms and devour her whole. I want her tongue in my mouth and her tits in my hands. I want to pinch her nipples between my fingers, rolling them into hard points before I replace my hands with my tongue. I want to suck her into my mouth, to make love to her breasts until her body is so slick I can feel her heat on my fingers, even with the water pressing in all around us.
Instead, I force myself to stay where I am, my clenched fists at my sides. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” She pushes the suit lower, baring more of her irresistible skin and the taut muscles beneath. “And I don’t want you to be careful or worried. All I want you to think about is what you want.”
“What I want?” I repeat, a frown tugging at the skin between my eyes.
“Yes, what you want.” She bends over, guiding the suit down her thighs and stepping free. She tosses the wad of sodden fabric onto the rocks and stands in front of me, naked and beautiful and so tempting I can barely breathe. “Which, knowing you the way I do, is probably to make me come as many times as you can before you lose control and fuck me so hard I’ll ache a little when I wake up tomorrow morning.”
I flinch at the thought of being rough with her.
I don’t want to be like them, I don’t want to do anything to remind her of the nightmare she barely survived.
I don’t say a word aloud, but evidently Sam can still read my mind as well as I can read hers.
“Don’t be afraid,” she says, stepping closer. “If you’re gentle and different and worried because of what they did, then they win, Danny. And we’ll never be alone again.”
My jaw clenches as I shake my head. “I don’t want to hurt you. I couldn’t live with myself if I—”
“You could never hurt me.” She reaches out, her fingertips brushing across my chest. “You never have and you never will.”
Her elegant arms twine around my neck, bringing her breasts inches from my chest, sending her summertime smell rushing through my head. I’m so hard I feel like I’m going to explode, but I keep my hands by my sides.
“I want you,” she whispers, her breath warming my lips. “Don’t you want me, too?”
“God, yes.” I curl my hands into tighter fists, refusing to let myself reach for her until she understands exactly what she’s asking for. “But if I lose control, I’m not sure I’ll be able to get it back again. I haven’t been with anyone in a year, Sam, and I’ve been so fucking lonely.”
Sweat breaks out on my lip as I fight to swallow past the wave of emotion shoving up my throat. “What if, once I start, I can’t stop?”
“There will be no reason to stop.” She leans in, flattening her breasts against my chest. “Please, Danny, make love to me.”
My control snaps and desire takes over.
By the time my mind catches up with my body, my tongue is stroking into Sam’s mouth, hard and deep, and I’ve got her ass in my hands, drawing her tight against my aching cock. She rocks against me, making hungry sounds that make it clear she’s as desperate for this as I am.
We cling to each other, bodies straining closer, fighting to escape the boundaries of our separate skins, to become us again after all the terrible time and distance. I cup her breast, rolling her nipple between my fingers and thumb, trembling as she cries out against my mouth and bites my lip.
I bite her back, dragging my teeth across her bottom lip and sucking hard as I continue to pluck at her nipple, making her moan.
A second later, she’s got her hand down the front of my shorts and her fingers wrapped around my cock, stroking me hard, making my vision blur with how phenomenal it feels to have her hands on me again.
But I don’t want her hands.
“Hold onto me,” I gasp, head spinning as I wrap my arm around her waist and lift her out of the water. I’m out of the pool in three steps, laying Sam on the towels and shoving my shorts down my hips, so desperate to be inside her I’m shaking all over.
“Yes,” she pants, hands trailing down my stomach as she reaches for my cock again. “Inside me. Please, Danny, please I—”
Her words end in a cry as I lengthen myself over her body and drive between her legs with one long stroke. I sink in, pushing through her slick heat until I’m buried inside of her. I don’t think about holding back and couldn’t have if I’d tried.
A floodgate has opened and all the hunger I’ve ignored for the past year is rushing out, demanding release, demanding I get closer, deeper, that I show Sam with every thrust of my hips that she is mine.
That she belongs to me and I belong to her and nothing is ever coming between us again.
“You’re mine,” I whisper, trapping her chin between my fingers as I ride her, shoving in and out of her pussy with swift, hard strokes that end with enough force to make her breasts bounce every time I drive home. “You are mine. Mine. Forever.”
“Yes,” she gasps, fingernails digging into my ass as she pulls me in tighter, harder. “Yes.”
“And you’re never leaving me again,” I say, pace growing more frantic even as tears rise in my eyes.
I feel like I’m falling apart and being put back together again at the same time. My heart is falling out of my chest and into Sam’s hands and all the hurt of the past year is pouring out of me with every thrust into her heat. I’m fucking her with all of it, all of the hurt and the love and the abandon only she can make me feel.
Only her. Only my Sam.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I gasp, tears falling onto her cheeks. “I need you so much. Please don’t leave me again. Please don’t leave.”
“I won’t. I promise. I love you.” She’s sobbing too, clinging to me and feathering kisses over my cheeks, but we’re still fucking like we’re going to kill each other, like we’re going to come together so hard and fast we break through to the other side of two and become one.
Heat builds low in my body, the sweet, painful pressure swelling until I’m out of my mind with it. Until I’m growling and grunting and curling my hands under Sam’s back and around her shoulders so I don’t fuck her straight off the towels.
Higher and higher we climb, gasping and tearing and straining toward oblivion, toward another plane where there is no past or future, there is only this moment and pleasure and my love so close.
So fucking close.
A second later, Sam calls out my name, her pussy squeezing me so tight I have no choice but to go over with her. I grit my teeth and shove my hips forward, a savage sound tearing from my throat as I come. The base of my spine is on fire and the orgasm is so intense I tremble and jerk like it’s going to be the death of me, my cock pulsing inside Sam as she milks the soul right out of my body.
I don’t know how much time passes, but when my body and soul finally come back together again, I’m lying heavily on top of her and she’s stroking her fingers up and down my back, humming a husky song low in her throat.
“What song is that?” I ask, my voice so deep I barely recognize it.
“I don’t know,” she says with a soft laugh. “I didn’t realize I was humming.”
I pull back, bracing myself on my forearms, gazing down into her face. She’s not crying anymore, but I can see the damp streaks where her tears and mine mingled on her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tracing one sad, salty trail with my finger. “I didn’t know it was going to be like that.”
Her lips curve on one side. “Hot as hell?”
“No, I could have guessed that.” I smile, but it doesn’t last for long. “I just… I didn’t mean to push you to make any promises you’re not ready to make.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I am yours. I’m sorry I forgot that for so long.”
“And I’m yours,” I say, throat tight. “Forever. Even if I’d never come here, Sam, even if I’d never seen you again. I know that’s not how it’s supposed to be, I know I’m supposed to be all right on my own…but I’m not.”
Her lips tremble. “I’m not either. I’m so sorry I hurt you, babe.”
“You couldn’t help it. I don’t blame you. I swear I don’t. I just need to know that it’s over now. That we’re us again.”
“We’re us again,” she says, her eyes searching mine. “I don’t know why I thought we could be anything else. I’m either half of us or I’m only half alive.”
My shoulders sag with relief to know that she understands and that neither of us has to be half alive anymore.
She sniffs. “I guess I’m not as smart as people think I am.”
“You are very smart,” I say, kissing her cheek. “It’s been a hell of a year. Cut yourself some slack. And I hope you’ll cut me some, too. I’m sorry that only lasted five minutes.”
Her next sniff becomes a laugh. “Five minutes was plenty to get where we were going.”
She pauses, biting her lip as her legs wrap tighter around my hips. “But maybe we could try it again. A little slower this time.”
My cock pulses inside of her, all too happy to oblige, but a glance around the rapidly darkening jungle proves it’s past time to get back to civilization.
Reluctantly, I pull out, even though all I want is to stay balls deep in her for the rest of my life. “Let’s take this back to the cabin, where we don’t have to worry about getting bitten in the ass by a snake.”
“All right.” Sam takes my hand and lets me pull her to her feet.
I’m about to reach for my shorts, when she lunges forward, wrapping her arms around me and hugging tight. I return the embrace, dropping my head to press a kiss to the top of her head, overwhelmed by a potent mixture of love, gratitude, and fear.
This is all I want.
She’s all I want and I already know I wouldn’t survive losing her again.
“We’re going to have to be very careful,” I whisper. “This comes first. You and me. We can’t let them take that away again.”
She nods. “We’ll be careful. We’ll be quick. And then we’ll be gone. Together.”
My eyes slide closed and my arms tighten around her, wishing I could draw her into my body and keep her safe inside of me. Wishing that I never had to be apart from her, even for a moment.
After we make our way through the darkened trees to the cabin, we make love again, slow and sweet. I kiss every inch of her, from her freckled shoulders to the place where her pulse beats just beneath her navel to the slick flesh between her legs. She tastes like home and heaven and as she comes on my mouth, her secret, salty heat flooding across my tongue, I realize that they’re the same.
And they’re both Sam.