CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sam
“Everything is hard before it is easy.”
-Goethe
I had worried that letting love back into my life would dull my sharp edges, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The next morning, I wake up in Danny’s arms, sore from making love until midnight, with a fire burning in my belly, more determined than ever to get blood on my hands. I lost a year of this perfect love and scarred the heart of the best person I’ve ever known because of Todd and his friends. It’s past time for them to get what they deserve.
And then Danny and I will finally be free.
I roll over, propping my chin on his chest, watching the clear morning light creep across his face, setting his blond stubble to glowing.
With his long hair spread out across the pillow and his full lips parted in sleep, he is as beautiful as he ever was. But even at rest, he looks like a man who’s been through something, who has walked through the shadows of the underworld, where the living should never have to tread. I’m the reason he knows what it’s like to hurt like that, and I’m going to be the one to take his hand and lead him back into the light.
One day soon we’re going to walk away from this horror and the sooner that day comes, the better.
A few minutes before seven, his eyes open. He looks disoriented for a second, but then he sees me and smiles, relief and wonder mixing on his sleepy face.
“So last night wasn’t a dream,” he says, hugging me closer to his warm body.
“More like a wake-up call.” I kiss his scruffy cheek. “When’s your last day of work again?”
He hums and his brow furrows. “I’ll be back from the overnight trip Tuesday morning, but I don’t have to check out of the cabin until Wednesday.”
I cross my hands on his chest and prop my chin on top. “So we do all three Tuesday night and leave first thing Wednesday morning. I’ll go to the airport and buy the tickets while you’re busy with the training exercises today.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He brushes my hair from my face. “I’ll give you some cash for my ticket.”
“Do you care where we go?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. I’ve got Pete and Sean running all the tours in Porec until the end of the summer. We can go anywhere you want. Surprise me.”
My breath rushes out with a mixture of terror and anticipation. I can’t wait for the morning we board that plane, even if there is still hell to go through before we get there. “I thought you’d be sick of surprises by now.”
“I’m sick of being without you,” he says, arm tightening around my waist. “I don’t mind surprises.”
“I meant what I said last night,” I whisper, hoping he can hear that I mean every word. “I’m sticking with you. And from now on this comes first.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He cups my bottom in his big hand, setting the aching flesh between my legs to tingling. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Sore.” I smile, before adding in a lilting voice, “But not too sore.”
“Not too sore for what?” he asks, feigning innocence even as his fingers slip between my thighs, finding where I’m already slick. He bites his lip as he strokes gently in and out. “Thailand or India.”
“What?” I moan as he adds a second finger, testing me, making sure I’m ready for him.
“Get us a flight to Thailand or India,” he says. “Near the coastal resorts. Hotels are cheap enough there that we’ll be able to shack up in a room by the beach for a month and do nothing but make love, eat curry, and swim in the ocean all day.”
“Sounds like heaven,” I say, sighing as he removes his fingers and rolls on top of me, spreading my thighs with a nudge of his knee that makes my desire spike fast and hot.
“No, this is heaven.” He holds my gaze as he positions himself and glides slowly inside, his thickness stretching my inner walls.
The hint of soreness makes me even more aware of how perfectly he fills me, how right it is to be joined with him like this, with nothing between us but love and skin. I wrap my arms and legs around him and give him everything, all my love, all my pain, and all my newly sprung hope for the future.
And when we’re lying together after, listening to the monkeys chitter in the trees outside and bird calls echo through the jungle, I realize again what a fool I’ve been.
Love isn’t making me soft, it’s taking the weapon forged by hate and refining it in the fire Danny and I make together, transforming it into something even sharper and more deadly.
Hate gave me something worth dying for, but this is worth living for.
“Thank you,” I whisper against the damp skin of his neck, where he smells like sweat and sex and Danny, a potent combination that makes me want to keep him in bed all day.
“No, thank you.” He sighs. “I wish I could stay here with you all day.”
I laugh. “I was just thinking that.”
“Of course you were. I told you, great minds.” He kisses the top of my head. “Don’t go anywhere except to the airport and back, okay? I don’t want you to run into any of them when I’m not around.”
“All right,” I say. “But we should do some recon today. What time will you be back?”
“I shouldn’t be any later than two,” he says, sliding his arm from beneath my shoulders and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “We can head over to the resort to scope things out then. I think I’ve figured out how to handle the J.D. and Jeremy thing without them seeing my face, but I want to roll it over in my head a little more.”
I shift onto my side, propping my head up on one hand, appreciating the view as Danny gets dressed. “Want to give me a hint what you’re thinking?”
He grins. “No. I want to see what you come up with while I’m gone.”
“It probably won’t be much,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “If I haven’t thought of something brilliant by now, I doubt today is going to be any different.”
“Today is already different,” he says, shrugging his shirt on. “You started the day with morning sex. And morning sex makes you twenty percent smarter.”
My eyebrows lift. “Has that been verified by science?”
“It’s been verified by my cock,” he says, propping his hands on the mattress and leaning in for a kiss. “That’s even better than science.”
I smile against his lips. “You’re right. That is better than science.” I run my hand down his chest to where his shorts ride low on his hips and curl my fingers around the top of his waistband. “Are you sure you have to go this very second?”
His hand slips into my hair. “I could push it a few minutes if I skip breakfast. What did you have in mind?”
“Oh nothing, I was just thinking.” I tilt my chin up, blinking innocently as I add, “If one round of morning sex is good then two ought to be even better.”
He pushes me back onto the mattress. “Who needs breakfast?”
“Breakfast is for losers,” I agree as our mouths meet and I reach for the close of his shorts, already desperate to have him inside of me again.
There’s no time for foreplay, but I don’t need any.
I’m still wet from our first time and by the time Danny sinks into me again, fresh heat dampens my thighs, easing his way.
“God, Sam,” he groans against my lips as he begins to thrust inside me. “I’m never going to get enough of you.”
“Never,” I agree, digging my fingers into the firm muscles of his ass, pulling him closer, deeper.
Within a few moments, we’ve found our rhythm and are racing toward the edge, knowing there isn’t time for a slow build. But still, as his thrusts grow harder, faster, I’m right there with him, clinging to his shoulders as he tilts my hips, hitting that sweet spot deep inside that makes me crazy. He rams home again and again, his cock swelling inside of me until I know he’s about to go and I can’t hold on a second longer.
I bite my lip, trying to muffle the sound as I come, but my cry still echoes through the room, followed closely by Danny’s deep groan of release. His cock jerks inside of me, hard enough to make me gasp and fresh waves of pleasure course from my belly out to electrify every inch of my skin.
I’m on fire and all I want to do is burn.
Burn and burn until there is nothing left among the ashes except the very core of my being, the part that has always belonged to Daniel Cooney. I’ve been his since I was just a kid, too young to realize that we were falling in forever love, the kind that refuses to be shut down or destroyed, no matter how scared you get, or how much you want to spare the one you love from your own suffering.
“I love you,” he says, catching his breath.
“I love you, too.” My heart is racing, but not from fear.
I’m not afraid anymore and my thoughts already feel less cloudy.
In fact, as I slip into my robe and grab a banana and a granola bar from my backpack for Danny, the hint of a plan is already beginning to form.
“You were right.” I kiss his cheek one last time as he reaches for the door. “Today is going to be different.”
“And all the days after,” he promises with a certainty that makes me believe him.