Chapter Twenty-Four. Mackenzie #2
At the time I chalked it up to the Hole.
It was a space where nothing counted, so of course that talk didn’t, either.
Only now that I’m staring into the eyes of that same man after all this time do I know the truth: even then, I was falling for him.
I loved him long before I could give the thought room to grow.
When I turn my head back to look at him, those same eyes glint with mischief. His fingers skim my waist, pulling me in so my back is against his chest.
“The rest of Candy Shard was convinced we hooked up that night,” he says, close to my ear.
I lean my weight against him. “And what did you tell them?”
He presses his lips to my temple. That bare touch is enough to make my entire body hum in anticipation.
“That you’d never,” he teases.
I turn slowly so we’re pressed chest to chest, tilting my chin. He is so solid and warm in my arms that I can’t help but breathe in deep, like touch isn’t enough. I want every sensation of him. His voice in my ear. His smoky sweetness in my lungs. His fingers digging into the small of my back.
“‘Never’ is an awfully strong word,” I say. ‘Not yet’ is better.”
Sam takes a step that presses me between him and the door. “So you’re telling me you never hooked up with anyone in the Hole,” he says.
I shake my head. “Not once,” I tell him.
His hand skims under the flimsy fabric of my dress, easing up my thigh. “Well, hell,” he says. “You’ve been deprived.”
I wrap my arms around his neck. “Not for much longer, I hope.”
I gasp as he slides a finger into me, and then another. His eyes stay steady and smug on mine, savoring every second of what he’s doing to me as I start to pant.
“The only rule you need to know about the Hole,” he says hoarsely, “is that you have to be very, very quiet.”
He hooks upward, hitting the precise spot that makes me whimper.
“Sam,” I breathe out, half in praise, half in warning.
His tongue skims his lower lip, his eyes drinking me in.
“What did I just say?” he asks, hooking his fingers deeper, finding a rhythm.
Jesus Christ. I try to hold my breath, but it doesn’t work—I let out a keening whine, bucking against his hand. A few more strokes and I am pressing my face into his shirt, trying to muffle myself. Damn impossible when he’s using his teeth to graze my earlobe, using his lips.
“You know how I love breaking rules,” he says, voice rough with desire. “I want to hear you come.”
I shake my head, crushing my eyes shut and holding my breath again, but I can’t resist it. Not the crest of pleasure that comes with every curl of his finger, not his voice crooning, “That’s my girl,” in my ear. It sends a possessive thrill through me—I am his, and he is mine .
After all these years, I am staking my claim. It’s loud and shameless, a cry that would rattle the whole damn bar if it was open for the night.
When it’s over I ease back against the door, boneless and satisfied. I can taste Sam’s self-satisfied smirk as he pulls me in by the back of the neck, his touch firm and his kiss rough.
I’m still panting, electrified, as I reach for his belt buckle. But Sam pulls back, shaking his head.
“Let me,” I plead. I can feel how hard he is. I’m aching to feel more.
He presses another kiss to my lips, soft and fierce. “Patience,” he says. “We’ve got deadlines, don’t we?”
I snake my arms up his back, pressing my fingers into the hard planes of his shoulders. “You can’t do that to me and not let me return the favor.”
Sam laughs. I feel the warm rumble of it against my own chest.
“If you wanna repay the favor—let me break one more of your rules.”
I raise my eyebrows at him. “You bad boys just don’t know when to quit,” I tease.
But Sam doesn’t laugh. He lifts a hand to my face and holds me there, his thumb skimming my cheek. In all the time I’ve been alive, I’ve never been looked at like this before. Like I am not just wanted, but fully, wholly known.
When he speaks, his voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“We said no love songs,” he says. “But I think that’s gonna be a problem for me, Mackenzie. Right now, it’s the only kind I can write.”
He swims in front of me, but I cling to him like an anchor. I swallow hard.
“What if—something got in the way of us?” I manage.
It takes a moment for Sam to answer. “Of Mack and Sam?” he asks.
I shake my head against his palm, my voice wobbly. “Of us ,” I say.
Because if this is the anchor, the world outside is a brewing storm.
Sam’s nightmares about Ben coming to life.
My looming secret that was never meant to be one.
And the two ordinary truths that loom larger than anything else: Sam has never been in love enough to stay, and I have never been good at staying loved.
Sam lifts his other hand so he’s cupping my face between them, so I have to meet his eyes.
“For all we know, this whole thing could crash and burn,” he says. “But you listen to me right now. No matter what happens with this—with anything —it’s not gonna change the way I feel about you. You have to know that. Tell me you do.”
I let out a hiccupping breath. It’s so much more than the relief of hearing it.
It’s years of wondering what it would be like to feel loved enough that I don’t have to question it, and knowing now that it feels like this .
Like sinking into the arms of someone who has seen every part of me and loves the whole.
I used to think I’d never trust words like that again. It turns out it’s easy to, when the right person says them. It turns out everything is easier, when that person is Sam.
“I know,” I say. “I feel the same.”
We don’t write a love song that afternoon, but make it, slow and sweet.
We hold each other for a long time in the quiet that comes after.
It strikes me that I’ve been spending my whole life trying to put love into words, but now I know what it sounds like—it’s the beat of Sam’s heart against mine.
It’s his warm breath of relief against my neck.
It’s the silence between two people who understand each other well enough not to need any words at all.