Twenty-One #4
I lifted my head and smiled at Sam. He looked like some angry Norse god standing there, larger than life, his face a study in fury. “This is Steven—you remember, from across the hall? He just came by to say goodbye. He and his girlfriend moved to Downers Grove.”
He nodded, turned, and held the door open. “Better get going, then. That’s a long-ass drive.”
Steven nodded, stepped back from me, and told me he’d call as soon as he and Lisa got situated. I made him promise to.
“Who the hell was that?” Sam roared at me once he’d slammed the door after Steven.
I was confused. “That was Steven. I just reminded you.”
“What the hell was he—”
“No, no, no.” I cut him off, pointing at his feet. “Are you high? Take off your boots. I don’t want water all over my clean floors.”
He growled and yanked off his hiking boots.
“Where are your galoshes?”
“Jory, why was that asshole in my house?”
“He came to say goodbye.” I scowled at him, walking back into the kitchen. “Were you listening to me at all? I wonder about you sometimes… Are you hungry? I made—”
But he was suddenly behind me, having crossed the room that fast, and spinning me around to face him. It was so startling that I gasped.
“His hands were all over you!”
“He was just hugging me goodbye.”
“And he needed to touch your skin to do that, why?”
“I dunno. Everybody does that.”
“I know! I fuckin’ hate it.”
I scoffed. “He doesn’t want me, idiot.”
“I saw his face, J, he wants you bad.”
“Believe me, I’m not what he wants. If he did, he would have told me, just like Aaron did.”
“What?”
I talked way too much.
“J?”
“I… Shit.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Sam, it’s—”
“Tell me now, please.”
The “please” was never a good sign.
“J,” he said again.
So I explained about my interlude in the rain with my ex. I left out nothing, not even the kiss.
“Uh-huh.” He nodded, his eyes hard.
“It doesn’t mean anything, Sam.”
“Only because you don’t care. If he had his way, he’d have you.”
“Yeah, but—”
“You need to stop being so accommodating to everyone. You need to learn to say no.”
“I say no a lot.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sam, I—”
“You’re way too trusting.”
“Sam.”
“Like this asshole in here tonight.”
“Sam.”
“That guy—”
“Steven,” I supplied his name again.
He growled. “That guy Steven wants you, and you’re too blind to—”
“I only see you,” I whispered, turning into him, my hands on his hips.
“Jory, you need to be more careful. You—”
“Yes, dear,” I promised, sliding my hands up his chest.
“Are you fuckin’ listening to me?”
I leaped at him, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Not really. Welcome home.”
He grabbed me, hugging me tight, breathing me in. “No one else can have you. You’re mine.”
“Everybody knows that, Sam.”
“The fuck they do. You’re too nice. Everybody thinks they got a shot with you.”
I tapped his shoulder, and when he met my eyes, I gestured at the jar on the counter.
“Shit,” he groaned, fishing in his pocket for a quarter. “Do me a favor; wrap your legs around me while I dig for change.”
I chuckled as he bent and kissed me, rubbing a hand over my ass. I heard the quarter hit the many others already in the jar.
“Happy?”
“Ecstatic.”
He grunted as he walked us out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the bedroom.
“And yeah, to your earlier question,” he said, his voice low and rough. “I’m hungry…but not for food.”
“I picked up on that,” I said, my body liquefying as he pressed me tight against him.
“Kiss me.”
He didn’t have to ask me twice.
Later, he ate dinner with me, him in his sweats and a long-sleeved T-shirt, and me in my pajama bottoms and a short-sleeved one. We talked while we ate and I told him everything I was thinking about Susan Reid.
After dinner I sent him to the couch to watch TV while I cleaned up.
He turned on the stereo instead, and Astrud Gilberto filled the apartment.
It was soothing, and when I joined him, I brought a hot mug of tea for him as well as myself.
The afghan on the end of the couch looked warm and inviting, so I wrapped up in it before I sat down.
I started talking to him again, but when I asked about his day, I didn’t get a response.
Looking up, I found him gazing around the room.
“What are you doing?”
“Just taking it in.”
I glanced around. “It’s our apartment, Sam.”
His eyes flicked back to mine. “Yeah, but it feels different when you’re here.”
I scoffed at him. “You don’t need to butter me up, you already got what you wanted.”
He scowled, and I let out a snort of laughter.
“What are you trying to say?”
He was silent a minute, thinking, and then his eyes once again rose to mine.
“The best cops I know come home from seeing blood all day and suffering all day and talking to people on the worst days of their lives to homes where they’re loved and needed.
You don’t even know how many times I think about you when I’m up to my eyeballs in shit. ”
I reached for his hand, and his warm fingers laced through mine.
“Just coming home, walking in our bedroom and you’re sleeping all warm and safe… I just… I can breathe. My home is a sanctuary now, and I won’t give that up because you’re pissed at me about something my friends said or because I hate the way… Adrian?”
“Aiden,” I corrected him, smiling, putting my mug next to his on the coffee table.
“I won’t give up my home because I hate the way Aiden calls me ‘lover.’”
“I told him I didn’t like that either. The only one that can call you lover is me.”
He squinted. “Yeah, don’t call me lover. It’s just lame.”
I nodded, looking down at our fingers twined together.
“Look at me.”
I raised my eyes to his.
“I don’t love anything or anyone as much as you. You’re my whole life.”
I opened the blanket and climbed over into his lap. He held me tight, his face in my throat as his hands slid up under my shirt to my skin.
“You’re freezing,” he told me.
“I love you,” I said back.
“I know.” He chuckled, kissing a line up my throat to my jaw, then over my chin before settling on my lips. I parted them, and his tongue swept inside. He kissed me deeply, taking his time as he opened my mouth wide.
“If Aaron Sutter ever kisses you again, he’ll be sorry,” he said after he broke the kiss, leaving me panting.
“He won’t—we’re done.”
“Why?”
“I told him you were the only man I’ve ever loved.”
“That would do it,” he said, smiling evilly before he kissed me again. He was so smug, but that was okay with me. Him knowing I loved him was a very good thing.
When I was wriggling in his lap and shoving my crotch against his carved abdomen, little noises coming out of me he put his hands on my thighs to still me.
“Stop. I wanna talk to you more about Susan Reid.”
But I needed to connect with him, and there was only one way that I wanted to.
“Sam,” I breathed, my hands slipping over the waistband of his sweats, needing to peel them down. “Please.”
“No, listen…we need to—”
“No.” I shook my head, and he did what I needed and lifted up so I could ease the sweats down off his hips, as well as the briefs underneath. “You, wanting me, loving me… That makes me so hot, you don’t even know.”
“Jory…baby…I…”
I curled my cold fingers around his hardening cock.
“God.” His voice was raw and deep. “I can’t even think.”
Which was what I was after.
I leaned over to the end table, opened the lid, and retrieved the bottle there.
I would have to remember to collect all the lube that was stashed around the apartment before we had people over.
You didn’t want someone searching for a pencil to keep score in Yahtzee to come up with a tube of lubricant instead.
How would I explain that to Sam’s father?
“What are you giggling about?”
“I don’t giggle,” I assured him, still giggling. “Schoolgirls giggle, men laugh.”
He rolled his eyes at me, but not before he shoved his sweats down to his knees.
“Say something good,” I said, my voice hoarse and low. I didn’t even sound like me as I got the bottle open and slicked his cock.
“Come here.”
I sank over him, straddling his thighs, my legs folded up beside his hips. His hands felt so good on my suddenly hot skin.
“I want to have dinner with you every night unless either you or I have an emergency or something else, all right?”
“Okay.” I agreed as I began gently pressing down onto him.
“I like coming home to my home.”
“Me too.”
“It’s not home if you’re not in it.”
My eyes locked with his as he thrust up inside of me. I watched his pupils dilate as he filled me up, and my spinal column turned to mush as he stroked a hand over me.
“Baby, you feel so good.”
“You missed me.”
“Yes, but not just because of…this.”
His power of speech was leaving him with every second that I pushed down deeper.
“You… I…”
I smiled because I had reduced him to guttural muttering. I increased my rhythm, gentle replaced with jolting, quick motions, and his breath caught sharply.
“My sweet baby.”
This, the litany repeated from whisper to yell. And I had the connection I so desperately needed.