Chapter 15
Sammy
I take in the piece behind him, utterly confused.
It’s... my face, and it’s done with such skill that it takes my breath away.
There’s the curve of my cheek, the flip of my nose, and my long lashes curving up toward brows that I’ve never liked.
I’m looking up toward the top of the wood, my eyes turned north like I’m looking at the moon.
And somehow, he’s caught the light on my cheeks, the glow of the moon on my lips.
Somehow, the piece is alive, though I can see from here that it’s nothing more than pencil marks and some light chiseling.
Somehow, it’s lifelike, in a way I’ve never seen before.
And though it’s in Cam’s shop, I know Cam’s work. He doesn’t use pencils or chisels. Not in this way. Which means...
My gaze flits back to Bear’s, and I watch his face slowly blush in the dim lighting, his eyes moving back and forth as he tries not to meet my own gaze. When he finally does look at me, his eyes are a deeper blue than I’ve ever seen them, dark and fathomless with secrets.
“You drew me?” I whisper.
“Not on purpose,” he replies.
And I know without asking that the phrase means worlds more than he’s saying.
Bear can draw.
No, more than that. Bear can create artwork unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I’ve spent much of my life watching Cameron do things no one should be able to do when he creates, so I know good art when I see it, and the piece that’s standing behind Bear right now...
I’m not even sure what to make of it. But I know that it’s beautiful.
And it’s me.
He’s been in Cameron’s shop all night, recreating my face while I was upstairs trying to sleep and failing because I was too busy remembering the way his laughter felt on my skin when we found out Charlie was going to be okay.
“You drew me.”
This time, it’s not a question. It’s a statement, and it holds all the confusion and elation I’ve felt since we found that dog in the street.
All the tense emotion and strange itchiness I haven’t been able to get rid of.
The butterflies in my stomach at his eyes on me and the fireflies snaking through my veins, lighting my body up from the inside at the thought of him standing so close that I could smell him.
The authority I’ve heard in this voice and the soft vulnerability when he gave me his secrets in that stupid ride-along today.
I’ve spent my day trying to understand how he could be so much more than I realized, and now, standing here, it feels like that drawing behind him is somehow the answer.
I just can’t figure out why.
But then he makes a move toward me, and I stop thinking about the reason. He reaches me in three easy steps and pins me to the wall, his body big and hot and so solid that I can barely breathe. And his lips are on mine, heated but light as a feather, like he’s terrified that I might not accept him.
Like he has no right to be doing what he’s doing, and he knows it.
But my body is burning, flying, screaming, and though I don’t know what I’m doing–or how any of this is okay–I reach up, slide my hands behind his head, and pull him against me.
I don’t want light and airy. I’ve been on edge all day, too aware of how close he was to me and the emotions roiling through me.
I don’t want to think.
I want to act.
My actions are all it takes for him to come to the same conclusion, evidently, because he takes me by the waist, picks me up, and slams me back against the wall, his mouth growing several shades hotter over mine.
He tilts his head to the side and forces my mouth open, then sweeps his tongue against mine, hot and yearning and wet, and every nerve in my body lights up at the contact.
I moan deep in my throat, unable to stop myself, and that does something more to him.
He takes one hand and forces my legs around him so that I’m open and spread at his waist, my legs clenched around his body and my pussy nearly bare against him.
I’m wearing almost nothing, just a sleep shirt and the barest set of panties, and the thought flies through my mind, leaving flames in its wake.
Nothing separates my core from him except the jeans he’s wearing and a slip of cotton.
When he starts to rock against me, I nearly scream.
I’m so wet I’ve soaked through my panties and the friction of his jeans against my core is so sudden, so rough, that I nearly come apart then and there.
I break the kiss and tilt my head up, gasping for air, and his mouth descends on my neck, all hot, wet kisses and teeth until I’m grinding against him, mindless with need.
God, what are we doing? The question is a quiet echo in my mind, an afterthought to the blazing inferno in my belly, but I try to grab it, try to hold onto it and get it to stick.
I’ve almost got it when he brings his hand between us, spreads my legs further, and slides his fingers along my clit.
I cry out at the sensation, and he seals my mouth with another kiss, swallowing my cries as he runs his fingers up and down my seam, spreading my wetness and taking advantage of my position. He breaks the kiss and puts his mouth to my ear, his breathing heavy, rasping gasps.
“God, I shouldn’t be doing this,” he mutters.
The tone of his voice, the utter desperation of it, makes my back arch with a need I don’t understand, and I press myself harder against his hand.
“Do what?” I ask, both needing and dreading the answer.
“Touching you,” he breathes. “Kissing you. Thinking of you the way I am.”
He keeps touching me, though, pausing to pinch my clit and then drawing his fingers down over my opening, back and forth until I’m ready to scream with the tension building in my lower belly.
I’m aching with a need to be filled, nearly rabid with a growing intensity that I don’t completely understand.
And this man is telling me he shouldn’t be doing this.
“So stop then,” I say, making a half-hearted attempt to draw away from him.
He growls and pins me more securely, his fingers now circling my opening, hard and purposeful. “I don’t want to stop,” he whispers. “That’s the problem.”
I want to ask him why. He’s spent my life avoiding me. Making fun of me. Telling me that I’m a problem. And yet one day of spending time with me, and here we are, pressed against a wall and creating something that will almost certainly break us.
I want to ask why. What changed.
Except I already know the answer to that, because I felt it too.
And when he stops his teasing and finally eases one finger deep inside me, I stop thinking entirely and give myself over to the sensation.
“Fuck,” he sighs, his breath hot and moist on my ear. “God, I’m going to hell.”
I wrap my fingers in his hair and pull him back enough to look him in the eye. “Enough talking,” I gasp, my hips rocking against his finger.
He doesn’t stop, though. He pulls his finger out of me and slides it back in, repeating the process again, and then again, until he’s pumping into me with a quick, driving rhythm that I can hardly stand, and puts his mouth back to my ear.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he whispers. “Fuck, Sammy. Fuck.”
He pauses his actions for a moment, and when he slides back into me, there are two fingers rather than one. My hips jerk harder, now, as I start to ride his hand in earnest, desperate for more. Desperate for something bigger, something fuller.
My belly is drawn up in knots and I can feel tension radiating down my spine, my body curling in on itself as it chases a release I don’t know if I can stand.
I’m strung up tighter than I’ve ever been, Bear’s hands doing something to me I still don’t understand, and the man’s fucking words are bringing everything to a fever pitch, the gravel in his voice and the pure, heartbreaking vulnerability making me feel every single fucking emotion.
“Bear, stop fucking talking,” I mutter, trying to find a way to ease some of the tension.
“I can’t,” he says. “I can’t stop. I don’t want to.”
And that’s all it takes. His words drift into my ear and light me on fire, and the release my body has been chasing is right there, barreling down my spine and into my belly, my muscles clenching and sending me both flying and falling, through light and dark and everything in between, as I bury my face in his chest to keep myself from screaming his name into the night.
It doesn’t make any sense, and him saying he didn’t want to stop shouldn’t have affected me the way it did.
But somewhere in the darkness of my mind, the words triggered something deep and instinctive. No one has ever said they didn’t want to stop touching me. No one has ever needed me more than I needed them.
And the idea that he does...
It makes me whole in a way I never knew existed.