Chapter 26
Cameron
Sammy has always been a small girl. When the rest of our class in school was mid-growth spurt she was staying the same size, her tiny frame refusing to stretch any more than it had to and her clothes fitting longer than they should have.
Her mom loved it, of course, because it meant she didn’t have to buy the girl clothes as often as she did me, but I saw the concerned looks she and our teachers gave Sammy as she stayed the same size for months on end when the rest of us were growing.
Her attitude, of course, kept growing.
So when she tucks herself into my lap and turns her face to my neck, then refuses to say anything, I’m worried.
She’s quiet and small and meek, and none of those things fit the girl I’ve grown up with.
I’m used to her being the loudest girl in the room, the brightest bulb, her sunshine taking up all the space in any building and her laughter refusing to accept shadows, even in the corners.
This frightened girl isn’t my Sammy, and I both love and hate this version of her.
I love that she’s actually letting me hold her like that, because on any other day, she would have already told me to leave her alone and let go of her. I like that she’s small and solid in my lap, tucked into me like I’m the safest place in the world.
But the silence is unnerving.
Nothing good was happening in that parking lot when we arrived, and I can’t stop wondering what might have happened to her before we arrived–or what might have gone on if we didn’t get there in time. There were so many men there and only one Sammy, and God alone knows what they wanted to with her.
The thought brings a fresh stab of guilt to my heart, sharp and cutting, and I nearly gasp at the tension that takes hold of me.
This situation has me scared more than I want to admit, and the fear I felt earlier on the mountain–that driving realization that my life would be nothing without her in it–rears its head again, roaring that Sammy is everything good in the world, too precious to take risks with.
And suddenly I can’t stand to go another second without telling her.
I put my lips to the top of her head, kiss her gently, and then lay my cheek in her hair so my mouth is close to her ear. “I love you,” I say simply, and when that doesn’t feel like enough, “You silly, crazy girl, I love you. Please, please stop trying to die. I can’t stand it.”
I feel her tense and then relax, and take that as the only answer I’m going to get.
It’s not exactly an ‘I love you too.’ But she heard me. And for right now, that’s going to have to be enough.
By the time we get home the meekness in her has turned into shivering, shakes that seize her whole body, and my patience is gone.
Bear says something about getting her into bed, but I know that’s not going to be enough.
She doesn’t need bed. She needs heat and stimulation to bring her out of whatever this is.
And the best way to get heat is flames.
I get out of the car with her still in my arms and head directly to the shop, where I can get them.
I burst through the door and turn right, where I’ve just installed my forge.
I hit the power button with the toe of my sneaker, thanking the universe that I’ve got a three-burner forge rather than a single, and that I opted for propane, which burns hotter and faster.
The combination will mean nearly immediate heat and lots of it, and this space is so small that it’ll warm up quick.
Way better than putting her in bed and waiting for her to warm it up herself. Even if I climbed into bed with her, totally naked, it would take longer for my body heat to bring her back up to normal.
I sit her down in a chair and put my hands to her cheeks, trying to gauge whether she’s actually cold or just in shock. Her cheeks are clammy, but I don’t know what that means, and she seems normal temperature.
Or is she cold? Honestly, I can’t tell, and the shop is in shadows right now, so it’s hard to see whether she’s paler than usual.
The flames dance in the corner, giving her a ruddy glow, but that doesn’t mean anything, and for the first time in my life I wish I’d decided to become a doctor.
At least then I’d know what to do in this situation.
“Sammy, look at me,” I say firmly. “I need to know what’s wrong. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
She looks up at me, and if I thought that was going to be any better, I was crazy.
It’s too dark in here to see what her eyes look like, and even if I could, I’m not sure I would know what it meant.
Do your pupils get blown out when you’re in shock, or is that just when you’re dead?
Can you focus on anyone when you’re in shock?
She looks like she’s focused on me, but is that even real?
Oh my God, I’m spinning out of control and I’m not even the one who went through whatever she went through. I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with my best friend, and it turns out I’m incredibly unqualified for this sort of work.
“Sammy, please talk to me,” I whisper. “Tell me what you need. Tell me what to do.”
Her eyes sharpen on me then, and I can finally see them, like the shadows have fled from her face.
She looks at me for a long, tense moment, and I wait to see something in her face.
Some sign of recognition, or the movement she always has in her face.
Something that says she’s still in there somewhere. That her spark hasn’t gone out.
Instead, her forehead creases with confusion and her eyes start to water, and whatever spark I was looking for, it isn’t there.
It’s been doused by whatever happened in that fucking parking lot, and my heart cracks clean down the center at the thought of her being broken.
I’ve seen Sammy cry before, but it’s always been because she was so furious she didn’t have any words and resorted to pure emotion.
I’ve never seen her cry because she was scared.
I’m about to reach for her and bring her to my chest again in some desperate attempt to hold her together, but she moves first, taking me by surprise.
And she doesn’t try to burrow her way into my chest the way she’s been doing since we saved her.
The complete opposite, actually.
One moment she’s sitting there staring at me like she doesn’t know her own name and the next she’s kissing me like her life depends on it, her lips firm and insistent and her hands tangled in the front of my shirt, yanking me toward her.
I pause, shocked and frozen at this sudden turn of events, and then my own emotions wake up.
The fear of tonight and what happened.
The anger at those men who were trying to take advantage of her.
The tenderness of being allowed to hold her in the truck.
And the passion we shared in the meadow on the mountain.
It all combines into a ball of flames in my chest, and that ball expands so quickly that it nearly chokes me, my heart jumping into my throat and my breath catching in my lungs until I think I might die.
Then I remember that Sammy is kissing me.
Sammy is kissing me.
My body comes alive at the thought, all passion and fire and driving need, and I dive into the kiss, taking her jaw in my hands and tipping her face so I have better access to her.
I push my tongue into her mouth and savor the groan she gives me, then kiss her harder, suddenly incapable of slowing down.
I was slow and quiet up in that meadow, hesitant at the thought that she might refuse me, but now I’m nothing but nerve endings and raw need, my body screaming for hers.
The kiss becomes urgent and hurried, all lips and teeth and tongue, our bodies creating a dance that I’ve never experienced before.
All the blood in my body rushes directly to my cock, and my hips jerk at how hard I become, my cock straining against the zipper of my jeans and my balls tight with how much I want Sammy’s hands on them.
Holy fuck, the thought makes me even harder, and I growl, deep in my chest.
My body is on fire, every nerve ending lit up with electricity, and having Sammy in my arms is making it even worse. When her hands drop to my cock and massage it through my jeans, I jerk away from her lips and gasp.
“Fuck, Sammy,” I moan.
“Don’t stop kissing me,” she answers. “Please. Cameron, I need you.”
She needs me. It’s the third time she’s said it, and I still have enough presence of mind to admit that it’s my new favorite thing in the world.
This girl, this tiny ball of fire who sees the world and wants to take it over, has never told me she needed me a day in my life.
She’s never allowed me to help her unless I tricked her into it, and she spends more time trying to prank me than telling me she appreciates anything I do for her.
She’s bright and shadowed at the same time, the riddle you never see coming until too late, and you can’t walk next to her without her trying to trip you–and then laughing uproariously when she does.
She’s a wall of sarcasm protecting the most sensitive heart I’ve ever experienced, but life has beat her up so badly that she almost never takes that wall down, and rarely shows that sensitivity to the world.
She never allows me to hold her, and she let me hold her tonight.
She never tells me how she’s feeling unless it’s to use that to demonstrate how frustrated she is about something, and she absolutely never admits to needing another person.
And yet she’s admitted to me multiple times today that she needs me.
And that breaks something open inside me until I feel like something is leaking out of my body. Something hot and sticky and wet that feels a whole lot like my soul or the essence of my heart or something equally important.
Something only Sammy had access to.
And I know, in that second, that she’s just accessed the deepest, most tender part of me and made it her own. And if she ever leaves, if I ever lose her, I’ll never be able to find that part of myself again.
Because it belongs to her, and I can never bring it back.
I pull her up and stop kissing her long enough to jerk her dress up over her head and throw it to the side, finished with the thing.
I strip off my own shirt and push my jeans down over my hips and to the floor.
And when I step out of them and look at her, her eyes are dipping over my body, trickling down my skin like honey, and landing on my cock.
It’s hard and erect and ready for her, the tip bobbing against my belly in need, and she bites her lip, then glances to me again.
“Sammy,” I say, my voice rough with desperation. “I need you. And I’m done waiting.”
She doesn’t answer. Just holds her arms out in a gesture that says I can take her.
I grasp her by the legs and pull her up, wrapping her legs around me until she’s seated just over my cock, then pull her down until I’m buried inside her.
And then I back up against the wall and start to fuck her, my body screaming with the need to possess this girl heart, soul, and body.