23. Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-three
Nate
I’d been home long enough to shower and ponder whether I wanted to bother making a late dinner when a light knock tapped on my door.
My stomach clenched with anticipation on my way to answer it.
There were only a handful of people who could have been on the other side, and I knew the one I wanted it to be.
Samantha was even prettier than she had been when I’d found her on my brother’s porch this afternoon. Her cheeks colored from a day in the sun. Her hair was a little mussed from the breeze. She was leaning against the doorframe, casual and assessing.
“You never said if you wanted me here.” She bit her bottom lip and slowly released it. “I came anyway.”
I hooked my finger around her belt loop and tugged her into my condo, kicking the door shut behind her. She stumbled into my chest, her arms looping around my shoulders.
“Seems like a yes.” She laughed.
“It is,” I confirmed, brushing my mouth over hers.
“Good. I’ve been thinking about optimizing your bedroom all day.”
With a low growl, I scooped her up, and she wrapped her long legs around my waist. “No more talking, Samantha.”
She tucked her face against my neck. “’Kay.”
Samantha: Are you home?
Me: Five minutes away.
Samantha: I’m coming over. Be there in ten.
Me: I’ll be waiting.
This time, I didn’t bother trying to convince myself we weren’t going to do this anymore.
There were still all the reasons why we shouldn’t have been fucking multiple times a week, and I didn’t give a damn about one of them.
I liked how I felt when I was with her—and not just inside her.
The whole time was like that alpine slide, and I was hooked on it.
Skin slick with sweat, lungs struggling to find air, I fell to the side, dragging Samantha with me. Her leg draped over mine, her cheek against my chest, our skin stuck together wherever it touched—and there weren’t many places it wasn’t.
I looked around the room, finally taking it in. Samantha’s bedroom was light and airy. Her bed was white iron with four posters. Gauzy curtains draped over the windows. Thick, fluffy bedding piled on the end of the bed. Her walls were a cool sage, and a few floral prints hung here and there.
“It’s really girlie in here.”
She snickered softly. “Well, I’m a girl. Did you forget?”
I smiled, cupping her breast. “Couldn’t possibly. Your bedroom just isn’t what I expected.”
We always met at my place—a habit we’d fallen into the last couple weeks. This afternoon, I was near Samantha’s neighborhood, and going home was the last thing I wanted. All it took was a text to receive an invitation, and now, here we were.
“Oh yeah?” She pushed up on her elbow so she could look down at me. “Tell me what kind of bedroom you thought I would have.”
“To tell the truth, I haven’t put a lot of thought into it.
” I glanced around the room again. The crystal ring holder on her nightstand.
Soft glow of her table lamp. The vanity neatly piled with makeup.
Signs of the life she led. “You wear a lot of black. I thought that would extend to your living space. I suppose that was pretty foolish.”
“I’d say silly. I wear black to work because it blends in, but I have no interest in living in a bordello.” She gave my chest a light smack. “I can’t believe this is your first time in my bedroom.”
I cupped the back of her neck and drew her face down to mine. Her mouth landed on mine for a brief kiss before she drew back and rubbed the tips of our noses together.
“I had to invite myself over,” I said.
She laughed. “Well, I’m glad you feel comfortable enough to do so. I kind of like having you here. You look good all sprawled out in my bed.”
I had to say, her bed was a lot more comfortable than mine. I wondered why I hadn’t cared enough to find a good mattress. She also had a lot more pillows, and her sheets were like silk beneath my bare skin.
“I like your bed. I think I might actually trust you to give my bedroom a makeover.”
Pulling back with a gasp, her mouth parted in an O. “Are you saying you didn’t trust me before? Were you humoring me?”
Mouth hitching, I held up my thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “Maybe a little.”
That got me another chest swat. “You little shit. Well, now I’m not so sure I want to help you. Stick to your cardboard bed and scratchy sheets. See if I care.”
Laughing, I rolled us so she was flat on her back with me hovering over her. “Please, Samantha.” I ducked down to rub my face on her chest and neck, making her squeal. “Please, please help me.”
Her fingers gripped my hair, putting very little effort into pulling me away. “You don’t deserve it, Natey.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Hmph. I really doubt it.”
Lifting my head, I caught her gaze. “Do I have to show you how sorry I am?”
“Maybe.” Her eyes narrowed. “That depends on what you’re planning.”
“I think I know how to convince you. It requires you lying there very, very still.” I started working down her body, kissing as I went. She squirmed, her hips rising an inch or two off the mattress as I kissed her belly button. I flattened my palm on her abdomen, pressing her down.
“Nate…” she sighed.
“Be still, Sam.” I reached her cleft, smelling the mixture of our pleasure. “Can you be still for me so I can show you how sorry I am?”
Her hips jerked, but she quickly locked them down. “I can. I won’t move.”
Parting her slit with two fingers, I took a long look at her slick, pink flesh and kissed her beaded clit. Her breath stuttered, but she did not move, filling my chest with satisfaction.
“Such a good, sweet girl,” I murmured. “Now let me show you.”
She barely got through the door before I was on her. Yanking up her skirt and stuffing my hand inside her panties.
She responded with the same fervor without a beat of hesitation. Answering my rough kiss with her teeth and tongue. Letting me into her mouth and pussy, even if I had no patience or finesse.
I’d been a lion pacing my cage all evening. Too in my head for my own good. I needed to lose myself, and Samantha was the only one who could show me the way.
Her fingers fumbled with my pajamas, yanking only enough to release my cock. She got me in her grip, holding just shy of painfully tight.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I groaned, ripping my mouth from hers. “Need in you, sweet girl.”
“Then get in me.”
Spinning her around, I rucked her skirt up around her waist and lined myself up with her entrance. She was slick as I drove in hard and fast, her nails scrabbling on the door for purchase. I gave neither of us a chance to catch our breath before I was fucking her hard and fast.
She was just too damn good, and my day had been so very long. There was no being gentle, but Samantha’s body opening to mine, and her wild moans told me she didn’t need that. Not now. Not tonight.
Finally, she was able to brace her hands flat against the door so she could push back, giving as good as she got. I banded my arm around her middle and snaked the other up to her throat, holding her in place. Feeling the vibrations of her moans in my palm.
“You take me so well,” I muttered senselessly. She liked me talking. She wanted me to tell her how good she was. “All the way to the root. Pussy perfect.”
“Yes,” she panted. “Fuck me hard. Please.”
How could I not, when she asked so sweetly?
I pounded into her with a force I didn’t recognize, flesh slapping, grinding, the door shaking with each thrust. My head was foggy, everything clouded over except the woman in front of me and the feel of my body advancing and retreating inside hers.
She was scratching at the door again, moaning wantonly. My hand dipped down her belly, finding her soaked clit between her legs. It didn’t take much. A few swirls of my fingertips, and she clenched around me, keening like she was being ripped apart. Her cries shot to my gut, my heart, my brain.
I was unbound, fully letting go inside her.
My teeth clamped onto the back of her neck, and I wasn’t gentle.
She cried my name, her inner walls so tight it was a battle to keep driving all the way in.
I was almost mindless, but I never forgot who I was fucking.
It was Samantha taking me, letting me release all my angst and frustration into her body and swallowing it whole like she needed it.
“Please, please, please,” she sobbed. “Oh, Nate, please.”
“Yeah, yeah, Sam. Are you ready? Need to be filled?”
“Mmmhmm. So much.”
Her cheek was pressed against the door, and her arms were limp by her sides. She was barely standing on her own, but still she answered my thrusts with the arch of her back, bringing me even deeper into her.
I couldn’t stand it. Not for another second.
When I finally let go, planting myself at the very end of her, she came again, her head falling back on my shoulder as she panted and squeezed.
I closed my eyes, inhaling the scent of her skin—sweat and musky vanilla.
It was drugging and heady, so good I had to stop myself from running my nose all over her neck and shoulders.
When it was over and neither of us was steady on our feet, I managed to gather her in my arms and carry her to the couch, where we collapsed in a heap.
She was plastered to my chest, still in her suit from work.
Her bare feet rubbed rhythmically along my pajama pants, and little by little she melted against me with a sigh.
“You okay?” I asked, stroking her damp hair.
Her laugh was a puff of a thing. “Pussy broken, but otherwise, I’m great.”
My hand froze. “Did I hurt you?”
“Not in a way I didn’t like.” She nuzzled her face into my throat. “That was perfect.”
“I thought you liked it.” I continued stroking her hair, my eyes growing heavy. “You make me crazy sometimes. I was waiting for you to get here. Couldn’t help myself when I finally saw you.”
“Mmm…I don’t mind being used like that. It’s been a fantasy of mine for a while.” She drew a line along my jaw and traced my bottom lip. “I’m not sure that was all about me, though. Do you want to talk about it?”
It was an opening. One I knew she meant.
If I could have summoned the words, I might have taken it.
But how did I explain I’d visited Louise again and listened to her memories of being our mother until I couldn’t stand another second of it?
How did I explain the unwieldy ball of preemptive grief mixed with anger I carried every day?
I spit it out. “I went to see Louise again.”
She hummed, her fingers exploring their tender trail along my face. “Yeah. That would do it.”
Turned out, I didn’t need to explain at all.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
So, I patted her ass. “Come on, you. Let me take you to bed before we fall asleep right here.”
She nuzzled closer. “Would that be so bad?”
“Maybe not.”
Then again, not much was bad when Samantha was around.
“You’re going to hit your head on the ceiling.”
Samantha kept jumping, ignoring my concern. “I’m not going to stop until you get up here with me.”
I folded my arms over my chest, though I wasn’t mad in the least. If anything, I was bemused, which happened often around this woman. It’d been nearly two months since our weekend in Silver Springs, and she still managed to confuse me in a really delightful way.
“So we can both put our heads through the ceiling?” I asked.
Laughing, she raised her arms over her head, her fingers grazing the ceiling above her. “That’s not going to happen. Come on, Natey.” She reached out to me. “Don’t be so square.”
“I’m square, Sam. Face it.”
“No, you’re not.” Her teeth dug into her bottom lip as she gave me a long once-over. “You’re hot and sexy and fun.”
Laughing, I let her tug my hand, but I didn’t climb on the bed with her. “I’m not sure those words mean what you think they do.”
She stopped jumping to glare at me. “Nathan Wells, it’s tradition to jump on a brand-new mattress.
If you don’t do it, you’ll be cursed to a hundred years of bad sex, and since I’m the person you’re currently having sex with, I refuse to let that happen.
Unless…” She let go of her hand to twirl the end of her hair as she batted her eyes.
“Unless you don’t want to have sex with me ever again. ”
“Samantha,” I warned, not liking where this was going.
She stepped to the edge of the bed. “I’ll just go find someone else to—”
I was on the bed before she could think about finishing the sentence, trapping her against my chest. “Shut up.”
We were having sex. Frequent, regular, unprotected sex. It wasn’t a relationship, by any means, but that didn’t mean I’d be fine with her screwing someone else—which she knew and was most assuredly using against me.
She tipped her head back as she giggled, high and floaty. “Oh, look, you’re on the bed.”
“Has anyone ever told you how manipulative you are?”
“Never.” Her mouth curved into a pleased, devious grin. “Now, jump, Natey. For the sake of our sex life.”
Telling her no was impossible, especially when she’d gone to the trouble of picking out this mattress and ordering all new bedding to go along with it. Not to mention the blackout curtains, the soothing color on my walls, and the brand-new lamps on my bedside tables.
If I were honest with myself, though, I’d have done it without all those things. All she had to do was ask.
“Fine,” I huffed, taking her hands. “Let’s get this over with.”
It was stupid. Childish. Would probably ruin the mattress.
But with Samantha giggling like a maniac, I wasn’t thinking of any of those things. I laughed along like a fool as we jumped in a circle, our heads grazing the ceiling more than once.
I was thinking how pretty happiness looked on her.
How long it’d been since I’d felt this much.
And I was beginning to think I really wanted to keep this.