Chapter 17
Sam
“Now connected to device: Sam’s a pussy.”
“Will’s handiwork, I assume?”
I sighed. It was nice that I had a key to my brother’s gym, and he was cool with me coming in at weird hours between shifts. But it also meant he did dumb shit like label my phone under ridiculous names in the Bluetooth system. And, of course, it connected the instant Lainey walked out of the women’s locker room.
My workout playlist filtered through the speakers as I patted the mat beside me. She dropped onto it, folding into a stretch that made my jaw clench. The Powerade and a second protein bar had brought me back from the brink of unconsciousness on the drive over here. But that didn’t mean now was an ideal time to notice how deliciously bendy she was.
“This was a good idea. Do you do this often? Break in at odd hours?”
I nodded, thrilled to focus on something other than her forehead touching her shins, and the subsequent thoughts I had about seeing just how far she’d be able to bend with my cock inside of her. Shit . I flipped on my back to stare at the ceiling and stretch out my hamstrings. The last few days without her had made me feel deprived. Desperate. But she was going through something, dammit. And we’d both had shitty days. I needed to get looser, not harder.
“Often enough. Sometimes, if I don’t come in the middle of the night, I don’t get a workout.”
She grunted in agreement. “I don’t get to the gym nearly as much as I want, and I hate that. One time, a nanny told me I was ‘excitable’ if I didn’t get enough exercise, which was just code for loud, I think.”
“You’re not loud.”
She shifted on the mats beside me, changing sides. I did not look. “Take that up with Maria. She was Montessori-trained with a PhD in child development. If she said excitable, it was practically a diagnosis. It’s why my parents got me so involved in sports when I was young. Now, if I don’t hit the gym at least twice a week, I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin.”
“Is she the one who taught you not to curse, too?”
“Ah, no. That would be Sister Mary Louise. Those catholic school nuns can put the fear of God into you.”
I grunted, adding do not think of Lainey in a catholic school uniform to my list of things to avoid tonight. “I’m sure Will would give you the code to use every once in a while, if you asked. You’re his favorite regular, after all.”
Silence met my offer, and I could practically feel her walls coming back up, brick by brick. Dammit.
I rolled to a seat, peeking over to where she twisted on her back, staring blankly up at the ceiling. “Is this the part where you avoid me again?” I asked, teasing, but not.
“I…No. It’s…” Her head rolled towards me on the mat. “It’s stupid.”
“I’d rather talk about something stupid now than not talk to you for another week.”
“Oh, God.” She shriveled up, a full-body grimace. Her hair hung in her eyes when she rolled up to face me. “I’m sorry. Katie freaked me out, and then, I don’t know. Everything with Jas felt too real.”
“Jas?” Throughout the past few days of wracking my brain, trying to figure out what I’d done wrong, my sister-in-law hadn’t been on the list. They’d been thick as thieves after their time together. Jasmine was pestering me daily about when I was going to tie Lainey down.
Whenever the hell she’d let me , was the answer, but it was hard to snap at a woman recently released from the hospital. Jas’s spirits were high, and she could work from home, but she’d needed something to take her mind off her diagnosis. She could fixate on me and Lainey, if that’s what she needed.
“The only thing I’m good at is work, Sam. I’ve never been good at relationships.”
“Sweetheart.” I couldn’t stop the endearment from rushing out. If I hadn’t been sitting, those liquid brown eyes would have knocked me on my ass. She was so pretty and vibrant. Seeing her huddled on the mat, looking like she was confessing her deepest sin, tore at something inside me.
“No, really. I’m just not good at this. You don’t get it because you are. You have all your family and your people. I don’t have that.” She bit her lip. “I grew up really sheltered, traveling around with my mom a lot or hanging out with my nannies. I didn’t learn how to do this . I thought maybe I could, you know? I asked Rija out for tapas and then Jas needed someone in the exam room and Conner starts talking to me about tacos and Katie is standing right there making me remember how I’ve never had a successful relationship with anyone, ever.”
Her hand shot out to wrap around my wrist. Those delicate fingers hardly closed around it. “This has nothing to do with you, Sam. I just got…overwhelmed, I guess. Maybe I tried to do too much too fast. I’m sorry.”
Her skin looked good against mine. A few shades darker. Smoother. “Maybe you talk to me about it next time, instead of avoiding me in the hallways.”
“I didn’t avoid you.” Her thumb brushed across my wrist.
“I’m pretty sure I saw you smack into the doorway of the physician’s lounge you were trying to get away so quickly.”
She smiled. It wasn’t much, but after these days without her, it felt like the sun coming out after a storm. She grabbed my hand when I flexed it out to her. “You want to talk about it? The overwhelm?”
“No, thanks.”
“So, I’ll talk to you next week, I guess?”
Another smile, this one tinged with bitterness. “I really am sorry if I hurt you. It doesn’t seem fair. You didn’t sign up for all my baggage.”
“I know exactly what I signed up for.” I cupped her face when she looked away. “You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want to scare me off. How am I supposed to get the full trial-dating experience if you don’t give me the chance?”
As we moved through our sets, she cracked open, inch by inch. By the time we’d finished abs, she felt like Lainey again. No more avoiding my eyes or going weirdly, coldly silent.
Aside from a quick jog, I kept our exercises light. I wasn’t trying to run us further into the ground. Her ongoing commentary on our reps kept me smiling. After our date last week, all I’d wanted was more of her. When she started avoiding me, I’d worried I wouldn’t get a chance; not to hear her laugh, or feel her lips on mine again.
But as we moved our way around the gym, it started to feel like another shot with Lainey was a distinct possibility. As much as I was eying her, I could also feel her eyes on me. It was addicting. Especially when she dialed up the charm.
“Close out with squats?” She tapped a kettlebell with her toe. “Your favorite.”
“Favorite?”
She met my gaze in the mirror, splaying her fingers across her ribs as she effected a low growl I assumed was supposed to sound like me. “Perfect.” Her shoulders shuddered, eyes rolling back in her head.
My face warmed. She’d never brought up my little assist that day, and I told myself she hadn’t noticed. It wasn’t a big deal. I was equally pleased and mortified that she seemed to remember it just as well as I did. “Sorry about that. Couldn’t help myself.”
“Never apologize for feeding my praise kink.” Oh, fuck. I was filing that one away for later. I could work with a praise kink, I really, really could. “Come on doc, my form needs correcting.”
I wanted to go to her. Hell, I just plain wanted her, but I still had a few shreds of dignity left. Even though my dick was trying its hardest to convince me that dignity was for assholes and I should go shove my tongue down her throat.
No matter how much I wanted to, I was still coming down from that pins and needles feeling of her avoidance, and I wasn’t keen to repeat it.
“You sure about that?”
“Oh, yes.” She nodded solemnly. “I’m all over the place. Liable to hurt myself.”
I smiled despite myself. I liked her. “Lainey, you have no idea how much I want to get my hands all over your form, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea tonight.”
Her face fell for a split-second, before she caught it and gave me a tight smile. “Right. That’s fair. I haven’t been very nice to you this week.”
I caught her arm before she could back away. “Did you not hear me before? I’m still here for this. But I want to make sure you are, too.” I stroked up and down her arm. “You said you’re feeling overwhelmed. I don’t want to add to that.”
She bit her lip, looking down at the hand smoothing across her skin. I could hear her throat working as she swallowed.
“You’re very close to people. Your family. Santiago.”
“Hmm,” I agreed. She’d mentioned this before, but I wasn’t sure where she was going with it now.
“Being around you, seeing it all…I’m jealous.” The concept was laughable. Lainey Carmichael, genius surgeon who grew up with two butlers, jealous of me? Yet the look on her face said she was serious. “I’ve been thinking about something Katie said when she told me she was moving here. She said she was hoping we could, like, bury the hatchet. She said that if I’d ‘moved on,’ maybe we could have a ‘fresh start.’”
“Bullshit.” I didn’t need Lainey’s air quotes to know exactly what part of that had been Katie’s words.
Lainey’s mouth hitched. “Maybe. But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized I haven’t moved on at all.” She stared, unfocused, at my throat. Her laugh sounded hollow. “It’s kind of sad, really. I’m just existing here. I’ve been like that since I moved. I don’t have any friends in Chicago. No family. Just work.”
She shook her head, finally looking up at me. Pain flared in her eyes. “I don’t have close people, and you have so many. It comes so naturally to you, and I can’t even ask Rija out for tapas without it getting weird. I think they broke me.”
“Of course.”
Her lips pulled into a pout. “I didn’t actually want you to agree with that.”
“Lainey.” She came willingly when I pulled her close. She fit against me like a dream, smelling of vanilla when I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Of course they broke something inside you. You can’t go through that and come out the other side completely intact.”
Her head rocked against my sternum. “I don’t know that I’m fully on the other side.”
“That’s okay.”
“It’s not. It’s not okay. I’ve been stuck in the same place for years. You deserve someone who’s unstuck.” She put a few inches between us. “I want to be able to ask a friend out to dinner without it being weird or without freaking out that I’m getting too close to them.”
“Alright. You should do that, then. Maybe not everything all at once, though.” Her mouth trembled. My fingers glided down her cheek. “And in the meantime, don’t worry about me.” I’d waited this long to be with her. I could wait a while longer as she got her head on straight.
“Of course I’m going to worry about you. You’re basically the whole reason this is happening.” Her hands gripped my shirt, like she had in my kitchen that first night, and when we waited in line for barbecue. I liked it. It felt like she was sinking her hooks into me, worried I’d get away, and she couldn’t stand the thought.
“This feels like something. Doesn’t it?” Her hands clenched and unclenched in the fabric.
You have no idea , I wanted to tell her. This feels like everything . But I couldn’t say that. She was still on edge and I wouldn’t push her over. I settled for: “Yes.”
“I know. And I’m tired of keeping people at arm’s length.” She searched my face. “You make it seem like it’s worth the risk.”
She looked tired. I pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Sweetheart, you can keep me as close as you’d like.”
She sighed my name, leaning her head into my palm. It felt like a surrender.
“I won’t hurt you, Lainey. I promise .”
My lips whispered over hers like I was sealing the vow. Breath mingled. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
I teased her, flicking my tongue across her bottom lip, staying there even when she opened for me instantly. I’d dreamed about her mouth. That pouty bottom lip drove me insane, and I owed it to myself to fully indulge.
She wasn’t nearly as patient as me. Fisting hands tugged on my shirt until I pressed against her. Her frustrated little growl shot straight to my dick. I slipped between her teeth and the kiss turned a corner from teasing to full contact.
Fingernails scraped along my sides as she moaned. She tasted so sweet. Her tongue met mine, flicking across my lips in an echo of how I lapped at her. I didn’t tolerate it nearly as well as she did. The move clenched me up, and I rocked into her without conscious thought.
She gasped when I rocked again, pulling on my neck to draw me closer. Absolutely impossible with how we were plastered against each other. But I was game to try if she was.
I moved, backing us to the wall a few feet away. She turned wild under my hands as her back met cinderblock, writhing against where I was getting harder, faster than I’d thought possible. The perfect weight of her breast was heavy in my palm. So soft.
“Christ, Lainey.” I tore my mouth away from where I nipped along her jaw. Feeling wasn’t enough. I had to see her arching into me. My thumb circled around and around, skirting the edges of the little budded nipple pushing against the fabric of her tank top.
“Sam. Please.” I savored her whimper, hooking a hand behind her knee, boosting up at the same moment she wrapped her other leg around. We were practically choreographed. I thrust against her hard before I could control myself. Nails scraped up my neck and her fingers tangled in my hair. The pinch of pain where she gripped the strands only spurred me on.
“You like that, Honey?” My hips rolled into hers again and again. I echoed the movement with my mouth, tongue spearing through her lips as she panted, wide open for me, top and bottom. I clenched the fingers currently holding her ass to the wall. Her flesh was pliant under my hand. I slipped up into her spandex shorts. Gripped harder. She bit my lip in response.
I groaned. “Lainey, I—”
“No sex in the gym! I just cleaned the mats today, man.”
Lainey froze, head jerking up to locate the source of Will’s voice. I glared at the security camera in the corner, tilting my body to hide as much of Lainey as possible. We still had all our clothes on, but something feral in my chest growled at the prospect of someone else seeing her like this. Open and wet and hot .
“Go away.”
“Bro, I woke up to take a piss and saw the security alerts on my phone going crazy. You go away.”
“Oh, my God.” Lainey buried her face in my chest and clenched her legs tighter around me, like she wanted to curl into a little ball and hide.
“William.” I’d spent most my life practically co-raising my younger brothers. I liked to think I had netted some minimal authority over them.
“No sex, Sam! Lock up when you leave.” The light on the camera blinked from green to red when he ended the livestream to his phone. Thank God.
My hands skated across Lainey’s shoulders. Fucking Will. “Sorry about that.”
She groaned, still tucked into my chest. “He’s never going to let us hear the end of this.”
Sighing, I stroked my hands across her skin again. She was probably right.