Chapter 13 Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Baby, It’s Cold Outside
Sam lived in an adorable old house off Main Street. It was one of those original in-town houses that was built in the early nineteen-hundreds. It was, of course, fully decorated with colored lights and LED wreaths and candles in the windows.
But the free advertising for his business didn’t stop at the Christmas décor.
The large front yard was meticulously landscaped with big oak trees and flower beds that would be bursting with blooms in the spring.
There was a big sun porch and a white picket fence beyond the detached garage.
It was beautiful and a surprise and yet somehow so Sam.
Maybe not the young Sam I grew up with, but this business-savvy, smart, mature version of Sam I was getting to know.
He parked in the driveway and led me up the manicured walk into his house. I was expecting more decorations, more festive fun, more . . . well, just more. But the inside was surprisingly bare.
“Oh,” I said, laughing.
“What?” He took off his outer layers and gloves, tucking the gloves into his coat pockets and hanging it in a little alcove near the front door. The arched doorways and rich original wood gave the house a personality the lack of furniture did not.
“The outside is so jolly. I was expecting, uh, a fully furnished home?”
His laughter echoed through the empty rooms. “I have a couch.” He pointed at the living room off to our right. Sure enough, he had a big leather sectional set up to watch a huge TV hanging above a fireplace.
“That’s good. I always say you need at least one piece of furniture in every home.”
He grabbed my waist, tugging me back against his chest. His mouth dropped to my ear. “I have the essentials.”
How had he turned his empty house into being sexy? There was something wrong with me. “That you do.”
“You can help me,” he decided, reaching around to unzip my coat.
I let him. It was a necessary thing to do as the warmth of his house—and his body—made me desperate to shed this top layer.
But somehow it was sensual, too. He moved the zipper down slowly, his chest pressing into my back, his cheek caressing mine, his stubble tickling and making me excessively aware that we were two grown adults alone in his home.
The zipper reached the end of its journey, and he pulled back so I could shrug out of it. When Sam toed off his shoes, I toed off mine.
“Okay, give me the tour,” I told him.
“Don’t judge me,” he murmured. But still, he took my hand and led me around.
The living room, the completely empty dining room, the fancy kitchen that was the most furnished because of all the appliances.
“I spend the most time in here,” he said as he pointed at the island stools and eat-in kitchenette.
“It’s fancy.”
“I’ve been updating slowly. The house structure needed a lot of work.
The bathrooms needed help. This room took me the longest.” There wasn’t arrogance in his voice, only facts.
It was a humble sort of admission, a modest assessment.
He had very expensive appliances, and the details from the trim to the original-style ceiling were cared for and invested in.
But he worked hard for these things—to afford them and to care for them.
“I’m impressed, Sam. You work hard on your business, and you work hard on your house . . . what do you do for fun?”
He tucked his hands into his back pockets. “Those things are fun.”
“I like to read,” I told him.
He held my gaze. “I remember.”
My cheeks flushed. “You act like you’ve always liked me.”
His smile was small and secretive. His green eyes warmed with something too hot to touch. “Do you want to see upstairs?”
“What’s upstairs?”
He tilted his head back the way we’d come. “My bedroom.”
Taking my hand again, he led me up the polished wood stairs.
I peeked in the rooms, noticing that most of them were empty except one that had all the bones of a home office but was in absolute disarray.
The desk piled high with papers and odds and ends, was pushed to the middle of the room, and drop cloths covered the wood floor.
One wall had several squares of different shades of blue as if he was still deciding on paint colors.
The sight of the home DIY project made my tummy flip for some reason.
It was so normal, so adult . . . so completely the Sam of today.
I couldn’t help but feel like I was drowning in this man’s presence.
At the end of a long hall, he pushed a door open to reveal his bedroom. I expected more of the same. Either a mattress on the floor or an unfinished project that would give me only a glimpse of his vision.
Instead, I found the most beautiful space.
The walls were painted a deep, stormy gray.
The rest of the tones were rich woods and deep earth tones.
There was a massive king-size bed at the back of the room with heavy nightstands and matching lamps on either side.
A small sitting area, including a leather love seat and matching recliner, was pushed off to one side of the room, facing a large TV.
The other side shared space for a big, modern bathroom and a huge walk-in closet.
It was clear that Sam spent most of his time up here. His house was too big for him, a man who’d come from a family of nine. He preferred his comfortable space, his island of isolation, his peaceful refuge.
He inhaled deeply from behind me, and I realized I hadn’t said anything. He’d been waiting for my reaction, but I’d been soaking in the space so completely I’d forgotten to say anything out loud.
“It’s so you,” I told him, hoping to put him at ease. “It’s perfect.”
“It’s probably a little bachelor pad-like, huh?”
I thought back to Hudson’s apartment. He’d had enough IKEA furniture to put things in every room, but it was disjointed and cheap looking. Nothing matched, and he’d not cared enough to style anything.
Sam was the opposite. He put thought into every piece, every part. He might not rush to fill a room with anything that would fit, but the pieces he did move in were cared for, treated with respect.
I had been expecting a frat house and got something that belonged in a magazine instead.
“Not at all.” My voice sounded too breathy as I turned to face him. We stared at each other only a few feet apart.
“Are you hungry?” he asked after a minute.
I was hungry, but not for supper. I closed the distance between us and pulled his face to mine. He met me halfway in a hungry, desperate kiss that had me reaching up on my tiptoes and twining my arms around his neck.
His hands landed on my waist and held me tightly against him. Our mouths explored in a way that was freer than before, more intentional, more . . . determined.
I’d been afraid of his kiss yesterday at the Meyer’s. And earlier tonight we’d been chilled by the outdoors and our confessions. But now, in the middle of his space, knowing all I knew, having lost the burden of miscommunication, I wanted him like I had all those years ago.
Maybe more so.
Maybe this thing between us had been building and building for years, made more intense because of the distance, because we’d forced ourselves to hold back.
But now the dam had been opened and the full rush of my feelings for him flowed forward.
Even thinking back to that night under the mistletoe, I hadn’t known how he felt about me. I’d been so afraid. So insecure.
Tonight, there was none of that.
He’d been clear. He’d made sure I didn’t have to guess. He wanted this as much as I did.
His hands flexed over my thick coat. I shrugged it off, letting it pool on the floor at my feet. He murmured his approval, slipping his fingers beneath my thin tank top so that we were finally skin to skin.
I tugged at his quarter zip, and we pulled apart for just a moment so he could remove it.
Then we were back together, mouth against mouth, tongue against tongue.
My hands moved into his thick head of hair.
His kisses trailed over my jaw, down the line of my throat, across my collarbone where he nibbled and sucked and made me gasp for breath. Then, finally, to the top of my breast.
“Tell me when to stop.” His scruff tickled my sensitive skin.
“No,” I told him. “Don’t stop.”
He pulled back, meeting my heated gaze. “We don’t have to—”
“Only if you don’t want to,” I told him. “If you want to stop—”
“I don’t want to stop.” He laughed low and dark. “Holly, I’ve wanted this for—” He kissed me deeply, his teeth grazing my bottom lip. “Holly, I want you. More than you know.”
“I’m yours, Sam. Have me.”
And he did.
We moved back toward the bed, slowly, unable to quit kissing, our feet tripping and stumbling over each other. We were laughing by the time my legs hit his baseboard. But our mirth didn’t last long. Neither did our clothes.
I took his remaining shirt, admiring his hard, muscled chest. The way he’d grown so fully into manhood. The breadth of his shoulders. The taper of his waist. Gosh, he was breathtaking to behold.
Then he took mine and had a similar worshipful moment, admiring the ways I was soft to his hard, curvy to his flat, woman to his man. While he admired, I reached back to unclasp my bra, pulling it down slowly, savoring the way his gaze darkened and he watched the straps fall one by one.
“Holly.” He hissed out a breath. Then he stepped slowly forward and kissed me again.
He started at the corner of my mouth and worked his way down.
His tongue trailed a path over the curve of my jaw, down the column of my throat, to the swell of my breast. Then down further until he’d sucked my nipple into his mouth.
I gasped, arching my back, begging for more.
He moved to the other side, the other nipple.
I clutched his shoulders and leaned back against the bed, shaking with nerves, with need.
His hands reached for my thighs, picking me up by the knees and wrapping my legs around his waist. Together we tumbled onto the bed where he wasted no time in peeling my leggings away.
Before he could go further, I grabbed him by the waistband, silently demanding he match me.
He obliged. And I was treated to a delicious undressing.
And then there we were, only separated by two thin pieces of clothing.
He pulled back, his hands trailing down my thighs. “I’ve wanted you my whole life, Holly.”
I held his gaze. “I’ve wanted you too.”
He shook his head slightly. “Not your body.” A smile tugged at his full mouth.
“Not just your body.” His fingers brushed back and forth over my inner thighs, driving me wild.
“I’ve wanted you, Holly Haden. I’ve wanted you to be mine.
I’ve wanted you to talk to and laugh with and enjoy.
I’ve wanted what that kiss under the mistletoe promised all those years ago—the start of something beautiful.
This isn’t just sex for me. I want you in my life.
I want you by my side. I want you—all of you. ”
I didn’t know what to say. My heart punched at my chest, beating something new and foreign.
Had anyone ever wanted me like this? So completely?
So purely? Tears pricked my eyes, an embarrassing swell of emotion at his admission.
I had never felt cared for like this. I’d never felt seen like this.
What was I supposed to do now? How could I ever go back to life without him?
Whatever happened next, I knew my life would be divided differently from now on—to the before Sam Autry part and the after, because this night was about to irrevocably change me.
I felt it already happening, a bone-deep metamorphosis that would be impossible to come back from.
“Okay, Sam.” He held my gaze, a silent question burning through the air between us. “Okay,” I repeated on a raw whisper.
He saw something then, or heard it in my voice.
And then there was nothing between us. He pulled protection out of the drawer next to his bed, and we were moving together.
He pushed into me, and I gasped a cry of pleasure.
I wrapped my arms around his back, my legs around his hips, needing to anchor myself.
But nothing could have prepared me for this.
For Sam Autry claiming me so thoroughly.
He murmured beautiful promises in my ear between kisses, between gasps and cries and moans. We were meant to fit this way. Meant to move this way.
And I surrendered to him, completely.
When I didn’t think I could take any more, when my body was so strung tight and my bliss danced just out of reach, he slipped one hand under my back and tilted my hips just so. And then he hit me exactly where I was most desperate for him.
I came apart with fireworks behind my closed eyelids and his name on my lips. He followed me in a pounding, stretching, reverent sort of way. And when it was over, he touched his forehead to mine and with closed eyes stayed like that for a long, awed moment.
When at last he lay down next to me, it was only so he could pull me into the crook of his arm and hold me there.
Eventually, hours later, we got out of bed to clean up, hunt for food, only to climb back into bed again.
We laughed and talked about all the things that had happened over the last six years, the memories we shared from before and the plans we had for the future.
He listened attentively and made me laugh in ways I couldn’t remember ever laughing so hard.
And when I fell asleep in his arms much too late for a girl who had to wrangle first graders in the morning, I searched my memory for when I’d ever been this happy.
I fell asleep knowing the answer clearly. I’d never been this content, this overjoyed, this . . . settled.
Sam Autry had been the man of my dreams once upon a time. And now he was the man I hoped would be my real future.