Chapter Twenty One #3
their way down the column of my neck and I suck in a gasp of air.
We're moving, but my eyes are shut tight, my head thrown back, and
though I expect to land on the bed, my back is pushed up against
the wall instead.
The sensation startles me
and my body stiffens, my eyes shooting open. My pulse races and my
breaths come too fast. Suddenly I'm not here in this hotel room
with the man I love. My back isn't cushioned by the upholstered
wall of this luxurious suite, no, it's shoved violently against the
wall of the Linton High School locker room, the brick wall of that
alley.
Sam senses my reaction and
he pulls back to look at me, but he doesn't release me. I close my
eyes again, trying to regain my bearings. I tell myself I'm okay. I
remind myself that Robin is locked up, that Sam would never hurt
me, that there's nothing violent about what he's doing.
"Baby, open your
eyes."
But I can't. Rationally I
know where I am, but some irrational part of me is terrified that
if I open my eyes, I'll be back there, with Robin.
Sam brushes his nose
against mine nuzzling me affectionately. "Look at me, Ror," he
implores.
I pry my eyes open and I'm
immediately staring into midnight blue, soft and
compassionate.
"You are here, with me,"
he says. I don't know how he knows, but he does.
"Breathe."
I do. I take a deep
breath, in, then let it out. Sam smiles in approval and it relaxes
me.
"What's our safe
word?"
"Calculus," I
whisper.
"Would I ever hurt you?"
he asks.
I blink at him a moment
before shaking my head. No, of course he would never hurt me. He
loves me.
Keeping his eyes open and
trained on mine, he slowly returns his lips to my skin, bringing me
back into the moment. He plants soft, gentle kisses along my jaw,
still watching me carefully.
His hips grind into mine
and I moan. My desire returns times infinity and suddenly all I can
think is how much I want him. My legs tighten around him all of
their own accord and the delectable friction
intensifies.
Yes.
"Yes, baby girl. Like
that," Sam groans, answering my movement with more pressure of his
own.
I gasp again, deeper this
time, the softest of whimpers escaping my throat. It's out of my
control, but Sam presses further into me, painfully slowly as his
lips and tongue echo his movements elsewhere.
He kisses me again, deeply,
fully, until he completely owns my mouth—it's his, even more than
it's my own. And God, that's just fine with me.
"It can be like this," he
whispers just below my ear, his breath making me break out into
goose bumps despite its heat.
I know exactly what he's
telling me. He knows I'd been reminded of the time Robin took me
like this in the locker room. It was the worst experience of my
life, the one that haunts me most of all. But Sam won't accept
that. He won't let Robin ruin this for me for life. Sam is saying
this can be good. That he will make it good.
And God, do I know he
will.
Sam carefully lets my
weight back down, waiting until I drop my feet to the
floor.
He slowly undresses me,
dragging my shorts and underwear down my legs, brushing his lips
along my exposed skin. He lifts my tank top over my head before
unfastening my bra and letting it fall to the floor.
He lets his gaze travel
over every inch of me. "God
you're beautiful," he breathes.
He undresses himself more
quickly, unknotting his tie and unbuttoning his dress shirt before
pushing it over his shoulders at the same time as his blazer. I
stand there, my back to the wall, completely naked, completely
still, as he shoves his pants and boxer briefs down the tensed
muscles of his strong thighs.
I return his appraisal.
He's perfection, and it just doesn't matter how many times I see
him like this, it strikes me dumb and mad with lust.
And the sight of his
desire for me, it turns me on even more. His eyes widen and his
nostrils flare; I know it drives him crazy when I look at him like
this. And then suddenly he's grabbing me and kissing me and I'm
back positioned with my legs around him, ready for him to take
me.
He pulls back to watch me,
making sure I'm still okay. But I'm more than okay, I'm desperate,
and if he's not inside me in the next two seconds, I just may
combust.
"Please," I beg
him.
"Fuck," he groans—he loves it when I
beg—and I sigh with pleasure as he finally pushes
inside.
God, it's been too long. I
never want to be without him again. I won't survive it, I know
it.
Sam begins to move,
slowly, with long drives, and though I feel my back pressed into
the wall with each thrust of his hips, I'm reveling in it. The
sensations are all pleasure—all love—and I'm not thinking of anyone
other than him, of anything other than this.
He moves faster, harder,
until I'm moaning and begging with every movement of his body in
mine. He's deep inside me when I come, more intensely that I was
prepared for, and I scream his name as he moves me, turning us and
dropping me down onto the bed and moving erratically until he
follows me into ecstasy, chanting my name and a mix of barely
intelligible expletives.
Afterwards we lay entwined
in bed, silent for a long time. It's more than a comfortable
silence, it's blissful.
Sam runs his fingers
lightly over my skin as I trace the lines of muscle and sinew on
his chest and stomach. I can't seem to stop touching
him.
"Ror…" His voice is low and
gravelly.
"Mmm?" Sex with Sam is
always incredible, but it's this part, the part afterwards, when
we're lazy and sated, just touching and talking that I love the
most.
"I want you to promise me
something," he says.
"Boy you must feel like
it's your lucky day," I tease.
"I've never felt luckier."
But there's no jest in his tone, and I'm surprised by his
seriousness.
I stare up at him, waiting
for his request.
"If you ever feel, you
know, overwhelmed, like you can't handle it—us—I want you to promise you'll talk
to me. That you won't just… run away."
I swallow anxiously. We
never did talk about the night I left him here in Miami. I never
told him the real reason I ended it. I guess its' my turn to
confess.
I take a deep breath. "I
have to tell you something."
Worry lines instantly mark
his perfect face and I talk fast, desperate to vanquish
them.
"The night we broke
up—"
"You mean the night
you broke up with
me and then got on a
plane in the middle of the night," he corrects me. I guess I
deserve that. I look away.
"I was just trying to
protect you," I say weakly.
"You—wait,
what?" he asks,
puzzled.
I know I have to explain
myself. "Look, Sam, we'd been together for a day and you'd already
gotten into two fights because of me, got accused of assault and
battery, and then got taken away in handcuffs for an entirely
different reason, also because of me. You're a straight A student
and star athlete heading off to freaking Columbia, and then twenty four hours
with me and your entire future's at risk. I couldn't—"
Sam sits up and pushes
away from me. He scoots over, like he needs to put distance between
us, and it twists my gut.
"So you're saying you were
fine with us, you just thought you'd push me away to
keep me out of trouble?" His words are an accusation, and I suppose I deserve that,
too.
"Like I said, I was trying
to protect you," I repeat shakily.
He stands from the bed.
More distance. I hate every inch between us. I pull the sheet up to
cover my body; Sam stands there, though, completely unabashed by
his nakedness.
"You're not my fucking
mother. I don't need you to decide what's best for me like I'm some
little kid." He shoves his hands through his hair. "Do you have any
idea how hard these past two months have been for me?"
I do, actually. I felt
every ounce of that pain. But I don't say anything, because having
his anger trained on me is debilitating. Even if it's well
deserved.
"You lied to me. You used
my promise not to pressure you against me." His voice is low and
full of disappointment and he can't even meet my eyes as he turns,
pulls his underwear back on, and walks out the glass door to the
balcony.
I don't know what to do. I
want to follow him, to apologize, but he doesn't seem to want
anything to do with me right now.
Vaguely I'm aware that it
isn't fair. That I forgave him almost immediately for the lie that
caused my panic attack this morning—the one he told to protect
me. But at the same
time, I'd rather endure that again than the last two months of
torment. I slip my tank top over my head, pull on my cutoffs, and
just sit on the bed waiting.
Five minutes feel like a
lifetime, and they're all I can grant him before I make my way
after him. He leans on the rail, staring out at the waves crashing
languidly on the sand in perfect rhythm twenty stories below us. It
would be peaceful if I weren’t feeling such turmoil in my
heart.
"I'm sorry," I tell him. "I
really am. But… I love you, Sam. I loved you then, and I love you
now, and I just thought… I thought that you'd be better off without
me." My voice is quiet, but earnest.
"Better off without you," he mutters
bitterly. Finally, he turns to face me. "What do you think now,
Rory? Was I better off?"
I loathe his sarcastic
tone. It cuts me with every word. "I think… I think it's hard for
me to come to terms with getting you into fights, into trouble. I
think that two days after we got back together you took another
giant risk framing Robin."
Sam glares at me. "Except
I told you that's been in the works for weeks. We weren't even
speaking when I went to meet with my father," he
replies.
It would have surprised me
a month ago, but not anymore. "I realized that I was wrong, Sam.
That whether we were together or not you were still looking out for
me. It's why…" My frustration grows, snowballing with each breath I
take. Does he think this was all easy for
me?!
"Do you think you're the