Twice in a Blue Moon

by Christina Lauren

I had to swallow past a thick swell of YES in my throat, and managed a garbled “Of course.”

  “Sorry we cut out of breakfast so early.”

  For once this morning, Sam and Luther were downstairs before we arrived, and they left only a few minutes after we’d returned with our plates of food. “Is Luther okay?”

  “Not sure. He hasn’t been eating much.”

  Now that he mentioned it, I’d noticed it, too.

  His hand curled around the back of my neck, warm and firm. Changing the subject, he asked, “Is it weird to be on your own in a big city?”

  “A little. Mom and Nana don’t really let me go anywhere alone.”

  “Were they worried about something happening related to your dad?” He squeezed my neck gently. “Or are they just overprotective?”

  “I don’t think they were worried about Dad. More the media, I guess. Or… it just became habit to worry. Every day, up until I graduated, one of them would drop me off and pick me up from school.”

  He looked floored. “Seriously?”

  I nodded. “I have a driver’s license, but I’ve driven alone only a handful of times, and only ever around town. I’ve been to movies with friends without Nana or Mom, but am required to check in immediately after the show ends.”

  “But now they’re letting you move to Sonoma? How far is that?”

  “Fifty miles. It’s about as close as I could be.” Regret pulsed like a twin heartbeat inside me. “I also got in to Santa Cruz, University of Oregon, and UC Santa Barbara—but they just felt too far.”

  He hummed and slid his fingers into the hair at the nape of my neck, sending an electric pulse from my scalp to the base of my spine. I could feel his fingertips, the way his hand flexed. He made tiny circles with the tip of his index finger, and the sensation traveled down my body; an anticipatory thrum settled low in my navel.

  “By the time I was twelve,” he said, “I was out in the barns at dawn, and then earning money mowing lawns, pitching hay, you name it. Luther and Roberta rarely had any idea where I was when I wasn’t at school or the dinner table with them. I think that kind of supervision would’ve driven me crazy.”

  “Probably. It drives me crazy, and I’m used to it.”

  “Could I come see you in Sonoma?”

  My legs stiffened so suddenly that we tilted left. Sam’s hand came over mine on the steering lever, gently guiding us away from an oncoming boat. Once we’d paddled ourselves clear, he let go and looked over at me, amused. “Did I freak you out?”

  I shook my head, but couldn’t manage to spit out a simple no. I mean, obviously I’d been wondering the same thing—hoping that I could see him again after we left London—but some fantasies are easier to play with when they seem impossible. Now, not only was I imagining a dorm, a roommate, classes, and fifty miles separating me from Mom and Nana, I was imagining Sam there, too. It seemed like an infinite abyss of unknowns.

  “I just had a moment where it really hit me that I’m leaving home,” I admitted, “and I’m going to be on my own. I can’t even fathom living in a new place, let alone having you come see me outside of this London bubble.”

  “You’re so brave, Tate.” He took a few quiet moments before speaking again. “But am I wrong to think there’s something happening here?”

  I looked at him and waited for the right words to come. I’d had exactly one boyfriend. Jesse kissed me sophomore year at homecoming, and that was that. No discussion of do you want this or should we try that. In fact, we were never great when it came to discussing anything—we’d known each other since fourth grade, so romantic arbitration still eluded me. But I did know what Sam meant. It was why, even though I was on a trip with my grandmother, I’d been more careful with my makeup. It’s why I agonized a little every morning about what I was going to wear. It’s why my favorite part of the day was when I saw him.

  “Tate?” he prompted when I remained silent.

  “No, you’re not wrong,” I said.

  “You feel it too?”

  I wondered if he could hear my heartbeat. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m not very good at… ”

  He slowed his pedaling. “Is it too early to be talking about this?”

  “I mean, I don’t know how college students–slash-writers-slash-farmers do things in Vermont, but it’s not too soon for me. Just new.”

  But Sam didn’t laugh. He leaned over and pressed the slightest kiss to my neck, just beneath my jaw.

  From my chest to between my legs, everything went tight. I could smell strawberries on his breath.

  “You smell like strawberries.”

  A rumbling laugh escaped, and he leaned back a little. “I had a crepe while I was waiting for you. Want to get off this lake and go get one?”

  * * *

  My legs were weak from the effort it took to paddle the boat against the wind back to the dock, but I was well aware Sam did most of the work. As he collected his deposit at the kiosk, he wasn’t even winded—he probably could have taken off and run twenty miles if I asked him to.

  We bought two more crepes and found a spot on the grass, in dappled shade beneath a maple tree. I had the strange sense of being precariously suspended above a canyon, almost like the way I feel in a dream when I’m floating and look down and realize that I’m actually falling. This felt like the start of something new, something scary but glorious. It felt like I was deciding not just whether I would kiss this man, but whether I would chase every other dirty thought I had, too.

  He let out a satisfied moan when he finished the last bite of his food and fell back on the lawn with a grin aimed at the sky. “Damn, I could fall asleep right here.”

  Out of instinct, I pulled my phone from my bag and sent Nana a quick text to let her know I was okay. She had brought Mom’s BlackBerry; she despised all manner of mobile phone, but Mom insisted.

  Nana replied shortly with I’m at Libby’s for the next few hours. Meet me in the lobby at five, please.

  I stared at my phone and felt something weightless inside me expand. It was only eleven in the morning, and I had an entire day of freedom.

  I turned to find Sam already watching me. “What?”

  He smiled and rolled onto his side, propping his head on his elbow. “We seem to spend most of our time together on lawns.”

  The words burst free: “And horizontal.”

  “And horizontal,” he agreed through a grin.

  “At least it’s daylight.” And looking at him in the light—in a way I hadn’t been able to when we were out together during the day with Luther and Nana—was like chugging down a glass of cold water. His skin was smooth and clear, eyes like glass surrounded by generous lashes. He couldn’t have inherited anything from Luther genetically, but he sure did have the same wide smile.

  He seemed to be taking me in just as carefully. His eyes swept over the long waves of my hair, across my cheeks, to my mouth—where they lingered. And then he met my gaze and grinned, pulling a small dimple into his left cheek. “You have amazing eyes.”

  With a tremble in my stomach, I rolled to my side too, stacking our empty paper plates and moving them out of the way. “What do you feel like doing today?”

  His pupils swelled, turning his eyes nearly black, and in the brief reaction I read the forbidden thoughts there. I wondered whether they mirrored my own: Sam’s mouth on mine, the heat of his palm beneath my shirt, the way he would block out the sun if he hovered over me.

  He shrugged. “What do you feel like doing?”

  “Things I’m not sure we could do in a park.”

  His brows shot up, and a laugh burst out of his mouth. “Tate, holy shit.”

  “Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it too. I could see it all over your face.”

  He looked at my mouth again, and a lazy grin settled on his. “You always this honest?”

  I was already shaking my head. “Absolutely not.”

  Sam’s brows pulled closer together. “Why with me?”

  “I
don’t know.” He just seemed to pull everything out of me: my truth magnet. Maybe it was because he already knew my secret; there was nothing else about me that I’d ever have to hide. “I just feel safe with you.”

  “I could ask you anything, and you’d tell me?” he asked.

  He was so close, maybe only six inches away, and my heart was a jackhammer. I could lean forward and press my lips to his. I was 99.8 percent sure he’d let me.

  “You can try,” I said.

  I watched his tongue dart out, wet his lips. “Hmm.”

  “I could ask you anything too,” I ventured.

  “Sure.”

  But all my thoughts were more… physical. I was wiped clean of any questions. Maybe he could see it too, because he smiled a little wider and reached out to pull a strand of hair from where it was stuck to my lip. “So you’ve had one boyfriend?”

  “Yeah. But we didn’t have sex.”

  His hand fell away leisurely, his breathing slowed, and he let my words settle between us. I felt everything come to a stop inside me, immediately wanting to swallow back what I’d said, wanting to stand up and walk away and dive under the covers back at the hotel room.

  “I don’t know why I just said that,” I admitted.

  “Because you’re thinking about it.”

  If my heart was racing before, it was torpedoing now, a wild metronome inside me that couldn’t keep pace with this song.

  “Don’t be embarrassed,” he said quietly. “I am too.”

  “You’ve done it before?” I wanted to shove my fist in my mouth over how naive I sounded.

  He let out a sweet laugh, a gentle “Yeah.”

  At first, I thought I was only imagining that he moved closer, but then his mouth was on mine, just once: a pressing, lingering strawberry kiss.

  “That okay?” he asked, his words whispered against my lips. He pulled back, taking me in. His breath was warm on my skin.

  “I’ve been kissed before.”

  With another quiet laugh, he leaned in again, and this time he brought one hand up, cupping the side of my face, before sliding it into my hair. His mouth opened, warm and careful, and he tasted me, pulling back again with a smile. “Now you taste like strawberries.”

  I may have tasted sweet, but I’d become a monster, a shark given a whiff of blood. With a hand on his neck, I pulled him back, urging him partway over me so his chest covered mine. He came readily, groaning, and was careful not to crush me, putting his weight on an elbow, propping his other hand beside my ribs.

  I couldn’t get enough, couldn’t kiss him deep enough or press my mouth hard enough against his. I wanted him so intensely; it had been building only for days but it felt like months, and it made me ache in this agonizing, impatient way.

  He pulled away a little, breathless as he kissed my chin, my neck, and then pressed his forehead to my shoulder. “Easy, Tate. I still have to walk out of here.”

  His ear was so close to my heart, I was sure he could hear the way it flipped around inside me. “Nana’s gone for the next few hours,” I said.

  Slowly, Sam lifted his head and studied me. “You wanna go back to the hotel?”

  When I spoke, I sounded like I’d been running all morning: “Yeah. Hotel.”

  six

  MY HAND SHOOK AS I slid the key card into the slot in the door. I was distracted and rushed by the sensation of Sam’s fingers bracketing my hips, his mouth moving up the side of my neck to my ear. I didn’t know what I was doing—this was crazy—but the hunger was greater than the trepidation that loomed like an anxious shadow in the back of my thoughts. Housekeeping had already been through, and the beds were immaculate, surfaces shining.

  We closed the door, hooked the safety lock in place, and then stood, staring at each other.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he said.

  Before nerves could get the best of me, I turned and walked over to my bed, scooting toward the headboard. Sam climbed after me onto the mattress, kicking off his shoes.

  It was so quiet I could hear a taxi driver on the street yelling to someone on the sidewalk. I could hear the even ticking of the alarm clock on the bedside table. I could hear the uneven pulls of Sam’s breath.

  “This is crazy,” he said, finally moving closer and punctuating every sentence with a kiss to my jaw, my cheek, my ear: “Change your mind anytime. I mean. We just met. Your grandmother could come back. Tell me to stop.”

  I couldn’t seem to pull enough breath into my lungs, and my words came out as a gasp. “She won’t. And I don’t want to stop.”

  I imagined we had at least a couple hours, but still, it felt like we threw our clothes onto the floor in a frenzy, teeth and chins knocking in sloppy, undressing kisses. He asked me again, and again—while we kissed, and touched, and explored—whether I was sure.

  I’d never been naked with someone before, and I’d also never been more sure about anything.

  He kissed down my body, loving my breasts, kissing between my legs until I was crying out into a pillow and holding him there by a fist in his hair. And then he was over me, massive and bare, asking me one more time.

  “You trust me?”

  It was strange, but this question drew the moment to a quiet standstill. I could tell by his expression that I could take my time to answer, that I could say no and we would put ourselves back together and go out to the garden, or down the street for lunch. He wasn’t just asking if I trusted him to be careful with my body, but whether I trusted him to be careful with me.

  With a nod, I pulled him back down over me, closing my legs around his hips. I felt him press against me, warm and inflexible, but he moved away before I could react, jogging toward the bathroom. I was unable to look away from the architecture of him, the sheer bulk of muscle and height. When he reappeared, my eyes dropped below his navel… and then over to the towel in his hand.

  “Just in case,” he said.

  He tucked the towel beneath me, kissing my chest, my neck, my mouth so sweetly, and he returned over me, climbing between my legs and kissing up my neck.

  The sheets beneath me were so soft, so perfectly white. Sun slanted into the room, trapezoiding across our naked skin.

  “You okay?” he asked one last time.

  “Yeah.” I ran a hand up from his stomach to his collarbone. “Are you?”

  “I’m nervous,” he admitted. “But yeah. I’m good.”

  “You’ve done this before, though.”

  “I’ve never done it with you.”

  I was shaking. I could feel it, and I knew he could, too. But he just kissed me over and over, like he did at the park, until I was hot, and squirming, until I’d forgotten the pleasure he’d already gifted me and was demanding more, for the press of him, that instinctive desire to feel him inside.

  He had a condom—thank God, because where was my head?—and I watched him roll it on, suddenly questioning my sanity, the logic that he’d somehow fit inside me. He put a gentle hand on my hip, guided himself with the other. With his eyes on my face, Sam went slow, so slow, careful to stop when I made a squeak of pain, slow again, and then deep, and then he was moving and it was okay, I was okay.

  I was better than okay. I was lost in him, in the feel of his back growing slick under my hands, and his mouth on my neck, and his waist against my thighs. Lost in the feel of the sun on my skin, the way it poured in from the window to spill across the bed. I was lost in the sense of pleasure flirting under the pain, and his breath growing hot and hungry on my neck.

  He was telling me it was good,

  it was so good,

  did I think I could come again?

  Did I want him to finish?

  I did but I didn’t, because I knew we wouldn’t ever be back in that exact moment, my first—our first—and I knew, too, that as soon as it was over I’d have to face myself and this wild decision. So I told him to wait, please, I didn’t want it to end.

  He did wait, or at least he tried to, with gritted teeth
and fingers that pressed almost too hard and still not hard enough. But when I hooked my ankles at his back and moved with him from below, he groaned out an apology and swore, shaking under my hands.

  We fell still, and the ache in me turned sharp, more discomfort than pleasure. Sam carefully pulled back. There was blood on his fingers when he took off the condom, but he didn’t look worried. He just cleaned me up, bent to kiss my forehead, and walked to the bathroom.

  I was shaking so bad I pulled the covers over me, all the way up to my chin.

  I barely heard the toilet flush above the ringing in my ears. I didn’t even feel like the same person. Tate Jones wouldn’t have sex with a guy she knew for a matter of days. Tate Jones wouldn’t fall for someone so fast, so immediately. But apparently Tate Butler would.

  Sam walked into the bedroom, pulled on his boxers, and climbed back onto the bed, bracing over me on all fours, sweetly trapping me under the blankets.

  “Are you cold or hiding?”

  “Cold.”

  With a little growl, Sam climbed under the covers with me and curled on his side, bracing on an elbow to look down at me. He was smiling like an idiot, but—to my horror—I felt the burn of tears across my eyes. I was so scared of the moment he left this room, and hesitation pushed out the certainty that this had been the right thing to do.

  “Tate,” he said, eyes flickering across my face, worried now.

  I pressed a hand to his bare stomach. “Yeah?”

  He closed his eyes and then bent so his head rested between my breasts. “You’re crying,” he whispered.

  “I’m just overwhelmed,” I admitted. “With good feelings, I swear.”

  “I don’t want you to feel weird about doing this.”

  Struggling to put myself back together, I promised him, “I won’t.”

  He shook his head, and then kissed my breast, gently biting. “This is a big deal,” he said once he released me. “Having sex. I know why I did it—I’m crazy about you—but why did you?”

  “Can’t my reason be the same?”

  He laughed against my skin. “It can.”

  * * *