by Ashley West
It was a while for the two of them to be in the house alone together, and Naomi felt strangely anxious about it.
It had been three weeks and a couple of days since Samel had saved her and come to live with them, and they got along great, but this was the first time they'd just be alone together.
Footsteps on the stairs alerted her to his approach, and she busied herself with shaking loose leaf tea into the strainer while the kettle heated up.
"Have they all gone, then?" Samel asked as he stepped into the kitchen.
Naomi nodded. "They have. And now we get almost three whole days of blissful silence."
Samel smiled and tipped his head to one side, watching her. "I don't think you mean that," he said. "I think you're going to miss them."
"I never said I wouldn't," Naomi replied, shrugging a shoulder.
"May I ask you something?"
She arched an eyebrow. For whatever reason, when Samel asked questions, they were always deep and probing ones that made her think more than she wanted to. But she was coming to realize that at the end of it, she didn't feel all that upset about it. It was like he wanted to know her.
It wasn't that no one had ever wanted to know her before, but it had been a while since anyone had bothered to dig deep. Most people just took her at face value or they realized that she wanted them to take her at face value and didn't press. But Samel pressed, all the while looking at her with eyes that seemed to see through her almost. It was disconcerting, but she found she didn't mind it all that much.
Which was odd in itself.
"Go on," she said, grabbing the kettle off the stove before it could blow their eardrums out with its deafening whistle now that the water had boiled.
"Finn said that he would ask you to go home with him if he thought you'd say yes."
"Finn runs his mouth too much," Naomi replied dryly. "And that's not a question."
"Are you angry with him for telling me?" Samel wanted to know. "I was just asking him if everyone would be leaving. Because I wondered if I'd be here all on my own."
She sighed, leaning against the counter. "Is that your question?"
Samel gave her a look. "No."
"No, I'm not angry with him. He's right, after all."
"Why don't you go with him? It's obvious that you are...fond of him."
She had to wonder if she was imagining the little flicker of distaste on Samel's face. Unless he was an amazing actor, he didn't dislike Finn. She'd seen the two of them talking all the time. So clearly he had a problem with her being fond of him. Which was interesting. Very interesting.
"I am fond of him," Naomi admitted. "I'm fond of everyone who lives here. Even Raven. But it's complicated. I never go home with anyone over the holidays." In her mind, she was begging him to leave it at that. She never minded sharing things with him, or any other resident who asked. Having them open up to her went a long way towards helping them adjust, and it was hardly fair of her to expect them to do it when she wasn't willing to herself. But somehow she always managed to avoid talking about this. She gave half answers and evasions until people stopped asking.
Samel, she already knew, wasn't going to be that easy to dissuade. She was fairly certain if she flat out told him to stop asking about it then he would, but that felt...wrong. For some reason.
"Why not?" Samel was asking, and she sighed.
"It's complicated," she said again, fully aware that she was just stalling for time until she could come up with something to say.
"Is it really?" Samel asked, and it caught her off guard.
Because...actually, it wasn't. It was simple and stupid, and she wasn't exactly proud of how...petty it made her seem. She liked to pretend that she was better than that. That she was over all the stuff from her childhood and teenage years that had made her into a surly runaway, but she knew she wasn't. And she'd never talked about it with anyone before. She'd been worried about how it would make her look and how it would change people's opinions of her.
But Samel was watching her with his kind, perceptive eyes, and she could feel the words bubbling up like they wanted to be free before she could do anything to stop it.
"No," she heard herself say and then flinched a bit. "No, it's not complicated. It's just really stupid and pathetic."
His brow furrowed as he continued to watch her. "I doubt that."
"How would you know?" she asked, laughing bitterly.
"I don't," he replied. "I can only say what I think."
"You're ridiculously reasonable for someone who's lost their memory, you know," Naomi pointed out. Samel just shrugged a shoulder, and she sighed again. "Alright, fine. You want my whole stupid story?"
Samel nodded. "I very much do."
His eyes were intense as he looked at her, seeming to pin her to the spot where she was leaning against the pale yellow counter top. Naomi dragged in a deep breath and then let it out messily.
"Fine. I don't go home with other people because it makes me feel like crap. Not the other people part, but just... Watching them have families hurts. Or I assume it will, I guess. I've never really done it before, but it's one of those watching other people have things that you don't have kind of deals. It just makes you want it more for yourself, and if it's something impossible to have, then you're just left with all this pent up longing that you can't do anything about. And then it turns into a festering sort of ache. And it's an ache you're familiar with, one you've been dealing with for most of your life, but you usually keep in a box in your brain somewhere, and it takes forever for you to get it back in that box from where it's eating your heart alive."
Samel stared at her with wide eyes, and Naomi realized she'd started to ramble. "I'm not sure how much of that actually made any sense," she said, sighing.
"All of it did," Samel told her. "At least, I understood it. I just don't understand why you don't have it."
"Because I walked out on it when I was sixteen," she said. "Well, no, that's not true. I didn't really have it before then, either." And this was the hard part. Even now, almost eight years later, she had such a hard time telling the story of what had happened. Because she still wondered if she'd done the right thing sometimes. Leaving had been the best thing that had ever happened to her in the long run, but sometimes she wondered if she had just been a selfish teenager who should have made things work with her family.
Slowly, haltingly, she told Samel about it, though. She told him about being ten on Christmas and having her mother take away her plate and bring it back with less food on it because no one was going to want to be with her if she was the size of a house. She told him about her mother trying to embarrass her in front of her aunt and uncle on Thanksgiving by pointing out that she was failing math and should give thanks for tutors. She couldn't possibly remember every time her mother had called her stupid or ugly or useless, or every time her father had refused to come to her aid, but she rolled them all together into a tapestry of hurt and anger and let him see that, too.
"And so one day, I'd just had enough," she murmured, tea gone cold in her hand. "And I walked out. I haven't seen them since then. Most of the time, I'm fine with that, and I don't even think about them. But sometimes, like around the holidays, I wish...I wish that things could be different. That they'd come looking for me or that they would apologize so I could have a family again. And when people invite me to their homes, I know I'm going to have to watch them have something I'll never have, and instead of being grateful to be included, I just feel like I'll be even more left out. Sitting there like an outsider, watching them be happy with their family when I know I never will be." She shrugged. "I'm not proud of it, but that's why."
For a long moment, Samel didn't say anything. His brow was still furrowed, and he seemed to be wrestling with what she'd told him. It didn't look like he thought she was a horrible person, but she couldn't say for sure what he was thinking.
"I didn't think parents would ever do something like that to their child," he said fin
ally.
Naomi snorted. "No one ever does. Parents are supposed to be there to protect their children, yeah, but sometimes they're horrible and they don't and then they become something that their children need to be protected from."
"That's horrible."
"It is." She shrugged again.
"Do you not have any other family?"
"Not really. My aunt and uncle were the only ones we were really that close to. My dad's family is all scattered all over the place. One of his sisters lives in China, actually, so it's not like I can just pop in to see her. Actually, I haven't seen her since I was about nine. My aunt moved across the country when my uncle died a few years ago," she said. "He's the one who left me this house."
"That was kind of him."
"Yes. He knew I'd need somewhere to call home."
Neither of them spoke for a long moment. "I don't think you're petty," Samel finally said.
"No?"
"No. I think it would be very hard to watch someone else have something you want so much. I think I can understand the fire that would consume you, having to see it and know you can't have it or touch it."
He was giving her another of those intense looks that seemed to go all the way through her and come out the other side. Somehow she got the feeling that he was talking about something else.
She swallowed hard, and suddenly the tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife. "Then you understand. How I feel," Naomi said.
"I don't understand any of this," he replied. "I want--" Samel broke off with a frustrated noise. He took a step towards her and then stopped.
Naomi darted her tongue out of her mouth and licked her bottom lip, mouth suddenly dry. It was really very unfair. Samel was standing there in borrowed clothes looking like he'd just stepped out of a fitness magazine to taunt her with how tight the shirt was on his chest. He was looking at her like she was something he wanted to taste, and she could feel the thump thump thump of her heart slamming in her chest.
"You shouldn't," she said softly, trying to hold on to her senses.
"Why not?"
"Lots of reasons. You only think you want this because I saved you, and if you had a wife or a partner or a family, you don't even remember them, so it's not...it's wrong."
"That's only two."
"What?"
"You said there were lots of reasons. That's only two."
Naomi huffed and folded her arms. "I should think that's plenty."
"It's not," Samel said. "I saved you, too. Did that make you want me?"
She laughed, and it was humorless. "Actually? Yes. Because seeing you standing there, throwing fire at monsters was...something else. Something..." Naomi trailed off. There was no good way to say that she thought about that sometimes in her dreams and then woke up wet and wanting.
"That's not what you mean, though," Samel pointed out, and his eyes were dark and heavy on her.
"No," she admitted. "It's not. But the other thing still stands. You could have a family."
"I..." That seemed to be tripping him up, and he looked like he was thinking very hard. "I don't believe I do. Not a family like that, anyway. One I raised with a partner."
"But how do you know? You don't remember anything."
“I don’t know,” Samel said. “It’s just something I can feel.”
“How do I know you’re not just saying that because you want… How do I know?”
His eyes met hers and held, and she swallowed again. “I suppose you don’t,” he murmured softly. “But I wouldn’t lie to you. I know what I feel.”
She knew what she felt, too. And what she felt right then and there was a longing. It was different from the kind that she’d spoken of earlier. The kind that made her want a family, but it was a desire to belong all the same.
Samel took another step towards her and then another, until he was right there in front of her. She had to crane her neck to see his face at this distance, and as she looked at him, he brought one hand up to cup her cheek. It was warm and solid, and Naomi gave in.
How long had she wanted someone to touch her like this? How long had she wanted someone to want to be close to her? And here was this attractive, thoughtful, displaced man, who had the heat of desire for her in his dark eyes. She’d seen his hands shoot flames that had burned and twisted those who had wanted to harm her, and she wasn’t afraid.
“What do you feel?” she murmured, tipping her face up even more.
“Like I can’t get enough of you.”
Naomi smirked. “You haven’t even had any of me.”
“Yet.”
And there was so much promise in that one word that she shivered and licked her lips, closing the distance between them. This was the moment. If she was going to shut this down it would have to be now. She’d have to tell him no and mean it and make sure that they were never this close to each other again. Otherwise she wouldn’t be able to resist.
But she didn’t want to. She didn’t want anything but him, and when she pushed up onto her toes, he met her halfway, their lips brushing in a small, soft kiss.
She’d done more than that with people who she’d known for less time, but heat rocked her to her core from just that light brush of lips. She groaned softly and tried to lean up even more to get him to kiss her again.
His hands found her waist, and he pulled her closer until she was flush with the front of his body. The warmth of him was incredible, and she moaned softly as he leaned down and kissed her, harder this time, with more intention.
His lips were soft and sure, and it was clear that he’d kissed his fair share of women before. She didn’t mind being one of them at all.
He kissed her like she was something to be savored, teasing at her lips with his own before nipping lightly at the bottom one with strong teeth. He held her close and she wouldn’t have wanted to get away, but it was also clear that his grip on her wasn’t going to break until he wanted it to.
And honestly that was going straight to her head. It was one thing to have someone tell her that they could be strong for her, and completely another to have them not need to say it. That was the case here.
“What do you want?” Samel murmured against her mouth.
“You,” she breathed back. “Please.” He groaned, and before she knew it, she was being picked up and slung over his shoulder. “Oh my god,” she laughed. “What are you doing?”
“Taking you to bed,” he said. “You don’t even weigh anything.”
She snorted at that. “Believe me, I weigh something. And what’s wrong with the kitchen? It’s not like anyone is here.”
“We are not doing this for the first time in the kitchen,” Samel said firmly, and there was just enough rough command in his voice to make her weak at the knees. It was a good thing he was carrying her.
“Alright,” she said softly.
“Good,” he replied, and they bypassed his room and went straight to hers.
Naomi couldn’t remember if she’d cleaned up in there, or if there were clothes on the bed and the floor, and honestly she couldn’t care less. She was overheated with the desire that was coursing through her, and the last thing she wanted to worry about was whether or not her underwear was on the floor.
With any luck, the underwear she was currently wearing would be joining it soon all the same.
Samel all but tossed her onto the bed, and she squeaked as he climbed over her, holding himself up on his arms and looming over her with all his bulk.
She felt so small and yet so safe at the same time. He kissed the side of her neck, sending shivers up her spine at the sensation of his hot mouth on her sensitive skin. "What do you want?" he asked her again.
"You," she said, the same as last time. And to prove it, she moved as much as she could with him over her and started stripping off her clothes, not holding back or hesitating.
Samel helped and then shucked off his own clothes, leaving them naked for each other.
He was hard as a roc
k to her eyes, all muscle and taut skin. The shiny skin that wrapped up his forearms caught her eye, and she brushed her fingers over it gently, watching his face for any signs of pain or discomfort with her exploration.
She saw none, just lust and desire and the open wanting in his eyes.
"I know you're curious," he murmured softly. "But I really don't remember."
"I know," she said back. "And it's okay." Naomi wanted him to share himself with her, wanted to know him as well as he was coming to know her, but that wasn't going to happen, and it was fine. When he started to remember, he'd tell her, or else she'd get to know the person he was now. It would be fine. "Touch me," she said.
Samel obeyed, shifting his weight so he could lift one hand and trace it from her neck to her stomach in a smooth line. His hand was so large and tanned on her body, and when he slid it back up to cup her breast and thumb the sensitive nipple, she moaned softly for him, legs spreading.
She was slick and ready for him, and she let her eyes travel down his body to his cock, mouth dropping open a bit at the sight of it. Even with all the men she'd seen naked before, Samel was by far the largest. His cock was proportional to his height and bulk, thick and dark and flushed. It was half hard, jutting out a bit from his crotch and pointing at her.
Honestly, she was wondering if she could even take it all, but she knew she was going to try. She practically ached to have him inside of her at this point, and she squirmed on the bed, biting her lip.
"I don't want to hurt you," Samel breathed, having seen the direction of her gaze and guessed the direction of her thoughts.
"You won't," Naomi said. "I'm not that fragile."
He caught one of her hands up in his and kissed the inside of her wrist. Naomi wouldn't have even said that was a sensitive place for her until she felt the heat blaze up her spine from his lips there. Interesting.
"Are you sure?"
She nodded eagerly, spreading her legs wider.
Samel swore under his breath, a word she didn't catch or seem to recognize, and he let his hand move between her legs. He pressed his palm to her center, and she gasped softly, bucking against him and rubbing her clit against his palm. "Feels good," she moaned. "More."
