by Sara Reinke
She’ll never believe me, he thought in dismay. Hell, I don’t even believe myself.
“I don’t want a loaded gun in here,” she said, her voice brittle edged. She lifted the gleaming pistol in hand and ejected the clip. Using the pad of her thumb, she pushed the remaining bullets out of the cartridge and they bounced noisily against the bar. She slapped the empty clip back into the pistol, then offered it back to him, unloaded and butt-first. “It’s your dad’s. I know you want to have it. But I’m keeping the bullets.”
“I wouldn’t have shot you.” Shamefaced and with hunched shoulders, he took the gun from her. He held it at his side, dangling in his hand, heavy and impotent.
“I don’t know that,” she said, collecting the five remaining bullets and stuffing them into the hip pocket of her jeans. When he looked up at her, hurt by this, she frowned. “I don’t know you anymore, Jason.”
He blinked, recoiling as if she’d slapped him, because for all the world, it felt like she just had. “Yes, you do. Of course you do.”
“Where have you been for five years?” she demanded. “Was it someplace where you felt like you had to carry a gun with you? Because the Jason I knew didn’t.”
“Sam,” he pleaded. “I didn’t—you just…”
“You didn’t even look like yourself when I came into that bathroom. For a second, it was like your eyes weren’t even human, like they’d gone black or something. I thought you were going to shoot me.”
“It was an accident…” he began.
“An accident?” she cried. “What if you’d pulled the trigger?” She stared at him as if he had lost his mind, her eyes wide and round. “I don’t know what I was thinking, letting you stay here. I don’t know what’s happened to you. Hell, I don’t even know if it’s really even you.”
As she stormed past him, marching down the hallway toward the back exit, he saw tears in her eyes, just beginning to cut narrow, glistening streaks down her cheeks.
“Sam.” He caught her by the elbow and held on tightly, even though she flapped her arm angrily and tried to dislodge him. “It’s me.”
“Jason, stop,” she said as he pulled her against him, making her dance clumsily on her tiptoes for a moment as her breasts and belly pushed against him. “Let me go.”
“Sam, please,” he begged. “Nothing makes any sense and I just… Please, I swear to God it’s me. I’ll do anything to prove it. Please believe me.”
The gun clattered to the floor as he brought his other hand up, caressing her cheek. “Please, Sam,” he breathed, leaning toward her. He kissed her with desperate fervency, pressing his mouth against hers. She stiffened against him in reflexive uncertainty, clapping her hands against his chest to try to push him back.
“Jason, stop,” she whispered.
“I love you, Sam.” He meant to keep saying it until she believed it, until she trusted it—and him. He kissed her again, caressing her tongue with his own, closing his mouth over hers, feeling her relax against him. Her fingers gripped his sleeves lightly as the kiss deepened. A soft sound, a murmur of pleasure, escaped her, and again, when his lips trailed to her throat.
She tilted her head in unspoken invitation, draping her hand in her hair to guide him. He could smell her, the sweetness of her perfume trapped in the minutia of space between them, fanned to heady intensity by the sudden swelling heat of her body.
“We…shouldn’t do this,” she murmured, but when he pulled her T-shirt hem up, she didn’t stop him. When he pushed the underwire cup of her bra out of his way, she didn’t protest. His mouth lowered to her nipple, sliding it between his teeth, encircling it his tongue, and she gripped his hair until he felt the strain in his scalp, her breath more frantic now, her pulse racing.
She helped him shove her jeans away from her hips, her panties down toward her knees. He could smell the musky fragrance of her arousal, and when he slipped his hand between her thighs, his fingertips delving past the tangle of curls at her groin, he felt her wet, intense heat.
She moaned as he touched her here, moving his fingers against her slick folds, exploring her. She pulled against his hair, dragging his lips away from her breast and back to her own. She kissed him openmouthed and urgent, undulating her hips away from the wall to match the rhythm of his hand, grinding herself against him.
Her hands moved, traveling down his arms, falling to his waist, and then she pushed his sweatpants down. He was aroused, acutely, painfully so, and the pants caught on the outward swell of him. When she shoved them past, she touched him here, first toying lightly, then closing her fingers firmly around him, making him utter a low groan.
Nose to nose, gasping and trembling, they looked at each other in the dark hallway. Then Sam caught his hair again and kissed him. When she shifted her weight, kicking off her pants, then braced herself against the far wall of the corridor and hopped up, he caught her bare buttocks in his hands, supporting her slight form easily. Her long legs wrapped around his midriff, and with no further invitation needed, Jason pressed the tip of his straining, aching need against her, then pushed his way easily inside in one thrust, burying himself to the base.
She came almost instantly, as if she’d been anticipating this, wanting it, wanting him. He felt her body tighten against him rhythmically, pulsating against him, gripping him. Her fingernails clenched, digging little crescent-shaped depressions into the meat of his arms.
He filled her over and over, her legs locked around his middle, her thighs open wide. Her breasts pressed into him, bare and exposed, and he jerked up his T-shirt so he could feel her skin against his. Again and again, he pushed her back into the wall, driving into her with fervent strokes, and she climaxed again, harder this time.
He came inside her, gripping her hips fiercely and pushing deep, sucking in a sharp, hoarse breath as pleasure shuddered through him, nearly paralyzing him.
When it was over, she kept her legs wrapped about him, her arms twined around his neck, and tucked her head against his shoulder. He could still feel her heartbeat, the racing patter slowing to a less frantic cadence. He could smell her hair, feel its silken softness against his face and he canted his head slightly and kissed her ear. “I love you,” he whispered.
“Hello?”
At the sound of a man’s voice calling out from the bar entrance, Sam jerked, her eyes wide.
“Samantha?”
“Oh, God!” Sam was away from him in an instant, her feet dropping to the floor, her arms unwrapping from his neck. She pushed past him, fumbling with her clothes.
“Anybody home?” the man called, his voice closer now.
“Who is that?” Jason asked as Sam hurriedly jerked her jeans back up.
“My priest,” she hissed with something akin to horror. With both hands, she swatted and smoothed her hair, tucking it back behind her ears. “Stay here,” she whispered in hushed, harsh command as she brushed past him and hurried down the corridor.
“But Sam…” Jason began in protest, because he had a sudden strange feeling, an icy, ominous sort of sensation. All at once, he wanted to grab her by the arm and stop her, hard enough to hurt her if need be. He’s not a priest. I don’t know what he is, but he’s not human.
But she flapped his hand away when he tried and shot him a warning glance. “I said stay put.” As she turned away, that look of severity abruptly shifted to a strained smile. “Father Darrow, hi,” he heard her exclaim. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”
He could hear her and the man, Father Darrow, speaking together in quiet voices, and edged closer to the doorway to listen. Risking a peek around the door frame, he saw Sam facing a young man dressed in the traditional garb of a Roman Catholic priest: black shirt with starched white clerical collar, black slacks. He wore a wool overcoat against the morning chill, with gloves that he took off while Jason watched, tucking each in the front pockets of his jacket. “Don’t mean to interrupt,” he was saying, his mouth spread in an affable smile.
He glanced away fro
m Sam’s face toward the doorway, as if taking notice of Jason, and for a split second, before Jason could scramble back in recoil, the priest’s gray eyes locked on him, nearly tangible. Again, Jason felt that frigid chill, the creeping sensation in his skin. More than just as if the priest had seen Jason, in that moment, it felt to him like the priest had known him, recognized him somehow, even though his face and name, Darrow, were wholly unfamiliar to him.
Jason shrank back into the shadows of the corridor and pressed himself against the wall, holding his breath.
“I know you’ve got a lot on your plate with this place,” the priest said, and this time, when Sam laughed, it sounded more relaxed and natural.
“What makes you say that?” she asked, and now the priest laughed with her. Jason peeked again around the edge of the doorway. “Really, Father Darrow. I don’t mind. I’m looking forward to it, as a matter of fact.”
“Gabriel,” the priest told her with a smile. His eyes cut past her shoulder and pinned Jason again. “I told you, it’s just Gabriel.” He glanced back at Sam and smiled. “I won’t keep you. I just wanted to drop off those notes from the board about the luncheon. We really appreciate you catering it.”
“I really appreciate you paying me to,” Sam replied with a laugh. She walked abreast of Gabriel as he turned for the door, pulling out his gloves from his pockets.
“I’ll see you and Dean this Sunday for Mass?” Gabriel asked.
“I…uh…we’ll do our best, Father…er, I mean, Gabriel,” Sam said.
The priest, Gabriel, spared one more glance over his shoulder at Jason, and this time, Jason could have sworn his eyes had turned white. For a moment, he was paralyzed, remembering Nemamiah in the alley, how his eyes had been aglow like that, filled with a fire that had crackled and snapped in the air around him.
He’s like that, he’s like Nemamiah.
Gabriel stepped outside with Sam. Jason didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until it escaped him at that moment in a long, shuddering sigh. He also hadn’t realized that he’d picked up the pistol again, and now his palm was slick with sweat against the grip. To his surprise, he’d also tucked his finger against the trigger and settled his thumb against the safety, all unconsciously, even though the gun didn’t have any bullets in it.
He shoved the pistol beneath the waistband of his sweatpants at the small of his back as Sam came back into the building. The pool of sunlight, pale and dingy against the floor, yielded once more to shadows as she closed the door to the bar, locking a series of heavy dead bolts. She turned and regarded him as he stood in the doorway.
“Well, that was weird,” she remarked at last, then blushed brightly and began to laugh, as awkward and giddy as a teenager caught necking by her parents.
He laughed with her, and when he walked toward her, she didn’t shy away. He took her face between his hands and she didn’t resist as he tilted her face up and kissed her. Her fingers slid into his hair, pulling him close, and within seconds, he was aroused again. Sam could surely feel it as he backed her gently against the bar.
“Stop,” she whispered, the tip of her nose brushing his as she shook her head. He continued kissing her, letting his lips trail to the corner of her jaw, the slope of her throat. As he made his way south from here, she tilted her head back, tightening her grip on his hair, her already pounding heartbeat quickening all the more.
“Jason,” she breathed as he began to massage her breast, toying with her nipple through her T-shirt and bra. “Jason, stop.” Her fist pulled sharply, painfully against his hair, and he drew back, leaving her wide-eyed and gasping softly for breath.
“We can’t do this,” she whispered.
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t belong to him anymore. He knew this in his mind, but his heart remained stubbornly unconvinced. She didn’t belong to him, and what he’d done, what he continued to do, had crossed Christ alone knew how many boundaries. “I’m sorry, Sam,” he said again. “I just…I can’t…”
I can’t help myself, he wanted to plead. It’s been five years for you, but only one day to me. I can’t make myself stop loving you, not like that, not that quick.
Sam raised onto her tiptoes and startled him to silence with a sweet, gentle, lingering kiss. “I wasn’t finished,” she said with a smile. “I was going to say we can’t do this…” Reaching between them, she caught him by the hand, then began to lead him toward the hallway again. “Not here anyway.”
****
It was as if everything had returned to normal, at least for the afternoon. Jason and Sam had returned to the apartment and spent the next several hours making love. When the phone rang, however, interrupting them, Sam had glanced guiltily past Jason’s shoulder toward her nightstand, the cordless handset that rested there.
“I should get that.” She said this even as she reached past him.
“Leave it,” he teased, making her laugh.
“Jason, stop.” Taking the phone in hand, she leaned back again, sitting upright beside him on the bed. “Hello? Hey, Bear. What? No, no, I’m okay. I…just”—a quick glance at Jason, a nearly silent giggle—“got out of the shower, that’s all. My cell’s in the other room. I must not have heard it ring.”
Jason sat up, leaning toward her. Using his fingers, he brushed the long sheaf of her dark hair back from her shoulder to reveal her throat, then leaned forward. He didn’t kiss her exactly, instead letting the tip of his nose, his lips light ever so softly against her skin, tracing a slow path toward her ear.
“Yeah, everything’s fine.” She tried to shrug him away, but when he kissed the lobe of her ear, drawing the tip of his tongue lightly against her, her breath fluttered and her voice faltered, fading to a low, contented murmur.
He pressed her back against the bed. She tried only halfheartedly to push him away, still holding the phone to her ear. “No, I think I’m going to…to run out this afternoon.”
With a crooked smile, Jason began to kiss her right leg, beginning with the inside of her knee and working his way down the length of her inner thigh. The closer he drew to her hips, the more ragged her breathing became.
“Just some errands,” she squeaked, her voice hitching. The lean, sleek muscles in her thigh quivered beneath his lips. “No, I…I just…I…” When he reached her apex, she whimpered, her body tensing.
“I have to let you go,” she whispered in a hoarse rush, then hung up the phone, throwing it aside. After that, she didn’t say another word, not until he’d finished with her.
Around midday, he roused from a light doze to find her still awake beside him, watching him as he’d slept.
“Hey,” he said with a sleepy smile and a soft groan as he stretched. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
It had actually been the first occasions of sound, dreamless, comforting sleep he’d enjoyed since he’d come to in the alley the night before, one in which he hadn’t been plagued by nightmares that felt like memories.
“That’s okay.” Sam smiled, brushing his hair back from his face. “I didn’t mind.”
“It’s not the company, I promise,” he told her, making her laugh.
She smiled again but there was something sad in her eyes, in the way her fingertips lingered against his temple, then trailed lightly down to his cheek. Concerned, he reached for her, slipping his hand against her nape.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, and she shook her head. Her eyes had grown glossy with tears, though, and he sat up now, propping himself up on his elbow. “Sam, what is it? Tell me.”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “It’s just…you don’t know how many times I’ve dreamed of this over the last five years, seeing you again, being with you, feeling you inside me.” She managed a clumsy laugh. “I’m afraid to fall asleep, to close my eyes, because when I open them, you might be gone again.”
“No.” He shook his head, then drew his other hand up to her face, making her look at him. “No, Sam, I swear. I won’t leave you again. Not ever
.”
He kissed her, over and over, tangling his tongue with hers. He felt her leg slide across him beneath the sheets, the warmth of her skin against his own, her slight weight as she settled atop him, pressing him down against the mattress again.
“Make love to me again,” she breathed, kissing him in between her words, and he nodded, moving his hands from her face to her hips, raising his own so that he could steal inside her one more time, her warmth enveloping him.
When she came, she came hard, crying out breathlessly in his ear, clutching at him, her body sweat-glossed and shuddering. She crumpled against him and he slid his arms around her, cradling her to his chest, feeling the racing cadence of her heartbeat slowing against him.
I’ll never leave you again, Sam, he thought, closing his eyes, breathing in the sweet fragrance of her hair. I swear to God. Wherever I’ve been, whatever happened to me, it’s over now and behind me. This is all that matters, you’re all that matters. I’ll never leave you again.
She’d propped one of the windows open again, and when a car pulled up in front of the pub, they heard the well-tuned purr of its motor draw abruptly to silence.
“Someone’s here,” Jason said, even as Sam sat up astride him, her cheek flushed brightly from where she’d been resting against his heart. They both heard the sound of a car door slamming, then the crunch of footsteps against concrete on the sidewalk below.
Sam slid off him, crawled across the bed, then went to the window. She peered between the blind slats, then drew back in wide-eyed surprise. “It’s Dean.” With a frantic pirouette, she scrambled to pick her discarded clothes off the floor.
“Your Jeep’s in the alley.” Jason sat up, watching as she hopped into her jeans, one leg at a time. “He won’t know you’re here unless he goes around the side.”
