True North Book 3 - Finding Now Kate and Sam

by Allie Juliette Mousseau

  “I’m not leaving without you!” I promised.

  “Oh, yes you are … because two of us are not dying today.” He coughed again, grimacing. “I love you, sis … You’re going to have to live for the both of us.” And with that, his head lulled forward as if he were losing consciousness.

  I grabbed him, trying to shake him awake, to see how I could free him, but everything was covered with blood. His blood.

  His eyes stayed closed, but I heard him whisper … they were the last words he’d ever say: “Please, Kate.”

  At that moment I heard a crack at the back of the car and saw flames erupting around us. The heat was becoming unbearable, but Ethan didn’t flinch. His chest had gone completely still, and a thin trickle of blood ran down his chin, coming from his mouth.

  I knew he was dead.

  I used my arms to drag myself out and away from the car. Somehow I got about twenty feet from it before the entire thing was consumed by the fire.

  “ETHAN!” I couldn’t stop screaming his name. “ETHAN!”

  I was left alone in the darkness, splayed out in the scorched grass, forced to watch this macabre bonfire that was using my brother as fuel.

  It was a lifetime before the rescue vehicles started to come.

  “He was already gone,” I said after describing it all to him. “I can still feel the heat and smell the gas and the hot twisted metal … I can still hear the music that kept playing until the stereo melted, and I can still see him, sliced apart and mangled.” I rose from the loveseat and stood in front of Sam, a complete mess. “I did it! I was driving! It was my fault!” I broke down, sobbing. “And I can’t get him back, Sam! And that’s all I want—Ethan back! He was my best friend.”

  Sam broke in, a look of pity on his face. “That could have happened to anyone, Jolie. Even experienced drivers—”

  I shook my head incredulously and tilted it, trying to hold the tears back, but they spilled from my eyes anyway. “I could have reacted differently! If I hadn’t been listening to that CD, so caught up in the excitement of the concert, maybe I would’ve been paying more attention to the cars around me—I would have seen that the guy was about to swerve. It’s my fault he’s dead.” I sobbed again, the ache in the pit of my stomach threatening to tear me apart. “I wanted to die! I can’t even describe the guilt I feel every morning when I wake up. It’s like opening your eyes and realizing the building you were in collapsed, and you’re trapped underneath the debris, and you know there’s no way you can get out from under it yourself, and the chances of anyone finding you in time”—I shrugged sadly, defeated—“are next to nothing. And you’ll never be able to take a breath of clean air ever again. You suffocate, slowly and painfully because you don’t have enough oxygen, but somehow you’re still alive, caught and crushed in the concrete rubble, hoping and praying that someone will find you and pull you out, and at the same time praying you’ll just die so the pain and nightmare will be over.” I ran my fingers back through my hair as I let the words spill out. “Then you panic further as you wonder, if you do die, and there is an afterlife, where are you going to go? And could hell’s torment possibly be any worse? Because you know, after what you’ve done, you’re not getting the golden ticket through the pearly gates into heaven.” I took a step backwards away from him. “I can’t get past it, past him screaming my name, or the smells, or his face! No, Sam, headshrinks are all liars. There is no getting past that. No one could get past that!”

  I couldn’t look at him anymore, couldn’t handle the ferocity of confessing and reliving. I stumbled to the bathroom and locked the door. Now he knew! Now he could see! Now he could leave and this game could be over!

  Sam

  The bathroom door slammed and Jolie disappeared behind it. I sat stunned for a moment as I tried to keep myself together. I’d known what she’d gone through was going to be bad, but I had never imagined it would be as horrendous as that. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried, but listening to her recount the terror … I was there. I pinched the bridge of my nose. She needed me now. I stepped to the bathroom door and gently touched the wood grain with my fingertips, wondering what to say. There were no words. There could never be any words to comfort her after that. I loved my family so fucking much, I couldn’t … I didn’t want to imagine any one of us in that situation. How fucking helpless she must have felt. And she was so close to him. She’d been carrying that agony and guilt all by herself all these years.

  “I’m here, baby.” It’s all I could manage as I listened to her sobs through the door. I could tell from the sound that she was sitting on the floor against the door, so I slid down to her level and leaned my shoulder against the wood, hoping to connect to her in some way.

  No music, no cars, no clothes that identified her, no emotions … I got it now, I got it all. Her tight, rigid routine kept her alive, even though a part of her had died with Ethan on the side of the road that night.

  “Sam?”

  I wiped my eyes with the heel of my hand. “Yeah, baby?”

  “Aren’t you going to leave me now?” she sobbed.

  “No, Jolie, I’m not going anywhere,” I reassured her.

  “Don’t you hate me?” she whimpered.

  “Oh, God, no! I could never hate you.” My lungs were crushing in my chest. “I wish so badly I could take it away from you so you wouldn’t hurt from it anymore.” I needed a fucking Kleenex.

  “I hate being a professor,” she cried in a small voice. “It was Ethan’s dream. I thought if I did it for him, he would somehow still live through me in a way. That I’d feel him or hear him, or that somehow he could be proud of me and forgive me.”

  Oh, baby. How badly I wanted to hold her. “Jolie, I adore my sister; if anything like that ever happened to us I’d want her to live and be happy, I would never want her to hold on to this kind of responsibility. I know he loved you too. He woke you up and got you out. He’s not mad at you. I bet he could never be mad at you.” Fuck! A sob escaped my throat. “Please, Jolie, don’t keep dying and torturing yourself when he wanted you to live.”

  I heard her fumble with the doorknob. When she pulled open the door, she was on her knees on the tiled floor. Our eyes connected. She studied me for a moment, before throwing herself onto me. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her into my lap as she sobbed furiously against my shoulder.

  “I’ve never told anyone the whole story before.”

  I rocked her and stroked her soft hair, the color of spun gold, as the two of us sat curled together against the tempest that had destroyed her. In that moment I knew I’d do anything I had do to protect her and heal her.

  “Don’t leave me here alone tonight, please …” she begged.

  “I’m not leaving you,” I insisted. “I’ll hold you here all night if you want me to. And then I’ll call us in sick and stay here tomorrow and the next day just to hold you.”

  I felt her tense, rigid body relax in my arms.

  I pressed my lips onto the top of her head and held them there, getting a whiff of her light, floral shampoo.

  “Would you …?” she started to ask, but faltered.

  “You can ask me anything,” I breathed into her hair.

  “Will you sleep next to me tonight, in my bed? I … I’m afraid now. The nightmares get so vivid after I’ve … thought about it.”

  “I’d sleep next to you anywhere,” I told her, and I wiped her tears with my thumb.

  After she was ready to let go, we both took some time to wash up. I hadn’t brought any clothes to sleep in, so I just took off my Vans and t-shirt and stayed in my jeans.

  Jolie moved across the room in a tight, burgundy cotton camisole and a pair of short black sleeping shorts. Watching her made me feel like a salivating wolf. She had on no bra, and her legs were so long and her thighs so creamy, I just wanted to bury my face between them, give her release and make her forget everything for a while. My feelings for her were so intense I could hardly breathe.
<
br />   When she lay down across the bed and looked up at me, I knew the invitation still stood, so I crawled in next to her. We faced one another, and she rested her head on my outstretched arm while she gently traced the tattoos on my chest.

  “What do these represent?” she asked quietly, as if she were afraid to disrupt the peace she finally felt.

  “They don’t. They’re just artwork I liked.”

  I closed my eyes to take in the sensation of her fingers tickling over my skin and the sound of her soft voice. She stroked up my arm, sending shivers through my flesh.

  “A dragon, words like ‘Trust’ and ‘Faith’ and ‘Fearless,’ Chinese symbols, flowers, an ocean wave, stars, wings … you’re a masterpiece, Sam North.” She brought her hand over my shoulder to my jaw and held it still.

  My head swam. Did she know what she was doing to me?

  Working hard to keep my emotions in check, I opened my eyes to find her staring up at me. She had a look of raw hunger in her soft blue eyes.

  It was becoming a serious challenge to hold myself back. I had never felt this kind of intensity before, and I had never in my life wanted to kiss anyone as badly as I wanted to kiss her at that very moment. I was coming to the edge of all I’d ever known.

  I cupped her face in my hands and held them steady. Her breath quickened, but she didn’t pull back. So slowly, I shored up the distance between us. I watched her close her eyes and part her lips for me. Gently, I kissed her top lip then the bottom, letting my nose trail over hers.

  Closing my eyes, I allowed her warm breath to play across my lips as I rested my forehead to hers. It was her move to make or not.

  Only a moment passed before I felt her lips, tentative and curious, search mine. This was all about her. I tasted remnants of her sweet strawberry lip balm mixed with the salt of her tears. My hands stayed on the sides of her face as my thumbs began to caress her cheekbones. She deepened the kiss while she pressed her body against mine, tempting every cell and bone, even the very blood of my body. Her breasts hardened against my chest as her leg came up and curled over my ass. I growled deep in my throat at the feel of her sensuous body reaching out to become one with mine.

  She ran her tongue over my bottom lip and tugged on my lip ring as she moved her hips against mine, her leg pressing our most intimate places together. My dick immediately hardened at her advance and I groaned against her perfect, sweet, soft lips.

  She tangled her hands in my hair. “Press your body against mine,” she breathed over my mouth while we kissed. “I’ve been numb for so long. Make me feel something, Sam.”

  Immediately, I rolled her onto her back and lay over her, holding my weight with my arms. I let myself get lost in the ocean of her eyes. “I would do anything for you.”

  “I haven’t let another person touch me intimately since the accident,” she confessed. “Nothing beyond a handshake.”

  She held so much pain, too much for any one person to ever carry by themselves. Tenderly, I brushed my cheek against hers, struggling with how much to say and how fast to move. I was used to being in control when it came to the bedroom, but she was a territory with no map. She reminded me of the thermal pockets under the earth in Yellowstone, hot and fragile; one wrong move and the ground beneath your feet would crack and shatter.

  She whispered in my ear, “I want to feel all of your weight.”

  I allowed myself to press into her fully, rubbing over her breasts, crushing them against my chest.

  Oh, Christ! She was so unbelievably soft.

  She wrapped her legs around me and brought her hands up behind my back, digging her fingertips into the muscles there, pulling me further down onto her and driving me crazy in every possible way. I knew she was there under me, open and wanting. I grinded my erection into her, seeking the exquisite tension that waited there. I moaned against the thin skin of her throat where I could feel her pulse rush under my lips.

  “Love me back to life, Sam.”

  “I can do that, Jolie.” I’d love to do that.

  She closed her eyes. “No, not, Jolie. Say my name,” she said breathlessly. “My real name. I want to hear you say it.”

  Catherine sat on my tongue, but I knew that wasn’t the name she wanted to hear.

  I propped myself up on one elbow and caressed her cheek with my hand as my soul burned within me. “I’ll love you back to life, Kate,” I promised.

  She moaned with a mixture of pain and relief and kissed me with unmatched passion. I swept my tongue between her lips. She reciprocated, and our tongues searched each other’s mouths.

  Maneuvering onto my knees, I straddled her, caught the hem of her camisole and stripped her of it, freeing her full, beautiful breasts before I laid her back down and covered her with myself again.

  Oh my God! The feel of her hot flesh against me was the most fucking amazing sensation. I’d had all kinds of sex, but that’s all it had ever been. It was nothing compared to the incredible fucking feeling I had right now. This was urgent and slow, steady and turbulent.

  “Let me taste your body, baby.”

  When Kate nodded I opened my mouth at that pounding pulse point at the side of her neck and used my tongue to follow it up to her ear. I nipped and slid my teeth over her earlobe. She rewarded me by groaning, lifting her hips and grinding herself against the now painful bulge in my jeans.

  I licked and kissed across her jaw then down the front of her delicious throat. Slowly, I kissed downward and all around her splendid breasts, darting my tongue in and out over her tight skin. Prolonging the touch to that most sensitive area, I watched each nipple harden and grow, reaching out to find me.

  “Oh my God, Sam! Please!” she pleaded and arched her back, pushing her perfect tits up to me like an offering.

  She was so fucking sexy. My dick twitched and I was glad it was behind the tough denim barrier, because she would make me come too fast. I pulled her right nipple into my mouth and sucked it more roughly than I had intended to. But she seemed to love it; she cried out and gripped the back of my head.

  I moved to the other one, sucking it in deeply then darting my tongue across the rose colored tip until she was moaning and seeking release by rubbing herself against me.

  I tugged at her shorts, breathing heavily. “These need to come off.”

  “Wait.” She hesitated and went stone cold still. “I … I have scars. On my thighs.”

  “I’m not afraid of your scars, Kate.”

  “They’re ugly.” She shook her head, suddenly distressed. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked for this.”

  As tenderly as I could I said, “Let me see them, love.”

  She considered me a moment, wonder simmering in her eyes, then finally nodded. When she lifted her hips, I slipped her shorts easily over her ankles and off.

  There, high up on her thighs, where they would normally be hidden by her shorts, were a myriad of thin white lines. They were perfectly straight and meticulously even. It reminded me of when prisoners drew short lines on the walls of their cell to count the numbers of days they’d been held captive.

  “I don’t do it anymore. It’s been years. Four years to be exact. I’ll never do it again,” she said strongly, determinedly. “The blue bird tattoo on my hip … flying from the cage, represents the commitment I made to myself to stop.”

  There could have easily been over a hundred cuts on each thigh as the scars continued off to the side and possibly even behind her legs.

  “They’re terribly ugly, I know,” she said, looking embarrassed when I still hadn’t responded. “Just let me have my shorts back.”

  I bowed before her and moved my face directly above the cuts. There was nothing I could say to make it all better, or take them away from her. I could tell they were all fully healed and must have been made some time ago.

  Carefully, I kissed each set of cuts; first over the left leg, then on the right. I looked up once and saw Kate watching me, tears streaming down her cheeks. I bent each leg
at the knee so I wouldn’t neglect the scars on the insides of her thighs.

  “Thank you,” I said when I’d kissed each one.

  “Why are you thanking me?” she cried quietly.

  “For trusting me with your story.”

  She pressed her lips together in a tight, pained smile and nodded.

  For a moment I stared at Kate Jolie below me. “You’re incredibly stunning in every way. I want you to know there is no woman as beautiful as you are.”

  More tears escaped her eyes.

  I needed to bring it back around for her now, make her feel sexy again, and excited. Even happy. I smiled. “And your body is so perfect. It’s curvy in all the right places.” I set my hands under her back and pulled her midsection to my mouth. “It’s so delectable, like a piece of tropical fruit.”

  I sucked each nipple greedily until she began to moan again.

  “Mmm, your skin is so delicious.” I kissed each rib with my open mouth till I reached her bellybutton and then licked a line from there to the sweet spot between her legs.

  “Oh, fuck, Sam!” she exclaimed as I anchored one leg over my shoulder and pinned the other with my hand against her thigh.

  I swirled the tip of my tongue around her clit, creating deliberate little circles. She immediately started panting.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re so sweet. You taste so good.” I used the fullness of my tongue to lap from her wet little hole up to her clit and back again, stirring her juices in my mouth and loving every fucking second of it.

  I looked up to watch her get closer to that peak; I had to see her face, her expression as I brought her there.

  “SAM!” She shouted, locking eyes with mine. “OH MY GOD!

  “Come in my mouth, Kate,” I said against her hot, wet flesh. “Oh, how you need this.”

  She closed her eyes and moaned deeply, arching her back against the soft white sheets and pressing her head back into the pillow.

  “Oh, baby.” I sucked her clit relentlessly now.