by Paige North
She’s got a look on her face as if there’s something she wants to tell me, a scared look, but then she lifts that chin again and points at me.
“You’re going to listen to what I have to say!”
I coolly lean back against the kitchen counter. “You realize you’re breaking and entering, right?”
She steps closer without even taking a second to survey the clean but sad surroundings. “There’re some things you need to know about my so-called happy life. First off, I didn’t marry for love. I needed protection and safety. Rex was a really good friend who provided that after you left me.”
After I left her. The knife twists into my gut even deeper, but I don’t say a damned word.
“Rex had been sweet on me for a while,” she says, “but I only had eyes for you. You know that. When we were together, I was even starting to think I’d give up everything for you, even if it meant going against my family.”
Her words core me out, but I only shrug.
It looks like she’s about to cry, but I can’t let that affect me. I just need her to leave before I lose every ounce of self control and pull her into my arms to take what I want, to make up for lost time and make everything right again.
Which it never will be.
She’s got that look on her face that tells me there’s something more she wants to say, but then she blinks, and the anger returns to her, laced with something deeper.
“But I couldn’t be with you, Dylan. You made sure of that when you committed that shitty crime out of the blue. Then you sent me that letter telling me to forget about you. After that… God, I had no idea what to do.”
She’s breaking me down, word by word. I catch her citrusy scent on the warm breeze coming through the screen door, heavy with memories of other summer nights when I would bury my face against her skin and then kiss my way down to her damp, luscious pussy…
My chest is being pried apart. All these years, I tried my damnedest not to hear any news of Dover or anyone in it. I didn’t want to inadvertently hear anything about Samara. It was too painful, so I stuck to all the memories I had of her instead, even after I returned to my hometown a few days ago. I didn’t want to know about how she’d moved on without me.
I didn’t know I’d be working at her home. Worst of all, I had no idea that she was unhappy, and that confuses me. I don’t know what to do with that.
She goes on, continuing the torture. “Rex was a couple years older than I was, and his family was wealthy. After you went to prison, he comforted me, told me everything would be okay. He was so good at reassuring me during a very bad time.”
I don’t want to hear this, but then again I fucking do. What pisses me off the most is that she’s got me tense and tight and angry enough to rip something apart.
She sighs. “I told Rex I could never love him back, that I didn’t have those kinds of feeling for him. He accepted that. And when I told him that I was…”
“What?”
There’s that scared look again. “I told him that… Well, I was still hung up on someone who was out of the picture.”
There’s something more here, but she quickly goes on.
“Rex wanted to start a family, and he thought that, in time, I might grow to love him anyway or maybe be in love with him. And I was so destroyed and lonely after what happened with you that I said yes.”
Fuck, I damaged her. I tried my best not to, but there it is. Pain cuts through me, sharp and raw.
She takes a deep breath and looks at me with pleading eyes. “I became part of the Ford family and, as a result, I had access to their wealth and the lavish extravagance of their lives. But I never cared about all that. I just wanted security for…” She swallows. “My baby boy, Cody.” She won’t look at me. “And I wanted security for my family. Then Rex died, and all Mr. and Mrs. Ford had left was Cody and me. They love him and are really protective of him. They grew attached to me, too.”
I know Samara has never felt incredibly close to her strict parents, and as she talks about the Fords, this doesn’t seem much different.
“They still take care of me,” she says, “but as much as they’re fond of me, I have to walk a straight line. Rex wasn’t independently wealthy—he lived on the Ford Trust. So if he had ever upset or disappointed his parents—if he ever went off the path they envisioned for him—they could have turned off the money instantly, and he would’ve basically been broke. That’s how it is for me now. It’s like I’m still in my parents’ house, held to a high standard that I have to constantly reach. My life is good, Dylan, but it isn’t happy. Not all of it.”
She smiles sadly, and I can tell the good in her life that she’s talking about is the son she had with Rex. Jealousy pulls at me, burning me. But when that smile dies again and her eyes tear up, there’s something even stronger that has me standing away from the counter and mindlessly walking toward her. I’ve never been able to see her sad, and that’s the way she is now as she stares at the rugs I bought from a thrift store to cover the dingy carpeting I’ll eventually tear out.
I have no idea what I’m doing as I reach out to touch her hair. Goddammit, that soft, angel-blond hair that I never stopped obsessing about.
“Sam…” I whisper, trying to console her.
She angrily pushes away from me. Bafflement shoots through me, hot and ragged, and everything I’ve held back for five fucking long years—my love for her, my need for her—comes back in a brutal flash. When I slip my hand to the back of her head, pulling her toward me and pressing her against my body, I see something deep and passionate in her eyes.
It’s the same desire I’ve been fighting.
“Jesus, Sam,” I say, just before her gaze melts, telling me that she wants me just as much as I want her.
Then red covers my sight, bleeding through me like uncaged heat as I tangle my fingers in her hair and crush my mouth to her soft lips, feeling her moan of surrender as it takes me over.
4
Samara
It’s as if lightning has struck me blind, my vision going a searing white color as Dylan’s mouth demandingly presses against mine.
I’ve dreamed for so many nights of this moment, my senses filled with the hot scent of him. Memories rush me: our first, explosive kiss, the first time his body was crushed to mine and I felt every single one of his hard muscles against my softness. I felt so weak and ecstatic in his embrace, and now, as my mind starts to clear, the reality of what is happening captures me.
Dylan, kissing me as if the world is ending, his mouth wet, commanding, and wonderful as my body presses against his. He’s hard everywhere, and as I sway on my feet, he holds me tightly, fiercely. His lips are insistent as he sucks at me, drawing out every single frightened and excited emotion from my very soul. My core is on fire for him, beating, going liquid with lava that flows through me, down to my pussy, which gushes with warmth and need.
He wraps his fingers in my hair and expertly runs his tongue between my lips. Then he tilts my head back until our chins are pressed together and he’s looking down at me with those stormy gray eyes. “You have no idea what you do to me, do you?”
I think I do know, because I’m feeling what he does to me. And as we look into each other’s eyes, I see what he has to be seeing: Kiss me again, dammit…explore every inch of me…lock me up until I’m crying your name over and over again…
With a growl, he sweeps me around, bumping us into the chairs near his kitchen table as he brings me into another burning kiss. In our fervor, we grope at each other, going at each other like animals, and I can’t catch my breath. It doesn’t seem like I’ll ever be able to breathe again, and I don’t care. I’d like to die in his arms. I am dying.
When he pulls at my dress, I can’t get it off fast enough. My hands flail while his are sure and steady—he acts like he knows just what he needs and I’m the only one who can ever give it to him. He knows what I need, too—he always did—and after he tosses away my dress and tears off my bra
, I excitedly stumble backward. I hit the table, grasping at it because it’s the only thing that’s keeping me standing.
Then he’s looking at me, his eyes going hazy as he runs his gaze from my face down to my bare chest. I still can’t breathe. I can’t exist without him. And from the way he’s looking at me with such a famished, predatory gaze, I know that he’s remembering all those summer nights when we were together, when there was nothing between us except an uncertain future.
Now there’s no future at all, but I still want him with every violent pound of my body. My nipples are sensitive and beaded into pained nubs. I’m so wet for him that I can feel my juices bathing my inner thighs.
As his gaze travels over my stomach to my panties, I know he can see the cream glistening over my skin.
“Fuck,” he grits. “Do you get this wet whenever you think of me?”
I don’t know what to say, because, yes—every time I think of Dylan, I get this way: desperate, needful, so worked up that I don’t think I can stand another minute of my pulsating clit and the feverish ache that’s spreading through me like sweet poison.
He takes a step toward me with his fists clenched by his sides. Those dragon tattoos that wind over his torso seem to seethe with the same craving that I feel. One of them isn’t as intricate as the other, and I wonder if it’s homemade, from prison.
“Tell me, Samara. How fucking wet do you get whenever you think of me?”
It’s beyond me to lie to him—not about this. “Every time I think of you, I get crazy, Dylan. It’s been like this for years.”
His gaze hardens. Is he remembering that I had a husband? Anger and betrayed confusion seem to come together in Dylan’s gray eyes, and I grasp behind me for something to hold onto, because I know what’s coming: he’s going to make me come, maybe to punish me, maybe to take what has always belonged to him back. He’s going to get me off hard and fast, and I can’t wait another second.
A low rumble emanates from him, and when he springs like a predator, I suck in a sharp breath. He turns me around, and I grip the top of the chair as he leans down and growls into my ear.
“I’m going to see how drenched you are for me. You don’t know how many nights I fantasized about your pussy, baby.”
I’m on the edge of begging, pleading for him to just do it, but as he slides his hand into the back of my panties, over the curve of my bottom, I can’t say a damned word. All I can do is choke, making a tiny, frightened, rapturous sound. I’m his willing prey, and I’m only getting wetter as he slips his long, skilled fingers between my legs to stroke me.
“So fucking wet,” he murmurs. “So fucking mine.”
The sound of my harsh breathing fills the room, mixing with his own choppy breaths that stir my hair as he presses his mouth against my neck. He keeps slicking his fingers through my slit, and I hear my juices stirring. I get lost in an erotic haze, my knees starting to go weaker, my legs starting to wobble. He’s holding me up, his arm braced over my belly as his other hand strums my pussy, spreading my cream around. He teases my clit, and on a soft cry, I slump forward, totally boneless as he keeps on going.
“Tell me how badly you want me to fuck you, baby.”
I bite my lip. Doesn’t he know that he’s reducing me to a puddle? I’m all heat and need.
“Fucking tell me,” he growls.
As he keeps working me, I can only whimper, and another low sound of frustration and yearning rumbles through his chest, traveling through my skin as he presses into my back. When he takes his wet hand and slides it over my waist and to my breast, I groan. He fondles me with slick caresses, spreading my cream over my nipple and circling it with ravenous pressure. My clit is so hot and swollen and pained that I can only make more soft, imploring sounds.
“Do you like it dirty these days?” he says.
“I —”
“Are you my good girl or a bad one? Tell me which one you are and exactly why you came here.”
I’m whatever he wants me to be, his plaything, his darling little toy that he can do anything with. But I don’t know what he wants from me. Dylan was never like this before, but his aggression and darkness are turning me on like hell.
He slips his other hand up to my other breast, expertly kneading me. I’m so agitated that I start rubbing my bottom up against his stiff, huge cock. Now he’s the one who groans, and I take warped satisfaction out of that.
“You little fucking devil,” he says. “You became a real tease while I was gone, didn’t you?”
Before I know it, he whips me around, scooping me against him to ravish me with another furious kiss. I’m breathless again, pushing back at him before I pass out, but there’s one final gasp left in me, and I haul it in as he suddenly lifts me up and sits me onto his kitchen table. He swipes out an arm to clear a bunch of files that are sitting on the surface, and everything scatters through the air, papers catching the wind and sifting down. I feel the same weightless suspension inside of me as I look into his savage gaze again.
“Just look at you,” he whispers raggedly. “Such damned temptation…”
The jagged hunger in his voice undoes me, and as the rest of the papers finally land on the floor, I slowly lean back on the table, inviting him to take what he wants. I belong to him, and I always did. I don’t want to think about what’s going to happen after I leave him, because all that exists is here and now.
My Dylan…
He pulls me by the hips toward him, and as I bite my lip, he makes another guttural sound, then bends to latch his mouth onto my breast. As I wrap my legs around his hips, piercing joy fills me up as he sucks at me fiercely. He makes famished sounds as he laves his tongue around me, bringing me to an excruciating arousal that only has my pussy beating and twisting. I wind my fingers through his hair, tugging and pulling at it as I urge him on with hot whispers.
“Please, Dylan… Oh, God, keep going…”
He gnaws at my breast, circles it again with his tongue, and looks up at me. The storm in his eyes is about to break. “Please what?”
I don’t know what to say. I’ve never begged him before. I’ve never had to. But this is a different, darker, very dangerous Dylan. And with a cruel smile, he lowers his head again. He brings my other nipple into his mouth and then slowly sucks it. As I squirm, he makes his way from my aching tits to the center of my stomach, lifting my hips and kissing his way over my belly. Vibrating through and through, I arch against his mouth, seeking to be destroyed. With a muttered curse, he rips off my panties, hooks his arms under my thighs, and with one more lethal look at me, buries his face against my bare pussy.
At the overwhelming contact, I rock against him, asking for more, even though he’s giving me everything. He licks his way up my slit, then pauses to breathe on me. In that one moment, I want to scream and shout for him to go on. But it’s as if the taste of me has resurrected sharp, painful memories for him, and he digs his fingers into my thighs. He nuzzles me, and when he breathes me in, I slam a fist on the table at the sheer naughtiness of what he’s doing.
I can feel him laugh against my pussy, then he’s kissing me again, faster, harder, wildly, as if he’s going to devour me. I churn my hips, egging him on.
“Yes,” I wince. “Oh, yes…”
He uses his fingers to part my sopping lips. He looks at me again, and I wiggle my hips in ecstasy.
I fist my hand in his hair, pulling at it, and the beast in him comes out full force as his gaze heats up to a temperature I’ve never seen before.
My impatience has pushed a button in him, and he snarls, then dives back down between my thighs. He kisses me so thoroughly, so hotly that when I close my eyes all I see is white lightning on the backs of my eyelids. I get lost in the way he tongues my clit, teasing it with little, cruel flicks. He sucks on my drenched lips, toying with each one and then kissing me deeply again and opening me up with sucking, hungry sounds. When he slips his tongue inside of me to fuck me that way, I’m a melting, sloppy mess. It o
nly gets worse when he adds the play of his fingers on my clit, rubbing my wicked bundle of nerves until, with a bolt that comes out of nowhere, I crash apart inside, coming like a flash storm and yelling out his name.
In my haze, I see his face. He’s still frenzied, but he likes what he’s doing to me, torturing me, giving me a ration of hell for leaving him for another man while he was locked away.
On another, deeper growl, he pulls me upright and toward him. My buzzing, thumping pussy comes up against his cock. Underneath the fly of his jeans, I can feel his hard tip, feel how big and ready he is to take me.
I gyrate against him, asking him to get inside me without actually saying anything. I don’t think I have a voice anymore. I barely have a mind.
He moves his hips, mercilessly teasing me, his head grinding against my clit.
“How badly did you miss this?”
“Bad. So bad.” I can’t look away from his wild gaze. I’m in his thrall, and I don’t want to run. I don’t want to hide. I just want him to fill me up with everything he has.
He keeps working my clit with his hard tip, titillating me. I lean back my head, on the verge of collapsing again. I expect him to go animal on me once more, but when I feel him run his palm up my belly then up through the center of my breasts to lightly grip the base of my throat, all I can do is swallow. He squeezes lightly, and a forceful tug of lust nearly pulls me apart.
I open my eyes to see the anger in him, the turbulence. He knows that he can never really have me, but that’s not going to stop him.
“Dylan…”
My voice is soft, filled with all the emotion that never died for him. Something seems to break apart in his gaze, and he bares his teeth. Then, on a surge of possession, he scoops me up again. My head swims as he carries me away, and the next thing I know, I’m on a bed, naked and vulnerable, waiting for him to come get me. He goes to a table, yanks open the drawer, and reaches inside. He comes out with a condom.
