“Lay on me,” she said through labored breaths. “All your weight.”
“I’ll hurt you,” he said, never breaking stride.
“You will not. Please.”
With great care he lowered his body until they fused into one, her breasts crushed against his tattooed chest, and his face tucked into her neck. His bristly beard sent a thousand shocks over her damp skin.
This time it was her turn to grind against him. With all the pressure centered squarely on her most sensitive bit, the orgasm mounted. Pressure built like a tsunami and rose above her, threatening to crash at any second.
“God, baby, I’m gonna come soon,” he said. The whisper of breath on her ear and one last thrust against him, and she crashed. She came hard and fast, a strangled scream pressed into his shoulder as she went.
“Oh my God,” she gushed.
He trailed his cheek against hers and looked into her face, his brow still creased. He bit down on his lip and rocked his hips against her, slow but purposeful.
“Your turn.”
His lips turned up at the corners and he ran a hand over her hair, tugging a few errant strands out of her eyes. He placed his mouth on hers, and she closed her teeth around his lower lip in a nod to their earlier exploits.
“You’re so tight,” he said.
His lips still brushed against hers as the lines in his face grew deeper. She clenched her sex, gripping him from within, and a single cry escaped his perfectly curved lips.
“Fuck.” His teeth clenched as he seized up inside her, and after the last thrust, he exhaled into her hair and completely collapsed. His weight pressing her into the mattress provided the ultimate comfort.
For a minute, he didn’t move. She trailed her lips across the freckles at his shoulder, ran her hands through the thick hair at the nape of his neck. He twitched and another trickle of pleasure wove its way up into her chest. She felt lit up from the inside out, as if she’d swallowed Christmas lights and someone had just plugged them in.
“That’s it,” he said, his voice muffled by the pillow. He turned his head slowly and nuzzled into her neck. “You killed me. I’m done.”
“No way,” she said, grinning. The curve of his back looked like a sand dune in a dark desert. “I’m going to need you to do that to me again later, please.”
His cock twitched inside her again, and she burrowed further into his chest. “I guess he’s up for it.”
He lifted himself up and rolled onto his side, resting his head in his hand to look down at her. He traced her collarbone with shaky fingers and licked his lip as his gaze followed suit.
I’m so screwed. The deep sadness hit her almost as hard as the orgasm. Her feelings for him were on a slippery slope toward love. He was too perfect, too good for her, too good in general. He was everything Connor didn’t have the heart to be.
“Okay, real talk,” she said.
“Uh-oh.”
“Where did you get this body? Are you a mechanic by day and Abercrombie model by night?” She ran a hand over his washboard abs as he laughed.
“I work out,” he said. “But not like a maniac. I guess I just have good genetics.”
Her heart rate finally slowed to a normal pace, and sleepiness set in. She knew it was too much to ask that he spend the night, but thinking about him climbing out of this bed made her heart hurt.
“Real talk,” he said.
“Uh-oh.”
A smile tugged at his lips as his fingers traced her collarbone and shoulders. “What was your favorite part?”
“You want a review? Like Yelp?”
His face broke into a laugh. “Yes, please. And at the end, please answer a series of multiple choice questions. Is this venue good for children? Is smoking allowed?”
“In all honesty,” she said, rolling onto her side to be even closer to him, her lips pressing against his chin before she continued, “I wanted you to go down on me. Like, really wanted it.”
His gaze deepened. “It’s all up to you. Short of gerbils and extreme BDSM, I’ll try whatever you want me to try. I love exploring you, having you tell me what you like. It’s so hot.”
“No gerbils?” she growled. “Get out of my house.”
“I told you,” he said. “I want to make you feel good. If you think me going down on you is going to feel good, then let’s try it. If we try it and you hate it, we stop. It’s as easy as that.”
“But,” she said, tiptoeing toward the truth, “what if I don’t like it and it hurts your feelings?”
“Sydney,” he groaned, burying his face in the pillow with flourish. When he looked back up at her, he shook his head. “You will not hurt my feelings. I promise.”
It wasn’t the only insecurity rattling around in her mind. The scene from earlier in the shop resurfaced, Liv speaking to Jay in dulcet tones. She’s trying. She was trying. And yet here Sydney was, lying naked next to the man who’d help her get her son back.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be with Liv?”
The words darted out of her mouth like a bird escaping a cage. The shock on his face matched her shock at having said them.
“No,” he said. “I thought we talked about this.”
“We did,” she said. Shame burned hot on her cheeks. The question had been on her mind since that morning, but when Sam walked into the house unexpectedly, all rational thought fell out of her head and lust took over. But now, in the sober postcoital moments, the old fear wove its way back to her psyche.
“You don’t believe me?” he said. He leaned back toward the wall, putting another inch of space between them. She refused the distance and curled her shoulders toward him.
“It’s not that I think you’re lying,” she said. “But what if she does everything she says she will? What if she stays sober, proves she can be an amazing mother, and you realize you can find it in you to give her another shot? What if she’s able to be sober-nurse-Liv all the time?”
He swallowed, his face relaxing. He traced the line of her frown with a rough-tipped finger. “Neither of us wants that. I sincerely hope, for Jay’s sake, that Liv does everything she says she’s going to. In fact, I’m counting on it. That optimism is why I agreed to help her in the first place. But I’m trying to focus more on my future than the past these days.”
Her fingers trembled and curled into a timid fist. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” he whispered. “I like the idea of exploring my feelings for you.”
Despite the fact that his condom-clad half erection brushed against her hip and his fingers traced lazily across her naked breasts, to hear him say he had feelings for her sent dazzling sparks through her limbs.
“You have feelings for me?” she teased.
He raised one eyebrow and one corner of his mouth. “If that wasn’t perfectly clear, then I’m doing something wrong.” He ran a lazy hand over his mussed hair. “Are you really okay with the way this is going? Because I tried to keep my distance, but once I found out you felt the way I felt, all my self-control kind of evaporated. I just don’t want to put you in a bad spot.”
“I wish it didn’t have to be a secret. But I understand how it might upset things with Liv if we were open about it.”
“We could . . .” He swallowed. “Wait. Wait until her custody stuff is over.”
Sydney shook her head. “I feel better with you than I have in a long time. If you’re in, I’m in.”
On an exhale, he kissed her again. She couldn’t quiet her thoughts. Liv doesn’t deserve your kindness. When he pulled away, she consciously smoothed her brow.
“The game’s probably still on,” he said.
“Wow, sex and a football game. You’re a lucky man.”
He tilted his head toward hers and revealed his perfect white teeth. “Sorry, is this not your ideal night, also? Or was that somebody e
lse at Utz’s screaming about Derek Tahoe’s terrible arm?”
“He’ll never be a franchise quarterback. The Giants need to accept it.”
He shook his head slowly, and the warmth pouring from his eyes made her squirm. It was all too good to be true. The other shoe would surely drop. Eventually.
chapter twenty
Sam took a step back and cocked his head. He crossed his arms over his chest. Ugh. It looked stupid. He wasn’t good at this kind of stuff. Hand him a tree, and he could make you an armoire. Hand him a mess of parts, and he’d build you an engine. Hand him candles and decorative fabric, and he’d make you a rat’s nest.
“I’m sorry,” he said as Karen sidled up next to him, grimacing at his creation.
“Don’t sweat it, scout,” she said. “I’ll fix it. Maybe decorating isn’t your forte. Why don’t you go across the way and see if Mrs. McDonagh needs help carrying over the pastries?”
“I was over there, and she told me to scram.”
Karen giggled. “Sounds like your work here is done. Why don’t you grab a beer with the other fellas over at Utz’s and we’ll take over?”
He looked around the shop and gnawed at his lip. He hated feeling helpless. But on this, the night of Sydney’s first book-club meeting, he wanted to provide any scrap of assistance he could. Anything to make the night go more smoothly for her.
The past week had been a dreamy blur of tangled limbs and whispered conversations and screaming orgasms. She was in his blood like heroin, and when they weren’t together, he replayed scenes in his mind of the last time he’d seen her.
Beyond the crushing sexual chemistry, he loved spending time with her. He couldn’t decide which he enjoyed more, laughing with her on the couch or stroking her in bed. What he did know was that the thought of her leaving town at the hands of a failed shop pressed on his chest like a heart attack. He’d seen the past-due notices in the office, heard the steely-voiced messages on the shop answering machine. They were closer than ever to folding.
“Get out of here, will you?” Sydney said. “You’re ruining everything.”
She breezed past him, leaving him trembling in a wake of her perfume. After torching several trays of cookies earlier with Jorie, she also smelled like burnt sugar. Even the scent of failed baked goods on her skin tore him up inside.
“Okay, I’m officially bowing out,” he said. “Seems embarrassingly sexist, though, to exile the men to a bar.”
“It’s all part of the draw,” Karen reminded him. “It’s a boys’ book club without the books while the wives spend their evening here. Although if you fellas wanted to incorporate some reading into your beer drinking, we’d be happy to supply the material.”
“If I ever meet a man in this town who’s read something other than the Pine Ridge Gazette, I’ll suggest it.”
He took one last look at Sydney flitting around the shop, making sure everything was perfect. Tonight she wore a red plaid shirt unbuttoned to dangerous depths with multiple gold necklaces and tight black jeans. City Sydney and Mountain Sydney combined. She rearranged candles on the side table near the couch, and he felt privileged to know what she looked like underneath those clothes.
“All right, I’m out,” he said.
She stood up and flashed him a smile. Her eyes darted over to the cash register, where Karen squinted over a to-do list, and in the moment when no one was watching, Sydney pressed a kiss to her fingers and waved it at him. If she were a superhero, that would be her power. Decimating men’s hearts with a press of her lips.
With his head cloudy and his cock stirring, he slipped into his coat and headed across the street to Utz’s. Another of Sydney’s brilliant ideas—which popped into her head as they cuddled after a quickie in his garage office on Tuesday night—was to offer book-club drink specials at Utz’s for anyone who brought his wife, girlfriend, or family member to the Loving Book Club.
He joined the table of beer drinkers in the back of the bar, flipping a chair around to straddle before leaning on his forearms.
“This is bullshit, right?” he said. “Relegated to the bar like it’s 1950?”
“You’d rather be drinking wine and giggling over Fabio?” Matt said, guzzling from a pint.
“Wow, it really is 1950,” Edith O’Hare’s daughter said, taking a swig from her own pint. “Romance novels are nothing like that anymore. In fact, you should read one. You’d probably like it.”
Sam grinned. He knew the guys at this table had no idea what romance was about. When he’d popped in on Sydney at home a couple of days ago, she’d been engrossed in a book about a professional baseball player and his high school sweetheart. She’d continued reading the chapter out loud. He made it through three pages of explicit words falling off her lips before he plucked the book from her hands and began hazily peeling off her clothes.
“Hell no,” Matt said with a grimace. “I’d never read one. Plus, who’s got time for books? It’s almost playoff season.”
Edith’s daughter stifled a laugh and caught Sam’s eye. They both raised their eyebrows at the same time. Who’s got time to read? Who indeed.
Sam noticed a few empty pints at the table and went to the bar to order a round. “Hank. Give me a book-club special, please.” After a moment’s pause, he reconsidered. “Wait. Is the book-club special a strawberry mojito or something?”
“Boy, are you daft?” Hank said, laughing. “You remember who set all this up, right? Sydney ordered up a half keg of Saranac’s Moonshadow Black IPA. Five bucks a pint while it lasts.”
His body tingled as if he’d slid into a warm pool. Of course she’d ordered a limited edition IPA from a local brewery. It would get people in the door, and at that price, she’d drain the keg in no time. People would stay and drink after it had kicked, giving the bar great business in the slow season and giving spouses another reason to encourage their partners back to the next book-club meeting. Jesus, the girl was smart.
He carried three pints over to the table and set them in the center, snagging one for himself before two hands snatched out to claim the others.
“None for me?” Jared said as he shook snowflakes off his coat and settled down at the table between Greg and Matt. Greg begrudgingly handed over his full pint to Jared and waved at Hank for another.
“Just passed by the bookshop. Didn’t see too many people.” Jared took a long drink of the beer. “Shit, this is some potent stuff. Why didn’t she do a Bud Light special?”
“’Cause she has taste,” Sam said.
“Who all is over there?” Greg asked.
“Nobody you can bang,” Jared joked, glancing around the table to see who found him funny. No one laughed. He clapped Greg on the shoulder. “Sorry, man. Just kidding around.”
“So it’s a small turnout? The book club?” Sam asked, careful to hide his intense curiosity. Sydney needed this. He needed this.
Jared shrugged. “From what I could see walking by.”
Sam swallowed a long pull of beer. The beer Sydney had selected. God, please let this work.
* * *
• • •
The telephone rang shrilly on the wall, and Hank snagged the receiver as Greg handed over another twenty. They’d officially kicked the half keg.
“Yeah?” Hank asked. His beady eyes darted over to Sam. “Yeah, he’s here.”
Worry lines creased Hank’s brow, and Sam’s neck prickled. A wave of dread crept over his legs like a slow-rising tide. Something was wrong. Please be a tow. Please be a tow.
“Sure thing, I’ll send him over.” Hank replaced the receiver and scanned the group before hitching up his pants and wiping his mouth. “Sam, you’ve been summoned.”
“What’s going on?” Matt asked.
Hank hitched his pants again, wiped his mouth. His eyes darted around the table, meeting the gazes of the town residents. “Eh, I thi
nk you better head over there and see for yourself. Seems Liv needs a hand.”
The drinking. He knew it. He should’ve seen it coming. What was one year sober? From everything he’d read on alcoholism, relapses were all but guaranteed. He should’ve kept a closer eye on her, should’ve checked in more.
“Liv’s drinking again?” Matt said, his voice laced with anger.
Sam shook his head. “I don’t know.”
He pushed back from the table and stalked out of the bar, neglecting the jacket hanging on the back of his chair. With the heat radiating outward from him, he wouldn’t need it.
Eerie quiet met him at the Loving Page, save for the tinny Christmas music playing from a little speaker in the back. Matching lined faces that looked a lot like Hank’s greeted him as he approached the modest group. He recognized each of the six faces, and another wave of disappointment washed over him as he realized Sydney hadn’t gotten the turnout she needed.
“She’s in the back with Sydney,” Jorie said. She pressed her lips together and stared with wide eyes. “I don’t even know where she got the booze, Sam. She seemed fine when she showed up.”
“She brought it with her,” Karen said, crossing her arms over her chest. “After she tossed her cookies in her coat, I noticed a flask in the front pocket.”
“She threw up in her coat?” His throat turned to sandpaper.
“I think she was trying not to puke on the couch.” Jorie tucked the paperback she’d been holding between the couch cushions and stood to meet Sam outside the closed office door. Something like sadness framed her eyes as she ran a hand across her brow.
“I’m so tired of this,” Jorie said. “After everything we’ve done for her. Everything you’ve done for her. We believed in her. I really thought she could do it this time.”
Sam forced a breath in and out of his lungs. He couldn’t have this conversation now. He had to see for himself the mess Liv had created.
He pushed open the office door to find Liv hunched over a blue plastic pail, her white fingers clutching the sides for dear life. The putrid smell in the tiny space made him gag.
Wild Love Page 23
