by Evans, J. C.
I don’t know how much time passes, but when my body and soul finally come back together again, I’m lying heavily on top of her and she’s stroking her fingers up and down my back, humming a husky song low in her throat.
“What song is that?” I ask, my voice so deep I barely recognize it.
“I don’t know,” she says with a soft laugh. “I didn’t realize I was humming.”
I pull back, bracing myself on my forearms, gazing down into her face. She’s not crying anymore, but I can see the damp streaks where her tears and mine mingled on her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tracing one sad, salty trail with my finger. “I didn’t know it was going to be like that.”
Her lips curve on one side. “Hot as hell?”
“No, I could have guessed that.” I smile, but it doesn’t last for long. “I just… I didn’t mean to push you to make any promises you’re not ready to make.”
“It’s okay,” she whispers, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I am yours. I’m sorry I forgot that for so long.”
“And I’m yours,” I say, throat tight. “Forever. Even if I’d never come here, Sam, even if I’d never seen you again. I know that’s not how it’s supposed to be, I know I’m supposed to be all right on my own…but I’m not.”
Her lips tremble. “I’m not either. I’m so sorry I hurt you, babe.”
“You couldn’t help it. I don’t blame you. I swear I don’t. I just need to know that it’s over now. That we’re us again.”
“We’re us again,” she says, her eyes searching mine. “I don’t know why I thought we could be anything else. I’m either half of us or I’m only half alive.”
My shoulders sag with relief to know that she understands and that neither of us has to be half alive anymore.
She sniffs. “I guess I’m not as smart as people think I am.”
“You are very smart,” I say, kissing her cheek. “It’s been a hell of a year. Cut yourself some slack. And I hope you’ll cut me some, too. I’m sorry that only lasted five minutes.”
Her next sniff becomes a laugh. “Five minutes was plenty to get where we were going.”
She pauses, biting her lip as her legs wrap tighter around my hips. “But maybe we could try it again. A little slower this time.”
My cock pulses inside of her, all too happy to oblige, but a glance around the rapidly darkening jungle proves it’s past time to get back to civilization.
Reluctantly, I pull out, even though all I want is to stay balls deep in her for the rest of my life. “Let’s take this back to the cabin, where we don’t have to worry about getting bitten in the ass by a snake.”
“All right.” Sam takes my hand and lets me pull her to her feet.
I’m about to reach for my shorts, when she lunges forward, wrapping her arms around me and hugging tight. I return the embrace, dropping my head to press a kiss to the top of her head, overwhelmed by a potent mixture of love, gratitude, and fear.
This is all I want.
She’s all I want and I already know I wouldn’t survive losing her again.
“We’re going to have to be very careful,” I whisper. “This comes first. You and me. We can’t let them take that away again.”
She nods. “We’ll be careful. We’ll be quick. And then we’ll be gone. Together.”
My eyes slide closed and my arms tighten around her, wishing I could draw her into my body and keep her safe inside of me. Wishing that I never had to be apart from her, even for a moment.
After we make our way through the darkened trees to the cabin, we make love again, slow and sweet. I kiss every inch of her, from her freckled shoulders to the place where her pulse beats just beneath her navel to the slick flesh between her legs. She tastes like home and heaven and as she comes on my mouth, her secret, salty heat flooding across my tongue, I realize that they’re the same.
And they’re both Sam.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sam
“Everything is hard before it is easy.”
-Goethe
I had worried that letting love back into my life would dull my sharp edges, but nothing could be further from the truth.
The next morning, I wake up in Danny’s arms, sore from making love until midnight, with a fire burning in my belly, more determined than ever to get blood on my hands. I lost a year of this perfect love and scarred the heart of the best person I’ve ever known because of Todd and his friends. It’s past time for them to get what they deserve.
And then Danny and I will finally be free.
I roll over, propping my chin on his chest, watching the clear morning light creep across his face, setting his blond stubble to glowing.
With his long hair spread out across the pillow and his full lips parted in sleep, he is as beautiful as he ever was. But even at rest, he looks like a man who’s been through something, who has walked through the shadows of the underworld, where the living should never have to tread. I’m the reason he knows what it’s like to hurt like that, and I’m going to be the one to take his hand and lead him back into the light.
One day soon we’re going to walk away from this horror and the sooner that day comes, the better.
A few minutes before seven, his eyes open. He looks disoriented for a second, but then he sees me and smiles, relief and wonder mixing on his sleepy face.
“So last night wasn’t a dream,” he says, hugging me closer to his warm body.
“More like a wake-up call.” I kiss his scruffy cheek. “When’s your last day of work again?”
He hums and his brow furrows. “I’ll be back from the overnight trip Tuesday morning, but I don’t have to check out of the cabin until Wednesday.”
I cross my hands on his chest and prop my chin on top. “So we do all three Tuesday night and leave first thing Wednesday morning. I’ll go to the airport and buy the tickets while you’re busy with the training exercises today.”
“Sounds like a plan.” He brushes my hair from my face. “I’ll give you some cash for my ticket.”
“Do you care where we go?”
He shakes his head. “Nope. I’ve got Pete and Sean running all the tours in Porec until the end of the summer. We can go anywhere you want. Surprise me.”
My breath rushes out with a mixture of terror and anticipation. I can’t wait for the morning we board that plane, even if there is still hell to go through before we get there. “I thought you’d be sick of surprises by now.”
“I’m sick of being without you,” he says, arm tightening around my waist. “I don’t mind surprises.”
“I meant what I said last night,” I whisper, hoping he can hear that I mean every word. “I’m sticking with you. And from now on this comes first.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He cups my bottom in his big hand, setting the aching flesh between my legs to tingling. “How are you feeling this morning?”
“Sore.” I smile, before adding in a lilting voice, “But not too sore.”
“Not too sore for what?” he asks, feigning innocence even as his fingers slip between my thighs, finding where I’m already slick. He bites his lip as he strokes gently in and out. “Thailand or India.”
“What?” I moan as he adds a second finger, testing me, making sure I’m ready for him.
“Get us a flight to Thailand or India,” he says. “Near the coastal resorts. Hotels are cheap enough there that we’ll be able to shack up in a room by the beach for a month and do nothing but make love, eat curry, and swim in the ocean all day.”
“Sounds like heaven,” I say, sighing as he removes his fingers and rolls on top of me, spreading my thighs with a nudge of his knee that makes my desire spike fast and hot.
“No, this is heaven.” He holds my gaze as he positions himself and glides slowly inside, his thickness stretching my inner walls.
The hint of soreness makes me even more aware of how perfectly he fills me, how right it is to be joined with him like this, with nothing between us but l
ove and skin. I wrap my arms and legs around him and give him everything, all my love, all my pain, and all my newly sprung hope for the future.
And when we’re lying together after, listening to the monkeys chitter in the trees outside and bird calls echo through the jungle, I realize again what a fool I’ve been.
Love isn’t making me soft, it’s taking the weapon forged by hate and refining it in the fire Danny and I make together, transforming it into something even sharper and more deadly.
Hate gave me something worth dying for, but this is worth living for.
“Thank you,” I whisper against the damp skin of his neck, where he smells like sweat and sex and Danny, a potent combination that makes me want to keep him in bed all day.
“No, thank you.” He sighs. “I wish I could stay here with you all day.”
I laugh. “I was just thinking that.”
“Of course you were. I told you, great minds.” He kisses the top of my head. “Don’t go anywhere except to the airport and back, okay? I don’t want you to run into any of them when I’m not around.”
“All right,” I say. “But we should do some recon today. What time will you be back?”
“I shouldn’t be any later than two,” he says, sliding his arm from beneath my shoulders and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “We can head over to the resort to scope things out then. I think I’ve figured out how to handle the J.D. and Jeremy thing without them seeing my face, but I want to roll it over in my head a little more.”
I shift onto my side, propping my head up on one hand, appreciating the view as Danny gets dressed. “Want to give me a hint what you’re thinking?”
He grins. “No. I want to see what you come up with while I’m gone.”
“It probably won’t be much,” I say, wrinkling my nose. “If I haven’t thought of something brilliant by now, I doubt today is going to be any different.”
“Today is already different,” he says, shrugging his shirt on. “You started the day with morning sex. And morning sex makes you twenty percent smarter.”
My eyebrows lift. “Has that been verified by science?”
“It’s been verified by my cock,” he says, propping his hands on the mattress and leaning in for a kiss. “That’s even better than science.”
I smile against his lips. “You’re right. That is better than science.” I run my hand down his chest to where his shorts ride low on his hips and curl my fingers around the top of his waistband. “Are you sure you have to go this very second?”
His hand slips into my hair. “I could push it a few minutes if I skip breakfast. What did you have in mind?”
“Oh nothing, I was just thinking.” I tilt my chin up, blinking innocently as I add, “If one round of morning sex is good then two ought to be even better.”
He pushes me back onto the mattress. “Who needs breakfast?”
“Breakfast is for losers,” I agree as our mouths meet and I reach for the close of his shorts, already desperate to have him inside of me again.
There’s no time for foreplay, but I don’t need any.
I’m still wet from our first time and by the time Danny sinks into me again, fresh heat dampens my thighs, easing his way.
“God, Sam,” he groans against my lips as he begins to thrust inside me. “I’m never going to get enough of you.”
“Never,” I agree, digging my fingers into the firm muscles of his ass, pulling him closer, deeper.
Within a few moments, we’ve found our rhythm and are racing toward the edge, knowing there isn’t time for a slow build. But still, as his thrusts grow harder, faster, I’m right there with him, clinging to his shoulders as he tilts my hips, hitting that sweet spot deep inside that makes me crazy. He rams home again and again, his cock swelling inside of me until I know he’s about to go and I can’t hold on a second longer.
I bite my lip, trying to muffle the sound as I come, but my cry still echoes through the room, followed closely by Danny’s deep groan of release. His cock jerks inside of me, hard enough to make me gasp and fresh waves of pleasure course from my belly out to electrify every inch of my skin.
I’m on fire and all I want to do is burn.
Burn and burn until there is nothing left among the ashes except the very core of my being, the part that has always belonged to Daniel Cooney. I’ve been his since I was just a kid, too young to realize that we were falling in forever love, the kind that refuses to be shut down or destroyed, no matter how scared you get, or how much you want to spare the one you love from your own suffering.
“I love you,” he says, catching his breath.
“I love you, too.” My heart is racing, but not from fear.
I’m not afraid anymore and my thoughts already feel less cloudy.
In fact, as I slip into my robe and grab a banana and a granola bar from my backpack for Danny, the hint of a plan is already beginning to form.
“You were right.” I kiss his cheek one last time as he reaches for the door. “Today is going to be different.”
“And all the days after,” he promises with a certainty that makes me believe him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Danny
“People who think honestly and deeply
have a hostile attitude towards the public.”
-Goethe
Getting into The Seasons is easier than I expected, but then Sam and I have extensive pool crashing experience.
Growing up on Maui, we probably crashed every hotel pool on the island at one point or another. The secret is to dress like a tourist, act like you belong, come armed with a room number, and be prepared to play dumb if you get caught.
But we were never caught when we were kids and today is no different.
We stand up paddleboard over to the private beach in our swimsuits and by the time we’ve ordered smoothies from the cabana and wandered up the trail to use the showers, we’re just two more guests enjoying the resort. I’m wearing my ball cap with my hair tucked underneath and Sam has her big hat and glasses on again.
She’s virtually unrecognizable, but I can tell that she’s still on edge. Not that I can blame her.
I don’t blame her for refusing to let me come alone, either. Two sets of eyes and ears are better than one and a team effort is our best bet for getting the information we need. My computer skills aren’t up to hacking The Seasons database and the front desk is never going to tell a couple of strangers a guest’s room number.
The only way we’re going to find out where Todd and the rest of them are staying is by lurking in the right place at the right time.
“If you need to disappear, I’ll meet you by the paddleboards,” I say as I get Sam settled on a bar stool in the shade not far from where the poolside waitresses pick up their drinks.
Sam tugs her straw hat lower on her face. “Okay, but you’re the one who needs to be careful. I seriously doubt any of them are going to get off their lazy asses and come all the way down to the bar to get a drink when they could have someone deliver it to their lounge chair. Lie low and don’t attract attention.”
“I won’t.” I rub what I hope is a comforting hand up and down her back. “And don’t worry, they aren’t going to remember my face from a few pictures they saw on your phone over a year ago.”
I ignore the flash of anger that follows my words.
I hate that pictures Sam took to send to me—private pictures of some toys she’d bought and a few racy shots of her meant to ease the loneliness of being apart for months on end—were used to paint her as some kind of deviant slut during the trial. I hate even more that those pictures might have made her a target in the first place.
Alex copped to passing Sam’s phone around to Todd a few hours before the attack, but we’ll never know if that’s why he decided to isolate Sam in the pool room while a party raged on the other side of the building. I guess, in the end, it doesn’t matter.
I don’t care why Todd decided to do what he did, only that
he pays for it.
“Probably not.” Sam takes a deep breath, but her shoulders are still tense as they settle into place. “But be careful anyway. Text me when you’ve got the numbers and I’ll head back to the beach.”
“I will. And have a beer if you think it will help you relax a little,” I say. “I know normal people can do that without wanting to drink the entire keg.”
Her lips twitch. “Are you calling me normal?”
“Never,” I say, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “You’re the best. See you soon.”
“Soon,” she echoes, squeezing my hand one last time before I turn and start down the path leading to the infinity pool.
There are smaller, private pools sprinkled throughout the resort, but my gut says a bunch of fraternity boys will want to be where the people are. They’ll want to see and be seen, and maybe pick up a girl or two to take out tonight.
I set up a dummy social media account months ago and I’m friends with half the SBE brothers. I know that they’re pre-gaming at Guava Bar at a neighboring resort and then heading out to the club that just opened in the closest village. If Sam wasn’t so insistent on me avoiding contact with the douchebags, I could probably lure them out the back door of the dance club with an offer to share a bowl and have them in my trunk a few minutes later.
But I know she wants to keep me safe, so I’m willing to play things her way.
For now.
At least until I hear the new plan she cooked up while I was out teaching people how to hang a tent from the side of a rock face. She said she wanted to wait until we had the room numbers before she fleshed out the details since those were necessary for what she had in mind.
Hopefully, before the sun starts to set, I’ll have what we need. I can’t imagine frat boys will wait much more than an hour between drinks, not when they’re on vacation and pounding beers is basically the sole reason for joining a frat in the first place.
