He’d say she was out of her mind.
Just then he realized that was the problem.
Without this closure—over their past, over this room’s ugly reminder—she’d never be in her right mind.
****
Ten minutes later…
“Gabe is snoring. See, he’s asleep. We’re practically alone,” she said.
“Can I ask you something?” He didn’t wait for an okay. “Why does this have to happen tonight?”
She blinked and looked down at her hands. “This room—”
“No, I know. I get the where part. And I want more than anything to leave you with good memories to replace the bad ones. But I could come back another night. You know, we could reserve the room next week. I’m not an employee here anymore. We wouldn’t have to sneak around. It doesn’t have to be tonight. I don’t understand.”
“Now it’s my turn to stop you, Sam. As much as I love everyone here like family, I still need a private life. This room, it’s not about…oh, I don’t know how to say this to you because I have no idea where we’re at, with whatever it is we are to each other.”
“We’re best friends, Emma. Tell me. This room, it’s not about what?”
She blew out and let her head loll against his. “This room isn’t about couples. It’s not about relationships. It’s about who you are before that. The part of you who’s intrigued by the possibilities. The fantasy. The person inside who is still brave enough to explore and then take the leap because you still have it in you to trust wholeheartedly that your fantasy is exactly what you dreamed it would be. This room is about the magical place before anything is made real. At least that’s the way I saw it before…him. That’s what I imagine it being, again. After you.”
“You’re brave, Emma Chester. The bravest girl I know.” He rubbed her knuckles with his thumb.
“Sam, I took that leap in here once before. The unknown slapped me in the face with a barbwire-laced palm full of hurt.” She shied away from him. “It was so ugly, that feeling he left me with. I wanted so badly to go crying to you. You’ve always been my rock. You’ve always been the one I wanted to…but I couldn’t.”
“What are you not telling me?”
Seconds passed.
“Emma, come on,” he pleaded.
“Maybe I have hopes for something more. With you, after you leave here tonight. Something a little more like boyfriend and girlfriend.”
Her skin felt warm under his constant rubbing. His thumb couldn’t stop.
“Maybe I feel like we’re this close,” she said to him and held her fingers up showing the teeny-tiny fraction of space between her thumb and index finger indicating how close she thought they were. “I’m scared. I don’t want to let myself love you that much, in that way, until I know.”
“Wow. I’m…thank you for being honest.”
“I don’t want to hide anything from you ever again,” she said.
“Emma, until you know what?” Sam asked.
“You caught that.” She sighed, wishing he hadn’t, then exhaled loudly. Her sniffle caught his ear. “I can’t handle falling for you again until I know for sure whether we’re going to work, as lovers.” Not for her sake, but for his. “I need it to be tonight because,” she held up her fingers again to show how close they were, “I’m about one breath away from falling madly in love with you again. But if this isn’t gonna work…”
“I want it to work, Emma.” His jaw looked tight as steel. Determination was hard at work in his eyes. “I want it to work,” he practically breathed out the words.
“Then hear me one last time. I trust you. So much so that there could be a hundred other people in here, a thousand more bad memories needing erased right now, or just you, me, Gabe, and the one bad night. I trust you, Sam. I need this.”
Sam glanced to a sleeping Gabe propped in the corner of the room.
“Take off my clothes, hon. I want to be stripped by you,” he said.
Emma’s words to him earlier about what the club should be hit home. She wanted something real with him but she needed assurances that this time the fantasy wouldn’t blow up in her face. She had no idea the thrill that gave him. His only job right now was to show her.
Except for this. He had to tell her this.
“So, after I prove to you how good the fantasy is, I hope you’re planning on letting me stick around for the reality part.” He had a feeling that’s where the real fun would begin. Looking at her sitting there after just having unleashed a gallon of raw truth on him, admitting things that stole his air, he knew he was that close, too. That’s why his heart was currently lodged in his throat. She’d just plainly stated that if they couldn’t be together physically, there could be no relationship. Maybe he’d felt that, too. Maybe that’s why he’d strung her along at this job that kept them together but apart. Knowing they were meant to take their friendship-love to the next level had scared the crap out of him, because maybe it would never work.
He couldn’t lose Emma, and something inside told him it would be damn hard to go back to being just friends after this.
Things had to work between them.
And it had to happen now, before she leaped right out of his grasp and he lost her for good.
Her fingers fell gently from the top of his head, skimmed down his sideburns, and left his jaw aching in their wake.
“Let’s don’t think too much,” she said softly.
Her dainty fingers pressed into his pecs, leaving indentations.
“Okay,” he said and caught her head twist in Gabe’s direction. Sam cupped her chin in his hand and pulled her face back to his. “Just you and me.”
“Just us,” she said and tugged him from their sitting position up onto his knees with her.
One. Two. Three. Four.
She popped the buttons of his shirt loose and slid it over his shoulders so it could fall to the floor. At the same time, he felt his blood racing with adrenaline and he wanted to take her in his arms and follow the path his clothes had just taken. But he stopped himself. Not yet. His gut clenched in time to his breathing. The muscles he’d spent all that time and energy on tensed and hardened. His whole body was ready to take her in.
Sam whispered into her ear. Just one final thing for her to think about. “I’ve loved you since the first night you took me to your home. No matter what…if this doesn’t work…that will never change.”
Her breath hitched as he watched a tear drop onto her cheek. He wiped it dry for her and waited for the next one to fall then wiped that one, too. “Stop that, you’re gonna make me cry like a little girl,” he said, then put her hands on his chest. Her palms stuck to his skin as they sat there kneeling in front of each other, staring. With her deep brown eyes searching his, he felt her fingers make their way to his nipples. She rubbed, spending an excruciating amount of time making them even harder, more electric.
He was about to go for a kiss when her hands reached down and cupped him. Sam was almost certain his eyes rolled back in his head so he closed them just to make sure he didn’t look possessed. But damn, her hand, squeezing him. Knowing this time it was an act that would take them to making love, not just skirting around it. She held him in her hand, like she had to have him. Wanted and needed him. All the way. He knew this. He knew Emma Chester. If things didn’t work out tonight, she was just stubborn enough to believe in that crap about them not having been made for each other. All he knew right now with her trusting him like this, was that they’d been made for each other.
Their hearts fit. Their souls were a perfect match.
And if there was one thing he knew about the human body, it was flexible. That’s what he clung to as her hands explored more of him, and then she pressed her lips to his and waited for him to kiss her back.
Chapter Eleven
Sam grasped her hips from behind and pushed, gritting his teeth.
It felt amazing, just like he’d dreamed, until she screamed that familiar scream.
Movement in the corner caught his eye, and he remembered Gabe was in the room. Gabe, whose eyes were now opened. Damn.
“Tell me you are okay, Emma.”
The protective instinct in him to cover her up now with an awake Gabe had him beginning to pull himself out but she held him with her hand, grasping for his thigh as best she could.
“I’m okay.” But she let out a whimper.
He could not do this. Sam took her two hips in his hands and held them tightly as he began to ease out.
“No, don’t. Please. You said you’d stay.” Her voice was different, but it wasn’t just tinted with pain, there was a begging plead, too.
How could he do this, but how could he not do this?
Sam hated, detested himself right now, but he was desperate to soothe her. Dammit, that he couldn’t do that from behind her right now. His hips enveloped her bottom cheeks, her face and her eyes were too far away and hidden from him.
He watched, mostly choked up and hating this idea, but he swallowed his pride and asked. For her.
“Gabe,” it was all he had to say. Gabe walked over to them, keeping his face serious and respectful. There was no amusement, nothing that would say his friend thought this a joke. Sam loosened his grip on her hips and as soon as he did that, he felt her body relax. She kept her head tilted down and her hair angled down over the sides of her face like curtains.
He was glad she had at least that much privacy and the ability to hide her face at his idiotic brilliance.
He stroked a hand up and down her back, following the line of her spine with his finger, trying for anything that would be soothing from all the way back here. Gabe saw what Sam was doing but didn’t react.
Sam mouthed to Gabe, “Help her for me, please.”
Gabe had to see the desperation on his face and nodded. Then he did something so natural but in no way sexual. Gabe petted her hair and pulled her face into the crook of his shoulder. After a second, he signaled Sam should keep going. But needing more assurance, Sam eyeballed Gabe and lifted his chin, silently asking if she was really okay. Gabe nodded.
Moving his hips forward and holding her still, Sam searched for more access, a way inside her body. All he felt was resistance. She was just so small.
“It’s not working. I can’t hurt her,” Sam said over Emma’s beautiful back and mussed blonde hair.
“No,” he heard her pant.
And then to his complete surprise, he heard, “Don’t quit now. Trust me. I know what I’m saying,” said Gabe, looking Sam straight in the eye. “She’ll be able to get past this if you just keep taking it slow.” Gabe then cleared his throat.
Could he trust Gabe’s tolerance for pain where Emma was concerned? Sam knew Gabe was bisexual and had had a boyfriend not too long ago before his last girlfriend. But Gabe was tough.
So is she.
Would it have hurt him to do one more Internet search first on this stuff? He’d have asked Gabe, but even his friend would not have known for sure if men could take more than a woman in this position. But damn, women gave birth all the time. Still, fear clouded his every thought and movement, which was why he’d gone stone cold. Just then, Emma swayed her hips from side to side. She was trying, so hard. Yes, she was tough and so damn sexy and beautiful.
He looked at Gabe who should be freaking sainted, or at the very least knighted, for his efforts. His friend steadily whispered into Emma’s ear, no doubt telling her to hang in there and that she looked beautiful.
Jealousy shot through Sam.
This was a one-time deal, no matter how thankful he was.
Apparently that must be written all over his face because when Gabe glanced back at him, he coughed and pulled back ever so slightly, then nodded in understanding as if to say he was only doing what he’d been asked to do.
Sam rubbed his fingers into her hip-flesh and moved his knees, searching for a better angle to try. She wiggled her butt, his heart nearly came. He was pretty sure that had to be possible because there was no separation for him between sex and love when it came to her.
He pushed. She cried out. He stilled, holding in his own cry at the possibility he’d have to break his promise to her.
“Please,” she whispered.
Damn. “Bro, can you distract her with something?” he hissed to Gabe.
For a second, Gabe looked down his own body and then seemed to realize that wasn’t what Sam had been thinking. Although at this point…
Gabe nodded and then whispered something loud enough for Sam to hear, too. It was damn funny. Completely inappropriate but the joke was good. Hell, they all needed a good laugh after this.
“You know what they call two nuns and a stripper, don’t you? Playmakers, little mama. The tight ends and a wide receiver.”
A laugh rolled downward from her shoulders to her spine to her perfectly cup-able ass cheeks. Sam chuckled quietly along but couldn’t stop gazing at how beautiful and sexy she looked and how incredible she was to be doing this with him.
He could never do anything to lose her again.
Gabe told another joke, something about the difference between a cocktail waitress and a stripper being one week’s time. Her head gently rubbed against Gabe’s midriff. Sam needed her to himself, and he wanted to leave this room thankful to Gabe, not hating the man and on the verge of murder.
More importantly, Emma’s insides relaxed around his cock, loosening enough to let him slide further inside. Hope sprang up that this might work. If humor was the trick to their troubles, he’d learn every joke ever known to mankind.
“There you go, baby,” Sam said, barely out loud, not wanting to interrupt the happy place Gabe’s presence had taken her to. One of these days, that would be his doing. He’d learn, now that he’d seen it was possible.
“Good job, little mama,” Gabe said then looked back at him. His friend and lifesaver mouthed the words, “I’m out. You got this.” Gabe kissed the top of her head and then got up from his knees, rubbed them, and quietly left the room. Sam heard the door lock.
“Sam?”
“Yeah, hon?” He could get used to calling her that and took the liberty to slide himself out an inch and then slowly push back in. She groaned, but deeper and with less pain.
He watched her back rise and fall with the breath she took. “I want to see your face,” she said.
“I want that, too.”
But what if it meant seeing the pain she wouldn’t be able to hide were they face to face?
He’d made his decision.
Her giggling at Gabe’s jokes would forever be engraved on these walls. As long as Gabe worked here, Emma would have happy memories of S. Sam’s job wasn’t to take care of her here anymore, it was to be that brave man she needed outside these walls. In the real world.
Chapter Twelve
He steadied himself by grabbing hold of her hips and pulled out of her tight body. Once he was out, she took it upon herself to roll over and lay on her back, over his military white dress shirt, with her arms crossed over her chest, blocking his view. Her cheeks were flushed, but he knew it wasn’t due to embarrassment.
When her arms opened wide, inviting him down on top of her, he had to take a moment. A moment to commit so as not to take any of this lightly. It was damn easy to do. He hoped this didn’t hurt her feelings because he’d never felt more sincere about making an invitation. Okay, it was going to come out more like an order.
“I’m taking you back to my place for the rest of the night, Emma. And if you want, that’s where I’d like you to stay.”
She crawled up off the floor and stood toe to toe with him even though her nose only barely made it to his pecs. Still, she was the strongest woman he knew, size be damned.
“Let’s get dressed,” she said and handed him the uniform top. “I have to finish my shift, but, after that, I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather stay, or anyone else I’d rather stay for.
Her smile wrecked him. He loved it.
Coming out of S room hand in hand, they found the door was being guarded by Gabe. Sam nodded to his friend, cementing the knowledge she’d be okay without him here.
Back in the ER, he stood while she went to her desk and thumbed through the unfolded piles of clothes stacked on top. She plucked out his civilian clothes and handed them to him, a bit of sadness hanging out in her pretty brown eyes. But the way she looked at him...
All of a sudden, with his departure imminent, he had the crazy need to explain things, to reassure her he wasn’t acting on foolish pride, or according to the size of his big toe that said he was so stubborn.
“This is why I never quit construction. I knew I wouldn’t be able to avoid you forever and that my time here would eventually have to come to an end. I want to take care of you, Emma. I always have.”
A look in her eyes told him one of the ways she needed him to care for her. They hadn’t finished this night, not by a long shot.
She was still quiet.
“Hey, what do you want me in when you get home?” He called it that on purpose, eyes trained on hers.
She then handed him a cowboy uniform. It wasn’t his and this one wouldn’t fit, but he’d decided then and there that the first place he was going when he left here was to clean out his locker and bring all his costumes with him, especially the vest and stirrups. With two firm grips, she pulled him down by the biceps and kissed his cheek. She then went to open the door to send him out. “Let’s try saving a horse tonight,” she said, cementing his carnal death.
“It’d be my pleasure, ma’am,” he said in his best country accent. God, he loved the way she loosened his too-serious ass up. But then he thought seriously about his parting words, needing her to know how much he meant them. “Please never let me find out you were in S room with anyone else. It would kill me. Not even Gabe, Emma.”
“Are you saying there’s going to be a real us outside of these walls?” She looked hopeful.
“I’m saying my heart is yours to break. It always has been and I’m pretty damn sure it always will be.”
Stay for Me Page 8
