by Daws, Amy
“Your future with Sterling?” Kate asks, and I see a glint of mischief in her eyes that I don’t like.
“Yes, my future with Sterling,” I reply through clenched teeth.
“Man, he must be a great lay for you to be basically putting your life on hold for him!” Kate exclaims, slapping her hand on the table.
Miles puts his hands over his ears. “Gross, you’re talking about my sister, and I can’t hear this!”
Her words sting because she’s using stuff I’ve said to her in confidence against me, and it’s not okay. I lean across the table like I’m a boxer standing toe to toe with my opponent. “I know you write erotic romance novels, Kate, but not everything is about sex.”
She smiles a fake smile. “Then you need to tell me what it is about Sterling that’s so damn amazing. Because you’ve been here for weeks, and I have yet to hear one thing to that effect.”
I exhale heavily, my nostrils flaring with agitation over how quickly she flipped on me. “You don’t have to understand love at first sight, but as a romance novelist, I would have thought you’d respect it.”
“I respect and believe in love at first sight!” Kate exclaims, her eyes wide and defiant. Miles looks back and forth between us with a nervous frown, his hands still pressed firmly to his ears when Kate adds, “I just don’t respect blind love.”
“And you think blind love is what I have with Sterling?” I shriek back at her. “What is blind love anyway?”
Kate tilts her head and eyes me with so much contempt, I want to punch her. “Blind love is being so hyper-focused on a plan and a future and goals and what you think is a perfect life that you stop using your peripheral vision. And let me tell you, Meg…sometimes the stuff in your periphery is where real life is waiting.”
She turns her head to the side and yanks Miles’s hands off his ears before pulling him in close for a kiss. It’s passionate and spiteful and sweet all at the same time. Normally, Miles and Kate’s affection makes me feel happy for my big brother. But right now, it just hurts.
Suddenly, I feel claustrophobic, and I move to stand from the table. “This is a pub crawl, not sit, am I right? I think we need to keep it moving!”
Miles pulls away from Kate’s lips with a dopey smile on his face. “Pearl Street Pub?” he asks, his brows lifting excitedly.
“Sure…it’s just down around the corner, right?” I ask, pulling my coat on and downing the rest of my wine in one big gulp.
“Let’s do it!” Miles cheers, reaching for Kate’s jacket and helping her put it on.
Kate watches me nervously as I turn on my heel and take off for the door, desperate for some air. Goddamn her. I thought she was on my side, but the shit she’s pulling now is most definitely not Team Maggie!
I wait for everyone to join me outside, and we make our way down the busy sidewalk toward the pub. Kate jogs ahead of Miles and Sam and wraps her arm around mine, causing me to visibly bristle from her touch. I turn to see Miles and Sam a few steps behind before I turn and hiss in Kate’s ear, “Let go of me, traitor.”
“Megan, don’t be mad,” she pleads, struggling to keep up with my fast pace.
“Don’t be mad?” I shriek and want to shove her off the curb. “Of course, I’m mad. What did you think you were doing in there?”
“Being a big sister,” she replies arching her brow at me.
I scoff and roll my eyes. “Big sister, my ass. You’re trying to make a fool of me in front of Sam.”
Her eyes go wide with shock. “That is not what I’m doing, but the real question should be, why do you care what Sam thinks if he’s just fling?”
“He is just casual!” I exclaim and begin walking faster, causing Kate to stumble in her heels. “I don’t need this, Kate. I don’t need you against me too.”
“No one is against you, Meg!” she exclaims, stopping in her tracks and yanking me around to face her just as we arrive in front of Pearl Street Pub. “We are all on your side, and we all want what’s best for you.”
“I know what’s best for me!” I cry and then an unexpected emotion swells in my chest.
Miles reaches us, concern all over his face. “What’s going on?” his deep voice booms.
“Nothing!” I reply and force a smile. “I’m just going to pee my pants.” I lie because lying is something I’m apparently very good at—even to myself. Yanking off my coat, I hand it to Miles, and say, “I’m going downstairs to the restroom. Will you get me another glass of wine?”
He nods woodenly, and before he can tell how truly upset I am, I take off down the creaky wooden steps inside the door and head to the bathrooms that I remember from the last time I was here. I reach the single female restroom, thankful there’s no line, and burst through the door, heading straight for the sink.
I splay my hands out on the basin, dropping my head forward as I pull in big gulps of air. I just need to get my bearings back because it feels like my entire world is spinning. If that was tough sisterly love from Kate, she could just keep that shit to herself.
Suddenly, the bathroom door opens, and I twirl on my heel ready for round two with Kate, but all the air is sucked from my lungs when I see Sam standing in the doorway. He closes the door behind him and flips the lock.
“Sam, what are you doing here?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose and trying to pull myself back together.
“What are you doing here, Maggie?” he replies. Taking three strides across the small bathroom, he’s standing close enough for me to smell his Irish Spring soap.
“What do you mean? I’m in the women’s bathroom.”
“No, I mean, what the hell are you actually doing here? In Boulder?” His green eyes bore into mine with so much intensity, I can barely meet his gaze.
“I’m trying to be more adventurous and be the girl Sterling wants,” I groan and put my hands on my hips as shame casts all over me. “You were helping me with that, I thought!”
“Stop with the lies then,” he says, moving in closer and caging me against the sink with one hand on either side of me.
“What lies? I’m not lying!” I cry, pressing my hands to his chest for some space that he’s definitely not giving me.
“You’re lying to yourself!” he exclaims, his jaw taut with determination. “That stuff you’re saying about Sterling sounds like total bullshit. He is a douchebag, and you’re blind to it for some reason. It’s what Kate’s trying to tell you. Jesus hell, it’s what I’ve been trying to tell you too.”
“You’ve barely said a word about Sterling!”
“I’ve been trying to show you, sparky!” he growls, the veins in his neck pulsing as he presses in closer to me. His hands move to grip my hips, and he squeezes with an urgency I feel through every inch of my body. “I’ve been trying to show you that life is a hell of a lot more than just some ridiculous plan.”
I swallow slowly as he looms over me in all his statuesque glory. “Well, I think it worked because it appears he wants me back.”
“Is that what you want, though?” Sam asks, his eyes pleading as I tilt my chin to look up at him.
“I think so,” I reply, but my voice is weak and strangled as if the words are trying to hold themselves inside.
“Stop living your life for him, Maggie. Start living it for yourself.”
“Like you’re some great example of that!” I argue, thinking back to everything he said to me when we were ice fishing yesterday. “Your family is all you live for. So much so that you refuse to even open your heart to the idea of someone new in your life.”
Sam’s face contorts as if feeling stung by my statement. “At least the people I live for in my life actually love me back.”
As soon as the words come out of his mouth, I can’t stop my hand from swinging at his face. The slap is cruel and harsh but no more painful than the words he said to me. The words that speak to that painful part of my soul and scream at me that I’m never enough. I move to swing at him again because everything inside me
hurts, but he catches that hand in his fist. I swing my first hand at him again, and he catches that one too. I struggle in his arms as he turns us and pins my wrists against the wall beside my head.
“Maggie, stop,” he pleads, his voice pained by my struggle.
“You’re a fucking asshole, Sam!” I cry, trying and failing to free myself from his grip.
“I know,” he says with a sigh. “But I can’t hear you lie about that fucking ex of yours anymore.”
“You’re lying too!” I bellow into his face, my voice deep with the emotion exploding inside me. “We’re both lying. We’re fucking trapped in this stupid plan of mine, and it’s exhausting because my heart is being pulled in so many different directions. I don’t know what to do.”
“What’s your heart saying you want right now?” he asks, his grip loosening on my wrists.
I drop my head back against the wall. “I wish I knew.”
“You do know, Maggie. Just say it.” His fingers lace between mine, no longer pinning me to the wall but holding my hands in a firm embrace.
I stare down at his chest, my jaw clenched in frustration because none of this is making any sense anymore. None. My heart knows what I need, but what I want is a very different thing. And what if what I want doesn’t want me back?
I move my eyes upward and utter one single, solitary word. “You.”
Sam’s eyes fall to my lips, and in two heartbeats, his mouth crashes into mine as he releases my hands and wraps his arms tightly around my waist. His tongue is demanding as it sweeps through my lips, parting them with a savage growl that I feel all the way through my core.
I whimper as he lifts me into his arms, and my legs grip his waist as he moves me from the wall to the top of the sink. His tongue continues to devour me as his hands move all over, touching and rubbing and kneading me in the most indelicate of places.
“Fucking tights,” he growls against my lips as his hand steals up my dress and pushes past the waistband to discover just how turned on I am right now. He groans with need as my slickness overwhelms both of us. “If you want me to stop…you’re going to need to say it.”
“Don’t stop,” I cry, my heart thundering wildly in my chest. “Don’t stop.”
In a rush, he yanks me off the sink and drops down to yank my tights off my hips. He fumbles hurriedly with my ankle boots, and when I’m bare from the waist down, he pulls a leg up to his shoulder and kisses me right where I need him most.
I cry out loudly, the noise of the bar upstairs noticeable but doing nothing to quiet me from the overwhelming sensations of Sam’s mouth on my sex. He sucks me hard and sharp into his mouth, and I cry out, my back arching as my heel digs into his shoulder blade. He assault is so aggressive, my orgasm detonates without warning.
My legs feel like Jell-O as he stands up, and I shakily reach for his belt, our hands colliding as we push his pants and boxers down only far enough to free his throbbing cock. I grab his shaft and sit back on the sink to guide him inside me.
“Fuck, I don’t have a condom,” he growls, his tip pressing into my wetness and feeling like everything I want for the rest of my life.
“I don’t care,” I cry and then reach around to grab his buttocks. “I’m on the pill, and I don’t care.”
His eyes lock on mine in shock as I pull him into me. All of him.
“Fuck, Maggie,” he cries, his voice guttural as he sinks to the hilt and stills. He leans in to caress my lips with his, and then he traces a path down my neck before hunching over to bite my nipple through my dress.
“Sam!” I cry in shock, and then he jerks his head up and rocks his hips into me in one smooth thrust. He’s slow and steady at first, his eyes enjoying the sight of me leaning back, his body on sensory overload as we both embrace the skin-on-skin contact.
As his pace quickens, one of my arms is braced on his shoulder and the other is braced on the mirror behind me. He smoothly stokes the orgasm I had earlier like a fire of embers in need of a little puff of oxygen. And when the flames finally take flight inside me, he speeds up his motions, thrusting into me in perfect progression.
Our eyes remain locked on each other. Every movement feeling right and perfect. Connected. Sam and I are connected, not just sexually but emotionally as well. He knows what I need and gives it to me without even asking.
My orgasm is on the precipice, and I nod once at him. Without a word, he moves faster inside me, hurrying his own release so we can come together this time. And all of it—the bareness, the connection, the emotions of the evening—feels completely overwhelming. As though I need them to stop and never stop all at the same time.
I cry out when everything inside me tenses and releases. I sit up to bury my face in his neck as the climax shoots through me with no mercy. Seconds later, Sam groans a deep, vibrating sound, and then I feel himself let go inside me.
Our breaths are ragged and loud in the quiet of the bathroom as he trembles in my arms, his forehead slick with sweat, and my dress rucked up between us. With a quiet exhale, he pulls out of me, and I can feel his seed dripping between my legs.
He pulls his pants up and grabs some tissues on the counter, gently swiping between my legs until I’m no longer drenched. His face looks troubled as he bites his lip and throws the paper away.
“I’m sorry, Maggie.”
“What are you sorry for?” I ask, lowering myself off the sink and watching him in confusion.
“That should have never happened.”
I huff out an arguing laugh. “I’m pretty sure I made it happen.”
He swallows as if there’s a knife down his throat. “I know, but it really shouldn’t have happened.”
A horrifying thought crosses my mind. “Are you trying to tell me you’re not clean or something?”
His face falls. “What? Fuck no. I’m clean. Maggie, I’m fucking clean.” He takes a step toward me and grabs my face in his hands. “I swear to fuck I’m clean.”
“Then why do you look completely freaked out right now?” I ask, my eyes dancing all over his features.
He inhales through his nose, and I can hear a shuddering in his chest as he leans in and kisses me on the forehead. “Because you’re killing me.”
“What?” I ask, yanking out of his hands with annoyance. “What is that supposed to mean?”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “I need to go. I’m going to tell Miles I’m not feeling well. I can’t be around you and him at the same time. Not anymore.”
“Not anymore?” I ask, reaching down and grabbing my tights from off the floor. “What are you talking about? What’s changed, Sam?”
He moves to the door and stares back at me with a grave look on his face. “Everything.”
And without another word, he leaves me in the women’s restroom of Pearl Street Pub more confused than ever before.
Well, This Day Was A Waste of Bait
Monday morning comes, and Miles comes striding into my office bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. “Hey man, feeling better?” he asks, dropping into the seat on the other side of my desk.
I push a hand through my hair and try to play it cool. “Yeah, sorry I bailed Friday night. One of those food trucks didn’t agree with my stomach.” I lie, which honestly should feel like second nature by now.
“That’s all right. Megan was in a mood for the rest of the night anyway, so our pub crawl turned into a pub fail, and we called it early as well.”
I nod and wince as I think about the million different times I wanted to text Maggie over the weekend but then couldn’t bring myself to do it. Regardless of what happened Friday night, she’s still after her ex, and I’m still who I am. And now that I’ve taken over the business, it’s definitely not the time for distractions.
“Did you think Meg was okay Friday night? She seemed kind of weird,” Miles states, propping his boots up on the edge of my desk and biting into a cookie he brought in from the comfort center.
“How so?” I ask, my arms tensin
g.
“Just like…emotional. I tried to get Kate to give me some dirt because she clearly knows something, but she’s a locked vault.”
I shrug my shoulders slowly. “I don’t know, man.”
“I sort of worry if something might be going on with her and Sterling.”
“Like what?” I ask, wishing like fuck she would just come clean and tell Miles that she and Sterling broke up.
“I don’t know…it just seems weird she’s hanging out in Boulder and not going back to Utah to be closer to him. She says she’s madly in love with him, but her love doesn’t look like mine and Kate’s.”
I nod thoughtfully at that. “I don’t think anybody’s love could possibly look like yours and Kate’s. You guys have like…unicorn shittin’ rainbows love that makes mere mortals feel inferior.”
Miles laughs at that apt description and then shrugs dismissively. “I just worry about her. She’s such a hopeless romantic, and sometimes I think she needs to let things progress more naturally.”
There is nothing natural about Maggie Hudson’s ideas about love. “I’m not much help in that department I’m afraid,” I reply.
Miles looks at me seriously for a moment, his eyes blinking slowly as he takes me in. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I told you I was feeling better.”
“No, I mean…are you good? You seem sort of off too. I would think you’d be on top of the world since Terry gave you the keys to the castle, but oddly, you don’t seem that into it.”
“I’m into it,” I snap back, my shoulders tensing. “I mean, it’s a tire shop. I’m as into a tire shop as I can be.”
Miles nods thoughtfully, clearly not satisfied with that response. “Listen, I don’t know a lot about your family stuff, and I don’t need to know because best friends are best friends without any requirements. But I know that this tire shop started off as your dad’s, and maybe it feels a little weird to be sitting in his chair now.”
“This was Terry’s chair,” I correct, my hands balling into sweaty fists.
