by Lane Hart
“Kate I promise you, I have never thought of her in any type of romantic way, and she hasn’t ever thought of me that way either. She never had any kids, so I think she sort of wanted to take care of me when she saved me. She’s always made sure I was okay over the years, as just a good friend, and she’s been there for me whenever I needed her. Anything else you want to know?”
“How’d she save you?” I asked.
“Oh, back in 1955 it was the Fourth of July and I was walking back to my apartment from a downtown bar. A drunk driver ran me over and left me on the side of the road. Luckily Joselin came along and found me. From what she said, and what little bit I remember, my injuries were really bad and I was barely hanging on. She asked if I wanted to die or live a long time drinking blood. I was too scared to die. I’d just watched all my family do it and wasn’t ready to go. So she turned me.”
“When I saw your message to her on your phone from July 4th I wondered what you meant by her saving you, but I didn’t ask you that night.”
“Yeah and we’ve been good friends ever since. She’s actually the only other vampire I know. So that’s pretty much the whole story between us.”
“Good to know. So, what should we do until the new couch gets delivered?” I asked with a smile.
“I’ve got a few ideas,” he said before he kissed me and pushed me down on the bed.
An hour or so later Sam at least agreed to let the furniture guys bring in the new couch.
“Nice,” Sam said after they left. He slouched down on the couch, his arms across the back of it, long legs spread wide, and he looked so damn good.
“Thanks for reluctantly getting rid of the old one,” he said as he looked up at me where I was still standing and ogling him. “I just couldn’t look at it without thinking about you being with him, and wanting to punch him again,” he said as he rubbed his face, probably trying to erase the image from his head. I knew how he felt.
I hated the guilt of how much I’d hurt him and wished I could go back in time and undo it. Which suddenly gave me a crazy idea.
“Do you know if there are any spells to go back in time?” I asked Sam.
He looked confused for a second before he finally raised his eyebrows in understanding. “You would do that?”
“Of course. Is there such a thing?”
“I seriously doubt it, and I’m homicidal toward the one person I could ask. Not that I would trust a damn thing out of his mouth anyway.”
“I’m sorry,” I told him again, meaning for everything.
“Come here,” he said as he held his arms out for me. After I crossed the five feet distance between us he pulled me onto his lap and kissed my lips softly. “I’m over being mad at you. I’m still just pissed because for some reason I thought he was my friend, he’d been my roommate for years, and then he stabbed me in the back with what he knew would hurt me more than anything.”
“The sex really was terrible, and I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” I told him honestly.
Sam laughed pulling me tighter to his chest. “You’d say that regardless, just to make me feel better.”
“No, I’m serious. It was quick and harsh. And you are way bigger. And sexier,” I said with a smile before I ran my hands up his shirt, feeling his rippled stomach.
He leaned down and kissed me once. “Bigger huh? That’s what you told the whole club when you were drunk too,” he said laughing.
“Much, much bigger,” I told him, as I kissed him again and rubbed up his chest. I hadn’t had any comparison for Sam until Chris, but the difference between the two was damn impressive.
“And sexier?”
“So much sexier,” I told him between the kisses that were intensifying and growing into something more.
“I want to make you forget about him. Even if it was quick and terrible. That might be part of the reason why getting rid of the couch was so important,” he said as he kissed down my neck and his hands moved up under my shirt.
“He’s already forgotten,” I told him sincerely as I pulled his shirt over his head, giving me access to what I was longing to see and touch.
“I want to be the first and only person who ever makes love to you on this couch,” Sam said as he shifted us so that my back was flat on my new couch and he was hovering over me.
He pulled my shirt over my head, then kissed his way down my chest, unfastening my bra along the way down to my stomach until he got to the waist of my jeans. Unbuttoning and unzipping them, he pulled them and my panties slowly down my legs, kissing and licking along the way. I was panting with anticipation as he finally stood up and undid his own jeans, jerking them and his boxers off.
Wow. He was incredible, from his blazing green eyes, all the way down his tall, tan muscular body. I couldn’t help but smile.
Sam finally climbed back on the couch, spreading my legs to make room for his body between them. As he leaned over me his eyes were intense as they looked down into mine. They were overflowing with so much emotion that it made my chest ache, and it was so much more than mere lust. At that moment I finally realized that he wouldn’t have been so angry and upset after what I had done if he didn’t care so much about me.
“You really do care about me, don’t you?” I asked him.
“I love you,” he said so softly that I wasn’t sure I’d actually heard it, as his fingertips brushed my hair behind my ear. “I know we just met and I’m not expecting anything in return. I just wanted you to know how I feel about you. You’ve had to deal with a lot of shit in just a few days, so I know you don’t feel the same. At least not yet, but maybe someday you will,” he said before he leaned down to kiss me.
My breath had caught and I think my heart stopped. Did I already love Sam? I loved how he made me feel, I loved being with him, and when I wasn’t with him I missed him so much it hurt.
“Sam,” I said as I pulled my mouth away from his. I looked up at him, rubbing both of my hands over the sexy golden scruff on his cheeks. His smoldering green eyes burned into mine and I knew I felt the same way about him. I just hadn’t realized it because I’ve never felt anything like it before.
“Kate, please don’t freak out and push me away, because I’m too far gone. I just want to be with you, and I won’t say it if you don’t want to hear it,” he said in a panic like he was expecting me to run.
“I love you too,” I told him and he froze above me, scrunching his eyes closed before he finally looked back down at me.
“Kate, it’s okay, really. You don’t have to feel obligated to-“
“Sam, I really do love you.”
“But-“
“I love you. I love how you look at me. I love how you make me feel. I love how you always make me laugh. I love how you take care of me and worry so much about me. I love waking up with you in the mornings. I love how you hold me all night. I love arguing with you and making up with you. I love making love to you. I love fucking you,” I said with a smile telling him I knew what he meant about there being a difference between the two. “I love your sexy smile and your incredibly sexy body. I love taking showers with you. I love seeing how much you love me in your eyes and feeling how much you love me in one single kiss. I love you because you saved my life just minutes after we first met. Do I need to keep going, because I can?”
No,” Sam said as he smiled down at me. “I believe you.”
“Good,” I said as smiled back at him.
“Thank you.”
“For what, telling you that I love you?” I asked.
“No, for loving me. No one else has ever loved me, well, other than my family, but that was so long ago I’ve forgotten what it felt like.”
“Oh, Sam,” I said as I pulled him to my chest and rubbed my hands through his hair. I felt his lips on my collarbone and then my neck before he raised back up.
“Just so you know, I’ve never told anyone else that I loved them. Only you. I think I’ve loved you ever since I held your hand crossing that street,
as stupid as that may sound,” he said as he laughed and reached down to intertwine my fingers with his.
I smiled at the memory as I rubbed my thumb across his knuckles. “No, I know what you mean. When you grabbed my hand it was sweet and felt so right. I knew then that I was safe with you, and after that I was able to just relax and be myself around you.”
Sam smiled. “Your hand felt like it belonged in mine. I remember feeling the Band-Aid I’d put on your finger that morning and wondering if you’d kept it on all day because it reminded you of me or if you’d just forgotten about it.”
“It reminded me of you, and I fantasized about you the rest of that day. I actually started getting ready to meet you at like three that afternoon, and even if I’d found out the answer to why my blood was black I was going to show up and play dumb just to see you again.”
“Good,” he said as he leaned down and kissed me. “Now, since you understand the difference, I’m going to make love to you on your new couch.”
I gasped and my back arched involuntarily when Sam’s mouth was suddenly on my breast, his tongue teasing around my nipple. His hands slid down my sides and he raised up to reach between my legs, making my pelvis come off the couch as he slid his expert fingers in and out of me until I quickly went over the edge. I pulled Sam from my breast and plunged my tongue into his mouth as my hips frantically moved against his, trying desperately to get him into me. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t feel him between my legs.
“Sam! I need you ... in me. Oh!” I cried out as he finally slid into me and I erupted around him, screaming and writhing into oblivion.
I woke up or became conscious again on Sam’s chest with my insides still throbbing. His arms were around me and his chest was still rising and falling quickly. I raised my head up to look at him and he was smiling down at me. I thought he’d been on top of me, and wasn’t sure when we’d swapped places.
“Hey,” was all I was capable of saying before I laid my head back down.
“Hey,” he said with a laugh. “Since I didn’t scare you off by telling you that I love you I want to push my luck again.”
“What?” I asked confused as I raised back up to look at him.
“Kate, I want to hold you every night when I go to sleep and see you every morning when I wake up. I want to have breakfast and dinner with you every day. And I don’t care if it’s here or at my place or both but I want to be wherever you are.”
I froze. What Sam was saying sounded a whole lot like he wanted to marry me but I didn’t think he meant anything that permanent. And I knew it was crazy and reckless but the idea of being with him forever didn’t scare me.
“So, you want us to live together?” I asked with a smile as I propped my chin on my arm and looked up at him.
“Yes,” he said as he exhaled all his breath out like he’d been holding it for a while. “Is it too soon? Am I out of my fucking mind?”
“Yes,” I told him still smiling. “But I want to live with you anyway.”
“Really?” he asked grinning from ear to ear.
“Really.” Sam raised up and kissed me as I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Few conditions though,” I pulled away and told him.
“Anything,” he said.
“Whenever we’re home together, I want you naked.”
He laughed. “Done. I can’t seem to keep any clothes on around you anyway.”
“Good, but seriously, my dad might be an issue. I don’t want him to find out about you.”
“So you keep this place just like it is and stay with me. You’ll still be close to the school and you can be back here in five minutes if you need to.”
“Okay but you’ve got some cleaning to do. Your room is a mess! It looks like a video game store and your closet exploded in it.”
“For you, I’ll keep it spotless. I’ll even move all the game systems out of the bedroom and into the living room or to the spare room,” Sam assured me.
“But what about-,” I hesitated on saying his name.
“He’s gone, or as good as. I’ll give him a few more days to find somewhere to stay because I’m not a complete asshole, but then he’s out, regardless.”
“So, why don’t you stay here until then? I don’t want you fighting again. I’m afraid you might kill him.” I was pretty sure that’s where it was heading before I showed up.
“I’m not going to lie, I might have eventually killed him the other night, but I doubt it. I was only punching him. If I had wanted him dead I would have done it instantly.” I knew he was telling the truth, which was more than a little scary.
“You know I’d never hurt you, right? You probably don’t understand how I can forgive you so easily and still want to beat the shit out of him, but it is different. He found you by basically stalking you, and then he took advantage of you. What he did with the witch lust or whatever is the same as if those guys had fucked you while you were drunk or unconscious. Both circumstances were almost, if not entirely, out of your control, but Chris and those guys knew exactly what they were doing. They only had one goal in mind.”
“Well I did let Chris in my apartment, and it was my fault for getting drunk at the club.” I felt like an idiot for both.
“Getting drunk doesn’t give anyone a free pass to sleep with you. It’s rape when they have sex with someone they know for a fact is impaired. And with Chris, can you honestly tell me that he would have stopped if you’d told him to?”
I thought back over to the night he’d come over. I had told him to stop once and his hands never did stop. I tried to push against his chest when he wasn’t going to get a condom and he didn’t budge until he decided he’d get up. But he would have stopped if I’d told him to leave wouldn’t he?
“If you have to think about it that fucking long then the answer is no Kate.”
“He might have,” I conceded.
“In all twelve or thirteen times we’ve been together, yeah…I’ve lost count,” he said with a smile before turning serious again, “has there ever been a time when you thought I wouldn’t have stopped if you’d told me to?”
“No,” I answered right away. Sam always asked me if I was alright. Well except for the most recent one, but that was a given.
“Now do you see the difference? I’m not trying to make him look even worse, I just know how he is.”
“But Sam, as much as I hate to admit it, I didn’t stop him, so don’t just be pissed at him. Not that I want you to be pissed at me, I just mean there’s shared blame.”
“Don’t try and take up for him. He doesn’t deserve it. Now can we please just forget that bastard? I want to pretend like he doesn’t exist and the whole thing never happened, okay?”
He was right. I hated talking about it or thinking about it. If he was ready to let it go, I was too.
I kissed Sam and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my chest to his while I was still straddling him. I was trying to make him forget the whole conversation. Well hopefully only certain parts of it. His arms went around me and I didn’t have to ask him if he was ready, that was a definite yes underneath me.
“You love me?” I asked with a smile.
“So damn much,” was his answer.
“Show me how much,” was my last coherent thought for a while.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Sam
I wanted to crush my phone when the alarm went off at seven a.m., but this was already turning out to be another awesome morning. Kate was still asleep on me, wonderfully naked. Her beautiful auburn hair was wild and messy across my chest, tickling me as it stretched down my stomach. I loved waking up in this bed with her, and I was really looking forward to waking up with her every day from now on. Shit, the way I felt about her I wanted that to be forever. Bet that sure as fuck would scare her away.
Kate was only eighteen and I was eighty-four. Our perspectives were somewhat different. She had her whole life, one that unfortunately wasn’t eternal,
ahead of her, and she probably wouldn’t want to settle down anytime soon. Me, on the other hand … after waiting eighty-four years to find someone I wanted to spend an eternity with I knew without a doubt from all those shitty years that I wanted it to be with her.
I reluctantly left her sleeping while I got up and took a shower, then dressed for work.
“Good morning beautiful. I’m heading to work, but I’ll see you tonight, okay?” I told her as I rubbed her sleeping side.
“Okay. Are you going to stay with me again tonight since-?” She asked groggily, letting the sentence trail off.
“Since my roommate is a piece of shit and I’ll kill him if I see his face? Yeah, I’ll come back over here, but I’ll need to at least go by and grab a change of clothes from my place.”
“Okay. I’ll miss you,” she said and I leaned down to kiss her. I was climbing up on the bed on top of her before I could stop myself. Oh, and she was still completely naked under the sheets. It was going to suck having to leave all hot and bothered, but maybe I could at least try and get her that way too before I left. I pulled back the sheets and pressed myself into her as I kissed her, my hands teasing her where I knew she wanted them. Then I rolled off the bed and straightened my clothes as I headed to the door.
“I love you baby. See you tonight,” I called out behind me.
“Sam! Wait! You bastard! I love you too, even if you are a tease,” she said as she laughed from the bed.
I smiled as I locked her apartment door and walked out to my car.
I grinned like a fool all day at work and couldn’t stop thinking about Kate. We texted back and forth all morning so I wasn’t getting much work done either.
Eventually I knew my good mood would get killed when I had to go home and confront Chris, if he was still there. I knew he didn’t have anywhere to go, but I really didn’t care anymore. After all these years of me taking care of him, I couldn’t believe he’d stabbed me in the back and hurt Kate the way he had.
I spent my afternoon at work daydreaming. Kate had said she loved me too, and I knew without a doubt that was how I felt about her. I was still on cloud nine. Oh and when she’d let me drink from her while being in her the other night it had felt so damn good. I was even feeling physically better than I had in a long time after drinking her healthy blood.
