Pierced: Pierced Trilogy Boxed Set

by Lashell Collins

  “Yes, we have,” I answer him honestly, and a little anxiously. He nods and smiles again. Then he turns and opens the door.

  “Take care of her,” he says.

  “Always,” I reply, and he turns and leaves.

  Chapter Twelve

  Samantha

  I stand motionless in the hall, truly stunned by what I’ve just overheard. Lucas had Josh investigated! I know that I should be outraged by that but, I know he meant well. I hope Josh sees it that way. But what I can’t believe is what he said about Josh’s record at the police department. I had no idea, and Josh is never one to toot his own horn; he’s so modest and humble all the time.

  He closes the door and turns to head back to the bedroom and I am caught, like a deer in headlights. Busted for the eavesdropper that I am. He looks surprised to see me standing here, and I begin to chatter nervously, trying to explain myself.

  “I … I didn’t mean to eavesdrop. I came out of the bathroom and … you were still talking to Lucas,” I stammer, feeling guilty. “And I … I’m sorry that he had you investigated; he had no right to do that.”

  “I would have done the same thing in his shoes,” Josh says, his deep soft voice sounding intense as he stares down at me. At least he doesn’t seem upset about it.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me about your awards?” I ask quietly, looking up into his eyes.

  “It’s not a big deal,” he frowns, looking at me impassively.

  “It’s a very big deal, Josh! What in incredible accomplishment.” I realize that I’m gushing but, I am truly astounded. “Olivia must be so extremely proud of you.”

  His impassive expression morphs into that adorable shy smile of his, and I think he blushes a little. “Do you want to have some breakfast now that we’re up, or do you want to just go back to sleep?” he asks, deliberately ignoring my comments about his awards. He is so cute, it should be a crime.

  I take a step toward him with a coy smile and wrap my arms around his waist. “I think … we should go back to bed. And not sleep,” I say softly. He wraps his arms around me but, I think he looks surprised by my words. He cocks his head and looks at me speculatively.

  “Are you sure you’re ready for that, Sam?” he asks softly, tucking a wayward strand of my hair behind my left ear. And I’m not sure I understand the question.

  “Why wouldn’t I be ready?” I say with a small frown.

  His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Or maybe it’s disbelief. “Baby, you were attacked yesterday,” he says, as if I may have forgotten. “You had nightmares about that asshole all night long. I don’t want to upset you. I don’t want to rush you.”

  His words are quiet and heartfelt and I am touched by the fact that he is once again putting my comfort level above all else. I swear he is the sweetest man! It makes me want to be with him even more.

  “I just want to be close to you,” I whisper, lightly running my hands over his back and around to his abdomen, feeling the hard muscles of his body beneath the soft cotton fabric of his t-shirt. “I want to touch you and taste you and smell you. Please, Josh. Make love to me.”

  He needs no further invitation. Without warning, his hands are in my hair and his mouth is on mine, kissing me hungrily, as if he’s starving and my kiss is his first meal in days. It leaves me completely breathless when he finally pulls away, looking into my eyes for a long moment. Then he reaches for me, sweeping me up into his arms and taking me back to the bedroom.

  He lays me down gently and then stands looking down at me as he pulls his t-shirt over his head. With one swift motion he divests himself of his jeans and then sits on the bed beside me. Without a word, he takes my hand and pulls me up into a sitting position and kisses me again, and I feel his hands running lightly down my back.

  He reaches the hem of my tank top and begins to lift it slowly up, his hands caressing my waist and my breasts as they rise. I lift my arms, allowing him to remove my shirt and he tosses it to the floor beside his own clothing. In an instant, I am lost in his kiss once more as he gently lays me back onto the bed and my hands find their way into his soft wavy hair.

  His mouth moves deliciously across my jaw and over to my earlobe, then down my neck. He lingers at my breast, suckling ravenously, and my back arches in response as I moan softly. Gently, he teases my nipple with his teeth and I whimper as my fingers twist in his hair, bringing an answering groan from him.

  Slowly, he moves down, kissing and biting at the flesh of my belly. I feel his fingers at the top of my sweatpants and he carefully begins to pull them, and my panties, down over my hips. He stops suddenly and I hear a sharp intake of breath as he gasps in surprise. When I look down at him, he is staring at my newly waxed pelvis in disbelief.

  His eyes shoot up to mine and a small smile plays at the corners of his perfect lips. “You did this for me yesterday at the salon?” It’s more of a whispered statement of awe than it is a question, and I suddenly feel very shy and unsure of myself. I chew my bottom lip nervously for a moment and then nod my head slowly. What is he going to think?

  He smiles broadly at me and moves up to kiss me. “Thank you, baby,” he says softly.

  “Nice surprise?” I ask softly, still chewing anxiously on my lip.

  “It’s a great surprise,” he answers, still smiling, and he kisses me again. He returns to his previous position then, finishing his task of removing my sweats and panties, pulling them down my legs and discarding them on the floor. Then he slowly runs his right hand from my ankle, up the length of my leg, to my thigh.

  I watch as he settles between my legs, his face a mixture of excitement and wonder, like a kid with a new toy at Christmastime. He runs his fingertips lightly across my smooth, hairless skin and then peppers my newly naked flesh with feather-soft kisses. The sensation is unbelievable! He runs his tongue along the bikini line and looks up at me with a wicked smile. Then he uses his teeth to lightly graze the area.

  “Ah!” His actions elicit a sharp groan from me but, it’s not so much painful as it is different. Good different. I am panting as I look down at him and smile. He smiles back at me and then lowers his chin and runs his stubble slowly over my naked flesh and I moan. He is having fun with his new toy!

  Getting comfortable, he moves lower, spreading my legs wider, and begins to use his tongue on the more intimate portions of my now hairless terrain, and my body responds, bowing off the bed and beginning to build. I couldn’t stop the moaning if I tried. My hands move of their own volition, finding their way back into his hair as my hips start to move to his rhythm.

  His tongue darts in and out of me, causing me to moan loudly as my fingers fist in his hair, and I am flying higher and higher as my body continues to build. His tongue moves abruptly to my clitoris, latching on and showing no mercy and I’m done. My body flies apart, shooting off like a rocket and exploding like fireworks into a million tiny sparks as I float endlessly back down to the earth below. He kisses a trail back up my body as I slowly surface, and he kisses me deeply, allowing me to taste my own arousal.

  “Shit,” he softly mutters, reaching to the bedside table.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask softly, still panting.

  “No condoms,” he chuckles. “They’re in the bathroom cabinet. Be right back,” he breathes, and moves to get up.

  “We don’t need them,” I say suddenly, taking him by complete surprise. He stops and looks at me with a puzzled frown but says nothing. “Um, I mean I … I’m on birth control.” My voice sounds very small all of a sudden. He still says nothing as he looks down at me, but his eyes are asking a silent question, so I continue to ramble on nervously. “After we first … um, I just thought … it would be a smart thing to do. So I saw my doctor that next day. She gave me a prescription for the pill,” I finish quietly.

  He blinks at me mutely. “Oh.”

  I’m not sure what to make of his reaction. He seems startled somehow but, I don’t understand why. “Should I not have done that?” I ask him, bewil
dered.

  “No, Sam,” he says finally. “It was a smart thing to do. You … did the responsible thing.”

  “Then I don’t understand,” I whisper, looking into his eyes. “Are you upset?”

  “No, baby, I’m not upset. I just …,” He lets that sentence dangle for a moment and he swallows as he thinks about what he needs to say. “Sam, you have to understand … I’ve lived my life a certain way for a long, long time,” he says quietly, looking down at me. “Sex for me has always been random strangers. Safety was my priority. I have never had unprotected sex in my life. Because to me … that indicated something. A trust,” he says almost anxiously. “A bond.”

  “A relationship,” I whisper, and he slowly nods his head.

  “Yes.”

  I don’t know what to say. I stare at him with my heart in my hands and a lump in my throat. I thought we were in a relationship.

  Tenderly, he runs a finger down my cheek, and his bright blue eyes bore into mine. “What have you done to me, Sunshine?” he whispers softly, and I don’t know what he means. He kisses me deeply once more, his hand caressing my face, and soon I am lost to him. His hands softly roam my body, and his mouth follows delicately, and I savor each and every touch of his lips on my skin. I want him so desperately.

  “I want you so much, Sam,” he whispers. Oh. He wants me too!

  He moves swiftly then, perching his muscular body above mine as he uses his knee to spread my legs wider apart. And I moan in ecstasy as he enters me, slowly and deliberately, his intense blue eyes never wavering from my own. When he is buried deep inside me, he kisses me passionately for a long moment. I can feel the weight of his body on top of me and his forearms are on either side of my head. This feels so intimate. He begins to move then, with long, slow, delicious strokes, never breaking our eye contact, and I can feel every glorious inch of him, skin against skin, as he moves in and out … over and over … again and again. Oh, this is heaven!

  “Oh, God, you feel so good, baby,” he whispers, his face just inches from mine, and he’s watching me intently as he continues his slow, steady pace, and I can feel my body building again.

  “Oh, Joshua!” I begin to whimper and he delves deeper inside me, increasing his pace slightly and rotating his hips. The effect is mind-blowing and it sends ripples of pleasure radiating out from my core. I moan loudly and he covers my mouth with his, kissing me deeply once again.

  “Come for me, baby,” he says tightly, his lips grazing my own, and I detonate around him, my body shattering and convulsing uncontrollably as I call out his name. He thrusts into me deeply and his body goes rigid as he explodes inside of me. “Ah, baby!”

  We lie, panting and spent, in each other’s arms and I can feel the full weight of his body pressing down on me. He looks into my eyes then, and I caress his face with my hand. And suddenly, I can’t help myself; the emotion is too great for me to contain.

  “I love you, Josh,” I whisper tearfully. “I love you so much!”

  He freezes and his eyes widen slightly in shock. Or horror perhaps? And then he frowns and swallows anxiously. He blinks nervously and he can’t hold my gaze any more. Crap! I shouldn’t have said anything.

  “Sam, I … ”

  “Don’t!” Gently, I cover his lips with my fingers and whisper to him. “Please, don’t say anything. I don’t want you to say it back because you feel obligated to. And I don’t want you to say it at all if you don’t feel it.” He looks at me with bewilderment but, remains silent. “I just wanted you to know how I feel.”

  He says nothing as he looks at me, and I get the feeling he’s experiencing some sort of private inner turmoil. I hate it when he does that; I never know what he’s thinking! I could just kick myself right now and I wish I could pull the covers over my head and hide.

  He pulls out of me then and rolls onto his back, covering his eyes with his right arm. You’ve really done it now, Sam! Slowly, I begin to turn away from him, feeling so dejected. But I feel his arm around my waist, stopping me from fleeing, and he gently turns me toward him and pulls me into his arms, holding me tightly. My head rests on his chest and I can feel the frantic beating of his heart. He kisses the top of my head and his fingers play in my hair.

  “Those words scare me, Samantha,” he says quietly. I lift my chin and look up at him, my head still lying on his chest, and he looks down at me and shakes his head slightly. “All my life … I have watched people say those words to each other, and then hurt one another in the cruelest ways imaginable.” He pauses for a moment as he works out what he wants to say. “Those words are supposed to mean something. Only I’m not sure that they actually do.” His voice sounds anguished and conflicted and his fingers continue to play absentmindedly in my hair as he talks. “I can feel the emotion … the sentiment that’s supposed to be meant by them … but, I can’t say those words. Those words mean nothing to me!”

  I look at him mutely. What the hell am I supposed to say to that? And I realize for the first time that Josh’s pain runs far deeper than I ever imagined. When he told me about his father, I figured that he must have suffered unspeakable emotional damage as a result of the brutal domestic violence he witnessed as a child. But I’m shocked to learn that it affected his ability to even say the words ‘I love you.’ What do I even do with that? How do I combat that? And is he saying that he does love me but he can’t express it? Is he even saying that he loves me at all? I just don’t know; there are still so many questions that he’s not even attempting to answer. This is so frustrating!

  Propping myself up on my elbow, I gently touch his face with my hand, running my fingertips softly over his cheek. “I am truly sorry that your childhood was so screwed up. I really am. But those words have meaning for me, Josh,” I whisper. “They’re important, powerful words, and they mean something to me. So, I’m going to keep saying them. Then maybe … eventually you’ll come to trust that they mean exactly what they should.”

  His tortured eyes bore into mine, as if he’s trying to see into my soul, and I suddenly feel so sorry for him. I want to take his pain away somehow. Leaning down to kiss him, I let my lips press softly against his, and he draws his arms around me. I lower my head back down to his chest and he pulls me even closer, holding me so tightly against him, almost as if he’s afraid I’ll leave or something.

  “I need you,” he whispers into my hair, kissing the top of my head once again. And the words are spoken so softly I’m not certain that I’m supposed to hear them, and he squeezes me tightly once more. He takes a deep breath. “I need you in my life, Sam,” he whispers more directly this time. “I need you.”

  I lightly kiss his chest as he holds me tightly. He needs me! His whispered words make my heart soar. He said that he needs me. That’s a step closer to love, isn’t it? A move in the right direction. Feeling so hopeful and totally in love, I nuzzle his chest and snuggle closer to him and his arms tighten around me once more.

  We lay this way in silence for a long time, each of us alone with our own thoughts, and I think we both begin to doze off. I move then, turning to lie on my left side, and Josh follows suit, wrapping his arm around my waist and pulling me close to him. We are spooning now, my back to his front, and he’s holding me snugly. His nose is buried in my hair and he inhales deeply. Then he kisses the spot behind my ear, making me shiver. I could lie this way forever.

  *****

  I’m not sure how long we sleep, but when I wake, I can barely move. We started out spooning but now, Josh is practically on top of me. His chest is pressed against my back and his weight is pressing me into the mattress. His right arm is wrapped snugly around my waist, keeping me in place, and his right leg is entwined around mine. It should be intrusive and confining. Smothering even. Yet, all I feel is safe and protected. Happy in the knowledge that no harm can come to me when I’m safely cocooned in Josh’s arms. I snuggle closer to him and bathe in the warmth radiating from his body.

  I sigh as I think about the events of th
e last twenty-four hours, and I’m happy that I can think about the attack and not end up in tears like last night. I wasn’t woken up by bad dreams either; I actually got a few hours of uninterrupted sleep this time. Maybe that’s because Josh has been wrapped around me the entire time, making me feel safe. Or maybe it’s because I finally feel more sure of him and his feelings for me. He said he needs me. They may not be the three words I wanted to hear, but they’ll do for now. And knowing what I now do about his past, I know that those were not easy words for him to say.

  His phone begins to buzz and he stirs, blinking sleepily as he gets his bearings. “I’m sorry, baby. I must be crushing you,” he mumbles as he untangles himself from around me and sits up.

  I roll over onto my back as he sits, rubbing his eyes. “Being crushed by you feels nice,” I answer softly and he smiles, leaning down to lightly kiss my lips before reaching for his phone. He briefly looks at the caller ID before he answers.

  “Hi Mom,” he says, running a hand through his hair. Hearing him talk to his mom on the phone reminds me that I should probably turn my own phone back on and face the music. I really don’t want to deal with my mother right now but, I know that I have no choice.

  I climb out of the bed and grab Josh’s t-shirt from the floor and slip it on. I can feel his eyes on me the entire time as he tells Olivia that I’m doing okay and that we’re both recovering from our lack of sleep last night. Reaching inside my bag, I pull out my phone and note that it’s almost two in the afternoon. Josh and I have indeed slept for several hours.

  There is a message from Meg telling me she’s worried about me and that she loves me, and please call when I feel like talking. I’ll have to remember to text her later. There is also a message from Lola saying she saw the news on TV and she is frantic to know that I’m doing okay. I’ll send her a text later too; I just don’t really feel like talking about it yet.