The recognition that she was safe and loved was realized in every action she took while entrenched in my embrace – the kisses to my neck, the lazy trails she traced on my arms, the hum of her happiness encouraging my heart to skip a few beats. Sam angled her head, eyes half open as her sweet lips strained for mine. I dropped my head, my hair falling down between us. Sam swept it aside and pressed fluttery kisses along my jaw. I brushed a mellow kiss across her cheek.
It was as if the two of us were in slow motion, bathed in soft sepia tones. There was no need to rush. No need to prove ourselves. This was why I’d battled my way back from the brink… for her. For this. Sam had always made me better. If I didn’t have a reason before to be the best version of myself, I sure as hell did now.
“Keith?” she whispered, and I could feel a shiver race through her body.
I drew her in, pressing my heated skin against hers to tame her trembling. “Yeah?”
“Let me be enough for you this time.”
A lump instantly formed in my throat. I hated that she felt somehow responsible when our six-year absence was all on me. I was the one who’d chosen wrong time and time again. I was the one who’d put the distance between us – the one who hadn’t fought to close the widening gap. The demons I’d wrestled were mine alone, cultivated over the years by an insecurity that had clung to me like a shy toddler. Sam had been the one shining light in a life filled with self-loathing. And I’d thrown that away.
“You were always enough, Sam.”
“Then why did you leave me?”
“BecauseIwasn’t enough.”
29
Samantha: At Long Last
“What are you thinking?” Keith asked, as his fingers tiptoed over my breasts. Moments earlier he’d amazed me with his one–handed bra extraction method, and now I was the beneficiary of his skills with miniaturized clasps.
I was in a state of quivers as I gazed into his handsome face. Oh, I doubted he really wanted to know what I was thinking.I love you.Those three words weren’t typically what a guy wanted to hear right out of the gate. If the goal was to keep him in my life, hell, to keep him in the same state as me, then I needed to play this smart. Be cool. No declarations of love until I had him cornered and trapped like a lovesick animal. Only then would I pounce.
Affecting my sexiest smile, I pushed his face away playfully. If I couldn’t confess my true feelings, I could at least work him up into a frenzy of lust. But Keith turned the tables on me, grabbing my dismissive hand and pinning it to the bed.
“Who do you think you are?” he asked, the hum of anticipation in his voice. He was being playful, but there was something more. Keith carried himself differently than I remembered. He was stronger and more powerful. Suddenly I wondered if it would be me quivering in a corner.
“I’m the woman who’s going to take you over the edge.” It was the right response, judging by the guttural sound from Keith’s throat as he glided his tongue through the valley between my breasts. I gasped, tangling my fingers into his hair, not letting him up until that torturous tongue was giving me a proper lashing.
“What are you thinking?” he repeated.
“I was thinking…” I paused, moaning as my own hands found the playground that was his steely abdomen, littered with dips and swells. I shuddered at the thought of those muscles working in unison to transport me into rapturous bliss. “…that I like this new you.”
He listed his head, a grin sweeping across his face. “Body or soul?”
“Less talk, bud. I just want your body.”
He laughed, now leaning over me and tracing wet circles over my nipples. “I like shallow Samantha.”
My breath hitched as I grabbed a wad of sheets in my fingers and heaved into his touch. “Yes,” I panted. “Shallow.”
Grabbing the hem of his t-shirt, I pulled it up and over his head, my tongue instantly on his bare skin and exploring what was at once familiar, but also unbelievably foreign to the touch. He’d left me a boy and come home a man.
I thrilled at the taste of him. His skin, though no longer dipped in the salty ocean, still had an earthy flavor. Mixed with the sex oozing from his pores and I was tipping into stalker territory. I raked my nails over his stomach, eager to mark him as my own.
While I was preoccupied by his Adonis-like torso, Keith had taken to kissing his way along my collarbone, the soft touch of his lips flittering across my skin as if he were painting on a canvas. Heat rose up through me, and I pulled him down on top of me with a force that surprised us both. Breathy with desire, I teased out each word. “I need you.”
Keith panted into my neck as my body opened to him. I knew he’d feel good. I remembered the feeling of him deep inside, pushing me to my limits. That had always been Keith, my surfer boy taking me places I’d never gone before. He’d cracked me open, body and soul. Then, when I was lying vulnerable and for the taking, he’d put me back together, piece by agonizing piece, until I was stronger and braver than before. Everything I was today, the lengths I’d come, had his handprint all over it.
“God, Sam. I can’t believe we’re back,” he said, puffing the words out with ecstasy accentuating his words. He wanted me as much as I wanted him. It was a powerful connection, one that had tethered us through the years. I couldn’t imagine ever wanting another man the way I wanted Keith. It was beyond just the physical. We were bound by something stronger.
“I never left. It’s always been you.” I spoke softly into his ear as I draped my legs around his waist to let him know I was here, and eager. God, how I still craved him, every punishing inch.
The weight of his body pressed me flat to the mattress, and I could feel the power of him, sending a thrill of warmth and wetness pulsing through me. Gripping his back, I marveled at the changes his body had gone through since we’d last been intimate. Keith had not only grown broader through his back and shoulders but also taller. Where we’d once been near equals in length, he now surpassed me by several inches. And those wide shoulders tapered down into a lean waist. He was Keith, yes, but this was the upgraded model. I could only imagine how many women had lain beneath him as I did now. Had any of them meant something to him?
I gasped as he entered, the thrill of him rippling through my core and radiating out to my extremities as he filled me. Pulsing to his beat, I moved with him, the two of us in perfect harmony. He swelled inside and I screamed out, not concerned about the rapt audience I was certain was on the other side of the wall. I’d gone somewhere else in my mind, the place only Keith could take me, and I didn’t care who knew. I just needed more of him.
