Page 343 of A Matter of Time

“Yeah?”

“I don’t sleep the same when you’re not with me. I figured that out when I was gone all that time. You’re the only one who makes me forget about everything else so I can just…be.”

“You know, for a big, tough, silent-guy type, you say a lot of really good stuff.”

“Yeah, well, I try.”

“No, you don’t.” I smiled, my body getting heavy. “And that’s the best part.”

“J, you⁠—”

“Wait,” I said, rolling over on my stomach away from him, reaching between my shoulder blades to pull my T-shirt off and over my head. “Look.”

“J, I’m trying to—oh shit.” I heard him deflate.

I smiled into the pillow as his warm hands slid over my back.

“Jory…baby, you put my name on you.”

“Yes, I did,” I said softly. This was the first time Sam was seeing my tattoo. I hadn’t gotten the chance to show him before everything happened.

“I don’t…” He trailed off, and that made me very happy.

The tattoo was simple, just large black letters, but it was special because I had taken a piece of paper with his signature on it with me to the tattoo artist. He had traced it on my skin and then inked it exactly where Sam had said it should be. The result was as though Sam himself had signed his name directly over my right shoulder blade. There was no mistaking who I belonged to now.

“How did you do this?”

I grunted as his hands slid up and down my spine, down over the small of my back and lower, over my ass, massaging, kneading my skin, taking the tension away with each pass.

“Jory?”

“Do you like it?”

“I love it,” he said simply, his voice hoarse. He kissed the tattoo gently and then traced the same path as his hands had, down my back to my ass. “I was so scared, J. I’ve never been that scared, even before.”

I rested my head on my hands and tried to roll over without success. He wanted me down.

“There’re bruises on your back and your ribs.”

“One of the guys roughed me up a little.”

“There was blood on your clothes,” he said tightly.

“Don’t think about it anymore.”

“No.”

“I’m home now.”

“I know, I just… We have a serial killer running around, and now someone took you and Caleb, and tried to get Aja, all to squeeze money out of Dane. This is nuts.”

“You’ll figure it out, Sam.”

He cleared his throat. “You know Dane asked to talk to you when he talked to Caleb, but the guy said no.”

“You were scared I was dead, huh?”

“No, because Caleb reported that you were okay, but…I wanted to talk to you.”