Page 27 of Lush Curves

“Huge,” Annie agreed. “So, we coped, all of us. I took on many more hours at the diner, Sarah took night classes at a community college, then started her own web design business and worked from home, Noah finally got approved for some home care a few times a week, and Sarah took care of him the rest of the time. We – we managed, even without the income from Billy’s factory job. Barely, most of the time, and we had more than one occasion when the lights were turned off or the heat was cut, but that had happened often enough when Billy was there and drinking up the bill money, so we were well used to it. And really, it was an incredible thing to wake up every day and not have to worry about setting him off because I’d overcooked the bacon, or forgotten the milk for his coffee, orbreathedthe fucking wrong way when the big game was on. We just – wedidit, you know? Just teamed up and had each other’s backs, and wedidit.”

“And here you are now,” Sam said gently. “You’ve all made it through.”

“Yep.” Annie drank some more wine, and Sam watched as her tongue snaked out to lick her lips; his cock leapt up in helpless response, as he imagined that soft, pink tongue lapping at the tip of his hardness. “In one piece, for the most part.”

“Oh, I’d say you’re all in better shape thanthat.” Sam tried to ignore the hard-on in his pants, to no great success. “I’d say you’re all doing great.”

“Well, the kids are,” Annie said wryly. “Me, maybe not so much.”

“Why do you saythat?”

“Well, I’m still just a diner waitress, aren’t I? Living in a run-down house in the crappiest neighborhood in Denver.”

“Is it his house?” Sam asked. “Billy’s?”

“Oh, no.” Annie gave a strangely twisted, bitter smile. “No. He sold the house that we were living in –it was in his name, so it was his to do with as he pleased – just sold it out from under us, and we didn’t have aclueuntil the new owners show up with all the papers and told us to get the hell out within three hours, or they’d be calling the cops.Thatwas the first moment when I think I truly began tohatemy husband… until he did that, I thought he was an asshole, for sure. But to throw us out onto the streets in the dead of winter, and I mean all of that literally – to make his childrenhomelessin fucking December, just before Christmas –thatwas monstrous. That was – it was fuckingunforgivable.”

“Oh, my God. Honey…I don’t know what say.”

“Yeah. So, we packed what we could carry, Sarah almost killed herself to keep Noah calm and distracted with the sudden change, and we walked out into the winter night. No car, no home, no food except a few peanut butter sandwiches that I’d made in a blind panic.”

“Where did you go?”

“The diner. It was warm and safe enough, and my boss wasn’t around, so my friend Talia who also works there had the cook feed us for free, and everyone looked the other way. We stayed with Talia for about five weeks, until Sarah finally found a house that we could just about afford to rent, between the two of us. That’s where we ended up, and that’s where I still am.”

“You ever thought about moving? I mean, if you dislike the area that much?”

“Oh, sure. I’m looking around right now, but you know… every place that I really love is closer to the city centre and is expensive, and places that I can easily afford aren’t in great neighborhoods, anyway, so I might as well save my moving expenses and all the hassle and stay where I am.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Anyway.” Annie gave himthatsmile now, that amazing, brilliant, breath-stealing smile. “Life is definitely better now, and I’m working on figuring it out. I always take the long way around, have done all my life, but I get there in the end.”

“That’s the important thing, honey. Getting there in the end, that’s what really matters. That’sallthat really matters, I think.”

Annie looked over at Sam, just looked at him long and hard. The evening was drawing to a close now, and she knew that their time together was reaching its end. She’d enjoyed every second of her time in this kind, smart, funny man’s company, and even though she’d giveanythingto see him again, she knew that wasn’t on the cards for her. She’d gotten a single dinner, one evening, a few hours, and that was all that she could expect from this gorgeous, amazing man.

“Oh, the fortune cookies,” Sam said as he set the money on the table. He pushed the plate towards her, and with nothing but regret, she took back her hand, pulled back her heart. “Open yours, Annie.”

“OK,” Annie said with a mental shrug as she cracked the hard dough. She unrolled the tiny paper inside, glanced at it, paused. “Uh…”

“What?” Sam had opened his cookie as well and was blinking down at his own fortune. “What’s it say?”

“Ahem.” She cleared her throat. “‘A new love is approaching, as silent and sure as a morning mist over a lake. Do not miss the mist; do not miss the dawn of the new’.” She almost rolled her eyes, contemplating how her ‘approaching love’ sounded like a psychopathic stalker, or a serial killer, but refrained fromactuallyrolling them becauseof courseher ‘love’ was a maniac. “You?”

“‘She does not believe, but she wants to believe. She needs to believe as strongly as she needs to breathe. Beliefisher breath’.”

He raised his eyes to hers, and just like that, Annie was caught in his gaze. It wasn’t Sam’s usual kind, open, intelligent look. No, this one was hot, fierce, bright. It was the look that he’d levelled her with over coffee, when he’d growled at her to notdarecall him ‘sweet’ again.

It was a look that knocked the breath out from her lungs, knocked her knees out from under her, knocked every sane, rational thought out of her head. It knocked herright out, and she was down for the count, flat on her back gasping, clothes disheveled and open, legs wrapped around Sam’s waist as he fucked her harder and deeper and longer than anyone had ever done before. Not Billy, not the two disappointing casual boyfriends that she’d had since him… notanyone.

Sam’s look across the table was pure, molten, shimmeringsex, and it touched her as sure and strong as his hands had done mere moments earlier; his look traveled over her flushed face, down to her nipples pushing hard against her thin sweater, back to her blue eyes. The journey of perusal took all of five seconds, but at its completion, Annie was limp and weak… as if she’d just walked miles and miles in the hot sun, or gone to six step classes in a row.

Or made love for days, made love until she was a sweaty, shaking pile of sated, satisfied, quenched desire… only to roll over and start all over again for another few days.

“Tell me something, princess,” he said, and even his voice was different now. It was lower, rougher, darker. “And tell me the truth.”

“Yes?” she whispered, loving ‘princess’ more than ‘honey’, loving how cherished and special it made her feel. “What is it?”

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