Page 64 of Unnatural
Part of her didn’t want that answer as she didn’t want to picture Sam with any other woman. She was also surprised by the fleeting wish that she hadn’t been with anyone and that Sam might be her first. But either way, she knew it would be good to verbalize this between them. “Have you had relationships?”
“No, but I know pleasure,” he said in answer. But the bleak look on his face told her differently. Of course he knew the mechanics like nearly every other adult human and brief, blissful relief. But judging by his expression, it was one that quickly melted into melancholy, a dissatisfaction hemight not be aware of or know how to explain. That wasn’t true pleasure.
“It’s different when someone else gives it to you,” she said. From what she now understood, he’d only ever known another’s touch to bring pain and anguish. He didn’t know how to let his guard down. And what she wanted was suddenly as clear as day to her. She wanted to teach him. She’d teach him what gentleness felt like but also sexual pleasure. She understood what it was like to believe that bodies were mostly made for misery, for your bones to feel like prison bars. She’d been released from that terrible hell, and her heart’s desire was to break him free too.
Why?
Why do you want that?
Was it selfish? Partly. There was the undeniable fact that she was attracted to him and also that it would bring her joy to see him happy. But there was a selfless element involved too, because she sensed that freeing him from one cage might mean he left her, even though she’d asked him to stay. And that would bring her pain. Yet even still, she wanted to see him learn to receive.
She leaned over and kissed him lightly on his cheek, feathering her lips along his jaw. Then she leaned back, watching him. He’d tensed, but his breath had picked up, his chest rising and falling more quickly. “Was that okay?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice cracking on the one word.
Her heart sped and her breath grew short. The tense set of his jaw, the way she could feel his heartbeat pumping along with hers. The masculine scent of him. They all served to make her feel both woozy and alive. “Can I do it again?”
“Yes.” Almost a sigh.
So Autumn leaned over, and this time, Sam turned hishead so that he was facing her. Their lips met, so very gently, eyes still open. When she pulled back slowly, she said, “I think you’re beautiful, Sam.” She lifted her hand and ran a finger over his cheekbone and then used her thumb to smooth his brow. He looked at her as though she’d just spoken a different language, using words he didn’t understand. “And I want you to trust me enough to touch you…everywhere. Will you try?”
His lips parted, eyelids lowering, and he nodded, and this time, it was Sam who leaned in for a kiss.
Their lips brushed and then held, and Autumn waited a moment before she used her tongue to run along the seam of his mouth, his lips parting on a small gasp of breath. His tongue met hers so very tentatively, a moan that sounded like pain vibrating from his chest. But he didn’t pull away, and after a moment, his tongue ventured deeper, finally,finallydancing and twisting more fully with hers.
With a guttural groan, he turned his body and pressed closer, their kiss catching fire as he tilted his mouth and took control. A thrill raced through her, electrifying her nerve endings.
She could feel that he was hard, his sizable erection pressing against her thigh. She wanted to let her hand wander. She wanted to wrap her fist around him and hear him groan. She wanted to part her legs and bring his hardness to the place between her thighs tingling with need.
Her pebbled nipples brushed against his chest, and she barely withheld a groan, their tongues still twisting, Sam licking into her mouth with ever mounting intensity. He tasted so good. Those lips were just as soft as she’d known they would be. She imagined what it would feel like to have that unpracticed mouth on her body, to feel him pressdown on her from above, to fill her. Would it hurt at first as he stretched her? God, she didn’t care. She was so wet and needy, practically on the verge of orgasm from his kiss alone, yet even so, she took care to go as slow as he obviously needed to go. To let him set the pace.
It was torturous bliss. It was the sweetest moment of her life.
No hands. Just mouths. Just breath and this tortured man’s surrender. To her.
She felt powerful and scared. Invincible and as though she held the most precious of treasures in her shaky, undeserving hands.
Please don’t let me drop it.
She knew what this kiss meant to him. He’d laid down his armor at her feet. He’d taken his beating heart from his chest and placed it before her.
And she would treat it with the reverence it deserved.Sam. My Sam.
“Sweet,” he said breathlessly when their mouths parted and they came up for air. His lips brushed the side of her mouth. “You taste so sweet.”
“So do you,” she whispered, finally bringing one hand up and running it over his short hair. It’d grown out since they’d first arrived at the cottage, but it was still little more than a choppy buzz cut. It was another part of him that was such a strange mystery. She’d wanted to ask him about his coloring, but she sensed that he was insecure about the way he looked, and now was definitely not the time to make him feel unsure about himself. Like her, she doubted he’d know much of his parentage. His family history. How often had she mourned not knowing where she came from and who her people might have been? Now was not the timefor mourning.
“When I said earlier that I’d thought about the moment we almost kissed,” he said, his gaze searching hers, “I didn’t tell you that, some years, it’s the moment that kept me breathing. The one true, good thing that happened in my life.”
“Oh, Sam,” she said, leaning her forehead against his. She didn’t know what else to say. What miseries had he experienced that the one happy moment he brought forth had happened almost a decade before? And again, she felt deeply honored. Humbled and undeserving.
But none of that was the reason excitement shimmered through her system. That was simple chemistry, and it could be neither manufactured nor destroyed. She found this hulking, complex, distinct sweetheart of a savior extremely attractive, and that was that.
She leaned forward and kissed him again, tasting his lips and his tongue and then whispering against his mouth, “Let’s make better memories than that one. A whole slew of them. Life is unpredictable and sometimes shorter than we realize. And I don’t think either of us,especially us, should waste a moment of it.”
“You’ve already given me a whole slew of them,” he said. “Just being here with you is enough to last me a lifetime.”
But she didn’t think he knew the half of it, not really, so she sat up, came to her feet, and reached her hand out for his. He looked at it for a beat, then two, and finally grasped it and stood. She tipped her head back, and they stared at each other for a moment in the last light creeping through the trees. There was an understanding in that look. And a promise of what was about to happen betweenthem.
