Erin's Way (13 page)

He laid Erin on the bed, and started to straighten when Erin murmured, “Don’t go, Sammy.”

“It’s okay, baby. Jenny’s going to help you.” He touched her short hair gently. “I’ll be right downstairs. I won’t leave you.”

Sam returned to the kitchen to find Evan chopping vegetables. Sam leaned against the counter.

“That is so domestic, Evan.”

“Fuck you.”

The knife chopped rhythmically, but with enough force, Sam realized Evan was still venting pent up anger. Sam could relate to that. He rubbed his reddened knuckles. Punching that guy in the nose had felt extremely satisfying. Before he could contemplate how much better he would feel if he could do it again, Jenny returned to the kitchen and punched him in the gut.

Sam let out a big oomph. “What the heck? What was that for?”

Jenny glared at him. “For being an insufferable prick.” She turned to Evan. “There is no reason to file any charges against her friends.”

“They didn’t do anything? You’re sure?” Evan’s voice was still filled with suspicion.

Jenny smiled. “As sure as I am that Joe is a preacher.”

She left the room once more, and Sam looked at Evan in frustration. “That’s all the information we get?”

Evan nodded and went back to chopping.

Finally Sam asked, “Doesn’t it bother you that she knows a lot more than she tells?”

Evan sighed. “All the time, but I respect her for it, even if I don’t like it. She wouldn’t be much of a doctor if she didn’t keep some things to herself. I’d say Erin obviously told her something about you that pissed her off. Care to share what you’ve been doing to my sister?”

“Not a darn thing,” Sam said indignantly, “not that it hasn’t…”

He clamped his lips tightly before he could say anything else and stared at his big feet.

“Not that it hasn’t what, Sam?” Evan asked softly.

“I told her I wasn’t interested,” Sam said stiffly.

“And are you?” Evan inquired.

“Yes. No! It would never work.”

“Never say never, Sam.” Evan laughed, a dark, evil sound that made Sam nervous.

* * * *

The euphoria of Erin’s pot and alcohol high had quickly evaporated, leaving her dragged down and depressed. As she stood beneath the spray of the shower, she thought back over what she’d shared with Jenny. Her brother certainly hadn’t pulled any punches in how seriously he was treating her hooking up with Rick and Matty.

Right off the bat, Jenny had said, “Evan wants to know if you’ve been raped. Did those men touch you?”

It had struck Erin as funny. She’d stared at Jenny for a beat, then giggled. “I’m the last person Rick or Matty would touch. Evan and Sam were in more danger than me!”

Jenny’s brows shot up; then she started laughing as well. “Oh God! They’re
gay
? Well then why are you only in a bra and your thong?”

“We were playing strip poker. I was winning too, damn it. I had a full house, aces over jacks, when they knocked.” She’d giggled. “I’d have had Rick’s boxers next. Um, Jenny, don’t say anything, you know, about Rick and Matty being gay. They don’t advertise it. Well, Matty kinda does. He’s pretty effeminate.”

Jenny smiled. “So I can assume you are still…?”

Erin hiccupped. “As virginal as ever since Sam doesn’t want me.”

Jenny had plopped next to her on the bed. “Do you want him?”

Erin cringed now as she thought back on what she’d revealed. And then she’d just made it worse.

“Yes. No! He’s mean and he hates me. He said he didn’t want what so many other men had already had. I’d be crazy to want him.” Erin sniffed. “Where’s the bathroom? I’m going to be sick.”

Jenny had helped her to the commode, then into the shower. Erin was mortified. As the water continued to run over her, she knew she would have to face Sam and her brother when she got out. Could someone stay in a shower forever?

Erin was quiet as she dressed again in her own clothes. It amazed her how quickly a person could go from falling down drunk to stone cold sober. With sobriety came humiliation. Her face burned. Sam and Evan had seen her nearly naked and falling down drunk. Had she really told Sam she loved him? Oh God. Then asked Matty about her ass? How on earth could she possibly face Sam or Evan again?

“Come on, Erin,” Jenny said quietly from the doorway. “You can’t hide here.”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“We’ve all done stupid things at some point.”

Erin looked up then, an expression of self-loathing on her face. “Some of us keep doing them. Oh, Jenny,” she whispered, “I told Sam I love him.”

Jenny put an arm around Erin’s shoulders. “Don’t worry. Nobody believes what you say when you’re drunk. You need some food and some fluids.”

When they entered the kitchen, Erin raised her chin stubbornly even as she averted her gaze. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed any of you in any way.”

Evan came over and held her by the shoulders. “Are you sure you’re okay, honey?”

She closed her eyes. Protecting Rick and Matty’s secrets would make her appear even worse, but she owed them, especially Rick. “They’re friends, Evan. Anything that happened was by mutual consent.”

“Erin…” Jenny began.

She lifted her chin a little higher. “They’ve seen me in less than that before,” she lied.

Evan and Sam’s mouths dropped open.

“Erin,” Evan began. “This area isn’t like the Virgin Islands. People aren’t as relaxed about some things.”

It sounded remarkably similar to what she had tried to tell Rick and Matty, but she wasn’t about to admit that. Erin stared at him. “Worried about your reputation, Mr. Prosecutor, or mine? ’Cause if you’re worried about mine”—and now she looked directly at Sam—“people already think I’m a drug-addicted slut. I can hardly go any lower in their estimation.”

“Erin,” Sam began, his voice low and gravelly sounding, but she spun on him.

“Do you both have to gang up on me all the time? Do you think I haven’t already had a lifetime of people pointing out everything I do wrong? You didn’t have to go live in D.C., Evan. I did. It was like living in a fishbowl all the time. Daddy’s name was always tied to the phrase ‘potential presidential candidate,’ so we were under constant scrutiny. If I said the wrong thing, wore the wrong thing, combed my hair the wrong way, it was in all the gossip columns… And everyone in school delighted in throwing it in my face.”

When Evan tried to touch her, she stepped back and wrapped her arms across her waist.

“It didn’t take long for me to become a prime target for all of them. Senator Stoner Richardson’s troubled teenage daughter. And all I ever saw in Mama and Daddy’s eyes was how tired they were of me. I was a liability. Even sitting on the bench for UVA you were more of an asset than I was. When they were finally able to ship me off to college, they looked relieved. Do you have any idea how that feels, Evan?”

Jenny started to reach out to her, but Erin backed away from the contact. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to grow up as the only idiot in a family of freaking geniuses? Even now… You’re married to a doctor. I discover a bastard half sister who turns out to be another Georgia O’Keeffe and so squeaky clean she’s married to a minister who sings like an angel.” She began prowling, scarcely aware of how her fingers danced across surfaces as she walked.

“Then there’s me, Evan,” she whispered. She stared at him, feeling the humiliation of not living up to standards that had always seemed to be a little higher than other families. “The idiot who can only land jobs as a cook or a lifeguard. Oh, and now I can add shit shoveler. How does that stack up against your resume, bro?”

She continued to prowl the room, restless and agitated, before she stopped and stared at Sam accusingly. “The only person who ever really bothered to look at me as a person, you punched in the nose. And you and Evan both told him to leave. Rick knows me, knows my faults, and still likes me. That’s almost unheard of for me.”

“Sit down,” Jenny said softly, but firmly. “You need to eat something, Erin, and get some fluids in you. I don’t think now is the time to discuss all this.”

Erin looked at her sister-in-law, and some of her belligerence faded. “You’re right, Jenny. I don’t want to talk about this. I spend most of my time trying not to think about it at all, but since coming back here, it seems like all I ever do.”

By the time Erin and Sam returned to his farm, he was frustrated and irritable. She could tell by the way he stalked to the mudroom door. As he held it for her, he growled, “I’m sorry I punched your friend.”

Erin stopped, staring at him incredulously. “That’s it? That’s your apology?”

Sam pulled at his already short hair. “It made me crazy. You’d disappeared.Then there you were, almost naked with those two guys. I lost it. Okay?”

“I’m safe with them.”

“Are you?” Sam asked. “How the heck am I supposed to protect you if you invite people here to pick you up?”

“Am I a prisoner here?”

That stopped him. With one hand on the back of his neck he stilled, his dark eyes intense, his brows drawn together. “No. That’s not what I want, but I need to be with you or know you’re some place safe.”

“Oh, so it’s like being grounded. How quaint.” Erin shook her head. “I’m going to bed.”

She felt his gaze on her. As she crossed the living room, she heard the unmistakable sound of a liquor bottle rattling against the edge of a glass. Great. Now she was driving even Sam to drink. Erin was desperate for the oblivion sleep would provide. This day had been far too long already.

Erin was dreaming. She knew it was a dream because she had imagined it ever since she was old enough to imagine being with a man. She had comforted herself with stories and fantasies in which Sam Barnes was always the hero. Whether he knew it or not, Sam had been there to dry the tears she’d shed in private during those years in D.C. when she had become the brunt of bullying from other, more successful students. When she was scared or uncertain, it was him she always thought of.

Now was the most delicious dream yet. He was there in her room, stripping off his clothes in the dim light of the moon filtering through the window. He stood next to the bed, looking at her with an expression that was both somber and searching.

As she always did in her dreams, Erin moved to the side, a silent invitation. The mattress shifted with his weight, and she smiled drowsily at how realistic this dream was. His weight and warmth enveloped her. His lips nuzzled her face and her neck, his breath faintly flavored with bourbon. Big, calloused hands pulled her against him, molding her to him. Why couldn’t he be like this when she was awake? Why couldn’t he like her in real life?

“Sammy,” she said with a sigh against his mouth. “Make love to me. I want you, all of you.”

Her dream hero kissed her deeply, seducing her so she never ever wanted to wake up. She looked into his dark eyes and saw heat and passion so intense it burned straight down to her sex. She ached for him, throbbed for him. She helped him as he pulled her baggy shirt over her head, baring her breasts to him.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, and his lips and hands caressed her, making her whimper and moan. “So beautiful. I’ve dreamed so long of touching you. Touch me too,” he whispered against her ear.

Erin’s fingers trembled as she traced the contours of his beloved face, skimmed along his muscular neck and shoulders, and spread across the sprinkling of hair covering the muscles of his chest and stomach. Her dreams had never felt this real, this compelling. As her hands brushed along the rigid outline of his hips, Sam’s breathing altered, becoming harsh and strained. Then his fingers untied the string at her waist and his hands brushed the material down until she was as naked as he was.

Erin sighed with pleasure and arched against his work-sculpted body. Never had her dream been this detailed, this realistic. Her whole body burned and tingled where skin met skin…her thighs, her belly, her nipples. She and Sam rubbed together, hard and soft, until they moaned with the pure, heart-pounding pleasure of it. He moved away for an instant. She heard a sound like ripping paper; then he was back, pressing against her, his heat nearly burning her.

“Oh, Sammy, yes,” she whispered. “Don’t stop. Please.”

He groaned near her ear. Then his hand slipped lower, sliding between her thighs to the moist, bare flesh there, and his fingers did the most deliciously wicked things… Things she had never even imagined. She whimpered again as a second finger joined what the first one was already doing, and his thumb rubbed the bud of flesh nestled in her swollen sex. She had fantasized about this so often it seemed real.

“I want you,” he whispered. “I want to feel you around me when you come for me, baby.”

Her fog began to clear. In her dream, Sam always said he loved her, not that he wanted her. But before Erin could puzzle that out, his knee parted her thighs, and even as she whimpered, his fingers were replaced with the hard heat of his erection. He slid along her moist folds until he found the opening he sought, then thrust powerfully into her.

Pain burst like the crack of a log in a fireplace. Erin gasped. This was no dream. This was actually happening. And it hurt. No one had told her that. Maybe Sam was just too big. It felt that way. At last, she found her voice.

“Get off me! Get off me!”

“Erin?” Shock reverberated in Sam’s voice, and he abruptly withdrew. The lamp next to the bed snapped on, and she heard his muttered curse before the bed shifted again. Erin opened her eyes and looked down at herself. She scrambled off the bed, snatched her shirt, and threw it over her head right before Sam stalked back into the room still gloriously naked and carrying a wet washcloth.

She backed away from him. The flush of embarrassment that had flooded her morphed almost immediately into anger.

“Get out,” she yelled. “Get out of my room. I thought you were a dream. Get out!”

Sam’s dark eyes were shadowed with concern. “Erin! We need to talk for God’s sake.”

“There’s nothing for us to talk about. Nothing.” Her voice rose to near hysteria, but she could do nothing to control it. “Leave me alone!”

“Talk to me!” he ordered. “Sweet heaven. How are you still a virgin?”