Stranger (33 page)

“Sam?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think…do you think that if we do it, we’ll still be friends?”

Sam smiled. “Grace, we already did it.”

“I know. But that was before.” I pushed my glass back and forth along the tabletop.

“It didn’t make a difference then. Why would it now?” Sam leaned back in his chair and beneath the table his leg pressed mine.

“I’d just hate if it did, that’s all.” I pressed back.

“Nothing’s going to change except where you let me kiss you.” Sam hooked his foot on the back of my calf and moved it up and down.

I rolled my eyes even as an image of Sam’s dark head between my thighs filled my head.

“Promises, promises.”

Sam leaned across the table to kiss me. “I meant, in the kitchen or the car or in front of other people. You’ve got a dirty mind, Grace.”

“Maybe I’m just optimistic,” I whispered against his mouth.

“Maybe just realistic,” Sam whispered in reply. “Grace. Can I make love to you now? I’ve been waiting an awfully long time.”

My answer slid out on top of a sigh. “Yes, Sam. Please.”

I
took him by the hand and led him to my bedroom where he tried undressing me and I fumbled with his belt before I took his hands away from my buttons and held them still.

“Wait.”

“I don’t think I can,” Sam said in a hoarse voice.

“Sit down. You’re too tall.” My earlier nervousness had retreated. I knew what I was doing. I pushed Sam to sit on the edge of the bed. With his face at my chest level, I didn’t have to crane my neck to kiss him, but we both had easy access to the other’s clothes.

His hands shook a little when he eased open the fabric of my blouse. Sam leaned back to study my breasts, now revealed, and the black lace bra containing them. It was one of my favorites, and it plumped my size Bs into a pretty good imitation of Cs. The lace dipped low, just above the slightly darker pink of the flesh around my nipples. Sam teased the satin rosebud in the center with a fingertip, then ran his finger down my belly to the hem of my skirt. He looked up at me, his eyes bright.

“Take this off.”

I reached behind me to unhook it and let the fabric slide down my arms. Sam replaced the soft lace with his palms. Each of his hands was big enough to cover a breast, and I shivered, my nipples tightening against the calluses on his fingers.

I’d managed to get his shirt mostly open, and I reached to slide my fingers along the collar, opening it. “Take
this
off.”

“Then I’d have to let go of you.” Sam shifted his hands to run his thumbs over the sensitive flesh of my nipples.

“Hmm. Tough decision. How about if I promised you I have other places you can touch?”

Sam laughed and leaned to kiss the soft curves of my cleavage before he sat back and shrugged out of his shirt. At first it seemed funny to see a chest and arms undecorated with hardware or ink, and I blinked with a small laugh.

“What?” Sam looked at himself, then flexed. “Not as buff as you recall?”

“That’s not it.” I traced the line of his collarbone with my finger, then found the sweet circle of his nipple and rolled it between my fingers. His small jump satisfied me, and I leaned in to kiss his jaw and throat as his hands came up to hold my waist.

I straddled him on the bed, a leg on each side of his hips. He pushed up my skirt as we kissed, but Sam took his mouth from mine when he reached the lacy straps of my garters and the tops of my stockings.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “The first time I ever jerked off was to a picture in a catalog of something like this.”

The image of a teenage Sam, prick in his fist, gave me tingles. “Garters?”

“Uh-huh.” He slid an experimental hand along the bare skin of my thigh, and the back of it brushed the edge of my panties.

I put a hand on his shoulder to keep myself straight as he pushed my skirt around my hips.

“You like these?”

“Yes.” Sam put a finger underneath one and plucked it like a guitar string. “Did you wear them just for me?”

“I did.”

His hand moved higher, brushing my panties again, before he reached around to unzip the back of my skirt. We spent the next few minutes wrestling our way out of our clothes and figuring out how to untangle ourselves without actually letting go of each other. True to my promise, Sam found several places he could touch, and he was touching one or more of them at all times until at last we were both naked.

There’s always a moment of insecurity about undressing in front of someone, even someone you’ve known for a while. Maybe more when it’s someone you’ve known for a while, when going skin on skin can change it all. Naked, Sam looked younger. Longer. I’d forgotten how he’d looked to me that first time, when I saw only a stranger. I looked at him with new eyes now, noting the places on his hands where the guitar strings had built calluses and the white lines of old scars on funny places like his knees and the inside of an elbow. At the way the line of hair on his belly thickened around his cock, already hard, and how much longer his penis seemed with my hand upon it.

“Did you think about me all day long?”

I nodded as I stroked him and he arched into my touch. “Yes, Sam. I did.”

“That’s good.”

I couldn’t tell if he meant my stroking or my thoughts. His eyes closed and his tongue swiped out across his mouth. His hands moved over my body. He remembered, even months later, the way I liked to be touched. Maybe he was just that good. Either way, his caresses sent shivers through me.

Heat swelled between my legs. Sam touched me there with gentle fingers, using just the tip of one finger to find my clit and make small circles on it. He stroked my folds, opening me so he could slide a finger inside and draw it back to smooth his strokes. I still straddled him, his erection in my hand, and I reached up with the other to tug the barrette I’d been using to hold back my chin-length bangs.

There’s something so incredibly sexy about my hair falling forward over my face. The strands tickle my lips and cheeks and cover my eyes. The only time I wear it down that way is when I’m sleeping or fucking. I like the way it moves when I move, and how I can use it to shield my expression when I don’t want my lover to see my eyes.

Sam wasn’t having any of that, though. He reached to push my hair back from my face, then cupped the back of my neck and pulled me down for a kiss. It went on for a long time like that, us kissing and stroking each other, until at last he started thrusting into the circle of my fingers. He closed his fingers over mine to stop me from moving. He took his hand from between my legs.

“Condoms are in the bedside stand.” Everything about me seemed hot and wet, and still I had to swallow hard before I could speak. Sam could reach from where we were, and I admired the lean lines of his body as he stretched. “How tall are you, anyway?”

“Six-five.” He snagged open my drawer and felt around inside.

Too late I remembered that the condoms weren’t the only things inside that drawer. When Sam pulled back with something small and pink, I laughed, embarrassed, and tried to grab it away from him. He didn’t let me. He held up the latex cock ring with the vibrating bullet tucked into it and stared at it with confusion.

I hadn’t actually ever used it with a partner. I’d bought it from a sex-toy party at a friend’s house because it had been the cheapest bullet vibe available, and I liked the steady, constant buzz along with the triple, flickering “tongues.” Vibrators with flashing lights and multiple speeds intimidated me. I didn’t want to land aircraft in my vagina; I just wanted to get off.

“Let me show you.” I took the cock ring and mimed sliding it down over his erection, then showed him how the small latex tendrils fluttered.

Sam’s cock twitched. “Do you want to use it?”

I looked at it, then at him. “Do you?”

He got up on his elbows. “If it will make you feel good. Sure.”

“I’ve never really used it with someone,” I told him.

He grinned. “All the better. Put it on me.”

I did. We both stared. The ring disappeared into the fluff of black curls at the base of his prick, but the bullet sat just right. It would hit my clit every time he thrust, and the vibrations would work against me. Just the way it was meant to.

I slid a condom down him and then eased myself onto his cock. I bit my lip. He groaned. I made the small, subtle adjustments necessary to get everything to fit the way it was supposed to, then reached between us to push the base of the bullet.

“Oh, God.” The instant I turned it on the vibe started buzzing, fluttering the small latex ribbons against my already swollen clit. But not hard, not constant. Just enough to tantalize and tease and get me close to the edge without sending me over.

I put my hands on Sam’s shoulders and leaned forward with another muttered exclamation. I couldn’t even think about moving yet. The vibe was taking up all my attention.

Not that I cared. It was too fucking good to complain about. Already I felt a surge of orgasm building in the pit of my stomach.

I pushed on my knees to lift my ass a little, giving Sam the room he needed to fuck into me. “Fuck. That’s good.”

He grunted. His hands gripped my hips, moving me. Every thrust hit me deep inside and every time he filled me, the vibe buzzed my clit. It was different than using it by itself. Better, with Sam’s thickness inside me, stretching. I wanted him to fuck me harder and faster, but he kept the pace steady and slow.

“Can you feel it?” I asked him. My hair had fallen into my eyes again, but this time he didn’t push it back.

“Yeah.” Sam licked his mouth, his eyes closed. “Feels good.”

The sex was less frantic than it had been the first time, and that was fine. We moved together, and my first orgasm rocketed through me like a whip cracking. Only then did Sam speed the pace, pushing into me faster and harder the way I’d wanted him to. I got off again without much effort, the vibe a help but not the only reason. It was Sam. It was thinking about him all day, and smelling and tasting him, and watching the way his mouth grew thin with concentration. I came watching Sam come.

After, our bodies sticky and aligned, he put his hand on my belly and turned to face me. I only had one pillow, so neither of our heads rested all the way on it, and he used his hand to prop his head where the pillow ended. “Do you always come more than once?”

I yawned, already edging toward sleep. “Yes. Usually.”

“Three times?”

I cracked open an eye. “Usually only two.”

“Okay.” Seemingly satisfied, he lay back on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

“Why do you want to know?” I yawned again.

Sam laughed. “I wondered if it was the cock ring. Or me. Or if you were just lucky.”

“I don’t think luck has anything to do with a woman’s orgasm.” I reached to my nightstand for a ponytail holder to pull my hair back again for sleep. “I know how to make myself come, but that didn’t happen by luck. It took practice.”

This perked him up. “How much practice?”

I pulled the covers up over both of us and wriggled down into my pillow. “I’ve been masturbating since I was in junior high. You figure it out.”

Sam looked at me. “I’ve never been with a woman who admitted she jerked off.”

“Sam. Women don’t jerk off.”

“Rub off. Whatever.”

“Well, then you’ve either been with a lot of liars or some very uptight chicks.” Yawning again, I reached to turn out the light.

In darkness it took my eyes a few moments to adjust before the faint light from the street lamp began illuminating the room. The light didn’t shine directly in my window, so nothing was clear. Just bumps and lumps. The same old room, yet different with Sam beside me.

“I haven’t been with a lot of women at all.” Sam shifted onto his side. He kissed my shoulder and rested his hand on my belly as he drew his legs up, touching my calves with surprisingly icy toes.

I yelped. He laughed. I wiggled around until we could both be comfortable, which put us in a sort of complicated tangle of limbs and blankets. After a few minutes of silence, I asked, “Is that true?”

“About the women?”

I murmured an assent. Next to me, Sam took up a lot of room in my bed. His breath tickled the side of my neck.

“Yes. It’s true.”

“How come?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to ask how many?”

“No.” I looked at the ceiling, lit with a stripe of silver. “I don’t care how many.”

“But you want to know why there weren’t more?”

I waited a beat before answering. “Sure.”

Sam chuckled again. “It might surprise you to learn that not all women succumb to my persistence, Grace. Only the crazy ones.”

I laughed. “Gee, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” Sam sighed and shifted his arm, then a leg. “So, you don’t care if I sleep here?”

“Do you want to?” I had been thinking of it, actually. How it would be for him to come downstairs in the morning, dressed in rumpled clothes from the day before. “Won’t your mom worry?”

“I am a grown-up,” he said. “But if you don’t want me to, I’ll go.”

“No.” It seemed bitchy not to let him sleep with me after he’d slept with me. “Unless you want to go.”

Silence, but for the sound of Sam’s breathing. “Maybe I should go.”

I sat up and turned on the light. I deliberately avoided looking at the clock, as if not knowing how many hours I had left to sleep would make it feel like more. “Sam…”

“Grace.” He sat up against the headboard, the covers pulled low around his hips. “What’s up?”

“I’m a little freaked.” Until the words blurted out of me, I hadn’t known how freaked I was.

A frown furrowed his brow. “Because of me?”

I nodded. He held out his arm and I pillowed my face on his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s not you.

It’s me.”

“Uh-oh.” Sam pushed me gently so he could look at my face. “This sounds like a three-in-the-morning argument waiting to happen.”

“No. I don’t want to argue.” I shook my head and sighed, then sat next to him with our backs against the headboard. “I think I just have to warn you.”

“Oh, boy.” Sam scooted over a bit. “When I told you that only the crazy chicks dig me, I wasn’t kidding. Are you going to tell me something weird? I mean, weirder than the fact you live in a funeral home?”