My nails dragged over his scalp and down his back. Sam stood, lifting me with him, holding me high on his chest with my legs still wrapped around him. Then he let me slide down his torso, achingly slow, till he met my mouth again. My breasts billowed against his chest, my nipples tugged by our friction. Skin to skin: what I'd desired with him all along.
He yanked the tie at my waist and I let my robe fell off completely. I got as far as unfastening his belt for him. In one tug, he popped all the buttons on his jeans from their loops.
"Gotta love 501s," he said, as he sat and pushed off his pant legs.
But all his bending made him breathy, and I suspected his fight with Troy had reinjured his ribs. He reclined on the bedspread and swung his arms wide, searching the ceiling as his chest struggled. "Breathe, damn it."
"If you're in pain, we can stop." I curled against his good side and set my hand on his chest.
"Trust me, this is a pain I'm willing to endure." He rolled his head toward me. "Waited a long time to feel like this."
"This turned on or this wanted?" I kissed his shoulder cap, while my fingers trailed his abdomen, following the hairline that hinted toward darker pleasures.
"To feel this human again," he said, rolling onto his good side.
His fingers lilted along the curve of my breast, and my body slackened under his touch. No one else existed in this moment. Just Sam, his body melding into mine, his mouth thawing my flesh. Sam's every move had been thoughtful, not eager, patient, not hurried. Despite the urgency of our situation, the impatience of our lust that threatened to drive us too hard, too fast, Sam proceeded like a man taking his time. A man making love.
I pressed my lips to the bend of his jaw, let my fingers trip over the lines of his abdomen, grateful I was finally free to touch the curves of his body the way my desire dictated. Grateful he was alive to touch at all.
My mind flashed to the fight. Blows upon blows and the sharp smack of flesh on flesh. The gunshot blew through the room. I shuddered.
Sam rose onto his elbow. "What was that?"
"Nothing." The word stuttered from my lips. I could feel a cold sweat at my brow. He'd see my panic if I didn't get back into sync with the mood, so I pressed my mouth to his, but my forced kisses fooled no one, and he rolled me onto my back. "I'm fine, Sam. Just kiss me."
"Hey. It's over. Those flashbacks, that's all just playback." With his thumb he stroked my cheek, and I sank a little, my eyes stinging with wetness. Sam leaned to my ear. "A fear response imprinted. But that doesn't mean we can't imprint something else." Drawing back, he revealed a devilish grin.
I turned my face, disheartened that I'd broken the romantic spell. At this rate, we'd never be together. "You can't erase a memory like that."
"I'm not going to erase it," he said. "I'm going to record over it." His wide eyes invited me, yet I grew wary as hell. "Just tell me exactly what you were thinking when you flinched."
Replaying the scene of being thrashed against walls only reignited the adrenaline inferno. The memory of Troy's hand at my throat felt so real my body tensed, ready to fight. Troy was in the bedroom, his weight against me. Then gunshots.
I rolled toward the door. Logic deserted me. The lust for Sam was strong, but the sudden need to flee, imperative.
"Hey, now." Sam rolled me back to him, found that I was shaking. "That's not what I asked for. Tell me what made you startle." He cupped my cheek.
Focus, Jules
.
I took in a deep breath just to stay still. "The gun. I thought he'd killed you."
"Good. We can work with that." He dug his right hand under me and planted it between my shoulder blades. "Just let yourself sink against my hand. That's right, I've got you." His other hand hovered at my hip, as if to hold me down if I started kicking. "Now I want you to hear the shots. But only when I tell you, okay? Look at me." He met my gaze then dipped his head, kissing my ear as gently as lips pressing to petals, then nipping my lobe. "Hear it now," he whispered.
At first, I heard only Sam's breath as his hand wandered the territory around my hip. Then gunfire snapped me to attention. Not once, but a hundred times. Every war zone I'd visited came roaring back. Handguns, assault rifles, grenade launchers. My shoulders curled inward of their own accord, like I'd ducked behind a bunker.
With his free hand, Sam pushed my shoulder higher, approving my body's tension. As my lungs released, he pulled my shoulder down, encouraging me to breathe with the reflex. But when my eyes opened the gunfire wouldn't stop ricocheting through my head. How could he fix what months of therapy couldn't touch?
"This isn't working, Sam."
"I'm right here." Sam squeezed my hand, pulling me back into the room, so I stood with one foot in each world. "Feel me," he said as his lips followed my jaw line. "And only me."
A hand slid up my chest, his fingertips grazing the space between my breasts before reaching my bruised throat, spreading goose bumps over me at the same moment I wanted to jump out of my skin. "Again," he said as soon as I'd relaxed with his caress.
Bullets beat out like a drum line. My shoulders jolted off the bed, and Sam pulled me against his chest. "Only me," he said. His voice was low, commanding without sharp edges, pulling me from the lightless stall of Troy's attack back into this candlelit bedroom.
Sam's mouth was in motion, peppering my chest with his lips, distracting my nerves. He lifted my arm over my head when I tried to curl into a ball, exposing my curves to his rough palms. Down my ribs to my waist, Sam's fingers prickled the fine hairs of my skin to attention. I wanted him to kiss me hard and sure, thrust his body into mine and keep thrusting till he drove out the demons.
Instead, he shifted to the other side of my face, his lips breezing over my cheek. "Hear it again," he said, fingers fanning over my belly. "Louder."
I forced my lungs to expand, tried to hold Sam's gaze. The pops now seemed like balloons exploding in the room.
My eyelids fluttered.
"Open your eyes," he said. "Keep looking at me." His mouth hovered over mine as his wide, scoping palm slid between my thighs and tugged at my silk panties, cupping me. "Hear it again."
My jaw clenched. Gunfire littered the apartment beyond, but not the room, where Sam's fingers were triggering sensations in my body I couldn't ignore. Much, much lower on my body. I grabbed the headboard as my leg shifted open.
"Again. Louder," he demanded, and the gunfire prickled, but no longer attacked me. Because Sam was everywhere, consuming my body's attention. His fingers slipped inside my panties and gently kneaded then nipped, stroked then pinched. "Again," he said, more insistent. "Hear the gun now."
"Sam," I said, writhing under him. He was massaging me into full submission, complete rhapsody.
"Now. Hear it again, Jules."
When his fingers sank into me, I gasped and dug my feet into the bed, trying to stall the waves. How I ached for Sam to take over my body completely.
I raised my mouth to his, but he hovered out of reach. His fingers swirled faster then slower, harder then soft, constantly switching gears and pushing me toward the edge. My mind was silent as he cradled my body, fondling me mercilessly. His fingers sank into me deeper. One finger, then two, then three, tripping every nerve inside me, as his thumb stroked my outer flesh into a tangle of sensations. A rising pressure within took over my senses.
"Again. Hear the gunshots. Louder, faster."
But I couldn't keep up. Sam's deepening strokes were overloading my circuits. With his fingers circling my cocoon of flesh, focus proved impossible. The panic fell further away, like an alarm clock sinking into a pool of water. I was so damn hungry for Sam, there wasn't room for anyone or anything between us.
Only Sam
.
"Let go, baby," he whispered. "Come for me."
My mouth opened, yet my voice caught in my tender throat. I arched my back, slamming against his chest, my head falling back as a wave of heat and pressure and blood surged through my core, my groin gripping and pulsing around his fingers. Then a cry of desperation surged out of me. My body jolted, released. Then calmed.
My head was spinning, my body boundless as I hung upside down in Sam's arms. For a moment I felt airborne, as free as I'd ever felt in my life, and he clutched me against his chest as the weight of my body returned, as if he'd caught me in midair. Lips pressed to my breastplate as he laid me flat and my spinning eased. His mouth no longer out of my reach, I melted against him with a kiss, lacing my arms around his neck.
He pulled back, searched my face. I could feel the blood at my cheeks, the glow of pleasure having marked me. Gliding my hand down his abdomen, I provoked him. I wanted him to lose himself in pleasure, in my body. His muscles rippled as my hand curved around his hip bone then slipped beneath the elastic band of his boxer briefs and clutched his buttock, urging his groin against mine.
"Wait." He held his breath, stayed my hand. "Slow down. Gotta know we're clean."
"I'm tested, clean, inactive duty. And you've got condoms on the nightstand."
"No, I mean—"
"You gotta learn when to stop talking, Sam."
My hand moved to the front of his boxer briefs and drew out his erection, stealing the breath from his next words. He moaned as my fingers fondled the tip. I kissed him hard, pulled his lip between my teeth, my tongue soothing where I'd bit.
With little control left, he wriggled free of his shorts and rolled toward the nightstand, fumbling the condom wrapper, while I stretched across the bed, bowing my back and purring at the thought of the terrible bliss we were about to endure.
Watching me, Sam struggled to roll on the condom, nervous as a virgin. "Christ, woman. You're killing me."
Secured, he climbed onto his fists, crawling toward me with his head lowered, eyes aimed. I squealed and scooted up the bed, pushing pillows between us. With a whip of his hand he pushed them aside, and then a brawny arm wrapped around my legs and yanked me gently into his clutches. Growling, he nipped my inner thigh as his finger hooked my panties and dispatched them.
He continued stalking till he was above me, his chest and arm muscles rigid and bold as he lowered himself for a kiss. I reached my arms above my head, gladly surrendering to this tamed beast. He canted my hips, and with another low growl he sank into me, slow and steady, one aching inch after another. My breath caught as my core stretched. Sam was in all ways intact, and then some. I could barely move as he drew back his hips and pressed deeper. Pulsing against me, Sam drew my leg around his waist. My breasts shook and my breath escaped control as he rocked higher, harder. He tried to re-engage my mouth, but I turned away for air. Another wave was coming. There was only Sam.
***
My fist took up the bedding where Sam's body should be. I was still heady with the memory of him sliding on top of me, weighted and firm, till I surrendered again and he trembled, his moans extolling pure pleasure as he coiled and released inside me.
But now coffee wafted into the bedroom, and the Buckleys' apartment and the ugly reality of our predicament came flooding back: Troy alive, Raul dead, Stone trapping us in this building.
I rolled over. The clock read 4:44 a.m. Despite the head injury, he'd let me sleep. Between repeat orgasms and Sam curled against my body, I'd finally relaxed enough to shut my eyes and not see monsters.
Pulling on the robe, I padded into the living room, where Sam stood like a tripod at the curtains, eyes attached to binoculars, phone glued to his ear, his gun propped in his waistband. His tanned back looked kissable even this taut.
"Roger that, contact in twenty." He shut the phone and detached the binoculars. Without turning, he said, "Coffee's ready if you are."
I doubted that I'd ever be able to sneak up on Sam. With his gun present, I thought better of trying. "I was waiting for breakfast in bed."
"That can be arranged." He tossed the binoculars on the chair. "Come over here, Tiger."
I leaned against the wall. "Come back to bed, Detective."
In a few steps, he crossed the room and hauled me against his chest, meeting my mouth with a kiss that carried on and on, like he was ready for round two. He buried his face in my hair and inhaled, sliding a hand up my spine so I, too, had to catch my breath.
"I didn't know cops could kiss like that," I whispered.
"Not all cops are brutes."
The word 'brute' scratched at my ears, reminding me of the rough, burly man I'd met in the park. Yet now, with his smile lines widening under my fingers, his worry lines fading, I knew a starkly different man. Someone gentle, caring, longing. How much more content he looked after one night of passion. How eager I was to fill up more of him.
A light hand stroked my head. "Sleep did you some good. Or maybe it wasn't the sleeping part."
"Never felt so 'other' in my life."
"Careful, could form a habit." His smirk hinted of pride, like I wasn't already addicted to him. Then I noticed his tick: a quick glance to the window, the half-second pause in his breath.
I swallowed, my throat sore and stiff again. "Stone's still there."
"Like an unforgiving rash."
He fetched a button-down shirt off the back of the sofa, which I assumed belonged to Mr. Buckley, and suited up. "They should be changing shift soon. When I get the all clear, we'll move fast. Need you ready to roll." As he buttoned the shirt, he added, "The photos you took of me, and their source files."
So we were back to business. "Shredded after your last surprise visit. The memory card is with Howard, but he'll destroy everything at my request. We have a secret signal for keeping our sources under wraps in case a warrant arrives. Old journalist trick."
"Smart. We'll make contact with him on a secure line later." He tucked the shirt into his jeans. "You need to understand what's happening. Officially, I'm taking you into protective custody. Yeah, yeah, I know, better late than never. But we're not coming back."