Fearless (The Story of Samantha Smith #1) (38 page)

“Rarely. When I turned eighteen, I didn’t have to visit her if I didn’t want to. And you can bet I fucking didn’t, after the way she tore my family apart. She moved to New York shortly after that. Then it was easy to avoid her.”

Silent tears dripped from his eyes. He wiped them away with his forearm.

“Oh, Christos, that’s terrible.” I stood and hugged him and kissed his cheek gently. I couldn’t imagine his pain. I don’t think I was close enough to my parents to feel so terrible about losing them. Then again, I still had both. I didn’t know how I would feel if my mom left my dad. “Why did your mom leave, if you don’t mind me asking?”

He laughed through tears. “The funny thing is, it wasn’t the drinking. Remember I told you how successful my dad was? And how miserable?”

“Yeah?”

“My mom helped build his career. Believe it or not, my mom’s name, Vesile, means ‘flood of fame’ in Turkish. She was half the reason my dad got so famous. She could sell his paintings like no one else. The only problem was, the more successful my dad got, the more he hated himself for becoming something he never wanted to be. You couldn’t blame my mom. She thought it was what he wanted. But my dad never admitted his own truth to
himself
. My mom was just trying to help.”

“Oh, Christos. That’s tragic.” I released him and he began pacing again.

“I know, right?” He wept openly and continuously. “My mom loved my dad, and helped him the best way she could, but my dad was self-destructing the entire time. I didn’t understand what was going on, I was just a kid. But I figured it out over the last few years, talking to my dad about it, and every now and then, my mom.”

“Do you see your mom at all?”

“Not really. Maybe once a year. If that. It’s still so uncomfortable being around her.”

“Have you forgiven her?”

He stopped pacing and looked at me like I’d just announced the cure for cancer. He blinked.

“You haven’t, have you?”

He hung his head. “No.” Tears dripped from his eyes, falling to the carpet.

“If you’re right about your dad, then you have to forgive your mom. I don’t know if your mom felt like she had become the source of your father’s misery, or the cause of his drinking, or what. But I’m sure she felt terrible.”

“I never thought of that. All I could think about was the fact that she left. She broke up the family. Even if things were bad.”

“Maybe she was trying to save the family, by giving your dad space?”

He looked at me hopefully, then shook his head. “I don’t know, Samantha. It makes logical sense, but that doesn’t help my pain any.”

“Come sit with me.” I patted the couch cushion. He sat down and I hugged him. “Maybe this will help.” I kissed his cheek, kissed the corner of his mouth, his temple.

He wept for a long time as I kissed him and caressed him quietly.

“I love you, Samantha. I really do.”

My breath caught. Those words now carried new weight. Considering all that he had told me about his mom, it took everything I had to keep breathing. I was too stunned to respond.

After awhile, he stood up. “I need some fresh air.”

I followed him onto the balcony and leaned on the railing with him, watching the ocean. You could faintly hear the surf crashing on the distant shore.

Neither of us spoke. It was enough to be shoulder to shoulder, enjoying the view. Eventually, we went back inside.

Christos plopped down on the floor where he had sat earlier. He picked up a crayon and started working on a new crayon painting.

I sat down and started one of my own. We worked for awhile in pleasant silence.

He set his crayon down. “Let me see how yours is coming along,” he said.

I handed it to him. “It’s not very good.”

“This is really nice, Samantha.“ I could tell he was analyzing it closely. “Do you see the way you have this shape flowing into the one next to it?” He traced the line with his extended pinky.

“Yeah?”

“Did you do that on purpose?”

“No.”

“That’s what I mean about talent. You’re unconsciously organizing things in a way that naturally leads the viewer’s eye through the picture. This is pretty advanced stuff.”

“Really?”

“And you’re doing it without even realizing it.”

“I am?”

He smiled. “Yeah, Picasso, you are.”

I smiled.

He smiled back at me, his dimples flashing. “You’re driving me crazy with that luscious smile of yours,
agápi mou.
”

Shiver
. Between his dimples and the way he said that phrase in his accented Greek, he literally sent jolts between my legs that lit up my nipples.
 

He crawled around the couch like a stalking lion and brushed the tip of his nose across my cheek, then licked a slick line down to my mouth. He kissed me passionately, then nipped my lower lip with his teeth. He pulled back enough for me to see his feral eyes. He looked like a hunter and I was his prey.

Oh, shit.

He leaned in and kissed me forcefully. I responded. Our tongues twisted together, fighting for dominance. I thought I could subdue him until he stroked my neck with his fingertips, then slid his powerful hand across my chest. He had me.

My breasts responded instantly, nipples hardening against the inside of my satin bra. He pushed his chest into me until he was on top of me, mounting me, kissing downward, drinking the heat from my mouth. His tongue pushed and prodded against mine, sinking down into my mouth over and over again.

I moaned and writhed beneath him. He slid his palms up my cheeks, then behind my head, grabbing a fistful of hair. His other hand thrust between my legs and he leaned his weight onto it. His wrist pressed into the front of my pelvis. I felt his fingers press up against my wet folds through my jeans. I tilted my hips down onto his fingers, sending shivers into the dense knot of nerves between my legs, just above the heat of my opening.

I wanted him so badly I was shaking with desire.

He shifted and lowered me back onto the carpet, then pushed the coffee table away from us with a powerful arm, giving us plenty of room to writhe.

His wrist was still between my legs. I squeezed my thighs together, resisting. But he was too strong. His forearm pried into the cleft between my legs and dug into the denim of my jeans. He kissed me deeply, swallowing my moans.

“I love you, Samantha. I want to make you come until you scream. I want you gasping for air. Gasping for me. Make me your oxygen, Samantha. Tell me you’ll die without me.”

“Yes.” I wasn’t even sure what I was agreeing to. I didn’t even care. He could do whatever he wanted.

He unsnapped my jeans.

I squeaked and froze.

He suddenly slowed, toning down his energy almost instantly. I was a second away from freaking out. I thought he was going to yell at me.

“Do we need to stop?” he asked calmly. “I don’t want you to be afraid of any of this. I want you to be one hundred percent sure you want it.”

I wasn’t sure what
it
was. “Ahh,” I said uncertainly.

“I can stop any time you want me to,
agápi mou
. Just give me the word.”

“You mean, like, a safe word?” I asked in a shaky voice. I was half nervous and half felt like a complete baby.

“Yes,” he smiled.

“How about grapes?”

“Okay, grapes will work. Shall I continue.”

“Please.” Did I sound like I was begging?
Oh, who fucking cares!
I was about to shout “Take me, Christos!” or “Grapes!” But since I wasn’t sure which would actually come out of my mouth, I kept it shut.

Christos was calmer now, but he flowed with it. He reached down and unzipped my jeans one link at a time. I thought it would take at least a month until he finished. Each languorous tick-tick-tick of my zipper sent a tiny spark into my core. Oh god. I was going to explode like a time bomb as soon as the timer hit zero.

When the zipper was open all the way, he peeled my jeans down my hips until they passed below my ass. He lifted my hips completely off the ground so he could get the jeans down to my ankles. He left the jeans on, binding my legs together. No going back!
 

Grapes? Anybody have any grapes?

I was down to panties, bra, and t-shirt. He leaned forward and rolled my t-shirt up until my breasts were nearly out. Then he carefully pulled each one free of the cups and licked my nipples thoroughly.
 

Boom. I was writhing from the sensation within two seconds. I lost track of time as pleasure burned through my entire body. The next thing I knew, his tongue glided down over my navel, where he swirled it around gently. It was like he was eating me out, but using my belly button. I felt my clit spasm every time his tongue made a complete rotation.

Oh god, if my navel felt this good, what would the real thing be like?

His tongue slid down to the hem of my panties. He licked across the border of skin and cotton, from one hip bone to the other. His tongue dipped under the panties, the closest any tongue had ever been to my private parts. I was melting with the warmest pleasure imaginable. Liquid ecstasy dripped from my center.

“More?” he asked quietly. “Or grapes?”

“No grapes.
Please,
no grapes,” I moaned desperately.

“Is that yes grapes or no grapes?” he smirked.

“It’s don’t stop, winemaker!”

“Who’s whining?”

“Shut the fuck up, Christos! Don’t stop!”

He chuckled as he twisted his fingers into the waistband of my panties and pulled them down, exposing the most intimate part of me to the air. He exhaled his hot breathe onto my core. Yes, he was my oxygen. Oh god. His tongue flicked across my drenched folds. Once. Just once.

I shivered with cold fire as a blazing hail storm of ecstasy tore through my body. My very cells pulled in every direction at once. I was going to implode while exploding.

He lifted my legs and pushed my knees toward my chest, opening me up. Then he laid down on the carpet, his face directly in front of my opening. He lowered my jeans-bound legs over his head.

“Grapes?” he asked softly.

“Don’t stop,” I begged in a husky whisper.

The tip of his tongue slid up and down the crevice between my wet flesh.

Oh shit, it was too much. I never wanted it to stop. His tongue stroked my clit repeatedly, lighting me up. Every circuit in my body tingled with intense pleasure. Each stroke against the cluster of nerves between my legs caused me to buck against him, but he held on, forcing the pleasure into my body. It felt so fucking good, I was gasping in short, tight breaths, as if the pleasure was electrocuting me, tightening every muscle in my body to the point of total contraction.
 

He was relentless. I thought the pleasure couldn’t possibly intensify until he plunged his tongue inside me.
 

My fingers splayed, my toes pulled back. My legs stiffened over his muscled back, my thighs squeezed against the sides of his head. My arms shook and danced.

He wrapped his arms over my thighs and buried his face even more deeply between my legs.
 

Oh fuck, it was too much. I couldn’t take it. The pleasure was overwhelming. It was going to undo me. I wanted it to last for eternity.

Then he inserted the tip of his finger inside me. Oh. My. God. He slid it up and down my opening, teasing me. Then it went back inside my core. Deeper. Just a tiny bit, then back out. Then deeper still. My pleasure began to build even more intensely. I didn’t think it was possible. Until it slid still deeper, penetrating me.

The tension in my arms and legs built to a final peak. I was rigid, every muscle in my entire body completely contracted. My back arched, I pushed down with my denim-bound legs, forcing my pelvis into Christos’s face.

His tongue continued to swirl, coaxing me toward the edge of insanity. His finger filled me up, probing, circling, stimulating me. My entire consciousness was gathered between my legs. Everything else ceased to exist. All I knew was the electric effect of his powerful tongue and his plunging finger.

When I thought my body couldn’t possibly contain any more pleasure, a power deep inside me began to build. A heat so hot, I was going to combust. It sparked off in my core, then swirled in a thick blaze throughout my stomach. Tendrils of fire pulsed up to my breasts and throat. The inferno spread down my legs like wildfire. A fireball exploded upward and uncoiled in my throat, then sank down my entire body, to my toes. I suddenly felt completely and totally relaxed. But the molten pleasure in my body had not subsided. It had transformed, intensifying beyond all measure, emanating from between my legs in a steady current of infinite bliss.

Christos’ face was embedded deep within my whirlpool of pent up sex, drilling, caressing, plunging, coaxing, stoking, igniting. I breathed deeply, repeatedly, and the fire in my being expanded ever further with each breath, consuming me entirely, filling the room, then spreading beyond the walls to encompass the entire planet. I was channeling some infinite fountain of pleasure that existed beyond the bounds of normal reality, summoning a flood of ecstasy into the world.

Christos was unrelenting. He forced his power into me. I pushed my hips against him one last time as my body tensed for final, total release.

I breathed, in and out, in and out, in and out, until my chest was full of energy. The massive ball of pleasure restrained inside me finally broke free. I screamed. I screamed so loud I thought the planet would split beneath me. I screamed again, and again, and again.

Then I was thrashing as the sphere of energy inside me exploded a second time, against my will, shattering me in a million directions of infinite pleasure at once. I left my body.
 

Time stopped.

I don’t know for how long.

Forever. An instant.

I don’t know.

When time resumed, I began to breathe again, slowly at first, panting deeply. Christos’ head gyrated lazily between my legs. I was numb to the sensation now. I was warm, pleasant pleasure from head to toe. There was no more intensity that could go into my body, or release from it.