He pulls out of me and I fall onto my chest, ass still in the air. I can’t move.
I don’t care.
“Well, that’s a gorgeous sight,” Leo murmurs with a grin as he walks back into the
room from discarding the condom. I open one eye and stare at him.
“You broke me.”
He laughs as he settles next to me, rolling me onto my side and into his arms. “I
don’t think so.”
“Mmm.”
“Look at me.” I pull my eyes open to find him frowning down at me. “Are you okay?”
I nod and yawn and shimmy closer to him. He runs his knuckles down my face and his
expression softens.
“Thank you for my song,” I whisper.
“You’re welcome.”
“Are you going to record it?” I ask, blinking lazily up at him.
“Yes, if you don’t mind.”
I shrug. “I don’t mind. You just don’t usually do many ballads.”
“It’s a badass ballad, not a pussy ballad,” he mutters defensively and I smile widely.
“Definitely badass,” I agree.
“Go to sleep, baby.” He kisses my forehead.
“Not tired,” I mutter and smile when his chuckle rumbles against my cheek.
“Sure you’re not.” He kisses my forehead again and sighs deeply, contentedly, and
the sound of his steady heartbeat and the warmth of his arms around me lull me into
sleep.
***
“No, no, no!”
I wake abruptly, eyes wide, to find Leo thrashing in his sleep, soaked in sweat. The
covers have all been kicked onto the floor, along with his pillow. He’s not touching
me at all, and the sounds coming from him are tortured, strained.
“Leo?” I ask carefully, not knowing if I should touch him, or even wake him. He thrashes
again and grimaces, as if in pain.
“No, you motherfucker!” Tears begin to fall from his eyes.
What the fuck is this?
“Leo, wake up,” I state firmly, and touch his arm gently. He recoils from my touch
and his eyes spring open. He sits straight up and shoves himself against the headboard,
pulling away from me as if I’m going to hurt him.
“Hey, sweetie, it’s me,” I croon quietly. “You’re okay.”
He blinks at me for a minute, looks around the room, and then exhales deeply.
“Fuck,” he whispers and clenches his eyes closed before pressing the heels of his
hands against them.
“Leo.” I reach out for him, but he recoils again.
“Don’t touch me.” His voice is harsh. Angry.
Not Leo.
“Okay.” I hold my hands up and back away. “Okay.”
Suddenly, his eyes go wide and he grips his hands over his mouth, flees the bed for
the bathroom and throws up violently.
Oh my God. My poor Leo.
What should I do? I sit still for a minute, and when it sounds like the retching is
over, I stand and wet a washcloth and press it to his neck, like he did for me when
I was sick. Before I can pull my hand away, he grips it in his and holds on tight,
pressing it against his cheek.
“Don’t go. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere.” I sink to my knees beside him and stroke his hair,
his cheek, his back. “I’m here.”
His eyes are clenched shut and he’s concentrating on breathing. Whatever it was that
he was dreaming about is still repeating in his mind, and it’s terrifying him.
“Stop,” I murmur and kiss his temple. “You’re safe, Leo. It was just a dream.” I continue
to reassure him and murmur softly, comforting him, until the shudders stop and he’s
breathing normally again. He turns suddenly and grips onto me, buries his face in
my neck, wraps his arms around my middle, and just clings.
Finally, after a few long minutes he backs away and I wipe his face with the cloth,
trying to soothe him.
“I’m okay.” He takes the cloth from me and scrubs it across the back of his neck and
looks at me, square-on. His eyes are sad, still a little haunted.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask.
He shakes his head and stands, crosses to the sink and rinses his mouth, splashes
his face with cold water and then just braces his hands on the counter top and hangs
his head while the water runs.
It occurs to me that we’re both still naked as the day we were born.
I stand and turn off the water and take Leo’s hand to lead him back to the bed. He
climbs on and I pull the covers up, spreading them over us and hand him his pillow.
“I can’t go back to sleep,” he murmurs.
“The nightmares won’t bother you,” I tell him confidently and wrap myself around him,
as if I’m protecting him.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m here, and I said so.” I shrug, like that should be the end of it and
flinch when he runs a hand down my back.
“You haven’t flinched in a while.” I hear the sadness in his voice and I prop myself
up on my forearms on his chest so I can watch his face as I talk.
“I just didn’t expect you to try to comfort me right now, Leo. I’m comforting you,
and for the first time in my life, it doesn’t scare the fuck out of me.” His eyes
widen and he pulls his fingertips down my cheeks. “I enjoy having your hands on me.
Please don’t start thinking that I’m afraid of you or some bullshit like that because
you’ll just piss me off.”
“So, this is you comforting me?” He asks with a grin.
I exhale and rest my forehead against his sternum. “Big jerk,” I mutter.
“Thank you,” he whispers and kisses my hair, his hands roaming up and down my back.
“You’re welcome. Will you ever tell me?” I ask softly as he starts to relax beneath
my cheek.
“Yeah, but not tonight.”
“Okay.”
***
~Leo~
Sam is draped over me, her arms holding me tightly, as though she’s going to single-handedly
protect me from whatever might try to hurt me.
And damned if she wouldn’t. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known.
I stroke her back, push my fingers through her hair, and grin when she purrs like
a kitten and leans into my touch.
Yes, she’s grown used to me touching her.
The nightmare still sits like dead weight in the pit of my stomach, the images flitting
in and out of my mind. I don’t have them nearly as often as I did about ten years
ago, but they do still come. I can’t figure out what triggers them. There’s no way
in hell that making love to Sam, singing for her, watching her eyes light up with
joy and excitement, should trigger the fucked up mess that lives in my subconscious.
I need to talk to her, to tell her about what happened when I was too young to protect
myself. She deserves to know. But I’ll be goddamned if I want it to touch her. To
see the pity in her eyes, or even worse, revulsion, would destroy me.
I’m just not ready.
“Leo,” she murmurs, surprising me. I would have sworn she was asleep.
“Yes, sunshine,” I whisper and gently caress her soft cheek. Damn she’s soft. She’s
soft everywhere, and I can’t stop touching her.
“Go to sleep.”
She’s so damn stubborn.
“You sleep,” I mutter and kiss her head.
“Not unless you do.”
Yep, fucking stubborn.
“Okay, I’ll sleep.”
“Liar.” She sits up and offers me a sweet grin. “It’s almost dawn anyway. We could
go for a run.”
I pull her back to me and roll her so she’s tucked beneath me, cradling my pelvis
in hers and her hands immediately find my ass.
I brace my elbows beside her head and bury my hands in her hair, nuzzle her nose with
mine, and then sink into a long, slow, wet kiss. She makes me forget the shitty past,
and is the first person I’ve been with that makes me feel as alive as I feel when
I’m playing music.
I’m never letting her go.
My cock is painfully hard again, and rubbing against the wetness from her pussy. Each
time I hit her clit with the tip, she moans and bites her lip. I reach over for a
condom, but she stops me, links her fingers in mine and pulls them to her face, rubbing
the back of my hand on her cheek.
“We don’t need the condom,” she whispers, her gorgeous blue eyes watching mine intently.
“Sam.” I kiss her tenderly. “I’m fine with the condoms.”
She shakes her head and cups my face with her free hand. “We don’t need them,” she
repeats. “I have an IUD.”
“But…” I begin, but she interrupts me again, kissing me with those pouty lips of hers,
pulling on the hoop in my lip.
“I trust you,” she states firmly, eyes still on me and happy, and I know that statement
is possibly the most profound Samantha Williams could have made to me.
“I trust you, too.” My lips find hers again, sweeping back and forth, teasing her
sweet tongue with my own, and I pull my hips back to slowly sink into her tight, wet
warmth.
She gasps and smiles. “So much better this way.”
“Jesus H. Christ, Samantha I’ve never not used protection,” I admit and watch her
closely.
“Me neither.” She grins. “I think I prefer it.”
If I move, I’ll come. It’s that simple. God, she feels amazing, her tight muscles
gripping my bare cock, legs hitched up around my hips, cradling me. I’ve never felt
so complete.
So whole.
“You have to move,” she murmurs.
“I don’t want to,” I shake my head and rest my forehead on hers.
“Why?”
“I don’t want it to be over.”
“Leo,” she wiggles her hips, forcing me to move within her. It takes my breath away.
“This is just the first time.”
The first time of many.
My hips begin to move, thrusting softly at first and then gaining momentum, pushing
harder, faster. I feel the build-up rush down my spine as the first tiny contractions
grip my cock.
“Fuck, baby, you feel so good.” Reaching between us, I graze her clit with my thumb,
and push her over the edge into oblivion. She bucks and cries out, her pussy squeezing
around me even more. My balls tighten and lift, and the world stops spinning as I
come inside her, truly inside her, for the first time.
It’s the most incredible moment of my life.
“Amazing,” I murmur and kiss her softly.
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
Chapter Fourteen
~Samantha~
“My name starts with a ‘c’, and ends in a ‘t’. I’m hairy and round and squishy inside.
What am I?” Jules folds over in laughter, the card with the question gripped in her
hand.
“I need another beer,” Caleb mutters and stomps into Luke and Nat’s kitchen for another
round.
“A carrot?” Brynna asks, squishing up her face in concentration.
“What kind of carrots have you been eating?” Leo asks with a laugh.
“Ew. Yeah, never mind.”
“This is so fucking funny,” Jules chuckles.
What the hell could it be? I stare at Jules, as if she can send me the answer by osmosis.
We’re playing
Dirty Minds
for family game night, all our siblings and better halves are here, and we’ve turned
it into a drinking game.
Of course.
“I know what it is.” Will grins at Meg and runs his hand down her back to her hip.
“Although yours isn’t hairy.”
“Yuck. Stop it,” I scold him and grin when he laughs out loud.
“Dude, really?” Leo scowls.
“What?” Will asks innocently.
“For the love of all that’s holy, Nat, stop fraternizing with the enemy!” Luke has
Nat in a firm lip-lock, as usual.
“I’m married to him, Jules. He’s hardly the enemy.”
“Tonight he is. Girls against guys. Get your sexy ass over here with me.”
“Are you going to kiss me?” Nat asks with a raised brow.
“After one more drink, yes.”
“Definitely go over there with her,” Nate quickly jumps in and is met with frowns
from all the guys, except Leo who continues to laugh next to me.
“Uh, they’re our sisters, man.” Matt reminds him with a frown on his handsome face,
his blue eyes sparkling with humor.
“They’re not my sisters,” Nate responds.
“It’s a coconut, you nasty people!” Jules yells and hands the cards to me. “You go
next.”
“Okay,” I respond and pull a card out of the deck. This game is effing hilarious.
“I go in pink and hard and come out soft and sticky. What am I?”
“That’s disgusting.” Stacey laughs and takes a drink of her margarita.
“That’s not what you said last night.” Isaac leans in and nuzzles her neck, making
her squirm and giggle.