“Love you,” he whispers back, kissing my cheek. “So much. Sorry I was crazy.”
“You’re not crazy.” I hug him tighter. “I know things have been weird, but they’re going to be better. I promise. I’ve made the decision about school, we’re staying here, and…I don’t know. I feel like I can finally relax and let life be good again.”
He props up on his forearms and brushes my hair from my forehead. “I wish you’d told me things were so bad. I would have come and kidnapped you months ago.”
I smile. “That would have been nice. Then we could have done this sooner.”
I sigh as I tighten my legs around his waist, wanting to keep his softening erection inside me for as long as possible, blinking in surprise as I feel him twitch inside me. “Surely not even you can be ready again this fast?”
“I’ve been making do with nothing but my own hand for five months,” he says with a wicked grin as he slides out of me and glides back in again, making me moan. “I’m going to be hard all night.”
“And I may not be able to walk in the morning,” I say, with a matching grin. “But I don’t care.”
The rest of the night is so good that by the time I go to sleep I’m high on sex, love, Danny and the certainty that together we’re stronger than any of the ghosts in my past.
Chapter Twelve
Danny
“And, after all, what is a lie?
Tis but the truth in masquerade.”
-Lord Byron
* * *
I wake up to find the cabin so cold Sam’s teeth are chattering in her sleep.
Our fire has gone out and evidently the heat that was clunking sluggishly on and off yesterday has decided to clunk out today.
After mounding the blankets on top of Sam—taking a moment to admire how beautiful she looks with her hair wild on the pillow and her pale skin glowing in the morning light shining through the window—I slide out of bed and get dressed as fast as I can.
The race to escape the chill reminds me of waking up in our South Carolina house as a kid, back when Dad was living at home and kept the heat turned down to fifty degrees in the house to save money for beer. Things were better when Caitlin took over, but she still kept the heat at no more than sixty.
I grew up dealing with the cold, but Sam was born and raised on Maui. She thinks Los Angeles winter mornings are chilly. She’s going to be traumatized if she wakes up in this freezer before I get the fire going again.
After writing a quick note to let her know I’m heading down to the main building to tell them the heat’s out and to grab another bundle of firewood, I click quietly out the door. Outside, it’s so cold my breath instantly forms a cloud in front of my face, but with my fleece on, it’s bearable, and there’s a heaviness in the air that hints that the day will be warming up soon. It’d better, or we may have to skip out on our float trip and spend the rest of the morning huddled in front of the fire in our room.
Though huddling in front of the fire with Sam doesn’t sound like a bad way to spend the day…
The thought brings images from last night floating to the surface of my brain. Sam with her boots and red stockings still on while I ate her pussy. Sam with her head thrown back and her breasts bouncing as she rode me the second time. Sam falling asleep on my chest making those snuffling noises she makes when she’s really tired and goes from awake to dreaming in two seconds.
I fell in love with her all over again last night.
She is everything I’ve ever wanted—my best friend, my other half, and a lover who blows my mind every time we’re together. I love her so much my chest felt bruised with it by the time we wore ourselves out and had to crash—her passing out the moment her head hit my chest, me staring at the dark beams of the ceiling until I decided I didn’t care what she was keeping from me.
I love Sam and only Sam.
If there were another guy, she obviously isn’t pining for him now. The way she responded to me last night made that clear. And if it’s something else that’s bothering her, she clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. Sam and I have always told each other everything, but maybe it’s time for that to change. We’re not kids anymore. We’re adults and sometimes adults keep secrets. Sometimes adults keep secrets because it’s kinder than telling the truth.
As I’d lain there last night, imagining what I would do if I were the one who’d had a one night stand with a girl who meant nothing to me, I realized I wouldn’t tell Sam, either. It would only hurt her and damage the relationship we’ve worked so hard to build. Falling in love with Sam was easy, but staying together long distance, through some of the craziest years of our lives, as we grew up and became different people than we were when we started out, wasn’t always a walk in the park.