stumbled. Sam was holding me too tightly for that.
He moved me, mouth still glued to mine, two steps into the room and kicked the door shut behind us. The slam of it echoed between my legs. Sam, breathing hard, pulled away to look into my eyes.
“This is what you want?”
I found the voice to rasp, “Yes.”
He nodded, just once, and took my mouth again. His kiss might have bruised me, had he not pulled back just enough to keep it from hurting. Without the door holding me up, I had to rely on Sam’s arms around me. One slid behind my shoulders. The other left the secret treasure of my thigh to go around my lower back. He pulled me along with him even as he step-by-stepped me back toward the bed. It hit the back of my legs. He broke the kiss again.
“Hold on a second.” Sam reached around me to tug down the comforter, tossing it unceremoniously into a pile on the floor.
He grinned at me. His cheeks looked a bit flushed, his eyes a trifle sleepy-lidded. He reached for me again, and I stepped again into his arms. Mine went around his neck. His went around my waist.
We made it to the bed in a tangle of limbs and laughter. Sam was as long lying down as he was standing, but on the bed I could move up to kiss him without having to tilt my head so far. I found his throat, the jut of his Adam’s apple. His skin tasted of salt. I rubbed the first poking bristles of his beard with my lips.
My skirt had ridden up, helped by Sam’s hands. He pushed the material higher. One large hand cupped my thigh. The edge of his fingers brushed my panties, and my breath caught.
I looked up to see him looking down with an expression of mingled amusement and something else I couldn’t quite decipher. I took my mouth from his skin and sat up a little, pushing back but not pulling away.
“What?”
His hand on my thigh shifted higher while his other went to prop his head. Stretched out that way, his clothes askew and our limbs tangled, he looked enviably comfortable in his own skin. Men often did. Sometimes they had to put it on, that confidence, the way they put on cologne. Sam’s seemed more innate, an awareness of himself as much a part of him as the color of his eyes or those long, long legs.
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“It can’t be nothing,” I said. “You’re looking at me funny.”
“Am I?” He sat up a little but didn’t take his hand from my thigh. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “Was it like this?”
I burst into laugher. “Not quite.”
“Ah, good.” Sam nodded and leaned to catch my mouth in another kiss, speaking without taking his lips from mine. “That would have been embarrassing.”
Then he laid me back onto that big, soft bed and proceeded to kiss me breathless. His hand stayed on my thigh, sometimes slipping down closer to my knee and moving up again, but though his fingers occasionally brushed the lace of my panties, he never actually touched me there. He didn’t lie on top of me, either, squooshing, but kept his weight to the side. Nothing was going quite as I’d expected…but wasn’t that what I wanted? To be surprised?
He kissed me fast. He kissed me slow. He nibbled and nuzzled and licked, and all the while his hand stayed in its maddening position so close to where I wanted it, but never quite making it there.
“Sam,” I whispered finally, hoarsely, unable to take it any longer.
He paused in kissing me to look into my eyes. “Yes, Grace?”
“You’re killing me.”
He smiled. “Am I?”
I nodded and slid a hand between us to tug on his belt buckle. “You are.”
His hand inched higher. “Can I make it up to you?”
I unhooked the buckle. “I think so. Maybe.”
He turned his hand as he moved it. When he touched me, finally, the heel of his palm pressed flat to my cunt, and my mouth parted in a gasp I didn’t bother to try to keep silent.
“How’m I doing so far?” he asked, his head bent so his mouth brushed my cheek.
“Good. Very…good.” Speaking took the effort of concentration I found difficult with his hand on me. So far he’d done no more than press against me. Hadn’t even rubbed. But primed by the long, slow minutes of kissing and the hours of mental foreplay I’d gone through already, my body was more than ready for him.
His lips slipped down my neck to center over the pulse in my throat. Sam sucked, gently, then took the skin between his teeth. The bite didn’t hurt, but it did send sensation ripping through me. I arched beneath him. My hands found the back of his head, the smooth silk of his hair, and I wound my fingers in it. Pressing him to me, keeping his mouth there while he sucked my skin. I would bruise. I couldn’t, just then, care.
“I like the way you say my name,” he murmured. His tongue slid along the place where he’d left his mark. “Say it again.”
“Sam.” I breathed it.
I heard the smile in his voice when he spoke again. “I am.”
Then we were laughing again, until he took his hand from between my legs and used it to tug open the buttons on my blouse, one at a time. Then I stopped laughing, too breathless to do more than sigh. He eased open my shirt. He pushed himself up on one elbow and folded back the material to show my bra. His fingers traced the lacy edges over the tops of my breasts.
My nipples had gone tight, hard, aching. When Sam’s thumb passed over one, I sucked in a breath. I watched his face as he looked down at me. When he bent to kiss my exposed skin, I bit my lower lip. My body moved beneath him.
Sam sat up. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and pulled his shirt off over his head, leaving his hair standing up all over the place. His body was as long and lean as his legs. He knelt beside me, one hand rubbing his chest almost absently. His other hand toyed with the open belt buckle, then the button beneath. He undid it, but left the zipper alone.
I watched him, enjoying the show. “Are you going to take those off?”
Sam nodded, solemn. “Absolutely.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Tonight?”
Sam laughed. “Yes.”
I slid one stocking-clad foot up over his thigh and rubbed the front of his jeans. “Are you shy?”
Sam’s hips pushed forward at the touch of my foot, and his mouth parted. His hand paused in its rubbing, fingers going flat over his heart. “Maybe. A little.”
Holy hell, that was hot. I didn’t believe him, really. He hadn’t acted shy anytime tonight. “Want me to go first?”
Sam’s grin melted me. “Okay.”
I got off the bed to make it easier for myself. Without my shoes on, I was face-to-chest with him—not a bad view at all. Sam’s bare chest was smooth and muscled, with a hint of six-pack abs but nothing overdefined.
