Stranger Page 27

  “Six-five.” He snagged open my drawer and felt around inside.

  Too late I remembered that the condoms weren’t the only things inside that drawer. When Sam pulled back with something small and pink, I laughed, embarrassed, and tried to grab it away from him. He didn’t let me. He held up the latex cock ring with the vibrating bullet tucked into it and stared at it with confusion.

  I hadn’t actually ever used it with a partner. I’d bought it from a sex-toy party at a friend’s house because it had been the cheapest bullet vibe available, and I liked the steady, constant buzz along with the triple, flickering “tongues.” Vibrators with flashing lights and multiple speeds intimidated me. I didn’t want to land aircraft in my vagina; I just wanted to get off.

  “Let me show you.” I took the cock ring and mimed sliding it down over his erection, then showed him how the small latex tendrils fluttered.

  Sam’s cock twitched. “Do you want to use it?”

  I looked at it, then at him. “Do you?”

  He got up on his elbows. “If it will make you feel good. Sure.”

  “I’ve never really used it with someone,” I told him.

  He grinned. “All the better. Put it on me.”

  I did. We both stared. The ring disappeared into the fluff of black curls at the base of his prick, but the bullet sat just right. It would hit my clit every time he thrust, and the vibrations would work against me. Just the way it was meant to.

  I slid a condom down him and then eased myself onto his cock. I bit my lip. He groaned. I made the small, subtle adjustments necessary to get everything to fit the way it was supposed to, then reached between us to push the base of the bullet.

  “Oh, God.” The instant I turned it on the vibe started buzzing, fluttering the small latex ribbons against my already swollen clit. But not hard, not constant. Just enough to tantalize and tease and get me close to the edge without sending me over.

  I put my hands on Sam’s shoulders and leaned forward with another muttered exclamation. I couldn’t even think about moving yet. The vibe was taking up all my attention.

  Not that I cared. It was too fucking good to complain about. Already I felt a surge of orgasm building in the pit of my stomach.

  I pushed on my knees to lift my ass a little, giving Sam the room he needed to fuck into me. “Fuck. That’s good.”

  He grunted. His hands gripped my hips, moving me. Every thrust hit me deep inside and every time he filled me, the vibe buzzed my clit. It was different than using it by itself. Better, with Sam’s thickness inside me, stretching. I wanted him to fuck me harder and faster, but he kept the pace steady and slow.

  “Can you feel it?” I asked him. My hair had fallen into my eyes again, but this time he didn’t push it back.

  “Yeah.” Sam licked his mouth, his eyes closed. “Feels good.”

  The sex was less frantic than it had been the first time, and that was fine. We moved together, and my first orgasm rocketed through me like a whip cracking. Only then did Sam speed the pace, pushing into me faster and harder the way I’d wanted him to. I got off again without much effort, the vibe a help but not the only reason. It was Sam. It was thinking about him all day, and smelling and tasting him, and watching the way his mouth grew thin with concentration. I came watching Sam come.

  After, our bodies sticky and aligned, he put his hand on my belly and turned to face me. I only had one pillow, so neither of our heads rested all the way on it, and he used his hand to prop his head where the pillow ended. “Do you always come more than once?”

  I yawned, already edging toward sleep. “Yes. Usually.”

  “Three times?”

  I cracked open an eye. “Usually only two.”

  “Okay.” Seemingly satisfied, he lay back on the bed, looking at the ceiling.

  “Why do you want to know?” I yawned again.

  Sam laughed. “I wondered if it was the cock ring. Or me. Or if you were just lucky.”

  “I don’t think luck has anything to do with a woman’s orgasm.” I reached to my nightstand for a ponytail holder to pull my hair back again for sleep. “I know how to make myself come, but that didn’t happen by luck. It took practice.”

  This perked him up. “How much practice?”

  I pulled the covers up over both of us and wriggled down into my pillow. “I’ve been masturbating since I was in junior high. You figure it out.”

  Sam looked at me. “I’ve never been with a woman who admitted she jerked off.”

  “Sam. Women don’t jerk off.”

  “Rub off. Whatever.”

  “Well, then you’ve either been with a lot of liars or some very uptight chicks.” Yawning again, I reached to turn out the light.

  In darkness it took my eyes a few moments to adjust before the faint light from the street lamp began illuminating the room. The light didn’t shine directly in my window, so nothing was clear. Just bumps and lumps. The same old room, yet different with Sam beside me.

  “I haven’t been with a lot of women at all.” Sam shifted onto his side. He kissed my shoulder and rested his hand on my belly as he drew his legs up, touching my calves with surprisingly icy toes.

  I yelped. He laughed. I wiggled around until we could both be comfortable, which put us in a sort of complicated tangle of limbs and blankets. After a few minutes of silence, I asked, “Is that true?”

  “About the women?”

  I murmured an assent. Next to me, Sam took up a lot of room in my bed. His breath tickled the side of my neck.

  “Yes. It’s true.”

  “How come?”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to ask how many?”

  “No.” I looked at the ceiling, lit with a stripe of silver. “I don’t care how many.”

  “But you want to know why there weren’t more?”

  I waited a beat before answering. “Sure.”

  Sam chuckled again. “It might surprise you to learn that not all women succumb to my persistence, Grace. Only the crazy ones.”

  I laughed. “Gee, thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Sam sighed and shifted his arm, then a leg. “So, you don’t care if I sleep here?”

  “Do you want to?” I had been thinking of it, actually. How it would be for him to come downstairs in the morning, dressed in rumpled clothes from the day before. “Won’t your mom worry?”

  “I am a grown-up,” he said. “But if you don’t want me to, I’ll go.”

  “No.” It seemed bitchy not to let him sleep with me after he’d slept with me. “Unless you want to go.”

  Silence, but for the sound of Sam’s breathing. “Maybe I should go.”

  I sat up and turned on the light. I deliberately avoided looking at the clock, as if not knowing how many hours I had left to sleep would make it feel like more. “Sam…”

  “Grace.” He sat up against the headboard, the covers pulled low around his hips. “What’s up?”

  “I’m a little freaked.” Until the words blurted out of me, I hadn’t known how freaked I was.

  A frown furrowed his brow. “Because of me?”

  I nodded. He held out his arm and I pillowed my face on his chest. “I’m sorry. It’s not you.

  It’s me.”

  “Uh-oh.” Sam pushed me gently so he could look at my face. “This sounds like a three-in-the-morning argument waiting to happen.”

  “No. I don’t want to argue.” I shook my head and sighed, then sat next to him with our backs against the headboard. “I think I just have to warn you.”

  “Oh, boy.” Sam scooted over a bit. “When I told you that only the crazy chicks dig me, I wasn’t kidding. Are you going to tell me something weird? I mean, weirder than the fact you live in a funeral home?”

  He had such a knack of making me laugh, even when my stomach was churning and my eyes felt as if they’d been filled with sand. I didn’t want to know if it was really three in the morning, not when I had to be up by seven. “I just think we need to talk about w
hat this is.”

  “Ah.” He returned to my side. “It’s that sort of three-in-the-morning conversation.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m some sort of clingy, desperate woman. And I’m not saying this has to be anything. But…I think it is.” I’d admitted it. “And I’m not used to that.”

  He looked at me. “You don’t do the boyfriend thing. I got it.”

  “I don’t. I haven’t, not for a long time.”

  His tilting grin tempted me to return it. “But you think you might want to now?”

  I bit my lower lip to hold back that return smile but lost out. “I’m just saying that I want us to be up front with each other. That’s all. If you’re just interested in being fuck-friends, I’m not saying that’s out of the question—”

  “Hey!” Sam frowned again, turning. “Don’t say that!”

  I stopped, confused. “Don’t say fuck?”

  “Fuck,” Sam said, and ran a hand through his hair. “No. I mean, don’t say that all I want is to be your friend with benefits.”

  I waited a second or two before continuing. “Well, what do you want?”

  Sam got out of bed and I was certain I’d lost him. Why, exactly, I didn’t know. I watched him grab up his boxer briefs and put them on, and after a minute I did the same with my pj’s. I’d pissed him off somehow, but I couldn’t be too surprised. Conversations about what “this” was usually had an element of angst in them.

  Sam put his hands on my shoulders to get me to look at him. “What I want,” he said slowly, “is to keep doing what we’ve been doing for the past few months, only with a helluva lot more of what we did for the past few hours.”

  My heart dropped as my stomach jumped, and both met someplace in the middle with a nearly audible thunk. “Okay.”

  “No.” He shook his head. “Not just okay. Okay?”

  “O…kay?” I laughed. “Sam, it’s very late. We’re both tired.”

  Sam didn’t laugh. He pulled me close and kissed me. “I like you a lot, Grace. I like spending time with you, hanging out. I like kissing you. I like touching you.”

  “I like all those things, too,” I told him, half melted already.

  “I don’t want to be just some guy you sleep with. I don’t want to be just some boy toy.”

  Oh, the irony of that. “Of course not.”

  Sam nodded, as if my answer had satisfied him. “Good. It’s settled.”

  Nothing seemed settled to me other than my insides had become a tumbled, jumbled mess and I couldn’t quite think straight. “It is?”

  “Us. This.” He waved a hand around the room.

  I stared at him. “Us. We’re an us?”

  Sam got on one knee, my hand clasped in his. “Cuz you’re my lady!” he sang. Loud. The next line, too, and the one after that, while I laughed and tried to pull away.

  “No! All right! All right, anything you want, just stop singing that song!”

  He got up, and up, and up. Long, tall Sam. He kissed me again. “Admit it. You’re crazy about me.”

  “I think I’m just crazy.”

  Sam scooped me up with a hand beneath my knees and the other behind my shoulders and laughed when I yelped. “That would be par for the course. Bed. Now. You and me.”

  He tossed me onto the bed and followed after with a leap. Onto my ancient, hand-me-down bed. The footboard promptly cracked in half and the mattress hit the floor.

  “Well, then,” said Sam. “I think that bodes well, doesn’t it?”

  All I could do was laugh.

  I had on a few occasions in college gone to work without enough sleep, but never since graduating had I gone to work with no sleep at all. After breaking my bed, Sam and I had decided breakfast might be in order. Over eggs and toast we’d talked until dawn lit the sky. The conversation was serious but punctuated with laughter and joking as we talked about ourselves.

  About us.

  Sam didn’t delve into why I’d avoided boyfriends or ask me about my sexual history, and I avoided asking him the same. We concentrated on a subtle negotiation some people would have found extremely unromantic but I liked because it laid it all out on the table for both of us.

  No, we wouldn’t see other people. Yes, he could sleep over as long as he brought his own toothbrush. No, we didn’t have to see each other every day, but yes, we could if we wanted to.

  Sam understood the nature of my job and warned me his wasn’t much more predictable.

  The lessons he gave during the day sometimes got rescheduled and if the opportunity for a gig came up, he needed to be able to take it.

  By the time I had to get ready for work I’d passed exhaustion and had started operating on caffeine and determination. When he kissed me goodbye to head off to his mother’s house to get ready for his own day, Sam smiled.

  “See you later,” he told me, and I had no doubt I would.

  Unfortunately, that was when all hell decided to break loose.

  It wasn’t that I’d never had all hell break loose before. Let’s face it, when you work in the funeral-home business, all kinds of things can go crazy in a day.

  “Shelly? Have you seen…Shelly?”

  No Shelly.

  No Shelly at her desk, or in the bathroom, or in the small lounge where families waited for me. No Shelly in the parking lot or the chapel, either. I called her name again. I’d seen both her and Jared earlier, each going about their separate tasks. Jared had gone to the basement to work on unpacking some boxes of supplies, but that had been a few hours ago.

  I called both their names again. I needed that paperwork before I could get started on Mrs.

  Grenady, waiting for me in the embalming room. Her family wouldn’t be happy if it came time for the service and she wasn’t ready.

  “Jared? Shelly!”

  I heard a soft hum of music from the embalming room, but neither of them were in there.

  Only Mrs. Grenady, and she wasn’t able to tell me if she’d seen my office manager and my intern. The music, though, was something Jared would have chosen. I turned it off to listen.

  The room where I’d heard Sam playing his guitar was just down the hall, and the door to it was closed. I knocked, but nobody answered. I didn’t have anyone scheduled to be waiting in it, but I suspected it wasn’t empty.

  “Shelly?”

  I opened the door and closed it again just as quickly, my eyes shut and face burning.

  Oh. God.

  That was a sight that would linger, and not in a good way. Seeing Jared and Shelly in flagrante delicto was sort of like catching my brother beating off to Hot Juggz magazine.

  Embarrassing and more than a little disturbing.

  I was at the end of the hall when the door opened and Jared came out. Fully dressed, thank heavens, though his hair and shirt both could’ve used a good brushing. He’d misbuttoned but managed to tuck it into his belt. He had forgotten, though, to zip up his fly.

  “Grace, I—We—”

  I held up a hand. “Not interested.”

  “But wait!”

  His pleading tone gave me pause, though I didn’t turn. I had no desire to catch another glimpse of Jared’s junk. “Think carefully about what you say, Jared. I’m not in the mood to be generous.”

  “I know. But it wasn’t what you think. And it’s not Shelly’s fault.”

  “That’s not true!”

  I almost turned at Shelly’s voice, but at the last minute kept myself staring at the door to the embalming room. I had even less desire to see Shelly’s goods. “Both of you get dressed.

  Fully dressed! And come upstairs.”

  Silence met my proclamation and I imagined them exchanging looks. Dammit, I hated playing the Gorgon, but for the love of all that was holy…in the funeral home? At work? I’d had sex in some risqué places, but never at my job!

  Though I had had some screaming-hot loving in the funeral home, I thought with a grin as I left them to prepare themselves. The grin had faded by the ti
me they got up to my office. Jared looked sheepish, but Shelly had that stubborn tilt to her chin.

  I’d found the paperwork by then, but that didn’t make me inclined to be forgiving. Their behavior was out of control, and I was beyond tired. I gave them each a glare. Jared cut his eyes from mine, but Shelly took that time to take his hand. She linked their fingers, and he looked down at their hands with a grateful expression.

  “I told you before not to let this thing get in the way of work or to affect my business.” I stared at Shelly.

  She tipped her chin up a bit farther. “It wasn’t getting in the way of work.”

  Jared was smart enough not to make excuses. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. But it wasn’t Shelly’s fault.”

  “Stop saying that!” she snapped, and dropped his hand. She looked at me. “Don’t listen to him.”

  “So, it was your fault?” I was careful not to yawn in front of them, though my mouth desperately wanted to stretch open.

  “That’s not what I meant. I meant, there’s no fault.”

  “Shelly, are you seriously telling me that fucking Jared in the basement of my funeral home while you’re both supposed to be working is appropriate?”

  We stared each other down, and damned if she didn’t give me even more attitude.

  “We got a little carried away, but we weren’t…doing what you said!” There came the blush, painting twin circles high on her cheeks.

  “You would’ve been if I hadn’t walked in just then.”

  “If you hadn’t walked in just then,” Shelly snapped, “you’d never have known!”

  Jared and I both gaped at her. I recovered first. “Oh, no, you did not just try and make this somehow my fault.”

  Shelly crossed her arms and said nothing. What had happened to the shy girl who baked me cookies and cried when my dad looked at her the wrong way? I eyed Jared. He must have a magic wand in his pants, and not one for making good spells. He’d turned Shelly into a witch.

  He didn’t seem to have expected the change in her, either. “Shelly!”

  Then the waterworks started, and Shelly fled my office, slamming the door behind her.

  Jared and I stared at each other until he sat in one of the chairs in front of my desk. He rubbed his face with a sigh.