“I don’t want you to,” I say back. He’s breathing heavily. His cheeks are damp from tears, and I kiss each one. His hands come to both sides of my face and he brings my forehead to his, his nose moving along the side of mine. I can feel each of his exhalations on my mouth. He traces his thumb across my lip again and then softly presses his mouth against mine. I push my hands underneath his shirt and up his back, trying to pull him closer, but he holds my head and plants gentle kisses against my mouth, watching my reaction to each one. A frustrated hum sounds in the back of my throat because it’s not nearly enough. He laughs gently, sending goose bumps down my arms. I try to sit up taller on my knees so I can take more control of the kiss, but Sam’s hands come back to my hips and keep me pushed against him. His hands are under the back of my shorts, his fingers digging into my ass, and then he thrusts up against me, and I moan. An “oh god” escapes me, and my thighs shake when he brings his lips lightly against my ear and whispers, “Maybe I don’t want you to last, either.”
His mouth covers mine, and his teeth pull at my bottom lip and then he laps his tongue over the same spot. When his tongue moves inside my mouth, I feel the vibration of his groan and roll my hips over him again. One of his hands leaves my ass and cups my breast, then pulls the tank top down, hooking it underneath. His fingers pinch my nipple, and I feel it between my legs.
“Fuck, Percy,” he gasps. “You feel so amazing. You have no idea how often I’ve thought about this.” His words wrap around my heart, sending melted butter down my limbs.
“I do,” I whisper. His mouth moves to my neck and he lightly presses his tongue along my collarbone up to my ear, and I rub against him, trying to find the top of my delight.
“I do,” I say again. “I think about you, too.” The confession slips from my mouth, and Sam growls and moves me against him, one hand under my shorts, freeing my breast from my bra with the other. When he takes my nipple hungrily into his mouth and looks up into my eyes, the orgasm begins to rise quickly. I’m murmuring incoherently, an inarticulate jumble of “Sam” and “keep going” and “almost.” He moves me faster and harder over him and sucks me deeper into the wet heat of his mouth, and when his teeth press into my flesh, a zipper pulls up my spine, and I shudder violently. His mouth is back on mine, swallowing my moans, his tongue eagerly moving against mine, until my body goes liquid, and I lean against him, little quakes still rippling through me.
“I want you. I’ve always wanted you,” he murmurs as I pant. I lean back, my bare breast cool from the dampness of his mouth.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he says. I move my hand up his thigh, over the thin material of his sweatpants, until I find the hard ridge of his erection.
I kiss the crease on his bottom lip, then cover it with my mouth, sucking and biting while I move my hand under his waistband and around the warm length of him, moving my hand back and forth. When I run my tongue flat up his neck to his ear, pulling the lobe with my teeth, and whisper, “You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever known,” he grabs my hand and pulls it out of his pants, then squeezes my hips and brings me down against him, and his pelvis bucks underneath me. A loud, strangled cry leaves his mouth. His orgasm rips through him in three waves, and I leave kisses on his neck until it ebbs and then I curl against his chest and listen to the sound of his heavy breathing. His arms fold around me, and we stay like that for several quiet minutes.
But when I sit back to look up at him, his brows are furrowed.
“I loved you,” he whispers.
“I know,” I say.
Hurt eyes move across my face. “You broke my heart.”
“I know that, too.”
12
Summer, Thirteen Years Ago
“Sam Florek is a fucking lunatic, and don’t you forget it.” Delilah was sitting on my bed, her pale legs folded underneath her, delivering a pep talk as I packed for the cottage. “You are a smart, sexy, seventeen-year-old woman with a ridiculously hot boyfriend, and you don’t need some small-town loser who doesn’t appreciate how incredible you are bringing you down!”
Delilah was on an anti-man kick. She broke up with Patel when he went away to McGill, and threw everything she had at school. She had gotten it in her head that she was destined to change the world, and she wasn’t going to let any guy stand in her way. Her grades were better than mine. Though she and Patel were now “on again” for the summer.