Every Summer After(74)

“Not bad, Dr. Florek,” I breathe. But when I peer back up at him, the slant of his grin and sky-blue of his eyes are so familiar, so much like home, that I know I have to tell him, even if it means losing him again. I drop my hands to my sides.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes flit across my face.

“We need to talk,” I say, then look at the ceiling, but not before two fat tears roll down my cheeks. I brush them away.

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says, taking my hand. But I shake my head.

“I have to.” I squeeze his fingers tight. “Twelve years ago, you asked me to marry you,” I whisper. Breathe.

“I remember,” he says with a sad smile.

“And I pushed you away.”

“Yeah,” he rasps. “I remember that, too.”

“I need you to know why I said no, when I loved you so much, when all I wanted was to say yes.”

Sam wraps his arms around me and draws me to him, his warm chest against mine. “I wanted you to say yes, too.” He presses his lips to my shoulder and leaves a kiss behind.

“I overheard you talking with Jordie and Finn earlier today,” I say into his skin, and I can feel his body tense. I look up at him. “It sounded like you were talking about us.”

“We were.”

“What did they mean when they said you were messed up after what happened?”

“Percy, do you really want to talk about this now? Because there are other things I’d rather be doing.” He kisses me softly.

“I want to know. I need to know.”

He sighs, and his brows knit together. “I went through a tough time after, that’s all. The guys knew. Jordie went to university with me, remember? He saw it all firsthand—lots of partying, drinking, that sort of thing. They’re just overprotective.”

This doesn’t sound like the full truth, and Sam must see my suspicion.

“It’s in the past, Percy,” he says. And even though I know it’s not, at least not for me, when he pulls my hair off my neck and sets a kiss just above my collarbone, I tilt my chin back and put my hand in his hair, holding him against me.

“Sam, stop,” I manage to say after several seconds, and he does, leaning his forehead against mine.

“I’m not good enough for you,” I tell him. “I don’t deserve you. Or your friendship. And especially not anything more than friendship.” I’m about to go on, but he puts two fingers over my mouth and looks at me with wide eyes.

“Don’t do this, Percy. Don’t shut me out again,” he pleads. “I want this.” He’s breathing rapidly, his forehead creased in question. “Don’t you want this, too?”

“More than anything,” I tell him, and one corner of his mouth ticks up. He brings my hands up to his lips and kisses each, not taking his eyes off mine.

“Then let me have you,” he says. And I don’t know if he means right now or for good, but as soon as the yes leaves my mouth, he’s kissing me.



* * *





    THE KISS IS fierce and clumsy, and when our teeth knock together, we both laugh.

“Fuck, Percy. I want you so much,” he says, biting at my bottom lip. The sharpness sends a shudder through me, and he moves his mouth down, nipping at my collarbone along the way.

“I used to lie awake at night thinking about these freckles,” he murmurs, kissing the constellation of brown dots on my chest. I don’t notice him unhooking my bra, but when he pushes the straps off my shoulders, the whole thing falls away. He brings his hands to my breasts, moving the nipples between his thumbs and fingers, and when they tighten at his touch, he leans down, circling his tongue around one, then sucking it into his mouth, and pinching hard on the other. My hands fly to his shoulders to steady myself. When his name moves across my lips, he kisses me wetly before moving his mouth back down to my breasts.

I reach for the fly of his jeans and fumble with the button, distracted by what his tongue and his teeth are doing and the needy pulses between my legs. I conquer the button, then the zipper, and work the jeans past his hips. I feel his hardness through his briefs and he inhales sharply. The sound sets off something within me—an old need to push Sam, to make him come undone, to make him make more noises like the one he just made. It’s fireworks of lust and longing and humid summer nights. I run my nails up his back and then bring his face to mine.

“Just so we’re clear,” I tell him, unblinking, “I want this. I want you. You can have me, but I want to have you, too.” When I kiss him, it’s with every last drop of every bit of myself that I have. I move my hand down his chest, his stomach, slipping it inside the waistband of his underwear, wrapping my hand around him, moving it over his length. He looks down and watches for a second, then back to me with a smile, pulling my hand away and leaning me back on the carpet.

“Remember the first time you did that?” he asks, smiling down at me and taking his jeans off.

“I was so nervous,” I say. “I thought I was going to hurt you.” He curls his fingers over the top of the sweatpants and pulls them down my legs, leaving them around my ankles.

“You got the hang of it,” he says, kneeling between my legs. “We had quite a bit of practice,” he says, looking up at me with a slanted grin.