Heart Bones(62)

Samson is waiting at the bottom of the stairs.

“Desperate much?” I tease.

He kisses me and takes my backpack. “Eager.”

We begin walking toward Samson’s house. P.J. is following us, but Samson doesn’t have a dog bed for him. “P.J., go home.” I point to the stairs. P.J. pauses for a moment. I repeat myself, and then he finally turns and goes back up our stairs.

Samson slips his hand through mine and holds it until we’re in his house. He locks the front door behind him, sets the code on the alarm and then kicks off his shoes.

I look around, wondering where this is going to happen. How it’s going to happen. It feels a little weird knowing what’s coming. I prefer spontaneity over plans when it comes to sex. Dakota treated me like I was on a strict, rotating schedule.

“You thirsty?” Samson asks.

I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

He tosses my backpack against the wall next to his backpack. He grabs my hand and twists my wrist so that he can see my tattoo. It’s been a week since we got them and both of ours healed well. It kind of makes me want another one, but I feel like I need to wait until I have a reason. Getting one with Samson felt important. I’ll wait for another important life moment before getting a second one.

“It turned out really good,” he says, running his finger over it.

“You never actually said if you liked yours.”

“I told you I loved it the night I got it. I just didn’t say it with words.” He slides his fingers through mine and leads me up a set of stairs. When he opens the door to his room, he lets me walk in first.

The balcony doors are open and there’s a breeze blowing the sheer curtains into the room. The bed is perfectly made, and I still can’t get over how clean he keeps everything. Samson flips on a lamp by the bed.

“It’s pretty,” I say, walking toward the balcony. I step outside and glance over at my bedroom. I accidentally left the light on, so I have a clear view of my bed. “You can see straight into my room.”

Samson is next to me now. “Yeah, I know. You don’t leave that light on nearly enough.”

I look at him and he’s grinning. I shove him playfully in the shoulder and walk back into the bedroom. I make my way over to the bed and sit on the edge of the mattress.

I remove my shoes and then lie down on his bed and watch him. He walks slowly around the bed, staring at me from every angle.

“I feel like I’m being circled like I’m prey,” I say.

“Well, I don’t want to be the shark in this scenario.” Samson plops down next to me on the bed, holding his head up with his hand. “There. Now I’m plankton.”

“Better,” I say, smiling.

He brushes a strand of hair over my ear with a thoughtful expression on his face. “Are you nervous?”

“No. I feel comfortable with you.”

That sentence causes concern to briefly fall over his features—almost as if he finds it uncomfortable that I feel comfortable with him. But the look disappears as soon as it appeared.

“I saw that thought,” I say quietly.

“What thought?”

“The negative thought you just had.” I bring a finger to the spot between his eyebrows. “It was right here.”

He’s quiet as he digests my words. “For someone who doesn’t know a lot about me, you sure know a lot about me.”

“All the stuff you’ve kept secret from me isn’t really stuff that counts.”

“How do you know if you don’t know what secrets I’m keeping from you?” he asks.

“I don’t have to know anything about your past to know you’re a good person. I can tell by your actions. I can tell by the way you treat me. Why would it matter what kind of family you have, or how rich you are, or what the people in your past meant to you before I showed up?” That negative thought is back, so I take my finger and smooth out the wrinkles in his forehead. “Stop,” I whisper. “You’re too hard on yourself.”

Samson falls onto his back and brings his hands to his chest. He stares at the ceiling for a moment, so I scoot closer to him and lift my head up, resting it on my hand. I touch his necklace, then walk my fingers up his neck and begin tracing his lips.

He tilts his face toward mine. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this?”

His words are more of a question, so I immediately shake my head. “I want to.”

“It’s not fair to you.”

“Why? Because I don’t know everything about you?”

He nods. “I’m worried you wouldn’t be saying yes right now if you knew the whole truth about me.”

I press my lips to his, but only briefly. “You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m actually not,” he says. “I’ve just lived a dramatic life and you might not like it.”

“Same thing. We’re both dramatic because we have dramatic parents and dramatic pasts. We could be having dramatic sex right now if you’d stop feeling so guilty.”

He smiles. I sit up and take off my shirt. The worry in his eyes disappears as he slides me onto him so that I’m straddling him. He already feels ready, but he brings a hand up and traces a finger slowly over the lace edges of my bra like he’s in no hurry at all.