The Best Man Page 26

  “Don’t think,” I muttered harshly. I pushed my hands into his hair and tugged his head down until I could kiss him again. I was delirious with need. His hands were perfect against me. Not hesitant. Not harsh. It was as if he was made to hold me. I needed his hands everywhere. And I needed to touch him as well. My fingers flew to the buttons of his shirt while Samuel lowered his head to kiss and suck at the skin on my neck and shoulders. With the last button undone, I thrust my hands into the open front of his shirt and dragged my fingernails lightly from his shoulders to his waist.

  “Fuck,” Samuel hissed. My breath caught at the sound of the harsh word on his lips. He pulled his head back and looked at me. His eyes were wild. I never wanted to forget the way he looked in that moment. He might have been trying to judge my reaction. Feeling bold, I smirked and slowly pulled my fingernails down his chest with a little more pressure.

  “Say it again,” I ordered. He didn’t. Samuel attacked my mouth, and I moaned against the new onslaught of his kisses. My knees almost buckled beneath me when I felt his fingers on the skin just above my knees. His fingers curled like claws, Samuel pulled them up my legs, lifting the material of my dress as he went.

  “God, yes,” I moaned. I lowered my mouth to his chest and started kissing and biting every bit of skin I could reach in front of me. His diabolical fingers moved closer, and I threw my head back. I couldn’t find it in myself to be embarrassed or feel awkward. This was Samuel doing these things to me. And it was better than I could have ever imagined.

  “Do you want this?” Samuel asked roughly against my shoulder. I could feel his fingers near the lace edge of my panties, and I couldn’t recall wanting anything more in my life. But I knew what he was doing. He was giving me one last chance to stop him. To stop what we had begun. I reached my hands to grasp both sides of his face urgently, and I tilted his face to meet my eyes.

  “I want you,” I emphasized. He swallowed hard and pressed his lips to mine while his fingers moved to touch me exactly where I needed him to. I moaned and rocked myself into his hand. The answering sound from the back of his throat made me feel anxious to hear more. While Samuel kissed me and stroked me beneath my dress, I lowered my own hands to start tearing at the button and zipper of his pants. And when I could, I pushed my hand down the skin of his abdomen until I could touch him like he was touching me.

  He was hot and smooth and silky in my hand, and I touched him as much as the restricted space would allow. I was rewarded with more of those delicious and guttural noises from the back of his throat. He bit at my lips with fervor and moved his hands to twist into the waistband of my panties, pulling them down my legs. I stepped out of them eagerly and kicked them across the floor while I mimicked his movements and tugged to get his pants down.

  Still there next to the door, I gripped Samuel’s shoulders with my hands when he reached below to lift me against him. My legs locked around his waist, and my shoulders were pressed into the wall behind me.

  “I can’t wait...” Samuel groaned. I swallowed his apology under another kiss and tilted my hips to accommodate him. “We should...Protection...” He was still trying to be responsible while we hovered at the point of no return. I wrapped my arms around his head and kissed his ear.

  “I’m protected. Please, Samuel...Please...”

  Accepting my final plea, he pulled my hips hard against him and thrust up into me. I threw my head back at the shock of the initial intrusion. It had been a very long time since I had been with anyone like this, but any immediate discomfort was soon overshadowed by the amazing feelings Samuel provided while moving in and against me. I moaned and locked my legs around him tightly.

  “Fuck, Emelia. Fuck,” he groaned again. I smiled against the side of his damp hair. I loved hearing him lose control. I held on tight with my legs and pushed my arms against the wall behind me...searching for leverage or something to grasp on to. My efforts sent a plaque of one of my dad’s stuffed fish flying off the wall to crash loudly against the floor next to us. Samuel and I both stilled for a moment.

  “Bass,” I whispered. Then Samuel’s lips pulled up in the silliest, most devastating smile I had ever seen.

  “Bass.” He smiled.

  We both laughed. But the laughter reminded us of the position we were still in, and I gripped Samuel by the collar of his shirt and tugged his face close to mine.

  “If you stop, I will kill you,” I threatened against his mouth. He didn’t stop. Instead, he kissed me, and his fingers dug almost painfully into the back of my thighs when he spun us away from the wall. I held on tight while he carried me a few steps across the kitchen. My eyes were closed, but I heard the loud crash of more items hitting the floor. Samuel lowered me to the cool, hard surface of the kitchen table, and he’d used his arms to sweep aside the items that usually rested there. I lay back with my legs still locked around his waist and pulled him down to kiss me.

  Samuel complied for a moment, but then he pulled his mouth away from mine. His lips lingered on my shoulders and the top of my chest before he rose to fully stand before me. His fingers retraced the path his mouth created, and he drifted his hands from my face, down my chest, and to my hips. He looked at me almost reverently. “So beautiful,” he whispered in a ragged voice. I held on tightly to the edge of the table when his fingers dug into my hips, and he began to pull me against him.

  Seeing Samuel this way was almost more than I could bear. I could see his sweat-dampened chest through the parting of his shirt. The lines of his strong neck tensed and strained as he tilted his head back. His eyes were closed, and his jaw was taut. And the sounds...God...The sounds that he made were enough to send me into a full-out frenzy.

  I couldn’t help the wild sounds that escaped me in response. His movements were strong, and they shifted the table underneath me as I cried out and thrashed my head from side to side. It was too much. Too, too much. When his fingers moved to touch me where our bodies joined, I felt every muscle in my body contract in preparation for the explosion to come.

  “Samuel...Samuel!”

  He knew. He could feel me contracting around him. And while my own orgasm completely washed over me, he reached down and pulled my arms up toward him. I threw my arms around his shoulders while he groaned and thrust hard against me. With his one last, loud groan, I could feel him find his own release. We stayed there like that. Our arms were wrapped around each other. Our pounding hearts and hard breaths filled the silence in the room. My arms were shaking badly. I wasn’t sure if it was from what we had just done or from what I knew we were about to do.

  “Emelia, I...”

  “Shh...” I lowered my head, and my hair fell in front of my face. Samuel stepped away and pulled my dress down to cover my legs. I stared at the vacant space in front of me and listened as Samuel adjusted his own clothing. I was suffering from a riot of emotions, and I couldn’t begin to sort through it all so soon.

  “We need to talk about this,” Samuel said quietly and still a bit breathlessly. He moved to rest back on the edge of the table beside me. Our arms touched, but I couldn’t look at him.

  “Tomorrow,” I said quietly with my head down.

  “Please. Won’t you look at me?”

  “I can’t.” I shook my head.

  “Why?” His voice sounded pained.

  “Because...” I swallowed hard. “If I see that same regret in your eyes, I swear some part of me will hate you for it,” I whispered. “I don’t want to hate you, Samuel.”

  He kissed the side of my head and stood without another word before walking to my kitchen door. “I don’t regret it, Emelia,” Samuel said quietly. I heard my door open, and I finally looked up. He stood in my doorway again, watching me intently. “I won’t ever regret it.” The sincerity in his eyes eased the sting of the worry that had threatened to drown me. I licked my lips.

  “Tomorrow,” I promised. I felt hope rise in my chest as he gave me a small smile. I needed time to figure out how I felt. With the promise
and understanding that we would talk about everything the following day, Samuel closed the door silently and disappeared into the inky darkness beyond my back porch. I surveyed the damage around me and lowered myself from the tabletop to pick up the items that had been left out of place in our wake. I pulled the table to its original space on the floor and returned the flowers, napkin holder, and salt and pepper shakers to their central location. I might have blushed, imagining my father enjoying having breakfast at this table, if I hadn’t felt so confused and numb by the evening’s events. The bass on the floor wouldn’t be replaced so easily. The hanging fixture on the back was twisted and would need to be repaired.

  I quickly bent to retrieve my panties from the floor. Other than that small scrap of lace I held in my hand, I remained fully dressed. I wondered if I should feel that the magnitude of what Samuel and I had done was any less because of the way we had come together. It had been desperation that led us to having sex where we had and in the way we did. But the connection between us was every bit as powerful, to me. We had both simply been holding back too much...for too long.

  Slowly, as if in a trance, I made my way up the stairs. Somehow, I managed to put on my comfortable T-shirt and boxer shorts. I twisted my hair into a knot on top of my head and lay down between my cool, familiar sheets. I was confused. I was worried. I was scared. But more than anything, I was absolutely certain that I was in love with Samuel.

  I was in love with Samuel, and I was going back to Florida in two days.

  And we would talk tomorrow.

  I was groggy as I was pulled from sleep by the warm hand that shook my shoulder.

  “Emmy? Em...” I rubbed my eyes and pushed my hair away from my face. My father moved from where he sat beside me on my bed and went to sit in the chair in the corner of my room. In the dim light from the moon coming through my window, I watched as he clasped his hands between his knees and avoided my eyes.

  “Dad?” I asked sleepily. My eyes went to my bedside clock and back to where he sat. Something must have been awfully important for him to wake me up just barely after one in the morning. Then a suspicion came to mind when memories from earlier in the evening flashed before my eyes.

  Samuel and me. In the kitchen. The back door had been open. The curtains were not drawn. The bass I knocked off the wall...Had someone seen something? Heard something? Was Dad in my room because he somehow found out what had occurred between Samuel and me? I sat up in bed and pulled my blankets protectively around my chest. Granted, we hadn’t given much thought to our privacy at the time, but I might have to remind my father that what I did, and with whom, was my personal business.

  “Dad, I—”

  I cut off my words when I realized he was already speaking. In my consternation, I’d missed the beginning of what he was trying to say.

  “We were first on the scene...The semi crossed the middle lane. There was nowhere for those kids to go. No one survived...”

  “Wait...Wait...” I shook my sleep-clouded head. “What?” Dad wasn’t talking about Samuel. He was talking about work. An accident.

  “I’m sorry, Emelia. So sorry. There was nothing we could do.”

  “Dad?” An ice-cold dread started wrapping itself around my chest, squeezing my heart until I felt I couldn’t breathe. My father, using my full name, sounded all wrong. “There was an accident? Who...Who...?”

  “Andy and Lily, honey. They’re gone. They’re gone...” Dad’s face was in his hands, muffling his last words.

  I threw back my covers and ran for the door. My head screamed that I hadn’t heard him correctly. My legs flew beneath me, carrying me down the stairs and out the door into the night. The grass was slick and cold beneath my feet and breath tore painfully from between my lips. My eyes latched on to the darkened windowpane at the side of the house beside mine. Andy was asleep in his room. I needed to see him. I needed to get to him to prove that it was all a nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare.

  I crashed into something hard and solid. I gasped but struggled to push my body forward. The steel bands around me were unrelenting as I clawed the air and screamed toward the darkened window.

  “Andy!” My scream tore from my throat, feeling bloody and raw. “Andy!” I screamed again.

  “Emelia...I’m here.” I heard a gravelly voice near my ear. But it wasn’t the one I hoped to hear. I turned and saw Samuel’s face close to mine. He held me tightly to his chest while I momentarily stopped kicking and struggling.

  “Where is he?” I whispered. Samuel shook his head, and a tear burned from his soft brown eye down his face. “Where is he?” I screamed. Samuel opened his mouth, but no sound came out, and I knew. Andy was gone. The arms around me tightened as I fell into blackness.

  “Emmy? Pick up the can! Andy calling Emmy...Hey! Can you hear me? Pick up the can!”

  The tin can tied to the string at my window rattled loudly against the wall as my best friend tugged the other side to wake me. My blankets were pulled up over my head, and I groaned while I rolled to reach for our homemade phone. With my eyes nearly closed, I crawled on instinct to the foot of my bed and reached for the string to answer his call.

  “Emmy? Are you there?”

  “I’m here,” I groaned. My throat burned. My eyes felt swollen and wouldn’t open enough for me to see clearly. I reached blindly for the can. My fingers spread, feeling along the wall beneath my window ledge. The longer I searched, the more frantic my movements became. “I’m here...” I repeated. “I’m here...I’m here...” But as I felt along the wall, my fingers consistently came up empty. I forced my eyes farther open, and I froze when I saw the twisted and broken piece of red yarn tied to the nail in front of me.

  The connecting string had long since been destroyed by time and elements. And the voice...The voice had been one from my imagination.

  I sat back on my legs and let my eyes move beyond my window. The bedroom facing me in the house next door remained dark. The curtains were drawn. Nothing moved in the world beyond the glass. Gray pressed in from the sky but didn’t even offer rain to distract from the stillness outdoors. My heart picked up pace, and my breathing became shallow.

  With a rapid movement, my hand shot out. My finger twisted, wrapping the yarn tightly around my first knuckle. Suddenly furious at the sight of the broken string, I tugged and pulled at what was left of it. The tip of my finger turned purple as my circulation was cut off. Still, I sawed the aged fibers back and forth, trying to force it to release its enduring grip on the old nail that pierced the wood and held tight.

  I barely noticed the burning sting that came from the cut I inflicted on my finger. I grunted and pulled the yarn, determined to destroy the reminder it provided. The string was torn...broken...and my hand was left bloody and damaged. Giving up, but no less angry, I slid the string off my finger and slapped my hand loudly on the glass in front of me. It shook under the hit but held true. With a strangled cry escaping my throat, I slapped at the window again and again, smearing small streaks of red on the glass with each blow. The blood was a vivid hue against its gray backdrop.

  Crimson. Andy tossed me his large crimson sweatshirt. My clothes were soaked through. I had stood below his window, in the rain, trying to get the courage to go talk to the one person I knew could make me feel better. I needed to apologize. Andy had been right all along. When he saw me through the glass, he invited me to his room.

  “Th-thank you,” I said through chattering teeth. Andy spun his desk chair backward and straddled it while I pulled his warm cotton sweatshirt over my head. It hung past my fingers, and I clenched my hands into the material of the sleeves, searching for additional comfort.

  “What’s going on?” Andy asked quietly. He folded his arms over the back of his chair and frowned. I scooted my body back on his bed and rested my back against the wall. With my knees pulled up to my chest, I sniffed and tried to blink back the tears. It was pointless.

  “You were right,” I whispered. “He was all wrong fo
r me. He...only wanted one thing. Tonight...I waited to see him after practice. And...I saw him kissing Becky Newman by the locker rooms.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Andy hissed through his teeth.

  “I was so sure...” I cried and pressed my face into my knees. I felt the mattress give beside me. Then my best friend, the one I hadn’t spoken to in two weeks, put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me into his side.

  “You were too good for him,” Andy said softly. I nodded and wiped my eyes with the cuffs of his shirt. “Did you...? You know...? After prom?”

  I groaned and put my face back on my knees. Andy lowered his hand and started to rub soothing circles on my back.

  “It’s okay, Emmy. I’ll make it better. You can count on me.”

  And I knew in my heart he meant what he said. I could count on him. Even when I was stubborn and stupid...even when we fought; Andy would always be around to make things better.

  “Emmy? Open up, honey.” I lay with my cheek on my pillow, my eyes dry and wide open. I heard my father’s words, but I couldn’t muster the strength to move.

  “Has she come out at all?” It was a woman’s voice that I didn’t recognize.

  “No,” my father said with a rough sounding tone. “Maybe to use the bathroom? Hell...I don’t know.” He groaned. “It’s been two days. She needs to eat something...” Food.

  I sprawled out on my stomach across the picnic blanket, popping grapes into my mouth and watching Andy over the edge of my book.

  “Come get a sandwich,” I called him over. “Your mom packed us all this food. She’ll be mad if you don’t eat.”

  “I will in a minute,” Andy said. He had pulled his wiry body up into the boughs of Old Man Carter’s apple tree and was dropping juicy red fruit down from the highest branches. “And she won’t be mad when I bring all these apples home to make a pie!”