For the Longest Time (24 page)

He nodded. “I can do that. In fact, I would
rather
do that.” Then he surprised her by sliding his arms around her. “I didn't want to think she was serious, Sam. I hope you believe that. Cici and I broke up for the last time years ago. Revisiting all that just seems . . . really uninspired. I didn't think that would be her style.” He sounded so genuinely surprised that she was prompted to give him a bit of truth.

“There's nothing boring about you, Jake. Not ten years ago
or
now.” She tucked her head beneath his chin,
lifting her arms to encircle his back, and rested her head against his chest. She heard his soft sigh, and the steady beat of his heart. Sam closed her eyes, warmth flooding her. She could feel the last of her defenses giving way, crumbling until she had nothing left but the way she felt about him. The way she'd always felt about him.

They said you never forgot your first love. She hadn't expected to forget him, but she'd never realized that there was a part of her that had never managed to fall out of love with Jake. Not until now, when she couldn't muster any more justifications and rationalizations to hide behind.

The boy she'd loved was right here in her arms. And no amount of anger or past hurt could change that everything that had drawn her to him remained.

Jake pressed a kiss to the top of her head as she clung to him, eyes wide as the realization hit her with all the force of a speeding train.

She loved him. Still. Again.
More
.

And it terrified her.

Sam felt the subtle shift as he pulled her even closer, as he freed her hair from its simple chignon with a few gentle tugs, then slid his hands into it.

“I love your hair,” he murmured into it. “Please don't go.”

She ought to go. She knew it. But how could she? It was all she could do not to sink to her knees. This wasn't the way it was supposed to go. She was supposed to be able to walk away if she needed to. Instead, the feel of him, the scent of his cologne, even the steady sound of his breath held her in place. She turned her face to press it into his chest, the soft cotton of his shirt brushing her
nose, her forehead, and breathed in. The feeling was so overwhelming that there was no hiding from it.

There was nowhere else on earth she'd rather be.

Sam exhaled and closed her eyes. Her hands closed, loosely fisted in the fabric at his back. His fingers slid through her hair, circling lightly over her sensitive scalp, making her skin tingle. She leaned into his touch, breath quickening as comfort slowly bloomed into desire. She was so tired of struggling against this.

Sam lifted her face and found that Jake had been waiting for her. She caught only a flash of hot golden green before his mouth was on hers, hot, demanding. There was nothing sweet in the kiss—this was all raw need. Sam sank into his hot, openmouthed kisses, drinking in every breath. He backed her against the door, and his hands slid down to grasp her hips and pull her hard against him. Sam gasped, then writhed as he ground against her, letting her feel how badly he wanted her. Desire swept away every fear, every other thought, and Sam welcomed it. All she wanted was to lose herself in him, just for a while.

She heard his breath, ragged and catching, and a hand moved to cup one of her breasts through her shirt. She leaned into it, making a soft sound of pleasure when he squeezed, then dragged his hand down to unbutton her jeans. He slid his hand inside her panties, stroking where she was already slick with need. Sam pressed her hips into him, beginning to move rhythmically to his strokes. She nipped at his lower lip, dragging it through her teeth, reveling in his hiss of pleasure. He took his free hand and grasped one of hers, pressing it between his legs where he was rigid and throbbing.

“This is what you do to me,” he groaned. “Every time, Sam.”

The power of his simple statement was heady. She stroked him hard with the heel of her palm, keeping time with his clever fingers while the pulse between her legs quickened. She felt the muscles in his lower belly tighten, and his brows drew together, eyes dropping to half-mast as his pleasure intensified. The only sounds were shaking breaths and soft moans, the rustle of clothes as they moved against each other.

Jake's fingers were sweet torment. He rubbed and stroked, slipping one finger inside and thrusting gently before returning to tease the throbbing nub of her sex. Sam began to quiver as the world narrowed to a single bright point, pressure building until it was unsustainable.

“Come for me,” he breathed, pulling his mouth from hers. His eyes locked with hers. Sam leaned hard against the door, breath coming in short pants. “Let me see you, Sam.”

He pressed a finger hard against her, and the world burst. She cried out, and the world flickered out like a candle as she surged against him, her head rocking back. Every pulse was a shock wave, and she was helpless to do anything but ride them until finally, they had ebbed enough for her to grasp a few strands of thought.

She still cupped him through his jeans, rock hard. “You,” she murmured. “Now you.”

He moved like lightning, stooping to scoop her up. She draped her arms around his neck, laughing softly as he carried her up the stairs.

“This is very cinematic,” she said. “I feel like I should be wearing an evening gown.”

“In a minute you're not going to be wearing
anything,” he growled. Jake carried her quickly to his room and shut the door on an unhappy Tucker, who couldn't seem to understand why he wasn't invited to the fun. Sam heard the dog sigh and flop down against the door on the other side.

Jake set her on the bed and stripped quickly out of his clothes. Sam did the same, forcing her languid limbs to cooperate. She already wanted him again. She wasn't sure it was possible to stop wanting him. Her eyes roamed over his taut, muscular body as she discarded the last of her clothes. Then, meeting his eyes, she deliberately rolled onto her stomach, up onto her knees, and then looked over her shoulder, presenting him with her backside and quirking one eyebrow.

“Like this?” she asked.

He made some soft, strangled sound, and an instant later the bed creaked beneath his weight as he positioned himself behind her. Jake entered her quickly, completely, a single thrust that buried him all the way to the hilt. Sam bucked against him with a gasp, loving the way he filled her. His hands gripped her hips, hard, as he began to ride her. There was nothing gentle about the way he moved—hard, quick thrusts that rocked her forward. Sam fisted her hands in the covers and began to rock back into his thrusts, tightening around him as she rushed toward another climax, this one as hard and fast as the way he pumped into her.

His moans mingled with hers, and she could feel his movements begin to hitch as he neared his own climax, losing the rhythm as the pleasure took him. She was close, so close . . . and then Jake reached between her legs to flick his finger over her. She clenched, then shattered, whipping her head back as she arched into her
climax. He drove deep into her once, twice, and then gave a hoarse cry as he came, shuddering while she still pulsed around him.

Sam sank to her stomach slowly, no longer able to hold herself up. She felt lovely, weightless. Any thought that formed skittered merrily away the instant she tried to catch it, so she didn't bother, instead just curled up against Jake when he slipped out of her and flopped down beside her.

They were quiet for long moments, the only sound was that of their deepening breathing. Sam drifted pleasantly, eyes half shut, Jake's warm, heavy arm draped over her. She'd almost thought he'd gone to sleep, until she heard the deep rumble of his voice beside her.

“Wow.”

She grinned, her eyes slipping shut. “Yes. Wow.”

“Mmm,” was his response, almost a purr. She felt him move away, just for a few seconds, as the covers were tugged and shifted around beneath her. Then the comforter was tossed over her as Jake resituated himself behind her and buried his face in her hair. He had a real thing about her hair, Sam thought with a lazy smile. And she had a real thing about all of him. Picking a favorite part would be impossible. Though trying to decide . . . she could spend hours doing that.

Hours, days, years . . .

Her smile faded as she snuggled against him. One thing life had taught her was that you never knew what was coming next, and that nothing was forever. So she needed to try to enjoy this now, whatever happened.

She needed to make now be enough.

In case now was all she got.

S
omething was different. He just couldn't put his finger on what.

Jake walked out of the animal hospital at one on Wednesday, hungry and in need of some fresh air. Wednesdays were surgery days for him, and by the time he got a break, he normally needed one. It didn't take much to recharge his batteries. Sometimes he just took a quick walk while he ate a sandwich. Today, though, what he really wanted was company. He wasn't sure if Sam would be busy, but it was worth a shot to go see. Especially since he'd come up with such an awesome plan this morning in the shower.

Well, he thought it was awesome. His shower ideas seemed to stay unappreciated outside the confines of his bathroom, but he hoped this one would fly.

Jake checked the small cooler he'd put on the backseat, then made the short drive to Two Roads. Sam's little car was out front, still in dire need of a bath, alongside Zoe's shiny little MINI. Those two were like The Odd Couple. Somehow, it worked. . . . Sam invariably lit up whenever she talked about her friend. It was good, he thought, that she was finding people. Just so long as he stayed one of them.

Something seemed to have shifted between them since Sunday night. He wanted her trust, badly, and her conditions were ones he was more than willing to meet. The episode with Cici had been eye-opening. Not in a good way, but in a necessary way. His old “friend” had made her intentions clear enough that he couldn't keep ignoring them. Ignoring her had never worked in the past . . . so that mistake was on him. And so was the hurt he'd caused Sam by trying.

Owning that responsibility had helped clear the air in a way they hadn't managed before. But there was more, a new sort of tension between him and Sam. He didn't know what it was. All he knew was that it pulled his thoughts to her countless times a day, and that he had begun to crave the low and pleasant thrum of whatever that force was until his world didn't seem quite right unless she was in it.

He thought he'd been through it all when it came to relationships—the years-long roller coaster with Cici should have seen to that. But being with Sam was an entirely different animal, turning him into a blundering kid trying to find his way in the dark with nothing but an unreliable flashlight.

It was scary as hell. But after a lot of years of skimming along the surface of things, it was also exactly what he'd needed to wake up again.

Jake pulled in beside the MINI, then hopped out of his truck and headed in.

The bell above the door jingled, echoing a little in the open, wood-floored space. He hadn't been in since First Friday, and looked around curiously now that there was no crowd blocking his view. The place looked decidedly bigger when it wasn't stuffed with people. He could also
get a better look at the groupings of art, which were all eye-catching, even if he didn't know what the hell he was looking at. A floorboard creaked beneath his foot as he walked slowly toward the sculptures that Ryan was apparently so interested in.

Well, sculptures, or artist, or both . . . the jury was still out on that, and Ryan wasn't talking. Jake was starting to wish he would, actually, even if the whole “I like guys” thing wasn't really his area. It bothered him to think that there might be such an important part of himself that Ryan had been afraid to share, whatever the reasons. They were all supposed to be better friends than that.

Of course, Jake was starting to think they'd all quit sharing the
really
important things a long time ago. All that was left seemed to be history with a coat of gloss on it.

The thought made him sad, and he shook it off as soon as he heard footsteps approaching. He shifted his gaze to see Zoe heading toward him.

“Jake,” she said, surprised but welcoming. “What can I do for you?”

“Is Sam around?” he asked. “It's my break, and I thought maybe you'd let me steal her for a few minutes if things are quiet.”

She hesitated, very briefly, before answering. For a split second he thought he'd misjudged and overstepped, but then she smiled. “No, of course I don't have a problem with it. Slow day. She should be down in just a few minutes. . . . She was just cleaning something up for me in one of the studios.”

“Oh yeah, I saw you had renovations going on here,” Jake said, remembering the various trucks that had been parked here over the summer. “Studios. For artists to work in, right?”

“Yes, I'll be renting most of them and offering classes in at least one other. It's definitely a good thing.” Her eyes flicked toward the stairs. It stirred his suspicions, though he couldn't quite figure out what she—and possibly Sam—might be up to. He was immediately determined to find out.

“Cool. Mind if I have a look? I'll grab Sam while I'm up there.”

He was already at the foot of the stairs by the time Zoe answered. “Ah . . . you know, why don't I just go get her? I've still got a little cleaning to do, and I don't—”

“Don't worry about it,” Jake interjected smoothly. “I'm a vet, remember? I fear no dust bunny.”

“Um . . .”

She looked more than a little worried, but he was bounding up the stairs before she could come up with another reason to have him wait. Curiosity pulled him quickly past a series of small, clean rooms set up to accommodate artists at work. He could hear low, soft singing, the way people did when they were listening to music on their earphones. Jake smiled when he recognized the tune: some punk-pop that had been in heavy rotation on the alternative station.

He stopped, poked his head around the side of the doorway to say hello. But when he got a look at what Sam was doing, he was left with his mouth hanging open in silence. This wasn't just a studio she was cleaning up. It was
her
studio.

She was painting again.

The sting of the fact that she'd kept it from him mingled with a surprisingly fierce burst of pride in what he saw. There were three paintings in progress that he could see, each full of the warmth and color and imagination
even he could recognize as entirely Sam's. They were beautiful, full of life. Like her. There were built-in shelves loaded with paint, along with a semi-organized bunch of tools he wouldn't have a clue what to do with, but that looked both cared for and well used.

The woman herself was wiping up some water by the sink. It looked as though she'd just cleaned her brushes, and she grooved quietly to the song in her earbuds. She'd spent her lunch break painting, he guessed. And he'd never seen her look so in her element as she did now, her hands still dotted with color, her hair back in a ponytail, and a ratty old paint-stained sweatshirt thrown on over the decidedly dressier pants that were part of her work outfit. The sweater that went with them was folded neatly over the back of a chair.

Jake leaned against the door frame and watched her, an odd and aching pull deep in his chest. This, he thought, was the woman he'd seen in the girl all those years ago. And she was still real to him in a way that he didn't think anyone else ever could be.

She executed a little turn, caught sight of him, and yelped.

“Jake!” she grabbed her chest, eyes wide, and yanked out the earbuds. “Oh my God, how long have you been standing there?”

“Just a minute or so,” he said, and then gave in to the thing he couldn't help but do whenever she was near him. He closed the distance between them, slid his arms around her, and gave her the kind of kiss that made him forget where he was. He could feel her uncertainty when he touched her, just as he felt it melt away as their lips met. By the time he pulled back, Sam's eyes were hazy, a little smile curving her mouth.

“What's all this about?” she asked. “Not that I'm complaining.”

He shrugged, savoring the warmth of her against him. “I was thinking about you.”

“Oh.” She studied him, and he could feel that odd tension wrap itself around them again. What was she thinking? He wished he knew. “You might want to rethink the hugging,” she finally said. “I'm kind of . . . paint-y.”

“I can see that,” he said, though he didn't release her. If he got paint blobs on him, so be it. “When did all this happen?”

Her cheeks flushed. “Not long after I got back, actually. I mean, at first I was pretty sure it was going to be another bust, and I'm definitely a little slower than I was, but as of right now I think maybe . . . maybe I'm back. At least a little.”

Jake looked around at the small and colorful kingdom she seemed to be constructing and nodded. “Not just a little. I don't know art or anything, but these look great.”

“I was going to tell you.” She rushed out the words, and he could hear the defensive edge in her voice. He didn't want her to jump into that mode—she was so prone to doing that where he was concerned.

“I believe you,” he said.

“I just wasn't sure it was going to stick. I've had so many false starts up until now, and it's so embarrassing not to be able to do what I left here to do, what I trained to do, that— Wait. You're not mad?”

“No.” He shifted his head a little, side to side. “I'm not going to pretend I wouldn't have liked to know you were trying again, but I also can't imagine how scary it was to think you'd never paint again. What I do is hard, but it
isn't like this. I can work without having to flip some creative switch. You can't. So no, I'm not mad. I trust you would have told me when you were ready. Of course, now you don't have to, because I'm smart and I figure out everything.”

That got him a smile. “Uh-huh.”

“Is it okay that I'm here?”

She chewed her lip, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. I want you here. Just . . . don't tell anybody else, okay? I'm not there with it yet. I'm not ready.”

I want you here
. She might as well have told him he'd won the lottery. The rush he got was the same.

Still, she was scared. It was the first time she'd really let him see it, and that aching pull he felt in his chest intensified. He'd seen her anger, her hurt. But not the fear. He was struck all over again by the depth of the wounds she'd incurred here. Which made it even more remarkable that he was standing here with Sam in his arms.

Maybe I'm pushing too hard with this weekend.
The thought came out of the blue with a surprising amount of strength. But Jake just as quickly brushed it aside. They both needed this—Sam so she could see that he wanted to show her off to his friends, not hide her, and him so he could find out whether his suspicions about the relative shallowness of his most important friendships were correct. He needed to know. And if there was one surefire way of finding out all at once, this was it.

He and Sam would be accepted as a couple, or he'd be starting over again in some ways just as surely as Sam was. Strangely, the thought didn't cause him as much pain as he might have expected. He'd never really left the Cove—even through college he'd come back more
often than most—but in some ways, he felt as though he was only just starting to see it.

And the things that resonated most deeply with him weren't at all the things he might have expected.

“You should want people to see these,” Jake said softly. “They're
you
, Sam.”

“That's exactly why I'm not sure about showing them here,” she replied with a nervous laugh. “I'm not sure that the Cove is ready for all this
me
.”

“You'll be great,” he said. “Whenever you're ready.”

She looked up at him curiously. “Well. Thanks.” She moved her fingers against his back absently while she thought, the play of them sending pleasant little frissons of sensation over his skin.

“So . . . did you just come in to say hi? I thought you were working today.”

“I am.” He remembered all at once and pulled away, catching her hand in his to tug her toward the door. “I'm on my lunch break. Did you eat? Zoe said I could steal you for a few.”

Sam put on the brakes, though her smile was all pleasure. “I didn't eat, and, yeah, I'd like to, but I'm not going outside like this!”

“Why not? You look cute.”

Her eyebrow arched. “I look like a mess. Let me switch shirts and I'll be right with you.”

He thought of the creamy skin beneath the sweatshirt and forgot about lunch. “Can I help?”

She shoved him out the door, tipped her chin down to give him an exasperated look, and then shut it. “No, because I really am hungry and I know you. Go downstairs. I'll be right there.”

Grinning, Jake turned and headed down.

* * *

This wasn't how she'd planned to tell Jake she was painting again, but since she hadn't actually come up with a real plan anyway, Sam guessed this had worked out as well as anything else.

His easy acceptance was a relief, though the more she thought about it, she shouldn't have been surprised. Against all odds, Jake genuinely seemed to want her for her. Whatever trust deficit she still had, he was on a mission to make up for himself. But then, even as teens, barely knowing her, he'd been able to share himself in a way that she'd been incapable of. She had so many memories of it.

“I'm going to have my own animal hospital here someday,” Jake had said, hands tucked behind his head as they lay talking beneath the branches of their tree, hidden from the world. It was where they always met—his friends weren't interested in sitting in parks, and hers . . . well, she didn't have any friends to speak of, so it worked out fine. Sam watched him, tanned and beautiful and for the moment, hers. She loved to listen to him talk. He chattered easily about all sorts of things. Sometimes she forgot who they were, where they were, and managed to talk just as much as he did. And he always listened, those gold eyes bright with interest, like she was the only girl in the entire world to him.