ReCAP: A NORMAL Novella (13 page)

That
motherfucker!

I jump over the table, pushing an empty
chair out of my way, and grab the fucking moron by his shirt,
shoving him up against the wall behind him.

My blood is on fire, every muscle tense with
rage.

How
dare
he talk about Rory like
that,
again
?! I
fucking warned him!

She's been through enough!
And I will
not
have this goddamned idiot, who's supposed to be my fucking
friend, insulting my girl.

No fucking way.

"I told you to show her some fucking
respect!" He wanted to know if I roar? Well now he's hearing me
fucking roar! I am heaving with fury, and I need to let it out.

Vaguely I hear Tucker say my name, but he's
so far in the background he may as well not exist.

"Dude, I was just fucking kidding. She can
take a damn joke!" Dave says in his own pathetic defense.

But he barely even knows Rory. How dare he
presume what kind of joke she can and can't take? He could send her
into a panic! I won't have him hurting her, not in any fucking
way.

I tremble with anger, my rage flowing
through each limb, back and forth and back again, with no outlet,
except the one in front of me.

I need to teach this fucker a lesson.

Tucker says something
else, I think, but the time for words is over. This time, Dave will
fucking heed my warning. My jaw clenches shut, and my hand fists
and rears back…

"Sam!"

I freeze.

Her voice slips through the fog of rage
clouding my mind, making me take pause. I open my fist, and my arm
falls limply to my side, but the other doesn't release Dave. Fuck,
I was about to knock him the fuck out.

I take a deep breath, and the anger
dissipates marginally.

"You
will
watch how you fucking talk
about her." I tell him, but I don't bother taking in the fearful
expression on the face of someone who is supposed to be my
friend.

I need to calm the fuck down. Because Rory's
seen enough violence in her life. I can't be another loose cannon.
I need to get the fuck out of here.

I stalk off, taking deep breaths as I go. I
make my way to the elevator bank, and when I catch sight of the
red-faced, tense muscled man in the mirror, I finally realize that
I made a mistake.

Rory thinks she's the one who's fucked up,
but look at me.

I make my way to my hotel
room, drowning in shame. I hate that she saw me lose it like that.
I feel only the smallest guilt for Dave, because he's a guy, he can
take it, and frankly, I'm still not sure he didn't deserve it. But
it's me – my relationship with Rory, even if no one actually knows
the true extent of it – that gave Dave his opening to target her
for another one of his juvenile fucking jokes.

I sit on my hotel room
balcony, just watching the ocean. This is what I'm supposed to do
when I get angry – walk away, take some time for myself, calm down
and think. Dr. Schall's voice lectures me inside my head, and I
tell him to go fuck himself.

I calm down eventually,
but anger has always been like a high for me, and the comedown
always brings a kind of melancholy. I fixate on the negatives. On
Rory's past, on my flaws – the violence I have in common with her
ex. Because even though I know without even a whisper of a doubt
that I would never lay a hand on her, on any girl, I wonder if she
drew a connection between the two of us at seeing me lose it like
that.

It's times like this that I remind myself of
my own father, except even he only ever stooped to violence when he
was drunk, and only rarely, and I don't even have that excuse. I
wallow in self-loathing, because I love Rory. I love her, but I
don't deserve her.

"Sam."

I hide my startle, not moving so much as a
muscle.

"Sorry about that,
Ror-
y
". Fuck, now
all I hear is Dave's stupid joke at the sound of her nickname. "I
just need a few minutes, okay?" I don't want her to see me like
this.

"Yeah, okay," she murmurs
dejectedly, and I hate the tone in her perfect voice. She makes to
leave, but turns back, and I watch her cautiously out of the corner
of my eye, terrified of her judgment. "But… don't just stop calling
me 'Ror' because of some stupid comment Dave made,
okay?"

I finally turn to her, and she takes a step
toward me instead of away from me.

"It pissed me off that he
said that about you," I admit what she already knows. I hate the
idea of a guy disrespecting her… or worse. "That douchebag in the
elevator pissed me of too," I add. Because I'd also wanted to
hit
him
. He also
deserved it.

Rory nods. "I know. But you do know Dave is
just an idiot. That he means no harm, right?" Her voice is sweet
and gentle. Of course I know that. I think I knew that even when I
was about to slam my fist into his jaw. But his intentions mattered
very little to me in that moment, only the fact that he might have
upset Rory mattered at all.

"I almost hit him," I mutter.

"But you didn't," she reminds me.

I take a deep breath. She
doesn't get it. "But I wanted to... I'm no different than
him
."

She needs to understand who I am.

"Than who?" she asks, but
I don't answer. "Sam, you're
nothing
like him," Rory says
meaningfully. "So you got pissed off and wanted to hit someone?
That happens to everyone. You didn't
do
it."

"But I
wanted
to," I say again. Just
because I stopped myself – or rather, Rory stopped me – doesn't
mean I'm any different than any other violent asshole, including
the one who hurt
her
.

Rory covers the small
distance still between us and reaches up to stroke my jaw. It's
affectionate and sweet, and it speaks right to the fullness in my
chest – the love. I want to pull her into my arms. I want to taste
her incredible mouth again. I want to be as close to her as
possibly, always. Her touch calms me.

"But you
didn't
," she repeats. "Violence is
a choice. Like survival, remember? Everyone has those impulses when
they get angry, just like we have the impulse to give up when
we're, you know, hurting."

Rory's using my own logic
against me. Because this morning, when I tried to tell her how
remarkable she was, and she said she was only surviving, that there
was no other choice, I couldn't help but think of Bits, and
the
other choice
she tried to make last summer.

"You made the right
choice, Sam. You're a good man. Nothing like
him
.
I
know the difference, Sam, trust me," she says intently.

And maybe she's right. Even if she was the
only reason I didn't hit him. I didn't hit him, and that's got to
count for something, right?

I grab the hand that's still touching my
jaw, and press it to my cheek, turning into her soft touch before
pressing a kiss to her palm. She never ceases to amaze me.

I gaze down at her, unable to think of
anything other than her beauty, both inside and out, and I trace
the delicate line of her jaw, brushing my fingers up her cheek and
into her loose hair, messy from our afternoon on the beach.

"I'm sorry I overreacted," I tell her.

But she shakes her head. "Don't apologize to
me. You didn't do anything to me. You were just being protective,
and honestly, I'm grateful. For a long time I needed that, and I
didn't have it. But Dave isn't a threat to either of us, you know
that."

I nod. "I know. You're right. Of course
you're right." It was a protective instinct that launched me at
Dave. I didn't just want to hurt him. I wanted to protect Rory from
his big mouth. But she's right, it wasn't rational. It wasn't the
right response, but that doesn't mean it didn't come from the right
place, and for the first time, I think maybe that's what really
matters. But it doesn't mean my behavior is excusable either.

"It's my fault," Rory
murmurs, "for dumping all my crap on you earlier. It rattled you,
I'm sorry. I'm so used to it that I forget how crazy it all was
and—“

"Stop it, Ror. Never be
sorry for talking to me. I
want
you to talk to me," I insist. She's right, her
story did rattle me, how could it not? But my behavior is not her
fault. I am responsible for my own damn actions. And I won't have
her feel as if she needs to hold back from telling me things
because I can't control myself. I want her to feel like she can
tell me anything. She
can
tell me anything.

My fingers continue to comb through her
hair, and I just stare down at her, completely riveted.

"And I want you… to kiss
me," she whispers.

Fuck,
yes
.

I kiss her like I've been
starving for it all day – all my fucking
life
. And I have. Because I was
right not to believe in love before. It didn't exist. Not until the
day she walked into my life. And now, it's all I can think of, all
I can feel. It's in the ocean breeze that wafts around us, in the
intense slide of our tongues, in each heavy breath that passes
between us.

It doesn't even matter that I can't say the
words. It's so much more than words, and I tell her with every
brush of my fingers on her skin, every slide of our lips, every
stroke of our tongues.

Her fingers grip my hair, and I groan at her
desperation. I need her. I need to show her how I feel about her,
and there's only one way I can think of to do that.

My hands slide from her perfectly flat, bare
stomach to her soft thighs and I grab her, lifting her, and she
wraps her legs around my waist.

Yes
.

She kisses me with equal intensity, and I
know she wants the same thing I do. She wanted it this morning, and
if Tucker hadn't interrupted us, she'd have gotten it.

She has a way of obliterating any restraint
I might possess, and her lust for me is the biggest fucking
turn-on.

I move us through the suite, into the
bedroom, because as much as I want to set her down on the first
convenient surface we pass, Rory deserves a goddamned bed. She
deserves to be fucking worshipped.

The door slams open and I barely even hear
it, the blood rushing in my ears muffles anything but her soft
moans and heavy breathing.

I have to get a grip, though, because I want
to take my time, to make her feel as fucking incredible as she
makes me feel every time I look at her, and if I don't slow this
down, it will be over in a few minutes.

I lay her gently onto the mattress, unable
to bring myself to pull my mouth from hers. I feel her fingers at
the hem of my shirt and I pull back just enough to let her get it
off me. I take the moment we're apart to make sure this is what she
wants. Because whatever happens right now, I won't be able to live
with myself if she regrets it afterward.

"You sure about this, Ror?" I ask her.

She nods fiercely, and it's impossible to
doubt her. Her eyes are fervent and amorous, and the way she looks
at my shirtless form almost makes me lose control.

Calm the fuck down,
Cap
.

"You know what to say if
you change your mind?" I ask, reminding her that she has our safe
word. That it's all-powerful, and just it's softest utterance will
stop me dead in my tracks, no matter how badly I need
her.

She nods, but it's not enough. I need
certainty. I need her to know that this is her call, and that it's
going to stay her call.

"Say it. Say the word," I demand, but my
hands slide over her stomach, addicted to her soft, tight skin.

"
Calculus
," she breathes, and I
smile in approval.

My eyes rake the perfection before me, and I
can't help but think of how lucky I am, how I don't deserve this,
but that no man ever really could.

My mouth crashes back to hers, needing a
constant connection, and I drag my mouth across her jaw and down
the soft skin of her neck. She tastes amazing. I could completely
consume her.

"
Oh God
," she breathes.

Well,
fuck
. I've never heard a hotter
sound. I grin with unimaginable pride.
I'm
doing this to her.
I'm
turning her on this
way. It's the headiest feeling in the world.

"Just so you know," I tell her, "'stop',
'no', or any other variant will also work. Any time, no matter
what, okay baby?" Because as much as it feels like I couldn't stop
if I wanted to, I know I could. I would. If she gave the slightest
implication this wasn't what she wanted, I would endure any amount
of torture to give her what she wants, whatever that might be.

She sighs the sexiest fucking sound, and my
dick jumps in my shorts. I press my lips to her collarbone and
finally press my hand to those round, plump tits I've fantasized
about touching for months. I resent the fabric between us, and I
reach around to undo the knot of her swimsuit top.

"I think you wore this bathing suit to
torment me," I growl. "To punish me for stopping it last night."
She had to know it would drive me crazy all day seeing her in
something so damn sexy. She can be a devious little thing, it turns
out, and I make a mental note to remember that. She's been
torturing me all day with this little body of hers, and I love that
she's confident enough to know the effect it would have on me.