Stranger

“It can’t be nothing,” I said. “You’re looking at me funny.”

“Am I?” He sat up a little but didn’t take his hand from my thigh. He crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. “Was it like this?”

I burst into laugher. “Not quite.”

“Ah, good.” Sam nodded and leaned to catch my mouth in another kiss, speaking without taking his lips from mine. “That would have been embarrassing.”

Then he laid me back onto that big, soft bed and proceeded to kiss me breathless. His hand stayed on my thigh, sometimes slipping down closer to my knee and moving up again, but though his fingers occasionally brushed the lace of my panties, he never actually touched me there. He didn’t lie on top of me, either, squooshing, but kept his weight to the side. Nothing was going quite as I’d expected…but wasn’t that what I wanted? To be surprised?

He kissed me fast. He kissed me slow. He nibbled and nuzzled and licked, and all the while his hand stayed in its maddening position so close to where I wanted it, but never quite making it there.

“Sam,” I whispered finally, hoarsely, unable to take it any longer.

He paused in kissing me to look into my eyes. “Yes, Grace?”

“You’re killing me.”

He smiled. “Am I?”

I nodded and slid a hand between us to tug on his belt buckle. “You are.”

His hand inched higher. “Can I make it up to you?”

I unhooked the buckle. “I think so. Maybe.”

He turned his hand as he moved it. When he touched me, finally, the heel of his palm pressed flat to my cunt, and my mouth parted in a gasp I didn’t bother to try to keep silent.

“How’m I doing so far?” he asked, his head bent so his mouth brushed my cheek.

“Good. Very…good.” Speaking took the effort of concentration I found difficult with his hand on me. So far he’d done no more than press against me. Hadn’t even rubbed. But primed by the long, slow minutes of kissing and the hours of mental foreplay I’d gone through already, my body was more than ready for him.

His lips slipped down my neck to center over the pulse in my throat. Sam sucked, gently, then took the skin between his teeth. The bite didn’t hurt, but it did send sensation ripping through me. I arched beneath him. My hands found the back of his head, the smooth silk of his hair, and I wound my fingers in it. Pressing him to me, keeping his mouth there while he sucked my skin. I would bruise. I couldn’t, just then, care.

“I like the way you say my name,” he murmured. His tongue slid along the place where he’d left his mark. “Say it again.”

“Sam.” I breathed it.

I heard the smile in his voice when he spoke again. “I am.”

Then we were laughing again, until he took his hand from between my legs and used it to tug open the buttons on my blouse, one at a time. Then I stopped laughing, too breathless to do more than sigh. He eased open my shirt. He pushed himself up on one elbow and folded back the material to show my bra. His fingers traced the lacy edges over the tops of my breasts.

My nipples had gone tight, hard, aching. When Sam’s thumb passed over one, I sucked in a breath. I watched his face as he looked down at me. When he bent to kiss my exposed skin, I bit my lower lip. My body moved beneath him.

Sam sat up. He shrugged out of his leather jacket and pulled his shirt off over his head, leaving his hair standing up all over the place. His body was as long and lean as his legs. He knelt beside me, one hand rubbing his chest almost absently. His other hand toyed with the open belt buckle, then the button beneath. He undid it, but left the zipper alone.

I watched him, enjoying the show. “Are you going to take those off?”

Sam nodded, solemn. “Absolutely.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Tonight?”

Sam laughed. “Yes.”

I slid one stocking-clad foot up over his thigh and rubbed the front of his jeans. “Are you shy?”

Sam’s hips pushed forward at the touch of my foot, and his mouth parted. His hand paused in its rubbing, fingers going flat over his heart. “Maybe. A little.”

Holy hell, that was hot. I didn’t believe him, really. He hadn’t acted shy anytime tonight. “Want me to go first?”

Sam’s grin melted me. “Okay.”

I got off the bed to make it easier for myself. Without my shoes on, I was face-to-chest with him—not a bad view at all. Sam’s bare chest was smooth and muscled, with a hint of six-pack abs but nothing overdefined. I took a couple steps back. My shirt hung open, courtesy of his unbuttoning. I took my time sliding the fabric from one arm, then the other. I tossed the shirt onto the chair. Sam’s eyes didn’t even follow it. They stayed on me.

I’d chosen my skirt for the ease of getting it off, but though it would have taken me but a second to unhook and unzip it, I took much longer than that. Never taking my eyes from his, I slipped open the button at my hip. A second later I unzipped, inch by slow inch. Then I slid the fabric over my hips and let the skirt fall to the floor in a puddle at my feet. I stepped out of it and hooked it out of the way with my foot. I stood before Sam in my white lace bra and matching panties, in the wispy garter belt and nude, seamed stockings.

The look on his face had made every second worth it.

I would never win any beauty contests. Too many bulges in places I wanted to be flat, too little curve in places I wanted to be round. I also knew that really didn’t matter. Not really, not to most men.

Sam didn’t appear to have any shields on his expression. His pupils had gone large and dark, nearly swallowing the green-blue. His lips glistened from where he’d swiped his tongue. “…Wow.”

The compliment was all the nicer because it sounded so sincere. “Thank you.”

He didn’t move. One hand still pressed over his heart, the other hooked into the front of his jeans. He looked at me, his mouth pulling up on one side. “My turn, huh?”

“Your turn, Sam.”

“God,” Sam said. “I love the way that sounds.”

“Sam,” I whispered, stepping toward him. “Sam, Sam, Sam.”

I’d heard of kinkier fetishes, but he said he liked it, and…hell, I liked it, too. There was something sweet and sexy about the name. About him. The way each time the word purred from my tongue his smile twitched broader.

I reached for the front of his jeans. The metal button and zipper were cool compared to the heat coming through the denim. My heart skipped a little when my fingers traced the outline of his erection. He groaned. I wanted to get on my knees at that sound, but I didn’t.

I looked up at him, instead. Way, way up. I tugged open the button. Click-clicked down the zipper. Always watching his face, not his crotch. Sam hadn’t moved his hand from his chest, though his fingers tightened a bit on his skin. The pulse leaped in his throat, and a muscle in his cheek twitched. His smile had thinned. He reached to push the hair off my face.

I hooked my fingers in the denim at his hips and pushed. It didn’t snag. He’d worn a belt for more than just fashion, and the jeans were loose enough I had no trouble sliding them down. He moved a little, helping me. Our gazes never left each other’s as I bent to push his jeans all the way to his ankles and waited while he lifted one foot, then the other, to pull them off. I stood then, swiftly, running my hands along his endlessly long legs as I did.

I couldn’t look at his crotch.

I didn’t know why I had suddenly become shy. I wasn’t a stranger to bulging boxers. Something in his face stopped me.

There is always a moment when the final barrier has to come down.

“Sam?”

He nodded. He stopped holding his heart and reached for me, instead. He bent, I stretched, and we met somehow in the middle with our mouths.