Page 17

SOUNDTRACK: Oceans Apart by Secret Nation

~ brIDGET ~

The dream was divine. I never wanted to leave.

I shivered when the quilt lifted and fluttered to make room for a big, heavy body that smelled like man and cologne.

The relief when his arm snaked over my waist and hooked around me, pulling me back into the cradle of his larger, stronger body made something deep in my chest break open.

I could breathe again.

“Bridget…” Sam’s breath fluttered against my ear as he held me tightly against his body—his skin was chilled from the night air, but that furnace that burned inside him swallowed it quickly. “Bridget, wake up.”

“I don’t want to.”

He chuckled. “It’ll be worth it, I promise.”

I shook my head. “Nope. I’ll open my eyes and I’ll be so happy, but then you’ll be gone and it will kill me inside.”

“Bridget—”

“I can’t do it, Sam.”

“Bridget, wake up.”

The sound of his voice in the silent room, his breath fluttering against my cheek, startled me. I jerked, but that thick, warm arm tightened around my waist and held me in .

“I… Sam?!” I gasped, turning over in the circle of his arms, tears already welling in my eyes as I strained to see his face in the near pitch-black of my room because I’d pulled the blackout curtains before I went to sleep.

“Hey,” he rumbled, and I felt the vibration of his voice in his chest.

“Sam! What are you doing?!” I cried, throwing my arms around his neck and squeezing him so hard he grunted. But he held me just as tightly, one arm laid up my spine, the other under my head and curled around me to hold me to him. I was a blubbering mess, lips numb and eyes bleary with sleep.

Sam let that hand slip up my back to cup the back of my head, then grip my hair as he grasped me even tighter, then suddenly his mouth was on mine, and nothing else mattered. Not the missing him, not the tears, not the trial—nothing.

I took his kiss like it was air in a vacuum. Grabbing at him, still terrified he was a dream, but reveling in the sensation of his stubble scraping my lips and cheek. I shivered when he graveled my name and his chest buzzed against my nipples. I stopped breathing when he rolled me over and leaned over me, and sighed when he broke the kiss only to pull my head back and dive for my throat.

Tears trickled down my temples and into my hair, but I didn’t care. Sam was here. In my bed. On my body. Loving me.

When he cupped my breast and kneaded it with his calloused palm, I sobbed with joy and hooked both arms around his neck, leaning up as much as his grip on my hair would allow, kissing him like I’d die if I didn’t.

Which was how it felt. When he crawled over me and his thick, promising weight sank between my thighs and pressed me into the mattress, I decided I’d never be complete without his body on mine again.

“Sam… Sam.”

He trembled under my touch. His muscles tightening wherever I touched, his skin pebbling against mine. Then he groaned, deepening the kiss, and flexed his hips, pressing himself against me. My mouth fell open at the sheer joy of having him so close, and he took the kiss deeper, his body rolling, nudging as he sought me and I shook, clinging .

Elbow next to my ear, he still held a fistful of my hair, but we’d both forgotten everything except getting closer. His weight pinned me down from chest to knees, his warmth spread through my bloodstream. We shared a skin.

I’d never felt so desperate and so calm. I didn’t even want him to lift his head—I clung to him, pulling him tightly against me, rocking and sliding with him until he found me and entered me—slowly, rolling into the joining, inching closer, nearer, deeper, until he was pressed against me there too, and I almost sobbed again.

But I couldn’t miss a moment.

Sam was intoxicating—whispering my name, clutching at me, his hands clawing up and down my body as he reassured himself that I was still there just as frantically as I did, filling my arms with his body, my hands with his thick shoulders, my body with him.

And as we moved together, everything became a slow, languid expression of now… and here… and never leave me.

I didn’t think about making his eyes flash, or wanting him to fight not to come. All I could think was closer. He didn’t tease, or edge me. He breathed my name and held me into his kiss, and held himself into my body.

The urgency between us wasn’t the fraught, pounding pursuit of bliss. It was a cherishing.

The Bridget I had been a year ago would have said I was making the most boring, vanilla mental porn ever. But my body sang. Sam stole my breath. And all the emotion and fear of the past couple of months without his touch surged and morphed into sheer elation.

I couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t taste his name enough, couldn’t hold him tightly enough, couldn’t take him deeply enough.

“Sam… oh, God, Sam.”

“I’m here, beautiful.” His voice cracked on the word and my tears surged again, but they were tears of joy. “I’m here. I’m here…”

As his body made mine sing, and his touch made me live again, his words stole my heart.

“I couldn’t wait anymore,” he breathed, then kissed me until I’d forgotten the words, before pulling his head back just far enough to speak against my lips again, our bodies rolling, rippling in time. “Watching you tonight just made you seem further away. I love you, Bridget. You’re scaring the shit out of me because I’m terrified you’re going to hurt yourself. Please… babe, please… I can’t lose you. Please…”

I sobbed when he buried his face under my throat and sucked at the skin there, then grazed it with his teeth like he’d eat me if he could.

I love you, Bridget, he rasped against my ear as his body called to mine.

I need you here, Bridget, he murmured as he dropped one hand down my body and filled his hand—my thigh, my hip, my waist, my breast—describing the softness of my skin and the blaze of fire in him that needed me.

And with every word, and every joining, my body shivered higher, closer to that peak, until I couldn’t even say his name anymore, only hold onto him and follow him, pleading with my eyes and wordless cries.

As he got close, he finally raised his head, elbows braced over my shoulders, his full weight pinning me to the mattress, both hands gripping my hair, and he locked in again—but there was no screen between us this time. No distance. Not even air between our skins. I gasped his name—or tried to—pleading with my eyes that he’d understand he’d left me speechless.

Then he rumbled my name and that darkness in his eyes grew sharp, needing with such ferocity, if it had been anyone but him I would have been afraid. But instead, I only threw myself deeper.

Deeper.

More.

We climbed towards that cliff together and without fanfare, threw each other over the edge.

As my body plummeted into bliss, I sobbed his name, clinging while he roared for me.

When both our bodies stopped twitching, I curled myself into his chest, buried my face under his jaw, and let my tears wet his skin when he collapsed over me.

And he held me.

He truly held me. Like the contact was just as necessary for him as it had suddenly become for me .

I cried into his skin and begged him not to let me go. And he didn’t. Even when he rolled us onto our sides, it was only so he could stroke my hair and whisper his reassurance.

It took a long time for my tears to stop, and my breathing to calm.

By the time I could have spoken, Sam had fallen asleep. And I didn’t mind in the slightest. Because it let me just lay there, one hand flattened on his chest, and stare at the dark, hard lines of him that I could see from my place under his jaw—the thick cord on his neck, the shadow of his collarbone, and the ridges of muscle on his bicep just below my jaw.

I drank in the sight of him, and the warmth of his skin.

And even though I knew this was an awful risk, I thanked God that he’d taken it. Because something inside me healed.

Because his grip never loosened.

He held me as tightly as I held him. Even in his sleep.