Page 38 of Keeping Mr. Sweet

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ASH

Mmmm. Everything aches. Each muscle from the tips of my fingers to the soles of my feet have that delicious stiffness of a good workout after too long away. I can practically feel the individual fibers as I stretch my arms above my head and curl my legs up to the side.

Sam’s no longer beside me. It’s a little too late in the morning for that. He’ll be in the kitchen prepping for breakfast. The man can cook. And fuck. He’s multitalented, that’s for sure. And he wants me to stick around this time. He asked me to stay. He wants me to have his babies. I rub my thighs together as a slight tingle sets up between my legs. They’re still a little sex tacky. Do dreams come true? Because this sort of feels like one.

I lay my hand on my belly and try to imagine having my own little family. What would Sam’s child look like? Would he or she have his eyes? Would they have my nose? Maybe they’d love cooking just like he does. None of it matters because they would be loved.

I try to envisage my mother’s face. It’s a lot like mine, or so I’ve been led to believe. There were never any pictures of her at Durum House, as far as I can remember. And no one talked about her either, except to explain away the man my father became after she passed. I just wish I had something of her; a photograph or an old letter she sprayed with her perfume. Anything that told me something about her, some detail. Anything that made her real. Did she have the same eyes as me? The same smile? Perhaps even the same cheek and jaw structure? I can almost picture it. But maybe, I don’t want her to be real at all. Perhaps having that connection with her would make not having had her in my life even more painful. Things would have been so different. My father...maybe I would know the wonderful man everyone says Robert Durum once was.

“Hey,” Sam says softly as he enters the room. “Are you awake yet?”

“Just lingering,” I tell him, opening my eyes. I roll to face him and push my sweat mussed hair out of my face. “Hope that’s okay. I was going to come down soon.”

“That’s quite all right.” Smiling, he toes off his shoes, one after the other. Then he crosses the room while he drags his T-shirt over his head.

I love his body. The thick ropes of muscle in his arms and across the top of his shoulders, and the way they cord at his neck are a particular favorite. Capable, hard, and yet when he puts them around me they’ve always felt like a safe harbor, or a soft place to land. If I could pick my favorite place in all the world, out of everywhere I’ve been, I’d choose them.

“It’s abnormally cold out so it’s more than likely going to be a slower breakfast shift than usual. And Ru’s in.” His eyes light up with warmth. “I thought we might spend it together.”

I sit up a little, leaning on my elbow as he stops to undo the fly on his pants and take them off. “You’re coming back to bed?”

“Unless there’s something else you’d rather do.” He drapes his clothes over the stool.

Not even the overcast sky and the thin patches of rain that are visible can put a dent in my mood while he looks at me like last night was just the prelude. I sit up properly, holding the thick covers to my chest. “Maybe, I could have a shower first.”

“All right,” he says, as he covers the distance to my side of the bed and hoists me into his arms. “Let’s get you wet.”

I tease at his chest hair and press my lips to the scar on his shoulder—the one that’s an inch from his neck and that he got from falling out of a tree—as he carries me to the bathroom. “You’re already halfway there.”

“Am I?” He smirks, his fingers caressing my bare hip, drifting in longer and further strokes toward the inside of my thigh. “Only halfway?”

“Mmmhmm.” I press my lips together and nod.

“Seems to me, you might be trying too hard to keep your legs together,” he says, his gaze full of heat as he sets me on my feet and leans closer, so he can reach around me to turn the water on. “I think you should open them for me.”

I almost fall in my haste to step out and give him access. The shower door groans and squeaks as we lean against it. A deliciously wicked smile curves his lips as he spreads my flesh with his fingers and teases my clit until I moan for him. His lips find my ear and bite gently at my earlobe, making my brain fire off pleasure all over my body that has me clinging to him to keep upright.

Picking me up, he steps into the shower, getting us both wet in the process. Water beads on his scruffy jaw and runs down the muscles of his throat in rivulets. He presses me against the shower wall, and I kiss his throat while he lifts and cages my hands above my head. His impossibly blue eyes hold me trapped. I capture the hard way he swallows as I flick my gaze to his lips. The corners of his eyes crinkle a little and then those lines smooth out as he grips my jaw and kisses me.

I kiss him back, our lips moving against each other, our teeth biting at supple flesh, our tongues thrusting and parrying until we’re both wound tight and begging each other for more.

I grip his hips with my thighs, my feet locked at his back as he takes his erection in hand and pushes inside me. I don’t know how I survived not being his. I couldn’t endure watching him share his life with someone else. Not for a summer, a week, or a heartbeat. How did I ever think I could let go?

Closing my eyes, I revel in the feel of him inside me, his lips on my neck and my shoulder and my chest. His teeth tease first one nipple and then the other while he eases in and out of me in a way that is more than just fucking because we need the release. It’s almost painful how sweet it is. My insides start to tighten as pleasure seeps through me, filling me until I almost can’t stand it. He’s my always, my forever, but I’m afraid. Forever isn’t that long for most of us.

“Open your eyes,” he says, his voice low and rough. “I want you here with me. I want to know that you’re with me, Ash.”

The way he’s looking at me is everything. It’s warm and gentle, and aroused as hell, and like I’m something far more special than I really am. I whimper as he pulls me over the edge into a headlong spiral of an orgasm that leaves my insides shaky. He buries his face in my neck as he pistons into me a few more times, finding his own release.

I rest against the tiles, his chest pressed to mine. My arms are flung around his neck, his hands are on my hips. This is probably the closest to heaven that I’ll ever manage to be. I should savor it for as long as I can. “I am. I’m with you.”

***

My boots crunch on the loose gravel. It’s been years since I’ve had a cigarette, but today I miss the sensation of one of those slim cancer sticks between my fingers. I miss the action of lifting it to my lips, sucking back and just for a second feeling some of the tension inside me melt away. There’s no way I’m going to bum one from the guy who washes dishes though. Sam would have a coronary.

A flurry of leaves and dust pick up a few yards away. Overhead dark clouds are brewing in a cyclonic pattern. Fluffy little gray bastards. I hug my arms around myself, gripping my phone and pulling my coat tighter at the lapels. I don’t know why I hoped my birthday would mean there was more of a chance of my father answering my call.

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