Page 14 of The Reward of You

“Worse than that, she was still sending me letters. Like it was some kind of video game or something — completely separate from her real life.”

“Ouch.”

I nod. I’d been devastated at the time, but only the way an eighteen-year-old can be. “I survived. One of the guys in my unit took me out to get drunk when I got back, gave me a lecture on the fickleness of women.” He also took me to a strip joint, but I leave that part out. I didn’t do anything there but stare, anyway. Since I was drunk as a skunk, I saw double of everything, which only added crazy to the whole experience.

“And then?” Noelle prompts me.

“And then a few years later, I met Karen. I was stationed in Japan and she was there teaching English. We dated for about a year but then one of her parents got sick so she headed back to the States. Told me it had never been more than a convenient thing for her, not something she saw going long term. She thought that was what I wanted too.”

“I’m starting to see a common thread here,” Noelle says dryly.

I look at her in surprise. “You do? Beyond me getting dumped out of the blue?”

She nods. “From the way you tell it, you never spoke up for what you wanted. Maybe not so much with the first girl, except by leaving it to the last minute you kinda did. So tell me, Sam, what do youwantnow? With me?”

Blinking, I take in her words. She’s not wrong. “You’re not thinking I have a thing for women that are smarter than me and that’s why they move on?”

Shaking her head, Noelle pinches my earlobe hard. “Stop putting yourself down like that. Education doesn’t equal intelligence and you seem to know plenty anyhow. Now, what do youwant?”

I pick her up and set her down on the vibrating dryer and step between her legs. “I want you. I want a life together with plenty of laughter and doing things with the girls. I want to make your life better somehow, get you to see how perfect you really are. I want to sink my cock into your pussy and watch your eyes cross with bliss, and I want to wake up to your smile every goddamn morning.”

She grins at me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and crossing her ankles behind my thighs. “That’s a pretty awesome list. I have one thing to add to it. I want you to feel loved. The unconditional kind that doesn’t go away and I don’t think that happens if you stay over here and we see each other on the weekend. So…”

I wait impatiently for how she’s planning to solve this conundrum.

“I think you just have to dive in from the deep end. Why don’t you come over every evening for dinner and bring something from here to my house? Then you decide when you leave. Could be after the meal, could be in the morning. Whatever takes your fancy, but you can’t remove anything from my house unless you plan to call us quits. Eventually everything will be over there and you’ll have no reason to come back here or you’ll decide it’s not for you after all.”

The plan has a certain merit. Except… “What about the girls?”

“I think Bea has made her feelings pretty clear already,” I point out dryly.

Sam’s smile is a little wry before he clarifies, “I mean, having a man sleeping over and apparently moving in slowly.”

Sighing, I pull his head down for one reassuring and long kiss. This is Sam being responsible not looking for ways to pull away, I remind myself. Actually, his lips do the reminding. I’m just adding the words to the music.

“I’ll call a family meeting and point out you’re no longer a guest. How’s that?”

His eyebrows wing up.

“Do you want to be there, or would you rather be discussed behind your back?”

His cheeks tinge pink. “I think I’ll skip that one, only because I want them to feel free to say whatever’s on their minds.”

“You’ve met Bea,” I point out.

Sam’s grin goes from ear to ear. “Yeah, okay, I meant Miranda. But Bea could still have a stray thought she hasn’t voiced yet. Maybe only because it hasn’t come to the surface.”

I nod, confident that I’d already be seeing signs of resistance if there were any. “Okay, so you’ll be over for dinner tonight with an item, yes?”

Sam’s nod is slow but definitive. “If you’re absolutely sure about this.”

“I love you, Sam. I’m sure.”

He blinks twice, and then his mouth descends on mine. I lose track of everything except the way his tongue is tangling with mine and his hands are firmly pressing my hips to his. When he finally steps back, he also lifts me off the dryer and sets me on my feet.

“Guess I’d better go have that meeting, huh?”

His nod is firm, but the touch on my shoulder is sweet.

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