Samantha darling Read online

  I rolled my eyes certain that every girl he’d delivered those words to in that manner thought they could change his mind and make him fall in love with them. But I didn’t say anything because technically he was telling the truth and shouldn’t be held responsible for unsolicited feelings. Mine included.

  “That’s fair. I accept the disclaimer.”

  “I’m going to start slow.”

  My heart unevenly beat as I watched Wes take off his hat and adjust his hair. He pushed mine away from my face, leaned in, and breathed on my neck. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound, feeling the heat of his closeness warm my skin. “You can touch me.” My arms had been limp at my sides. “Practice requires participation, Samantha darling, and good kissing isn’t only about what you do with your tongue.”

  I awkwardly placed my hands on Wes’s arms, near his shoulders, making him smile. I was sure it was because locating my hands at ten and two wasn’t what he’d had in mind, so I slid my fingers into his hair and gently fondled the dark locks as he placed a few slow kisses on my neck, making my brain dizzy.

  “Good,” he breathed, then took my hands and placed them on his hips. “Don’t overthink, just let it happen.”

  Our mouths met twice before his tongue gently brushed against my lips. The sensation stung me, sending a small electrical vibration through my body. I felt as if I were the inside of a bell that had just been rung. When my tongue touched Wes’s mouth, his lips parted and allowed it inside. Pulse racing, my fingers tightened, drawing in against his hips as our tongues softly united over and over again.

  Wes pulled me tighter to him and slowly deepened the kiss. I felt it everywhere in my body. My breath hollowed, my frame relaxed, and I paid attention to every move he made, enjoying the cool feel of his mouth on mine. His hands slowly traveled upward, skimming my hips and lingering around my waist, then both hands were inside of my shirt. I flushed the second his fingers touched bare skin. I’d thought that he was going to teach me how to get a guy to kiss me the way I wanted him to, but it seemed Wes was just going to kiss me the way he wanted to, which seemed so much better than the other thing at the moment. He cupped my breasts outside of my bra, gently squeezing. I exhaled, feeling like I was going to break into a million pieces because I was so turned on. Apparently, Wes felt the same way. I wrapped my arms around his waist and flattened my body against his, welcoming the pressure of his erection against my belly.

  “Bad girl,” he whispered.

  Instinctively, I took a step back, breaking the kiss.

  “If the same thing doesn’t happen when you kiss Charlie, just know that there’s something seriously wrong with him.” Wes secured his hands to my hips, pulled me closer, and kissed me again, overwhelming my head with thoughts I’d never had, and my body with feelings I’d never experienced. My skin started to overheat as the pressure of him increased against me. It was too much. I heard myself moan, and then Wes broke away from me, breathing out as if he were in agony, and I kind of understood.

  I was fascinated that he’d gotten an erection from kissing me and couldn’t stop staring at the bulge in his shorts.

  “Does it hurt?” It looked like it might.

  “A little.” He reached out and unlocked the bathroom door. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

  “You’re kicking me out?”

  Wes’s eyes were bright, awestruck, as he smiled at me. “Don’t take it personally, Samantha darling. I actually can’t believe you haven’t done that before, but you have to go, so I can fix this.” He pointed to his crotch.

  “How are you going to fix it?”

  “Manually.”

  I jarred, making him smile wider, then I locked the door and propped myself against the vanity top.

  “You should go.”

  “I’m staying,” I said, although I wasn’t certain it was a good idea.

  Wes unzipped his shorts and reached for a bottle behind me. He squirted lotion into his palm and smeared it onto himself. “Aren’t you going to look?”

  I shook my head no. Now that I could, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

  As Wes slowly tugged at the flesh in his hand, his eyes remained focused on mine. It was the oddest, sexiest, most awkward situation that I’d ever been in. He leaned forward, exhaling when our mouths met, as if he were relieved. The kiss was gentle, but determined. His breath became clipped as his rhythm accelerated. I moved my mouth to his neck, sucking the skin into my mouth and letting my tongue roll over it. He placed his empty hand back inside of my shirt, on my breast, and returned his mouth to mine. My hands cupped his neck, feeling it flair as the blood vessels widened and his breath quickened.

  He abruptly broke the kiss, exhaled noisily, and stopped moving for a second before snatching a hand towel from the wrought iron bar on the wall and turning on the faucet. I peeked at him then, watching as his erection wilted. He washed his hands, and then wetted a corner of the towel, cleaned himself, and zipped back up.

  “You okay?” he asked, not looking directly at me.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, turning off the smitten little girl I’d become with him, and cranking back up the angst in me.

  “Things went further than planned. Stripping away the layers of your innocence can feel weird.”

  “I don’t feel weird,” I said harshly, annoyed that he kept bringing up my innocence.

  “Are you going back downstairs or do you want me to walk you home?”

  “Walk me home?” I snickered. “Seeing your dick didn’t traumatize me, Wes.” And it hadn’t, but it was something that I would never forget because it was the first one I’d seen in person. The health book illustrations had nothing on the real life version since it was in flesh and not ink.

  He stuck his tongue in his cheek, fighting a smile. “Okay.”

  A few minutes after Wes left, I ambled back down to the party.

  “She returns!” Austin announced. “I thought you left.”

  I shook my head no.

  “Looks like Big Daddy Wes has left another one speechless, Ladies and Gentlemen.”

  Charlotte cringed. “Please tell me you didn’t let my brother charm you into doing something stupid with him.”

  Austin butted in before I could answer. “Next time—me and you.”

  “Quit being such a creeper, Austin,” Charlotte chided, swatting him across the chest with the back of her hand.

  “Quit being such a cock blocker, Harlot.”

  Charlotte shot him a bird. She had long skinny fingers like Wes, so it was the kind of bird people could really take offense to.

  “That’s it! Shit between us has been brewing for years. Tonight your ass is mine.” Austin picked up Charlotte and threw her over his shoulder.

  “What about the game?” someone asked.

  “Game’s over,” Austin called. “Go home.”

  Charlotte giggled, appearing hysterically happy that she was about to get what she wanted, and waved goodbye to me as Austin carried her out of sight.

  16

  I exited Austin’s house and saw Wes jumping into a convertible with a few other people. As I walked toward home, I heard the car approaching from behind me and hoped it wouldn’t stop.

  “Hey, I thought you were staying,” Wes called to me.

  I stopped walking and turned toward them, trying to keep Wes and the girl in the backseat with him out of focus. “Charlotte’s with Austin, so…”

  “Poor Austin.” The driver laughed. “He has no idea what he’s in for.”

  “Still don’t need to know what screwing my sister is like,” Wes complained to him, and then looked at me. “You gonna be okay getting home?”

  “I’m one street over. I think I can manage.” My tone was so sharp that it could have cut him.

  “She looks capable. Let’s go.” The girl beside Wes placed her hand on his thigh and leaned into him, making me feel like I’d been punched in the chest.

  I commenced walking and as they sped away, I became so na
useated that I thought I would vomit. I’d volunteered myself to be jerk off material.

  I felt so… weird.

  I wished Wes hadn’t put that word in my head. Hadn’t told me I may feel this way. It had been a while since I’d really cried and knew it was coming. Trying to fight it, I held my breath in hope of keeping my body from allowing a stupid feeling to overwhelm me, but it didn’t work.

  I hated crying. I hated feeling weak and worn down. I wiped my face with the backs of my hands and ran the rest of the way home. I let myself into the house and made it halfway up the stairs before I heard my dad.

  “Sam? Everything okay?”

  “Fine! Just tired,” I called, hoping I’d sounded convincing enough for him to not come check.

  Just when I thought I’d successfully dodged him, because a good half hour had passed, Dad knocked on my door.

  “I told you I’m fine!” I shouted, hoping he’d go away, but he entered my room anyway.

  “You have a visitor.”

  After shaking off the shock of seeing Wes Cohen in my bedroom, Dad surprisingly left us alone, which was even more shocking. As Wes closed the door, I rolled over, away from him, trying to hide all signs that I’d been crying.

  The mattress dipped behind me and Wes’s arm curved over my waist. He pressed his body against mine and nestled his face into the crook of my neck. I’d never felt anything so amazing.

  “I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have done that to you.”

  “Like I said, not traumatized.”

  “That’s not what I mean, Sam, and you know it.”

  He’d used me. That’s what he was sorry for. I turned toward him and moved his hair away from his eyes so that I could see them clearly. “I feel weird,” I reluctantly admitted.

  “I thought you might.” He cupped my neck as his thumb traced my jawline. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I wanted to stay. It was my choice. I feel weird because I liked it, which is completely gross of me. I’m more of a freak than I thought.”

  “You’re not a freak. Being sexual isn’t gross. It’s just new for you. That feeling will go away as you become more practiced.”

  “Are you offering?” I asked softly.

  “You know I can’t.”

  “Because of the bad experience?”

  Wes looked deeply at me. “I could show you things, but I don’t want to confuse you. I can never be more than your friend.”

  “I understood the disclaimer, Wes.”

  “Understanding it is one thing, but new emotions aren’t easy to control. I can be physical and not feel anything—not become attached. I’m not sure you could do that. It was obvious that you didn’t like seeing me with Kelsey tonight after I’d been with you.”

  “I don’t give a shit about Kelsey. You must not either, since you ditched her to come see me.”

  “I didn’t ditch her. I put her on hold so that I could apologize to you. My conscious wouldn’t let me move on until I had, which is something that’s never happened to me before. But I’m going back to her when I leave here.”

  The thought of that—what he was insinuating they were going to do—made me a little upset, but I couldn’t let it show, so I said, “You should remember the reason I let you kiss me in the first place.”

  Wes’s eyes flashed to mine, his lips formed a smirk. “Charlie,” he said slowly, as if he’d forgotten that Charlie existed, which was funny to me.

  “You should get back to Kelsey. It’s not nice to keep a girl waiting. Even one as unattractive and flat chested as her.”

  Laughter piped from Wes’s throat.

  “When you’re with her later, try not to think of me.”

  Still smiling, Wes said, “I believe I may have completely misjudged you, Samantha darling.”

  Before we could say anything else, Dad knocked on the door seconds before opening it. Wes and I quickly sat up on opposite sides of the bed looking extremely guilty.

  “Everything okay in here?” Dad asked.

  “Um, yeah. We were just talking.”

  “I should go,” Wes said, standing up. “Thanks for letting me see Sam. I think we worked everything out.”

  “Looks like it,” Dad said, eyeing my crumbled bedding.

  Wes turned and smiled at me before slipping out of my room, and my god, he was beautiful.

  “What was that about?” Dad asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “He was in your bed.”

  “It’s not a big deal.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. I liked Wes more than anyone I’d ever met.

  “You seem to know enough to roll around the bed with him.”

  “We weren’t rolling around the bed. We were talking.”

  “About?”

  “Since when are you so nosy?”

  “Since my daughter had a boy in her bed.”

  “It wasn’t even like that. Wes kissed me earlier as part of a game we were playing at Austin’s. He wanted to make sure I was okay. I don’t think it’s ever going to happen again.”

  “Do you want it to?”

  I sighed, not wanting to have this conversation. “Good night, Dad.” I rolled over in bed and covered myself. He turned off the light and left the room.

  17

  M ost mornings Ellen hung around the kitchen while I ate breakfast, and we would talk about random things. Or, in this case, not so random things.

  “You’ve been hanging out with Wes a lot,” she said, straitening the labels of a few canned goods in the pantry.

  “I thought I’d be spending more time with Charlotte, but since she’s started dating Austin, she’s not around much.” The two of them had become inseparable, according to Wes. I figured that was true since I hadn’t seen her in days. “Wes and I are just going to be friends.”

  “You don’t sound too enthusiastic about that.”

  “It’s not that I’m not enthused…”

  “I understand, kid.”

  “Speaking of kids, do you have any?” I’d never thought to ask about her family before.

  “Grown and gone. I’ve got four grandchildren. The little bastards drive me nuts sometimes, but I love ‘em to pieces.”

  “I think most kids go through an asshole phase.”

  “Most adults, too.” Ellen grinned.

  “How long have you been a domestic engineer?”

  “All of my adult life. I started the moment I said I do to my husband, Ron, forty-six years ago. I was seventeen and had no clue what I was gettin’ myself into.”

  “Hopefully in a good way.”

  “Oh, yes. The wedding night was a real disappointment though. Mother had told me to wait until marriage because experiencing sex for the first time with the man I’d chosen to spend my life with would be beautiful. She lied. It hurt, and was over in about three minutes. But most first times are like that. Quick and clumsy.”

  “How much does it hurt?” I asked.

  Thankfully, Ellen didn’t flinch at the question. “Well, there are several factors. His size, your excitement level—if you know what I mean.” She glanced at me and it was clear that I did not know what she meant. “I’d just say to make sure there’s lots of foreplay before the big event. It took Ron and me a while, but we got the hang of it after a dozen or so times.”

  “A dozen?” I gulped.

  “You’re not good at everything the first try, now are you, girl?”

  “I guess not.”

  “You’ve got to get used to one another, get in sync, if you will.” After a beat, Ellen asked, “Are you planning something?”

  I shook my head. “Just curious.”

  “Well, don’t consult romance novels for tips, and use a condom.”

  I snickered, but figured her advice was dead on.

  I heard Betty’s voice getting closer. By the time she’d reached the kitchen, she was ending a call. She dropped her phone onto the counter and exhaled loudly.

  “Can
I get you anything?” Ellen asked.

  Betty waved her hand, as if asking Ellen to ignore her. “I’m dealing with a supremely stubborn man on this deal. It’s very frustrating. Like talking to a wall. I need to get out and do a little shopping. Would you like to join me, Sam?”

  The invite surprised me. And no, I did not want to join her. “The clothes around here are too expensive for me.”

  “We can go wherever you’d like. To a thrift store, maybe?”

  “You’d go to a thrift store?”

  “I shopped at thrift stores when I was your age. And beyond.”

  Ellen gave me a look that told me not to be a turd and accept Betty’s invitation, so I did.

  “We’ll go whenever you’re ready, and maybe have lunch at the club after,” Betty said, making it worse.

  I rolled my eyes. Ellen saw, pointed her finger at me, and flashed the don’t be a turd look again.

  Betty and I had to leave the island to find a thrift store. Her phone concierge found three within an hour’s drive. I opted for the closest one.

  “Get whatever you’d like,” Betty said when we entered the store. “I know they’re comfortable, but those yoga pants have to be warm in ninety degree weather.”

  “They are, but I’ve never been one to care about fashion. I prefer comfort.”

  “I hope you know that I’m not trying to change you, or to get you to do something you’re not comfortable with. I asked you to come with me today because I want to get to know you better. I hope you’ll let me.”

  Betty’s speech made me feel awkward, like I owed her one for being so civil and nice all the time, even when I wasn’t.

  After spending almost two hours going through the racks, we’d found so much great stuff that we decided to skip the other stores and go to lunch at the club. Because of the dress code, I went to the restroom to change into something Betty called a beach bandeau dress, so we could be seated.

  When I exited the bathroom stall, a blonde girl playing with her feathery hair in the mirror looked at me. “Wow. A bandeau dress. I didn’t think anyone still wore those things.”

  I ignored her, quickly washed my hands, and left.