Sarah Mine (2 page)

“Look at me.”

Swallowing, I opened my eyes as his weight shifted. The pillow under my head dipped a little. He braced his right arm above my head, his left one ceasing its torture. Shifting, I met his gaze. His fingers slowly caressed up the front of my pajama bottoms then slipped under the elastic waistband. My stomach jumped at the heat of his fingers; the calluses added an extra something to the caress. The minute he hit that damp, aching spot, I cried out, arching into him.

His gaze shifted over my face before returning to my eyes. Arousal burned in the silver depths as he watched me writhe. A little smile, the tiny flare of victory as he pushed a finger into me. Even as I cried out, arching at the sensation, reality swept through me as I stared into eyes that knew he had me. His easy fuck was a few strokes away. I wondered if he even liked me. If he even saw me as a person. He made my heart hurt in the worst possible ways.

Oh God, I couldn’t do this again. I gripped his wrist and the teasing touches came to a sudden halt. He frowned down at me, frustration churning in his eyes until that glint of satisfaction was gone.

“Why? Damn it, why?”

“I can’t, Hill.”

“Why?”

We both knew I could. The evidence was between my thighs, my body slick and ready for him. His hand shifted, damp fingers resting on my stomach then sliding to my hip. He rolled us both so I lay on him. This was almost as bad as him on top. There was just too much temptation in Hill. “Because I really want to,” I admitted before easing away from him.

I sat on the side of the bed, his heated “Fuck” echoing around the bedroom. Anger, frustration, confusion. I heard it all in his voice. It took all my tattered will power to stand and leave him in my bed, because I was feeling those too. He was naked; he was aroused. He was Hill.

And yet, I was walking away.

Because I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back to that fragile, broken shell of a human being that had been with him four years ago. I had barely survived being that girl the first time.

The second time would probably kill me.

CHAPTER TWO

Hill

I found a mug. I found the coffee. I found the woman sitting on the railing of her back deck while she drew. Damn, but she was pretty with her messy brown hair and the pajamas that left little to the imagination. If my camera were in my hands, I’d fill a roll of film of her. Right now.

I leaned against the railing, looking at the yard and not the sketchbook. Sometimes she’d show me what she drew but mostly she didn’t. Her choice. I respected that. Not everyone saw all the photos I took. My stomach gave a little twist. “How long have you lived here?” I needed her to talk to stop my thoughts from forming. That’s why I was here. To forget all my shit.

The black fine tipped marker halted its faint scratching movement on the page. “Almost three years.”

I sipped the coffee as I looked through the open sliding door. The house wasn’t big. A little bungalow that was older than me with two bedrooms. Did she own or was she renting? I was curious. And a little envious. My current place of residence was a hotel. If one were to press for more, I’d admit the majority of my crap was in storage. Storage was easier to maintain when I wasn’t home a lot. “Nicer than the apartment.”

“A box in an alley was nicer than that place.”

The last time I saw her, she lived in a small apartment above the bar her father owned. It had reeked of stale beer and hamburger grease. The party noise below was constant during the night: shouts, music, and laughter. A lot of nights had been passed in that slum. Hours of mindless fucking where I didn’t have to be anyone but Hill.

This was nicer but I sure as hell didn’t feel like Hill here. I bet if we had been in that old, dumpy apartment we’d both be coming our brains out. Instead, I was drinking tasty coffee with a Sarah I didn’t know.

She returned to her sketch and I watched the way her light brown hair fell over her shoulder, forming a partial curtain between her and the world. She looked like the Sarah I once knew. She certainly had the same big, sad brown eyes I remembered. There were still faint freckles on her nose and cheekbones. That was the same sexy mouth. And she sure as hell was still the fragile girl I had last screwed when I was twenty-two.

But she wasn’t the Sarah I knew. She wasn’t so used up, strung out and gutted by demons I couldn’t even imagine.

Everyone knew about Sarah James. Everyone knew what had happened in that James house. Everyone had seen the bruises. Everyone had turned a blind eye to the marks, to the booze, to the drugs. Even me. What an asshole.

Pretty, I thought. She was so damn pretty. Reaching up, I brushed her hair away. She froze like a terrified deer because that’s what you did when a hand came at you.

Asshole. Brandon James was an asshole.

So was I.

She looked cautiously at me and I wished I knew what went on in her head. If this were four years ago, we’d still be in her bed. It wasn’t, though. I traced the rather delicate line of her jaw. I shifted so I stood between her knees and set her sketchbook aside.

“I can’t, Hill.” Her voice was soft as she looked at me. She had the biggest, saddest eyes. They gutted me. Slashed through my own crap. They showed every hit she had ever taken, every drink to forget her life.
Sarah.

“Quiet,” I said, studying her face. “I’m taking pictures.” And I was. Fast, mental snapshots of Sarah.

This was new. I caressed the cheek that wasn’t so gaunt. Her face was fuller and her skin was a soft sun-kissed copper instead of greyish and lifeless. Soft and silky and not so…hollowed out. The eyes were still sad and haunted, but they probably always would be. They had a clarity that hadn’t been there the last time I saw her. “Sarah.” Her name escaped on a low burst of wonder. “Look at you.”

A soft gasp escaped from her and tears filled her eyes, making the color shimmer but they didn’t fall. While I was gone, Sarah had kicked the booze and drugs. “Look at you,” I repeated softly. Her lashes lifted and she met my gaze. I saw the nervousness in her eyes, felt them in the way she touched my biceps.

“Hill?”

“How long?”

“Three years, one month, and three weeks.”

My eyebrows rose. That’s…amazing. “That’s pretty exact.”

“Sobriety is an exact science.”

“Good for you. I need a shower, then I want Helena’s pancakes.” I caressed her mouth. “Want to join me?”

“For pancakes?”

I smiled. “Or the shower. Take your pick.” I knew what she’d say.

“Pancakes.”

Now I grinned. “Surprise me, Sarah. Say yes to the shower.”

“No. Go away.” The corners of her mouth twitched though. That was something.

“I give good shower.” I winked and surprised myself by leaving her on the railing. Inside her little house, I stopped, pushed off the pants I had dragged on. A startled laugh came from her as I walked naked down the hall and into the bathroom. I had never had to seduce Sarah James before.

And I was going to. Stoned or straight, drunk or sober, then or now…I wanted her. I always wanted her.

Sarah

I fiddled with my pen before I hopped down. Things felt a little wobbly on the inside. That he had noticed I was sober surprised me. Truly I hadn’t thought he’d notice or care. I picked up the khaki pants that had seen better days and went into my bedroom. We were going for pancakes.

We
never
went for pancakes. Of course we had never not had sex before either. Tossing his pants on the bed, I contemplated what to wear for this momentous breakfast. Talk would start up. It had probably already begun the minute someone had seen Hill. I knew what they said about me and Hill. Pierce Point was a small town and gossip was its addiction of choice.

Maybe breakfast wasn’t smart.

I could almost hear the talk now. “Did you see? Hill Deveraux was at Helena’s with that James girl. Oooh, you know what they were up to. Shameful. Carrying on like that. He’s a Deveraux! And you know what trash that James girl is.”

Funny how I was the one who was trash in my family when my father had beaten me and my sister slept with any man who looked at her. I knew why they called me that and it wasn’t the booze, the drugs, or the bad choices I made. The reason was in my shower. One didn’t simply sleep with a Deveraux. In Pierce Point you were a Deveraux’s wife, a soon-to-be-wife, or his whore.

Was I ready for that to start up again?

“I don’t know,” I said in the quiet of my room. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? What good could possibly come from this? Hadn’t the entire point of the past four years been to stop repeating past mistakes? To learn who I was and embrace her, forgive myself for things that had never been my fault, and those that had been?

How was this good for me? I had to treat Hill like I did the alcohol and pills. An allergy that could kill me. An addiction that would make me lose myself again.

I needed to tell him to go.

But deep, deep down I wanted him to stay. And that was the problem, wasn’t it? This was Hill and I wanted him. That was my dirty secret. Drunk or sober, then or now…I wanted him. I always wanted him.

Covering my face with my hands, I sighed at the admission. Since I’d become sober, I had learned to be honest with myself.

“Heavy sigh. Deep thoughts?”

I nodded without lowering my hands.
Please don’t touch me.
But that’s all I wanted him to do. I listened to him cross the floor and my heart thumped fast. Anticipation, nerves, need, fear, lust, and heartache. All were felt when he stopped behind me. So close I could smell the fruity soap and feel the shower’s steamy heat radiating off him. His hands on my hips made my eyes close. If I couldn’t see him, the problem didn’t matter.

Rrrrrright.

“I thought of you in the shower.”

That comment dragged out a laugh. “I bet you did.”

“Dirty mind, Sarah,” he breathed into my ear. Goosebumps spread down my spine at the brush of air. Oh hell. “And no, not those thoughts. Though now…”

I lowered my hands, but couldn’t open my eyes. Not yet. That would welcome reality. “So, what were you thinking?”

His fingers slid along the elastic waist of my pajama bottoms. “That you need soap that doesn’t make me smell like a bath shop vomited on me.”

“Get your own soap. I like my soap.”
Step away. Step away!

“I like your soap too. It smells like you,” he whispered in my ear, his hand slipping under the waistband of the shorts. Sneaky Deveraux. Slowly, he ran his hand over my stomach, hip to hip, back and forth. “I had a hard time concentrating as I lathered you all over my body.”

My lips parted at his words, the imagery it brought to mind. Hill naked in my shower. Hill wet in my shower.

All he did was lightly touch my stomach and breathe against my ear. Done. I was done.

It was so easy to imagine his hands sliding over his body, slippery bubbles slithering down his skin. Against my ass and through the towel he was hard and it made things shiver awake. A little gasp escaped.

“Oh yes,” he continued in that soft, seductive whisper. “You know I did exactly that. I stood in that rather extravagant shower, you on my skin, and lathered you on my dick that was hard as fuck for you. You made me come in your shower.” His hand slid down between my legs and I cried out when he found me throbbing and slick from his words. “With you on my body.”

He began to caress where I ached, making my body weep for more. He teased the wet entrance with the tip of a finger, making me cry out.

“Had you been in that shower,” he continued, the maddening motion making me wetter and wanting him deeper, “I’d have been able to bury my dick inside you. And you’d be slippery, more than any amount of water and soap could make you, and welcoming. And we’d come. Me inside you. Come, Sarah. Come as I did. By my hand and imagine it’s me snug inside you where you’re warm and slick, happy to feel me. Come, baby.”

I covered the hand between my legs, the fabric damp from what he did to me. I climaxed with a cry.

“Take me, Sarah,” he whispered. “Take me where I need to be.” His hand slid further between my legs, his touch no longer teasing, but rubbing, his thumb finding that sensitive spot. He kissed the back of my neck as he worked me with hard, insistent strokes that made my hips roll over his fingers. “Bring me home, Sarah,” he moaned as he eased his finger in.

I cried out, pressing more against his hand, his finger sliding, the tempo familiar. So familiar. “Hill. Oh God. Please.”

It felt so good, him moving inside me, his breaths hot on my neck. “Bring me home, baby.”

“Yes,” I whispered and he spun us and bent me over the bed in a fast movement. I grabbed the sheets as he pushed the bottoms down and his towel was yanked away.

“Sarah,” he moaned. He withdrew his finger. “Oh God, Sarah.”

I nodded and he thrust inside me, his hand, damp from my body, covering mine. After, I would regret. Now, I wanted him. Needed him. Had it always felt this good? I pushed back into him to take more of him. I couldn’t remember. I wished I remembered the weekends of sex, the waking up and he was gone, and I’d have another drink to numb the pain. Because, holy God, he felt so good.

The weight of his body against mine, pressing me into the bed as he took me, his moans in my ear as I took him. “This,” he whispered. “This. Look at me. God damn you, you look at me.”

I turned my head toward him and opened my eyes as much as possible.

“Sarah.” He kissed me, continuing his thrusts. His other hand found me and made me scream as I came. His lips curled upwards against mine, then with a moan, he came. I gasped to feel him inside me. My fist relaxed and his fingers slid between mine. “Now.”

“What?” My body felt heavy, sated.

“Now it feels like you.”

My eyes opened, watching as he lowered his head to the bed. “What?” The word burned inside my chest. Had he just said what I thought he had said? “What did you say?”

I knew what they called me. Hill Deveraux’s whore. To hear that from him. Had it been like this before? I wished for one sober memory.