Saved by the Music (Saints & Sinners Book 2) (13 page)

“What? His dad was in jail?”
How had I not known this?

That hit her like a ton of bricks. His dad was in jail and he hadn’t told her. She should’ve been angry, pissed off that he had kept something like that from her, but she couldn’t because the truth was, she understood.

“It’s not my story to tell, Ash, but he needs you right now. You better be ready for a hell of a fight though.”

The rest of the drive back to the hotel was a blur. The minute they drove up to the entrance, she handed her keys to the valet and rushed up the stairs to Sam’s floor.

Tyler, Austin, Mike, and Jarrod were all standing outside Sam’s room, and judging by the bruises on their faces, they weren’t kidding when they said he got violent. Her whole body shook with her need to see him. He needed her, and she needed him just as much.

“Is he still in there?” she asked through her teeth, doing her best to keep it together. It was not the time to lose her shit.

“Yes, but, Ashlee, I’m not sure you should go in there. If he throws a punch at one of us, we can take it, but if he hurts you, he’ll never forgive himself for that.”

She looked at Jarrod as he spoke, wanting to slap him for thinking so little of the broken man on the other side of that door.

“He won’t hurt me.” She knew that with everything in her. He would never hurt her, physically or otherwise, and the fact that they thought he could didn’t sit well with her.

She headed for the door, but Austin’s body was blocking her way. “You can’t be sure of that.”

“Yes, I can. Now get out of my way, Austin.”

She took the room key from his hand but he didn’t move. He was starting to test her patience
.

“Ashlee….”

That does it.
She shoved him aside with every ounce of strength she had. “Get the hell out of my way, Austin.”

When she opened the door and stepped inside the room—or what was left of the room—she gasped at the damage. It looked like a hurricane had come through and destroyed everything. She walked through the debris, careful not to step on the broken glass. When she came to the doorway of the bedroom, what she saw broke something inside her.

Sam was leaning against the bed, sitting on the floor, his hands covered in blood; his whole body looked beaten and bruised. He didn’t lift his head when she called out his name, and that was when she knew he was gone. She headed straight for the bathroom and grabbed the first aid kit before kneeling beside him. She put her hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t talk or even look at her.

She needed him to connect to her, to anchor himself to her. “Sam, I need you to look at me.”

“You shouldn’t be here.” He kept his head down as he spoke, his hands curled up in tight fists on either side of him, but he didn’t scare her.

She straddled his waist and touched his cheek with the palm of her hand. “I’m exactly where I should be.”

He grabbed her hips and lifted her off him, setting her down beside him. “Get out!”

If he thought he could get rid of her that easily, he was sorely mistaken. If he wanted a fight, she could give him one. “No.” She opened the first aid kit and put his hands on her thighs so she could clean the wounds.

He jerked his hand away, sending the supplies to the floor. “Get out. I don’t want to hurt you.”

She took his hand again and rested it on her thigh, but this time, he didn’t pull away. He let her clean his knuckles, seeming to embrace the stinging from the alcohol. She took her time cleaning the wounds and when she finished with his right hand, she did the same to his left. She didn’t talk to him, didn’t touch him more than she needed to.

When she finished his hands, she tended to the wounds on his shoulders with as much tenderness as she had in her. She kissed one and sensed him coming back to life. She continued until his hands finally unclenched.

She wrapped her hands around his neck, whispering against his ear. “Say my name, Sam. Look at me, baby. Please, just look at me. I’m right here. Just let me in.” She pressed her lips to his neck, realizing he needed her.

He turned his head to the side and his eyes met hers, showing her the pain he was in. “Ashlee… please, make it stop.” He grabbed her waist and hauled her over his thighs, encasing her in his arms before he buried his face in her neck. She didn’t know what to do; all she wanted was for him to let her make this better for him.

“I’m here, Sam. I’m right here. You have me, baby. That’s it. Come back to me.”

SAM

He smiled at the endearment. “I like you calling me baby.”

He leaned closer and pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss. She linked her hands on the back of his neck, and he rested his forehead on hers. “Do you now?” she asked him in a playful tone, and he couldn’t help but laugh at how easily she made him feel alive.

“As a matter of fact, I think you should always call me that,” he told her, his emotions still raw.

“That I can do.”

He kissed her again, soft and slow, savoring the taste and feel of her because he didn’t know how long he would be able to after tonight.

“What happened with your dad?”

He knew she would ask the question sooner or later, but that hadn’t prepared him for the wave of anxiety overtaking his body. She must have sensed it, because she leaned in and kissed him as if trying to reassure him that she wouldn’t walk away.

He sat her down in front of him, taking a deep breath before holding her hands as he told her everything.

“My dad was a mean son of a bitch. He was always angry and no matter what my mom or I did, it was never enough to make him happy. When I was five years old, I saw him hit my mom for the first time. She was screaming, begging him to stop, but he didn’t. He put her in intensive care that night, but she loved him so she didn’t report him. He told her he wouldn’t do it again and that he was sorry, but he was a mean fuck and he didn’t stop. A few weeks later, I came home from school and got the end of a baseball bat slammed into my shoulder for closing the door too loud. My mom tried to defend me, and got up close with the bat. I lost track of how many broken bones he gave me over the years and how many times I heard my mother cry and scream. One night, when I was twelve, I was in my room when I heard my mom screaming from the kitchen. I ran to try and help her, somehow knowing he wouldn’t stop until he killed her. He kept a loaded gun in his bedside table. That night, I took it out, pulled the safety off, and shot him twice. I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t.”

He expected pity from her, but what he saw on her face was pure, red-blooded anger. She somehow managed to hold herself together though.
God, how is this woman even real?

“What happened after?” Her voice was such a contrast to the emotions on her face, so soft and compassionate.

He ran his thumb over her hands when he felt her start to shake. “He got sentenced to twenty years in jail. Turns out he was wanted for the murder of his first wife. We were finally free of him. At the trial, he said I was no better than him because I tried to kill him, and God, did I believe that for a long time. I couldn’t handle or deal with any of it. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd, doing drugs. My mom tried so hard to make me believe I wasn’t like him, but I just couldn’t buy it.”

She pressed his shoulders into the bottom of the bed, forcing him to look her in the eye. “You are nothing like him, do you hear me? You are not your father, Sam.”

“I fucking hit the guys who are like brothers to me, Ashlee. How does that make me any different? Look at this room. This is what I’m capable of. Don’t you see that?” Didn’t she get that he had it in him to kill a man? Didn’t she get that he wasn’t good enough for her? Why wasn’t she running?

“What happened today?” she asked in a commanding tone he had never heard from her.

“I got a call from my mom…. He’s out.”
And he’s coming after me.
He knew he should tell her that, but he wouldn’t put her in danger.

She caged his face between her hands, running fingers through his beard, and he felt the tension leave his body as she spoke. “Okay, you listen to me, Sam Brooks, and you listen good. You are nothing like your father. There isn’t an inch of you that has anything in common with that poor excuse of a man. You are kind, generous, and compassionate, baby, and I won’t let you think any differently about yourself. You are strong, hardheaded, rough around the edges, demanding, and controlling, but that doesn’t make you anything like him. That makes you a better man, one who would do anything to protect his family and the people he cares about. You are not your father, Sam.”

He stood and walked toward the window, trying to curb the desire building inside.

He heard Ashlee’s footsteps as she closed the distance between them. When she wrapped her arms around his waist, he turned around, pushed her against the window, and kissed her neck, letting his hands wander up her stomach to her breasts.

She arched her body into his touch and he knew then where this was going, what they both needed more than anything. She guided his hands to her ass, and he smiled at her.

“Do you remember what you told me when I saved you from the groupies?”

He hauled her up and she wrapped her legs around him, her back against the window. Growling at how amazing she felt pressed against him. He needed her.

“Every fucking word.”

Chapter Nine

ASHLEE
      

His lips felt like nothing she’d ever experienced before; it was like her body was discovering true pleasure for the first time in her life. His kiss was passionate and fierce, his tongue licking the corner of her mouth, pushing his way past her last barrier.

He was using his hands on her ass to guide her movements, and she could feel his erection pressing against his jeans. She arched her hips, desperate to get the friction that would set her off. He softly bit her lower lip and she moaned, rocking into him harder. He trailed kisses down her jaw and her neck, setting her skin on fire. She was so close to an orgasm that she should’ve been ashamed, but nothing about Sam bringing her this kind of ecstasy felt shameful.

“It drives me fucking crazy when you look at me like that.” She barely registered the sound of his voice over the ringing in her ears.

She sank her teeth into his shoulder when he squeezed her breast and pinched her nipple. “Sam… please.” She didn’t know what she was begging him for, but she needed him to do something, anything; she was burning from the inside out, and she couldn’t stand it anymore.

His hand slowly traced the outline of her neck before going down to her breasts. Lowering his head, he sucked on her nipples through her shirt. She felt the knock of her head against the window, but it felt so good; everything he did to her felt so good. She never wanted him to stop.

His hands moved down her stomach while his mouth was doing amazing things to her breasts. She had never felt that kind of surrender to a man’s touch, but in that moment, she would’ve agreed to anything if it meant he never stopped making her feel what she was right then.

When he reached the button of her jeans, he tilted his head up and looked up at her. The intensity and lust in his eyes almost set her off. She raked her fingers through his hair and down his cheeks. “I need you, Sam.”

He unbuttoned her jeans with one hand. When she felt his fingers slip under her panties and circle her clit, she screamed his name. Arching her hips toward him, she demanded more, needing more from him. She knew exactly what she was asking, what she was begging him for. She felt like she was going to explode any second.

With her back pressed against the window and her legs wrapped tight around his waist, she could feel the heat radiating from his body. “I want you so bad.”

“You can have me any way you want.” He wasn’t even done talking before he slipped a finger inside her, keeping his thumb on her clit.

When he moved his finger in and out, she couldn’t hold back the moans anymore. It had been a long time since a man had touched her, and Sam was awakening a desperation she didn’t even know she had.

“You’re so wet, baby. You need this bad, don’t you, Ashlee?” He slipped another finger inside and she was writhing in his arms.

“Oh, God…! Yes, I need it, Sam….” She didn’t even recognize her own voice as she begged for her release. She would crawl and kneel right now if that’s what it took for him to send her over the edge, but she didn’t have to. He twisted his fingers, the change in angle hitting her G-spot, and she knew it would be a matter of seconds before she came all over his fingers.

He licked and nipped the skin at the base of her neck before moving his head closer to her ear, his fingers still pumping in and out of her, his thumb rubbing circles over her clit. She was right there, and when he whispered, “I need you to let me feel you come, Ashlee. Give it up for me,” she felt her orgasm slam into her like a freight train. Her toes curled, her inner walls clenching as he finger-fucked her relentlessly.

“Oh, God, yes… Sam! Oh, shit, don’t stop…. Oh, God…. Yessssss!” Her fingernails dug into his back as she rocked her hips over his fingers, riding out the wave. It was unlike any orgasm she had ever experienced in her life. Her body and soul had come alive under his touch, and she knew he had just ruined her for any other man.

“Fuck, Ashlee, you’re so fucking perfect, baby. The way you come undone for me… just for me… say it, Ashlee. Say I’m the only one who can make you come that hard.”

She could feel the small aftershocks of her orgasm as he kept using his fingers to drag out her pleasure.
I never knew it could feel like this.
She grabbed his face and when their lips touched, she licked the outline of his lower one. She heard him groan when she nipped it. “Only you, Sam, I only come for you.”

“Damn fucking right you do.” He slammed his mouth on hers in a frenzy that could never be described using simple words. It was intense and eager, and there was no mistake that this was far from over when he started moving them to the bed.