According To Jane Part 22

"One minute, ten seconds," I said calmly, although I had no idea if this were true.

I felt his breath on my skin-first my earlobe, then my neck, then my cheek.

"How many more seconds?" he rasped out. "Are we there yet?"

He was too near me, I couldn't think. I couldn't even fake it. "I don't know," I admitted.

"Close enough." He tilted his head and brought his lips down on mine.

Sam's kiss was long and slow and utterly inquisitive. His hands roamed my shoulders, giving off a penetrating heat that singed my skin beneath my clothing. He pulled off the sweatshirt I had draped around me and untucked my T-shirt with a single tug. I felt his fingers walk up my spine and burn delicious tiny tracks on my back. A moan escaped me.

"Oh, G.o.d, Ellie," he murmured as my own hands grasped the taut skin that rose just above the waistband of his Levi's.

He lunged against me, chest-to-chest, his tongue entering my mouth more forcefully now. I couldn't help it. I welcomed the invasion and craved more.

The back of my head pressed hard against the pa.s.senger-side window. I felt the jab of the door lock in my left shoulder blade. My legs twisted awkwardly to the right, and I was getting a cramp in one foot, but I didn't complain. I didn't want Sam to stop.

He did anyway.

He pulled back and gave me an almost tender look. "That can't be comfortable."

I shook my head.

He kissed my nose. "Doyouwannamovetothebackseat?" he whispered, a sentence spoken so hurriedly it might've been one slurred word instead of seven.

I nodded.

He lifted himself off of me and clumsily climbed between the two front seats and into the back. This inelegance, in a guy who so often radiated cool self-a.s.surance, was more endearing than a love note. He held his hand out for me and helped me make the awkward journey as well.

We sat for a long moment, facing each other on the smooth vinyl cushion, until Sam, with a very deliberate gesture, wrapped his arms around me and brought me to him again. His expression had a seriousness etched into it, a combination of intensity and vulnerability I'd never before seen in him. His pupils looked more dilated than ever, a sure sign of inebriation, and I felt an acute stab of disappointment that he was only here, only with me this way, because he'd been drinking.

"Look, Sam," I began, "I'm not drunk and-"

"I'm not drunk either."

"But your eyes are dilated, and we did have all this rum-"

His lips formed a lopsided grin. "Your eyes are dilated, too, and you drank just as much rum." He shrugged. "Hey, I'm not kissing you because I'm wasted," he said, somehow able to read my mind. "Pupils can dilate not just from being high on something. It happens in dim light. It also happens when you like somebody."

I put my arms around him now. "Is this the future doctor speaking?"

He shook his head. "This is the guy who's wanted to kiss you like this since soph.o.m.ore year speaking."

"Oh."

He licked his lower lip and tugged on me until my hips slid along the seat. Until I was lying down and he was above me, his face millimeters from mine. "Yeah, Ellie. 'Oh.'"

Then he kissed me again, holding nothing back.

While the Oldsmobile's backseat could hardly be considered s.p.a.cious, I was impressed by the degree of maneuverability we achieved. In the course of less than five minutes, he'd wedged off my T-shirt and bra and managed to unsnap and unzip my jeans.

In another five minutes, I'd divested him of his shirt and wrestled his Levi's to the floor. He jerked my jeans down the rest of the way until there was nothing between us but my panties and his boxers. Yes, he was a boxers guy.

With a groan, he pressed his hard erection against me and my breath got stuck in my larynx. I labored for air.

He kissed my mouth with a wanting that made my nipples peak, then he broke away and kissed my nipples. His tongue swirled over them, suckled them, very gently loved them. I wanted to melt into him as our bodies moved together. He put his cheek against mine and thrust his hips hard again. Desire shot through me, and I had to smother an overwhelming urge to shout out.

"Please, Ellie. Say yes to the question I'm about to ask."

"Yes."

I heard him gulp some air. "But you don't know the question, and I don't want you to-"

"Sure I do," I said, my voice breathy. "Make love to me, Sam. Please. Right here. Right now." Because I've chosen you, I added silently.

There was a long, heated pause in which I heard Jane screaming Exclamations Of Horror in my head. I'd ignored her rising levels of aggravation for the past hour, but it was time to lock her out. Sorry, Jane, I said as I did it. Then I waited for Sam's reply.

"You really are incredibly smart," he said into my ear at last. "You guessed my question."

"Yes, I'm brilliant," I replied, not that it took a PhD in neurochemistry to figure out a teen male's backseat intentions. "Look, Sam, if you hadn't asked me, I'd have asked you."

He chuckled with what sounded like incredulity. "I had no idea you'd developed this wild side, Ellie Barnett." He grabbed for his jeans, pulling a thin wallet out of the back pocket. "But I've never not liked anything about you."

The double negatives gave my slightly rum-addled brain a second's pause but, once I'd determined his words were intended as praise, I let it go. For one of the few times in my life, I let everything go and just allowed myself to fall into the moment.

He drew out a condom and ripped the foil. Instead of rushing to put it on, though, he set the opened packet on the ledge by the rear window and returned to kissing me. Something in that simple gesture made my heart leap.

His fingers slid down my hips and over-then under-the fabric of my panties. He rubbed his thumb pad against the sensitive folds of skin between my legs and up to the aching nub. He lifted his fingers off me and shifted just enough to move his hands more easily. Then, in one fluid motion, he skimmed the panties off my body and placed his thumb back where it had been before.

He slipped one long finger inside of me and pulled it out. He repeated this, his thumb rubbing and arousing the whole time. A wet stickiness began to flow freely from deep within me, and I wanted to call out to him to stop because I couldn't control it. My nerves took part in a frenzied dance just beneath the surface of my skin. The rest of my system was pure chaos.

He thrust the long finger in again, farther this time, pulled it out and brought it back, now joined by another. The pressure inside me was harder, more intense. I couldn't help it, I moaned and, in response, he moaned, too. I lifted my hips up to meet his fingers.

"What can I do to get you closer?" he asked.

I didn't speak, but our eyes met and, silently, I tried to express that he was already doing everything right.

So he kept probing, his strokes smooth and sensual, until my remaining control almost fractured from the agony of wanting him.

In desperation, I s.n.a.t.c.hed at the foil packet and pressed it to his chest. When he withdrew his fingers from my body to grasp it, I jerked his boxers down. He winced.

"Sorry," I said.

"No, it's okay. I just-my body's a little touchy right now. It's not a bad thing." He glanced out of the car window and into the depth of the night, inky-black except for the thin beam of illumination from a lone streetlamp. Then he looked down at me and broke into a grin. "If anyone interrupts us, I will kill them with my bare hands."

I laughed.

He got the condom on within a few seconds and tossed the packet to the floor. With the best of our ability we angled ourselves so everything that needed to connect would be aligned...but this proved trickier than I'd thought. Jason Bertignoli hadn't managed to maneuver it right and hadn't noticed. But Sam Blaine-well, he knew the difference.

Sensing the depth of his extensive past experience filled me with my first real bolt of apprehension that night. How many girls had he had already? How could I possibly measure up?

But Sam refused to allow time for second-guessing. He puffed out a couple breaths then said in my ear, "Guide me."

"What?"

He exhaled another few times. "Reach up, between your legs, and guide me. I don't wanna hurt you."

I swallowed, nodded, did as he asked. The thin plastic of the condom slipped against my palm. His p.e.n.i.s jumped in my hand-just like Jason's, I remembered. But, unlike Jason, Sam was a near master at nuance and control for a teenage boy.

I helped Sam slide an inch or two inside of me. Then I released him. I got the feeling he wouldn't need more help than that.

He didn't.

He filled me with himself with one quick thrust, breaking through my physical and emotional barriers in an instant. I cried out, and he caressed me, whispering, "I'm sorry...I did that too fast. I'll go slower now, Ellie. I promise."

True to his word, he began moving his hips in a slow, sinewy fashion, creating in me a longing for him so strong I had no idea where it came from or how I could possibly bear it. He thrust in and pulled out again, and again, and again. Every time we joined closer together, we leaped higher toward a place of unrecognizable origin. Maybe where our souls mingled before we were born.

"Sam, I can't-can't believe this-"

He moaned. "I know." Then he looked right into my eyes, and what I saw there rooted me more firmly to the backseat than anything else could have. His expression was one of pure powerlessness against this energy between us. It was disbelief combined with adoration and merged with undisguised terror.

"It's okay," I told him, straining upward to lightly kiss his cheek.

I heard what sounded almost like a whimper coming from deep within him. It may have even been a sob, but he buried his face in between my b.r.e.a.s.t.s to m.u.f.fle it. Then his fingertips grasped the backs of my thighs, and he brought his mouth to mine, covering it as if to stifle a scream.

The tilted angle changed the way our hips pressed together, and my very flesh began to quake. Sam's motions quickened, and he slipped one hand between us, touching me just above the union of our bodies. It sparked pure combustion and engulfed me in fire.

A moment later, Sam came apart in my arms as the flame that lit me ignited him as well. He cried out my name and then pressed me to him.

He held me and nuzzled his chin against my neck. "That was incredible," he murmured.

"Yeah."

After a few minutes, he kissed my nose and heaved himself off me, reaching for a tissue box under the driver's seat. When he removed the condom, I heard a sharp gasp.

"Jesus, Ellie. There's blood on the tissue." He stared at me, horrified. "I thought-I mean, everybody thought you and Bertignoli did it. I didn't know..." He gulped. "G.o.d, you could've said something-"

I sat up. "Everybody thought that? So, that's why y-you figured it'd be okay to sleep with me? Here? Tonight?" I asked, my face heating up and my stomach twisting into an ent.i.ty my body didn't recognize.

"NO! No, it's not that. I'm just-it's just-" He stopped and looked at me hard. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said. And physically I was. Emotionally, not so much.

He touched my shoulder gingerly, as if it were breakable now. As if it weren't one of the body parts he'd been squeezing with such vigor just a few moments ago. "You sure?"

"Yeah, really," I told him. "Don't worry about it." But it looked like he was doing more than worrying. Panicking seemed closer to the truth. Did I ruin it? Were we going to be okay?

The two of us drew our clothes on in silence and my heart waited in limbo. I wanted him to be affectionate toward me again. To look me in the eye as he had only a few minutes before.

Finally, he glanced around the car-the backseat littered with evidence of prophylactic usage and the front seat with proof of underage drinking-and he said, "Looks like I'm gonna have to really clean up here before I give the keys back to my dad, huh?"

I sort of laughed and, a second later, he joined me. He put an unsteady hand over mine. "You'll be all right getting home? I mean, I could drive you if you think-"

"I'll be fine. The rum wore off a long time ago."

He nodded. "Then I'll walk you to your car." There was nothing optional about this statement. Sam seemed determined to play the gentleman until the very end. This eased my mind. Gave me hope. Convinced me things between us would turn out fine.

Hand in hand we strolled down the block, the music at Chad's house growing louder as we neared it, but no one-thankfully-lingered out front. Everyone had stayed in the backyard where the booze and the action were supposed to be. Everyone except us.

"Good night, Ellie," Sam said, kissing me breathless against my car door. "Thanks for an amazing evening. I hope it was, um-"

"Good for me, too?" I supplied.

He shot me a sheepish glance and chuckled. "Uh-huh, yeah."

"You couldn't tell?"

He closed his eyes and tilted his chin upward, as if remembering. Then he faced me. "Guess I'd give it a thumbs-up."

"And you'd be right," I said. "See you Monday, Sam."

A troubled expression crossed his face. "Yeah, well...okay. Drive, uh, safely."

I got in the car and pulled it into the street, Sam's reflection in my rearview mirror showed him standing still as a marble sculpture, watching me leave. He cared about me. Sam cared!

I floated home on the wings of newfound love.

The next morning, as I awakened into my bright bedroom, the world aglow with recollections of intimacy and evening delights, I remembered Jane. Finally.

Morning, Jane, I said, opening the door of consciousness wide enough to let her in again.

No answer.

Jane, c'mon. Don't be p.i.s.sed off. I told you things would be okay, and they are. Sam was wonderful. So amazingly wonderful! He's not a nasty Mr. Wickham after all. You believe me, right?

No answer.

I laughed. Everything in the Grand Universe seemed magnificent on this electrifying Sunday. Okay, fine. I know you're just being stubborn and don't want to admit you were wrong about him. I'm sorry I didn't listen to all of your advice last night, but I think I made the right decision after all. I paused. Do you think this is what love feels like?

No answer.

I sighed. Have it your way. I'm feeling too good to let you spoil it.

By the next morning, however, some of my giddiness had worn off. It wasn't as though I'd seriously expected Sam to stop by or call me at home...not exactly. He'd never done either before. But if he'd wanted to, he could have. Our phone number was listed. He knew which street we lived on. His house was within easy walking distance. And no one would've given him a hard time for visiting because no one (but a silent Jane) knew what'd happened between us.

I was certain, though, that things would be great in school that day. Our only scheduled final exam was in chem II, and there was no way he'd miss that. I counted the Monday-morning minutes until I could get to cla.s.s.

With a grin on my face that I couldn't hide, I marched into the chemistry room ten minutes early and looked around. Sam's lab partner sat at their table poring over his notes, and Terrie waited for me at ours, but Sam wasn't in the room yet.