Sam gives me a smirk. “You really have to ask?”
“You have to leave already?” I grumble, eyes fluttering open for just a second. It’s still dark out, and Sam just hit the snooze on his alarm. “One more minute?”
“One more,” he says back, sounding just as tired as I feel. We had amazing sex—again—before going to sleep, and Sam spent a considerable amount of time with his head between my legs. I was exhausted from coming three times in a row. He has to be exhausted as well.
I roll over, sliding my hand up Sam’s back, and run my fingertips up and down his shoulder. He moves closer, draping his arm around me. I swear only thirty seconds pass before the alarm goes off again. Sam hits snooze and takes me in his arms, pressing my body against his.
I’m warm and comfy and don’t want him to leave. This weekend cannot come fast enough when we can lounge around in bed, having lazy morning sex followed by something way more invigorating later.
When his alarm goes off for the third time, he slowly forces himself away from me. “I need to get up or I’ll be late,” he says, voice thick with sleep.
“I’ll get up with you,” I say, but make no attempt to move. I am not a morning person. At all.
“Stay in bed.” He kisses me and then disappears out of the room. I tell myself I’m going to get up in just a minute, but I think at least ten have passed by the time I drag my ass out of bed. I’m a little stuffy and my throat hurts, so even though I plan to go back to sleep, warm coffee sounds good.
Yawning, I sit up and run my fingers through my messy hair. There’s no point in trying to tame it now; it would take way too long. It was wet when I fell asleep and is a tangled mess of unruly waves. My suitcase is open on the floor next to the bed, and I grab a black satin robe. I have nothing on underneath and plan to keep it that way.
I make a quick trip to the bathroom, making sure I got all my mascara off last night so I didn’t wake up looking like Alice Cooper, and use the toilet before going into the kitchen to find Sam.
“Morning,” I say, smile coming to my lips as soon as I see him.
He looks up from his phone and smiles back. “Morning. I thought you were going to sleep in.”
I sniffle, assuming the change in climates and air quality is making my allergies flare up, and go over to Sam. “I’ll go back to bed after you leave. For now, I want coffee.”
He twists in the barstool, setting his phone on the counter, and pulls me into his embrace. I hook my arms around his shoulders and close my eyes, resting my forehead against his. “I wish you could stay home with me.”
“I do too,” he says back. “Though you wouldn’t get any work done. I’d keep you busy all day.” He lifts his head, giving me his trademark grin. It sends a rush through me, turning me on in an instant. Sam's phone buzzes, and I flick my eyes to the counter. Someone named Archer sent him a text.
We break apart so I can get coffee and Sam can reply to the text. “My friend Archer and his wife Quinn are coming into the city for work,” Sam starts. “They want to double-date tonight. We already had plans to go out just the two of us, so if you don’t want to, don’t feel bad.”
“Oh, that’d be fun!” I fill a mug up halfway with coffee. “I’d like to meet your friends.” There’s so much history between Sam and I that I sometimes forget we had years to build separate lives. Meeting Sam’s friends is another step in our relationship.
“Quinn is excited to meet you. She’s Rory’s sister-in-law, so she knows about you already. Sorry,” he adds with a half-smile.
“You said you introduced Rory to her husband, so if Quinn is her sister-in-law, then she’s related to Dean…somehow?”
“I kind of introduced them, though I will take credit if I can. Archer is Quinn’s husband. He’s a surgeon and we worked and roomed together during our residency,” he reminds me. “And Archer and Dean were friends before that. When Rory was looking for a new job as an OR nurse, I told her to apply at the hospital were Archer works because I knew they were looking for new nurses. So yeah.” He takes a drink of coffee, looking smug. “I orchestrated the whole thing. I’m a matchmaker.”
I let out a snort of laughter. “Sounds like it.” I take a sip of coffee, and it feels so good against my scratchy throat. “I think I need to take notes. Quinn and Dean are siblings?”
“Yeah, he’s her older brother.”
“And you and Archer were friends from med school?”
“Residency. It’s different than med school.”
“Okay, residency. So, you met Dean through being friends with Archer, who’s married to Dean’s sister, and your sister is married to Dean.”
“Yeah, it sounds complicated, but it’s not.”
“I think it’s neat how you guys are all friends.” I bring my coffee over and sit next to Sam. “You were always close with your siblings. It’s nice how you guys still talk and hang out.”
“We don’t as much as we used to,” he admits.
“It’s harder when you don’t live in the same house anymore, let alone the same town. But you do go home every once in a while.”
“We do, not always at the same time, but Mom makes sure of it.” He tucks my unruly hair behind my ear. “Though it never felt the same without you.” Pain reflects in his crystal blue eyes and he furrows his brows. “I wish I could go back,” he says softly. “Then everything would be…would be how it should have been from the start.”
“Me too,” I say just as quiet. “Though I like to believe things happen for a reason, and everything that happened before makes us who we are today. The good…the bad…it was all meant to be in some weird, confusing, and sometimes very unfair reason.”
“Like destiny?” He pulls me onto his lap, leaning back in the high-back barstool.
“I suppose, but I also think we can create our own destiny, which contradicts what I just said, I know.” I shrug. “I’m no philosopher, but enough bad shit has happened I have to believe it’s for a reason.” My mind goes to my mom and how she was taken away too soon. “But a lot of good stuff happened too, and it wasn’t by some stroke of luck. It was hard work and determination.”
“I think I know what you mean,” he says and runs his fingers through my hair again. “We can control a lot of what goes on around us, but at the same time, have no control over just as much.”
I slowly bob my head up and down. “I think it comes down to how you choose to look at it. Your attitude makes a big difference, that’s why I chose to see it as things happening to make me who I am today. If I wasn’t such a weirdo, I wouldn’t have been ostracized in school, which wouldn’t have led me to live in my own little fantasy world, which drove me to create my Nightfall series.”
“Things happen for a reason,” he replies and gently cups my face in his large hands.
“Like us finally finding each other.”
He diverts his eyes for a moment, and then looks back with a smile. “Just like that.” He kisses me and rests his head against my breasts. We stay like that for a minute, and then Sam begrudgingly gets up to go to work.