Stranger

  “Why are women’s clothes so complicated?” he grumbled from his place at my feet. He didn’t wait for an answer before tossing my clothes to the floor.

  I was bare from the waist down and he was fully dressed. Unacceptable. “Take yours off.”

  Sam stood and watched as I lifted my shirt off over my head and threw it to add to the pile on the floor. Beneath my skin, the couch cushions were nubbled rough. I shifted, crooking my finger. “C’mon, Sammy. Naked.”

  “It’s Sam,” he protested, but his fingers had already worked open the buttons on his shirt.

  Sam shrugged out of his shirt and undid his belt and the zipper. His jeans gaped open but the hem of his T-shirt hung down too far. He bent and pulled off his socks, one at a time, and I knew he was deliberately teasing me. A sexy bump-and-grind striptease would have made me giggle. Sam’s deliberately slow removal of each layer of his clothes was made more erotic by its pure masculinity and normality. I wasn’t watching some rentboy tantalize with glimpses of flesh.

  I was watching Sam strip down to all his naked glory as if it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do in front of me.

  “God bless denim,” I murmured, watching the way his belly tightened when he pulled his T-shirt off over his head. “Where do you find jeans that long, anyway?”

  “Big and Tall.” Sam grinned and tucked a thumb into the waistband, dipping it just low enough for me to see the sleek dark tuft of his pubic hair.

  An incoherent noise slipped from my throat. He pushed his jeans a little lower, and the briefs he wore beneath slid, too. Down, down, down each long leg the material moved until at last he stood and kicked off the jeans. Naked at last, a hand on his cock as it grew.

  “Are you going to fuck me on my couch?” I scooted back onto the pillows.

  “Nope.” Sam’s penis was getting harder as I watched.

  “No?” Confused, I swung my legs around to put my feet on the floor.

  Sam stopped me before I could stand. “No. I’m not going to fuck you on the couch. I’m going to go down on you on the couch. Sit back.”

  I did, voiceless. Sam kissed my mouth as his hand went between my legs, priming me. He didn’t waste time kissing down my body or lingering on my thighs. He went straight from my mouth to between my legs, parting me with his thumbs to suck gently on my clit.

  The electric, sudden shock of it forced another inarticulate noise from me. I arched instinctively before I could force myself to still, but I’d already wrapped my fingers in Sam’s thick, dark hair. I wanted to look down, to see him there between my legs, but pleasure forced my eyes to close as it parted my mouth in a silent sigh.

  Sam paused with a shuddering sigh to murmur something sweet, something sexy, something like, “Oh, fuck, you taste good.” Something that said in the context of anything but sex would sound fake, but I didn’t doubt he meant it.

  He pushed my legs open wider and used the flat of his tongue in smooth, even strokes. The pressure, the heat, the wetness of his mouth were perfect. He didn’t pinpoint the sensitive bead of my clit or drill me with his tongue. Instead he kept the pressure steady and constant, just above my clit, using my own shifting flesh to further arouse me. White-hot pleasure balled in my gut and burst.

  I came the first time.

  Sam withdrew, but not far. His breath still caressed me, but now he slid a finger inside me before I had time to do more than gasp and shudder with my orgasm. He curved it and found the small, sensitive spot just behind my pubic bone. I’d experimented with my G-spot before and never found it particularly exciting. Too often it distracted me from climax, or worse, made me feel like I had to pee. But Sam didn’t rub me there, just pressed gently in time to the small, pointed flutters of his tongue.

  Oh, fuck, he did the nibbling-lick thing. I’d thought it was good on my mouth. On my cunt it was utopia. He licked, nibbled and pressed.

  I came again, hard on the heels of the first time. I drew in a deep breath, hard, and opened my eyes. He wasn’t looking at me. He was still kissing my cunt, clenching tight around his finger. I blinked, streamers of red dancing in my vision and fading as the waves of my orgasm abated.

  “God,” I said. “Sam—”

  “Shh…”

  He didn’t lick me. Didn’t nibble, or push, or press inside me. Sam put his mouth on me, not even kissing. Just touching me with his lips and breath. His finger was still inside me, but he wasn’t moving it.

  “I like to feel the way you move when you come,” he said, his lips forming the words the only motion he made. “I can still feel it. You’re still beating.”

  I was, no longer in the rapid-fire burst of contractions my body made during climax, but an occasional slow throb. The spaces between each stretched out. I got my breath back. Sam didn’t move. I thought about shifting, but was too sated for the moment to do anything but recover.

  After a second he licked me again. Different this time. Softer, but not hesitant. His finger moved, too, twisting.

  “Sam, I can’t.” My protest was weak, and I didn’t try too hard to move away. From him.

  He said nothing, just continued what he was doing. I knew my body well enough. Its limits. Yes, I’d made myself come three times in a row and once a memorable four, but I’d been watching a Justin Ross marathon and had been at the point in my cycle when everything turned me on. Even then it had been hard work, the final climax more like an afterthought than a real orgasm. “Sam—”

  “Shh.”

  I didn’t protest again. What he was doing felt good, even if he wasn’t going to get me off doing it, and if it made him happy, who was I to complain? I’d have been happy to return the favor or even finish by making love to him without trying to come myself, but I’d also learned not to struggle too hard against Sam’s persistence.

  I thought for sure he’d get tired, or too horny to wait, but he kept going. Long after I’d have given up, Sam licked and kissed and stroked me. He used his mouth and hands, but he used his words, too. Sam was a talker. The things he said should’ve sounded ridiculous, but coupled with the gentle seduction of his lips and tongue they only sounded beautiful.

  I love the way you taste. I love the way you sound. I love the way you move. I love the way you say my name, just like that.

  Sam.

  I love you.

  And I, selfishly caught up in the ecstasy he was giving me, didn’t have to say anything. I only had to burst apart.

  Sometime after that I took him to my bed and made love to him for too short a time. I wanted it to last, but didn’t have the heart to torture him after he’d been so generous. He closed his eyes when he came and I watched his face and marveled at how this had all happened.

  Later, in the dark, Sam turned his back to me and said so quietly I almost didn’t hear, “It’s because it’s easier to pretend.”

  “What is, baby?” My voice sounded as sleepy as his had, but my eyes had flown open wide and my heart pounded.

  “Staying at my mom’s. At night, in that room, it’s easy to pretend I’m a kid again and my dad’s still alive.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I did what I could. I spooned myself along his back, my arm around his waist a comfort I wasn’t sure he wanted. His shoulder beneath my lips rose and fell with his sigh.

  I spend my life helping people mourn, and yet I don’t believe I’ve seen grief in all its forms. Sorrow, like songs, is never the same.

  “He never saw me play,” Sam said. “He told me if I went to New York to try and make it, I’d fail. We fought about it. I didn’t come home for a long time, and when I did, he never asked me how I was doing. Not one fucking time, Grace. I sent the write-ups I got in the indie papers.

  Not one fucking time.”

  The muscles of his arm tensed, bunched. He drew his legs up and trapped my arm between his knees and belly. He curled over himself, a big man making himself small.

  “And then he died, the fucker.” Sam’s voice broke. “And I was
still the bad son, the one who didn’t come to see him. But it wasn’t because I was still mad, Grace.”

  Sometimes people don’t need you to answer them. They only need you to help them say what they need to say.

  “Why, then?”

  “I didn’t want him to still think I was a failure. I didn’t want my dad to die thinking I was a failure. But you know what? He did anyway. He fucking died, and I fucked up again. Now my mom thinks I suck. So does my brother. So do I. Fuck. Fuck!”

  His body jerked, his voice muffling into the pillow. His shoulders twitched rhythmically, and my throat got tight in sympathy.

  “Sam.”

  He saved me from trying to find the right words by turning and burying his face against me. Hot tears wet my skin as he clutched me. I stroked his hair over and over as he gritted back sobs, his entire body tense and tight. When at last he relaxed, long limbs going slack and breathing slow and even, I kissed the top of his head.

  “You’re going to be okay.”

  I’d thought he was asleep, but his arms tightened around me at once. “Am I?”

  “Yes, Sam. You are.”

  He’d said he loved me, and I hadn’t. I sort of thought that would change things, but it didn’t. Not outwardly. Inside I continued to marvel at how easy it had become to imagine a life spent with Sam. How I could see him with gray in his hair and lines around his eyes. How I could envision children with his dark hair and my light eyes.

  I didn’t share this with anyone, of course. I barely wanted to think about it myself, the old fears easily resurfacing every time I had to face a grief-stricken widow who moaned she didn’t know how she’d be able to go on. Yet it was easier now to see the women and men who spoke with joy-tinged voices about the good times. The memories. Of how much richer their lives had been for having loved. How loss couldn’t take away any of those memories, and how they regretted nothing.

  Shelly had started speaking to me again, though not in the same chatty way she’d used to.

  She’d changed her hair. Her clothes, too. She spoke with more confidence to the clients. Before, she’d have had to ask me several times about tasks she knew how to perform, simply for the assurance she was doing them right. Now she didn’t ask. It was a relief, sort of, not to have to babysit her so much. It freed up a lot of my time. But since I knew it was because she was refusing to talk to me and not solely because of some personal epiphany for her, I couldn’t quite enjoy the changes as much.

  Nearing the end of his internship, Jared had received job offers from a couple other funeral homes in the area. It surprised me that he’d told me about them. He told me he was thinking about it, and we left it at that. I wanted to beg him to stay, the luxury of having help not one I wanted to relinquish, but I wouldn’t have blamed him for taking a job with someone who could pay him more and give him better hours.

  Jared’s possible departure prompted me to revisit my budget, though. I wouldn’t have admitted it to him, but I actually missed my dad’s head for finances. I had more money in my personal account than ever and could have used some advice on how to invest it. Looking back over my accounts, I couldn’t believe how much I’d spent on Mrs. Smith’s gentlemen…yet I didn’t regret a cent.

  A rap on the door pulled my attention from my fond remembrance of the way I’d burned through five hundred dollars on a night filled with feathers and chocolate body paint. I looked up. “Shelly?”

  She came into the office without waiting for me to gesture, and shut the door behind her.

  My brows lifted as she took a seat. On her lap she had a folder, and my heart sunk. She was going to give her notice. I knew it.

  “Grace, I want to talk to you about Jared.”

  I closed my accounts and gave Shelly my full attention. “What about him?”

  Shelly cleared her throat and I caught a glimpse of the girl who’d first come to work for me. “I love him.”

  “Good for you. For you both.” I wasn’t sure what Shelly wanted me to say. Her declaration wasn’t exactly news.

  “We want to get married.”

  “Congratulations.” I offered my kudos with caution. “That’s good news.”

  A small smile cracked Shelly’s aloof facade. “I’m so happy!”

  “Uh-huh. How’d Duane take it?”

  A pained look crossed Shelly’s face. “He won’t believe me.”

  This floored me for a second. “What do you mean, he won’t believe you?”

  “He says he doesn’t believe I won’t come back to him when I’m tired of Jared.”

  “Huh.” Frankly, I didn’t see what was so fantastically bright and shiny about Shelly that would make Duane want to hang on to her after she’d cheated on him, but I was willing to admit my opinion of her was slightly colored by her recent spate of bitchiness toward me. “I guess he’ll figure it out eventually.”

  “I guess. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about.” Shelly held up a folder. “These are the other offers Jared’s been getting. One from Rohrbach. One from Kindt and Spencer.”

  My biggest rivals, if you could say there was such a thing. I’d gone to mortuary school with Steve Rohrbach, who’d taken over the business from an uncle. Kindt had bought the former Spencer Brothers about five years ago in an attempt to expand his family’s business. Both operated in towns next to mine.

  “Jared told me he’d gotten a few other offers. It’s time he started making decisions.

  Especially if he wants to get married.”

  Jared, married to Shelly. A few months ago I’d have laughed at the thought. Now it only made me feel sort of moodily envious and annoyed I felt that way.

  “Yes.” She nodded. “Well, I want him to stay here. With you.”

  “You do?” I sat back in my chair. “I’d have thought you’d be encouraging him to go someplace else.”

  Shelly looked faintly ashamed. “I want to stay here, too. He can get more money some other place, but you need him more. And you’re going to make this place a success. I know it.”

  “I thought I already was a success.”

  She shook her head. “No. I mean…you’re going to really be a success. People like you. I hear people talking about how nice it is here. Especially now that Miss Grace Frawley looks like she’s going to settle down.”

  “Oh, is that so? Who’s saying that?” I tapped my fingers on the desk rapidly.

  Shelly shrugged with a small smile. “You know how people are. Never happy unless they can tell tales.”

  “Shelly, are you spreading rumors about me?” I demanded, leaning forward.

  Shelly’s smile grew. “Is it a rumor if it’s true?”

  I frowned. “Where exactly are you going with this? Because right now I’m not all that thrilled with you blabbing my business to the world.”

  Shelly nodded again, hastily. “Frawley and Sons is doing so well, and I know it’s going to keep doing well. I like it here. I like how you run things. Jared does, too. We want to stay here.”

  “I told Jared what I could offer him. He knows I’d love for him to stay on, Shelly. But I can’t give him more money right now.”

  “I know. But I’d like to propose something else.”

  My head throbbed. “Would you please get to the point? Are you going to keep me in cookies for life, or what?”

  “I thought you didn’t like cookies.”

  “Shelly!”

  “I want you to make Jared a partner.”

  “Oh, Shelly.” I sighed. “What?”

  She outlined quickly her plan, that Jared would become a partner in the business in return for bonuses based on business performance.

  “How much would it take?”

  I named an exorbitant sum, just to watch her cringe. She didn’t.

  “Would you take it from our paychecks?”

  “You’re insane! Why would I want to take Jared on as a partner instead of as an employee? This business has been in my family for a long time.”

  “D
o you plan on having kids?”

  That set me back since I’d been musing on it earlier that morning. “I don’t know. What does that have to do with anything?”

  “If you don’t plan on having any kids, who’s going to take over the business when you die?”

  “Melanie or Simon.”

  Shelly snorted. “What happens if neither of them want it?”

  “You’re making my head hurt.”

  She smiled. “If you did want to have kids, you know, it wouldn’t be hard to make arrangements for them to take over the partnership.”

  “Geez, Shelly. You’re a shark.” I had to admire her, just a little bit. “What does Jared have to say about all this?”

  I’d caught her. “I haven’t actually asked him.”

  “Shelly, Shelly, Shelly.” I leaned back in my chair and tossed my hands in the air. “Then why come to me?”

  “I had to know if you would consider the idea before I brought it up to him. I wouldn’t want to get him all pumped up only to have you shoot him down.”

  I stared at her. “Damn, you’ve changed.”

  She simpered. “Is that a good thing?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Part of me misses the sweet, naive Shelly who wore Peter Pan collars and didn’t screw her boyfriend in my lounge.”

  She snorted delicately. “Part of me misses the Grace who left the office whenever she had the chance and didn’t pay so much attention to my business.”

  I snorted far less delicately. “I’ll think about it, okay? That’s not something I can decide all at once.”

  “Fair enough.” She stood and held up the folder. “I can leave this if you want.”

  “I don’t need it. If I’m going to offer him a partnership, it won’t be based on what someone else thinks he’s worth.”