Itchy

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I was thinking I really should thank Sam now for the fun time, get dressed, and head back to Mia's. Better to cut things off quick and clean.

Sam was wearing those silky black Daffy Duck boxers and nothing else. Somehow on him it came off sexy instead of goofy. Then again there wasn't much that wouldn't come off as sexy on Sam, with his hair all mussed and a devilish gleam glinting in those blue eyes..

I took a quick gulp of orange juice. He dropped to his knees in front of the recliner, took the glass from my hand and finished it off. Each swallow sent a ripple through me.

His voice had that sexy, early morning rasp to it. "You’re running away soon enough. This weekend you have to spend glued to me."

He was way too good at reading my mind.

“I was not running from you. I thought I might take care of some basic needs while you were sleeping.”

“You were running. You’re like the Runaway Bunny.”

"Who?"

He’d been untangling the afghan from my fingers, searching out an opening. He looked up. “You don’t know the Runaway Bunny? It’s a bedtime story.” His hands found a breach in the security while he was talking and  were sneaking up under the T-shirt. “So what story did you love to hear at bedtime?”

“I could read on my own since I was about 3, Sam. Nobody had to read me stories.”

“Storytime isn't about reading." His hands backed out.

"Oh?"

Sam scooped me up and resettled us in the chair with me in his lap. "It's about snuggling."

"I've never been a snuggle bunny," I said, wrinkling my nose.

Sam's nose was nuzzling my neck. "I'll have to change all that."

He tugged at a drawer in the lamp table and plucked out an iPod Touch, as he explained that he liked to keep his library portable. And when he punched up the power and opened his eReader app, I saw he had a huge library in there -- some of it quite steamy looking from the covers.

"You're a porn fiend," I teased.

"Not porn," he said. "Erotic Romance."

"Oh, big difference."

"No really," he said. "Porn is about getting to the orgasm. Erotic romance is about sex that steals your heart."

I gave him a doubful look.

"You'll love this one." He pushed my head to his shoulder. I sighed. Porn sounded so much safer.

"This story is about tiger people."

Oh brother. "Hmm," I said

"Don't judge." He gave my nipple a pinch.

"All I said--"

"I know what you're thinking. Just listen."

He started to read. Now Sam could have made the phone book sound sexy, and it was a good story, but I could not relax. My skin started to itch in odd places, like behind my knee, or in the middle of my back. I tried to ease the itch without moving too much. I had that same wired feeling you get when you've had too much coffee, too close to bedtime, and your mind won't settle. Even when you do sleep, it's like part of your mind stays awake, fussing over problems, and you never get a real rest. Well, that's how this was. Even when I was paying attention to the story, another part of my mind wouldn't settle. It kept latching onto distractions like the itches, or how the room was suddenly too warm, or how my foot was going to sleep.

---

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Caught

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It was an old photograph, a woman in a faded dress sitting on the steps in front of a mobile home. She had a feminine version of Sam’s smile and a warm hug that reached past the two boys she had her arms around and into me. Maybe it just seemed that that I knew what the hug would feel like because I could see so much of Sam in her. The boys were 10 or so. I recognized Sam and, of course, he was smiling. The other, slightly bigger, boy was frowning, a baseball clutched in one hand. I suspected he wasn’t keen on the idea of leaving his game for something as silly as a picture.

I ran my finger around the edge of the frame, studied the mobile home, and wondered if the picture was taken in this park. I tried to imagine what it must be like to live in the same place all your life. What would it be like to wake up every day to the attention of your own mother? I imagined if a woman put that much of herself into a child he would feel all that love wrapped around him like a security blanket. I fingered the knitted strands of the blanket around me, the yarn frayed, fuzzy with age, unraveling at the edge, old enough to have been knitted by the work-worn hands resting on each boy’s shoulder.

The pattern was a simple mix of three colors, worked over and over. I felt blank, empty on the inside when I tried to conjure an imagined presence of something like that in my life -- the dedicated effort of one woman’s love, working on the project day after day from beginning to end. In comparison, I was a crazy quilt of cast off scraps, bits of time invested here and there. I might always be a patchwork, but I was determined to grow some roots. To sink them deep into a community I would never have to leave. I knew life with a music man was a rootless life. I knew this floating feeling I had with Sam wouldn’t last.

I heard Sam shuffling down the hall and put the picture back. I shifted in the chair, pulling my knees to my chest, hugging them close with the afghan draped around me like a fish net. A feeling of being caught fluttered in my stomach.

---

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Floating

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I'm beginning to understand why love makes people so crazy. Being in love is like having a big helium balloon in your stomach. You feel wobbly as a helium voice. I think I would have floated away if Sam hadn’t been sleeping on top of me.

Ok, so I've admitted that maybe it can happen to me. That doesn't mean I can't be sensible about it.

My mouth was desert dry and I needed to pee, so I pushed at Sam until he opened an eye, flipped over on his back, and dropped back into his dream world.

My foot sank into a heap of clothes at the side of the bed. I grabbed the first item on top -- Sam’s boxers, Daffy Duck stamped all over. Some things it’s best not to analyze..

His T-shirt was next in line and that was good enough. I turned the bedroom light out when I stepped into the hall. Sam shifted and murmured in his sleep. I took care of business and showered in a bathroom smaller than most closets. The shirt smelled of Sam and I didn’t mind. It was like having his arms around me.

The kitchen was illuminated by the light in the range hood. The microwave timer read 5 AM. It didn’t take long to find a glass in the kitchen and there was orange juice in the fridge. I considered opening the front door and letting Sam’s air conditioner put an end to global warming, but the electric bill was probably already the size of a mortgage payment. So I turned the beast off and grabbed an afghan off the back of the couch. I thought I’d sit and thaw out for a bit before crawling back in bed with Sam.

I curled up in his recliner, tucking my feet under me to keep my toes warm. There was a photograph on the lamp table. Who was important enough in Sam's life to earn a spot beside his favorite chair?

---

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Making Music

Flickr Photo Download: Tuning up

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Sam sat down on the edge of the bed; his hands skimmed up and down my arms in a slow, soothing motion. “It’s okay, baby.”

"I ‘m not a baby. I’m just a little cold. That’s all.” But I felt very small and very young, as if the five-year difference in our ages had suddenly expanded to twenty.

The bed creaked and the sheets whispered with the movements of Sam stretching out beside me. He patted the empty space between us. I burrowed into his warmth, feeling safe and snug with the light on and the blanket now wrapped around us both.

Sam started talking music, about composing music. He talked about how you can pick up your guitar and there isn’t a note or idea in your mind, and how you have to sit with yourself and wait for it, like you wait for a squirrel to find the courage to come down from his tree and take peanuts from your hand.

He shifted so his body was spooned to mine. His lips just against the edge of my ear so he could whisper in the softest voice. His voice resonated through his chest along my backbone, the vibrations playing along my vertebrae, up and down like notes on a scale.

You can’t play an instrument cold. You have to wait until the wood and the strings come up to the heat of the room around you, or you’ll get halfway through a song and need to retune. I guess that’s what was happening with Sam. We launched into things too fast in the van and the tuning fell apart when we got inside.

He shifted. I felt his erection pressed against my hip, waiting for me to find my tuning.

“The best songs, have to be earned,” Sam said. I turned in his arms so I could see his face. I traced the outline of his jaw with my fingers and watched his eyelids drift down. His mouth kept moving.

“It’s like the music has to know it can trust you to play it right.”

I lifted my head turned my lips to his. When he kissed me, the warmth of his lips sent heat radiating down my limbs. His hand found my breast and his thumb stroked back and forth over the peak of a nipple, kicking my inner thermostat up a notch with every pass. No hurry. No rush. He kept talking while I warmed. I pushed the blanket back.

Somewhere in Sam’s explanation of composing, I lost my shirt, and my skirt. He let me tug off his T-shirt while he explained about making the lyrics mold themselves to a melody. He was still talking—I swear this is truth – when I was naked and swung a leg over to straddle his hips.

“If you’re patient enough,” he said, “the song will eventually reach out and drag you into it, make you part of it.”

I took Sam inside me, holding tight as I slid down over him. He finally stopped talking.

---

Good news!!
The Editors at textnovel.com selected Greyhound Summer as an Editor's Pick. If you're enjoying this story, help me make it into the finals of the competition with your vote. Just click this link and vote me up by clicking both the thumb symbol and cellphone symbol next to my story. I know it's a pain to have to create an account, but it's free and you'll gain access to all the great novels on the site. You could be helping this author toward a publishing contract. TIA