Kinkade, Lea - I Got a Feelin' [The Chisholms of Texas 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (15 page)

By the time all the presents had been unwrapped and dessert had been eaten, Samantha could almost forget what had happened. As they gathered their things to leave, everyone, including Aunt Kristen, hugged Samantha and wished her a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

On the drive home, Samantha could feel Ryan’s eyes on her every few minutes. She knew he was still concerned about what had gone on at his parents’ house and wanted to know what had happened to upset her so badly. He would expect answers once they got back to her apartment. When she caught his eye, she gave him a soft smile, and he responded with a tender one of his own, reaching out to grasp her hand with his.

Samantha knew her time with Ryan was up. She had to tell him the truth about her parents and why she was put in foster care, and she had to tell him tonight. She couldn’t hold the truth back from him any longer. Although this would probably end things between them, she knew it was best to tell him this now before she admitted to him that she loved him.

As he helped her out of the truck, he tucked his arm around her shoulders and walked with her up the stairs to her apartment. Using his key, he opened up the door and waited for her to precede him into the apartment. Samantha walked through the doorway and kicked off her shoes as she went to the table and set down her purse. Without a word, she went to the cupboard above the refrigerator and pulled down a bottle of Jameson. She took two glasses from the cupboard and poured a couple of fingers in each glass. Picking up a glass, she nodded to him to take the other one. Putting her glass to her lips, she drained it in three gulps. With an arched eyebrow, Ryan took a sip from his own glass.

Suddenly, Samantha knew that she needed one thing from Ryan before she told him something that might make him leave her forever. Hands going to the hem of her sweater, she turned to him, eyes glittering with need. She pulled her cashmere sweater over her head and quickly undid her lacy, black bra, dropping them to the floor.

Ryan’s body reacted immediately. She could see the telltale bulge in his jeans as his cock hardened with desire. He started tearing at his own clothes, tugging on them frantically. He shrugged off his shirt and dropped his pants, stepping out of them as she stepped out of her skirt. His cock was hot, hard, and ready for her.

He picked her up in his arms, walking quickly to the bedroom. As he set her on the edge of the bed, she moved quickly to the middle of the mattress and waited for him to come to her.

They both hissed when he met her in the middle of the bed and they touched each other skin to skin. Taking her mouth in a voracious kiss he nipped and sucked on her lips. As his lips roamed down her body, he pushed her onto her back and made his way down toward her raging, wet pussy.

Pulling him back up her body, she demanded, “No, I don’t need that right now. I need you. Inside me. Right now. No preliminaries, Ryan. I need you to fuck me. Fuck me hard.”

* * * *

Ryan’s need for her was as great as her need for him. He didn’t know exactly what had brought all of this on, but the woman he loved needed him. He checked her for readiness, finding her nether lips swollen and wet. He pushed her bent knees up against her chest and, with a single hard thrust, his cock was fully seated in her voracious pussy. As he began to pump his cock in and out of her sheath, he could hear both of their panting breaths, grunting in time with his thrusts. He could feel her pussy tightening on his long, thick shaft and continued pumping into her. Over and over he pistoned into her body. He heard her scream of ecstasy as her body liquefied around him. One, two, three more thrusts and he joined her in oblivion.

He fell to her side and gently pulled her panting body into his arms. They lay there without talking as their breathing slowly returned to normal. Gathering her more tightly into his body, he covered their entwined bodies with the quilt from the end of the bed. Ryan hugged her tightly to him and waited for her to begin.

“God, I love you Samantha. Will you tell me what happened today? Why did you get so upset? What did my aunt Kristen say to you that had you looking like a deer in the headlights? Something is scaring you. Tell me what it is. Let me in, darlin’. I swear you won’t regret it.”

Chapter 11

Samantha lay snuggled up against the man of her dreams, hating the fact that, after she was done talking today, he would probably leave her. Haltingly she started telling the man she loved the story of her life.

“Samantha Anne Michaels was born on November twenty-sixth, twenty-seven years ago in a county hospital in Corpus Christi, Texas, to Tonya Anne Michaels, a known prostitute and drug user. Tonya was high on meth when Samantha was born and the baby tested positive for drug exposure. State authorities got involved.

“The baby’s father had been one of Tonya’s customers, although she told Social Services she wasn’t sure which one. Tonya had no family to intercede on her daughter’s behalf.

“The State of Texas spent the next seven years trying to get Tonya off drugs and off the streets. Tonya would make some progress and Samantha would be returned to her, then Tonya would go back to turning tricks, taking drugs, or both, and Samantha would be removed again.

“Finally, when Samantha was seven years old, Tonya requested that Samantha be placed in foster care on a voluntary basis. Although she visited Samantha off and on for a while, Tonya decided fairly quickly that her life was a lot easier without another mouth to feed and she soon stopped visiting Samantha altogether.

“Because of Samantha’s age, the courts decided not to terminate Tonya’s parental rights. Long-term foster care was determined to be in Samantha’s best interests. The problem was that, for a variety of reasons, none of the foster homes Samantha was sent to ended up being long-term. From the age of seven until the time Samantha ‘aged out’ of the foster-care system, she never spent more than one year in the same foster home, or the same school district for that matter.

“Samantha learned early not to trust adults and their promises of a ‘forever home.’ She also learned to take care of herself. Sure, there were a couple of good foster homes in the mix, but those types of placements were few and far between.

The first and only adult that had kept her promises to Samantha was Sandy Carmichael, the owner of The Flower Shoppe in downtown Corpus Christi. Samantha met Sandy when she was almost eighteen and about to age out of the foster-care system. Without Sandy Carmichael, Samantha would be in a dead-end job living from paycheck to paycheck while she lived in a hovel in Corpus Christi.”

Samantha related all of this to Ryan as if it were a story she was telling him about someone else’s life. She paused briefly as she took a deep breath and tipped her head up slightly, trying to read his expression. When she couldn’t see into his eyes, she settled once again in his arms. She quietly told him all about how she had met Sandy Carmichael and how her friendship with the older woman had changed her life, including the bequest and the legal battle that had ensued because of Sandy’s brother. She also told him about her two disastrous relationships with Brandon and J.T. She had been with each man for over a year, and they had claimed to love her.

“It was just like Brandon all over again. Once J.T.’s parents found out about my parents and got through talking ‘sense’ into him, he dumped me like trash. Forced me out of our apartment and his life.” Running out of steam, Samantha grew quiet and waited for Ryan’s reaction.

* * * *

Ryan lay quietly once Samantha had fallen silent. So much of what made this woman who and what she was had become clear to him. Samantha had finally let him all the way into her life. She had trusted him with her deepest hurts and disappointments. Oh, he knew there was a lot that she had left unsaid, but she had revealed her very essence to him, and he was humbled by her trust in him.

Knowing that she expected his reaction to her story to be even more of the same pain and disappointment broke his heart. He knew that the next words he spoke to her would determine whether or not they had a future together. He weighed his words carefully as he gently squeezed her to him.

“I can’t even begin to tell you what a strong person I think you are. You’ve come through things that would have given anyone else an excuse to give up.”

Knowing she would spurn anything she saw as pity, he went on. “You are an amazing woman, Samantha Michaels. I thought you were amazing before you told me what you’ve gone through. Now I know just how amazing you really are. I’m honored that you trust me enough to let me into your life like this. Thank you, darlin’.” He lay there quietly, waiting for the storm he instinctively knew was coming. He wasn’t disappointed.

Scrambling out of his arms and off the bed, Samantha reached for her robe that was lying on the foot of the bed and shrugged it on, belting it tightly. “That’s all you have to say? I just told you that my mother is a whore and that my father was one of her johns and that’s all you have to say about it?” She looked at him incredulously.

Ryan got up slowly and pulled on his jeans, zipping them but leaving them unbuttoned. He instinctively spoke softly to her. “It doesn’t change who you are to me. You’re still the woman I love. None of what you just told me changes the fact that I love you, Samantha Michaels.”

Samantha appeared surprised by his declaration of love and was silent for a moment. She started to pace back and forth in front of the bed. Finally, she faced him looking at him derisively. “You can’t love me, Ryan Chisholm. I’m a little nobody with very questionable pedigree. You are a Chisholm, for Christ’s sake. A member of the premiere family in south Texas. You need to fall in love with some woman who can trace her ancestry back to the Mayflower or some shit like that. I am not that woman, Ryan. My mother was a
prostitute
, for God’s sake. Hell, she probably still is. She makes her money selling her body to any man that can meet her price. I am a mistake that she made while she was doing that.
I am nothing
.”

He went to her where she was pacing, taking her by the shoulders and giving her a gentle shake. “Don’t you dare say that, Samantha Michaels. You are not
nothing
. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me. I’m not letting you go, darlin’. I love you.” Taking a deep breath, he took the plunge into the abyss. “I want you to be my wife.”

She looked at him with utter incredulity on her face. “Your wife? Are you crazy? Your family would never let you marry someone like me. Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said? How are you any different from Brandon and J.T.?” She resisted his attempts to pull her into his arms and walked over to stand in front of the window.

“Do
not
compare me to those two little pricks!” he said angrily. “Even if my family tried to threaten me to get me to dump you, which they never would because they love you almost as much as I do, I would never cave like those two assholes. Samantha, I am a man, and I’m old enough to know what I want and strong enough to fight for it. Brandon and J.T. were little boys playing at being men. If they had really loved you, like I do, nothing could have made them give you up.” He knew he needed to make her see the differences between himself and the two no-account jerks who had rejected her for something she had no control over.

As she turned to face him, his heart twisted at the anguish and sadness he saw on her face. “You don’t understand, Ryan. You just don’t
know
.”

Going to her, he pulled her gently into his arms. “No, darlin’, I don’t know everything you went through, and I cannot possibly understand the emotional toll it took on you.” He paused to gather his thoughts. “Samantha, you’re an adult now. Your mother can’t hurt you anymore unless you let her. Those social workers and those foster homes don’t have the power to hurt you anymore unless you give it to them.”

He drew one hand from her shoulder and placed it under her chin as he gently tipped up her face to look at him. “I know you’ve been hurt by people who said they loved you. I’m not them, Samantha. I. Love. You. I have never said that to a woman I wasn’t related to. Never!” He needed to make her understand the difference. He watched her as confusion seemed to take over.

“We’ll take this slow, darlin’. I promise. Give me time to prove to you how much I love you and that I’m in this for the long haul.” Ryan was pleading with her now. Hell. He’d get down on his knees and beg if that’s what it took.

Though her resistance was clearly crumbling, Samantha didn’t let it go. Pulling away from him again, she tried once more to argue with him. “Your family…”

“Will love you even more as they get to know you better. No,” he said, seeing the denial and fright in her face, “We don’t have to tell them everything if you don’t want to, but they would never hold what you’ve told me against you. I know that.” He did know that. He didn’t doubt a single member of his family in that regard.

He pulled her back into his arms, running his hands up and down her back soothingly. “Hell, darlin’, even if my family was like those assholes’ families, do you really think I would give a shit? If I wanted my family’s approval, I would have gone into the family business. Don’t get me wrong. I love my family, but I am not going to live my life to please them. Give this a chance. Give
us
a chance.”

He could see the anguish on her face. There were some people in her past who had a lot to answer for, he thought grimly.