Wanting Forever (A Nelson Island Novel) (14 page)

S
am may have been sitting with Tamara, but his eyes were on Aston’s every step. He saw how much she’d had to drink. His eyes were on her lithe, graceful body as she wobbled where she usually glided. Why was she walking so close to the pool?

So his eyes were the first to zoom in on her ankle as it twisted beneath her. It was as if the scene were moving in a blur, slower than real time. His eyes rose to her face, and he was on his feet as it contorted in pain. He wished in that moment that his chair was closer, because she was already tilting toward the water.

When she surfaced just seconds later, the sigh of relief caused his entire torso to sag. She was okay. Of course she was okay.

She was Aston.

He heard her say something to Ashley about getting her lost shoe as he settled back onto his chair. Her long, dark tresses disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

He half-listened as Tamara talked excitedly about the upcoming fireworks display while he waited for Aston to resurface.

He waited.

Aston didn’t appear. Panic coursed through him once again.

He had closed the distance by half when Ashley screamed.

“She’s stuck! Ohmygod, she’s stuck at the bottom!”

A collective gasp went up around those sitting closest to the pool, and he didn’t pause before he dove into the deep blue water.

His heart battering his chest like a jackhammer, Sam propelled himself to the bottom of the pool. Aston glanced at him with alarm as she tugged furiously on her hair.

Her hair. Oh, God, her hair was stuck in the drain. He tugged, to no avail, because the drain’s small amount of suction was enough to keep a piece of her long, thick mane wrenched firmly inside of the hatch.

Blind panic filled his senses as he tugged harder, eliciting a scream from Aston that sent tiny air bubbles rushing for the surface of the pool. His chest was burning, and he rose quickly to the surface to take a breath.

When he plunged back below the water, a splash beside him told him he was no longer alone. Reed swam beside him as he kicked back toward where Aston was now floating limply next to the drain.

Sam and Reed exchanged glances, and Sam gestured wildly toward Aston’s hair. They both worked, tugged, and pulled, to no avail. When they surfaced again for a breath, someone shoved something sharp into Sam’s hand.

He rushed back down with the knife and didn’t hesitate as he chopped off the chunk of Aston’s hair trapped inside the access hatch. Sam hooked one arm around Aston’s abdomen and stretched the other out in front of him as he kicked for the surface of the pool. Her dark hair billowed out behind them as he made his way toward safety.

“Aston!” Reed shouted as he flanked Sam’s side. “Sam! God, is she okay?”

Sam didn’t know if Aston was okay. As he pulled her out of the water and lay her down on a lounge chair nearby, he was terrified by her still features and limp limbs. He began to shiver, an odd reaction in the hot and heavy night air.

But he wasn’t reacting to the weather.

“Aston!” he shouted, kneeling next to her. “Come on, Princess. Stay with me!”

The crowd of partygoers pressed in behind him as he tilted her chin upward and blew breath into her empty lungs. Her chest rose and fell as he repeated the motion, her lips cold and blue. He reared back, panting, and used his hands to pump compressions against her chest.

“Breathe, baby,” he whispered as he tried to force life into her limp body.

Reed brought two trembling hands to his head and kept them there. “Sam…her lips are blue. Is she breathing yet?”

Sam shook his head roughly, feeling the lump in his throat grow to an alarming size as he stared down at her closed eyelids.

“Call an ambulance,” he spat.

“Already done,” Finn answered from somewhere behind him. “They’re on their way, Sam. I can help with compressions.”

Finn moved forward until he was on the other side of Aston’s chair.

“Come on, Princess. Breathe!” Sam roared just before he exhaled two more breaths into her.

Nothing. The horror building in his chest was a black hole sucking him into a bleak world where Aston didn’t exist. If Aston died here tonight, like this…

He pressed more compressions to her chest, working doggedly to force her to begin breathing again on her own. Her body was so still, so goddamned still. She was the strongest fucking girl he’d ever met. She had more life in her, dammit.

He bent to place his lips over hers yet again, when her eyelids fluttered and her chest heaved. She spluttered and coughed, and he cradled her in his arms, turning her body over to the side to dispel the water she had swallowed. All of the blood came rushing back to his extremities, causing a violent shudder to overtake him, and he buried his face in her hair as he thanked God for bringing her back to him.

“Oh, my God,” Ashley’s face was streaked with tears. “Aston!”

Sam tucked one hand behind her neck so she could sit up with his assistance. Her open blue eyes staring into his were the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

“Hey, Princess,” he whispered, rubbing gentle circles on her back as she sucked in raspy gasps of air.

Sirens screamed in the distance.

Reed was staring up into the heavens, his lips moving in a silent, wordless prayer. When he looked at Sam, his eyes were bloodshot.

“Sam…you just saved her life.”

Aston was still focusing on Sam, as if she were afraid to allow her eyes to leave his. Sam would let her stare at him all night if that was what it took for her to feel safe. He didn’t remove his gaze from hers as paramedics rushed onto the scene.

“Sam?” Aston croaked.

“I’m right here,” he responded. He didn’t think he could say much more than that just then. Safer not to try. All the emotions bottled up inside him might just come flying out.

“My ankle hurts.”

He laughed, a bark that was close to madness, and he gently cupped her face with both hands as the paramedics began firing off questions to the group.

“I know, Princess. You’re going to get all fixed up now. Okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, leaning her forehead against his. “Don’t leave me, Sam.”

“I’m right here,” he answered.

He stayed beside her as the paramedics took her pulse and listened to her lungs.

“You need to be monitored at the hospital,” the woman said, glancing up at Aston. “They have to check for near-drowning aftereffects.”

“No,” Aston answered.

“Aston,” Reed protested.

Aston shot him a look, and her brother clamped his lips together. His frustration was displayed plainly on his face.

“Well, if you’re not going to the ER then you need to be watched tonight, just in case. And check in with your doctor tomorrow. Your lungs sound good, and your pulse is strong. You’re a lucky young woman.”

The other paramedic, a younger man, was wrapping her ankle. As his nimble fingers worked, Sam watched his eyes travel up Aston’s shapely leg.

A flash of anger shot through him at the mere thought of this guy thinking of Aston in any way other than someone who needed to be patched up. There was no reason for his eyes to wander any farther than her ankle.

Sam cleared his throat. When the guy glanced up at him, the look Sam gave him convinced the paramedic to keep his eyes on the ankle tape he was using.

Sam looked around the yard. Most of the party had cleared out, except for Aston’s close friends. When he looked back at Aston, her blue eyes burned steadily back into his, and his stomach flip-flopped. He told himself that it was because he was thoroughly relieved that she was safe.

Finn and Tate walked the paramedics out of the yard. Sam saw them go out of the corner of his eye, but his focus was still firmly planted on Aston.

“I’ll stay in your room tonight,” Reed piped up.

Aston nodded, and glanced at Sam.

“I love you, A,” said Ashley, bending down next to her friend to give her a gentle hug. “We’ll come check on you tomorrow, okay? Call me when you get back from the doctor.”

Sam looked down to see he was still holding on to Aston’s hand. He squeezed it gently, rubbing his thumb along the soft lines of her palm. He felt her shiver, and heat spread like lava throughout his body. Now that he was no longer afraid for her life, the closeness they currently shared was working its familiar magic on his body.

“Reed,” he said softly. “I’m going to carry Aston upstairs. She doesn’t need to be walking on her ankle.”

Reed studied Sam for a moment, his glance bouncing back and forth between him and Aston like a yo-yo. “Okay.”

He bent down to kiss his sister’s forehead, and then turned and strode toward the kitchen door. As he entered, he left the door wide open for Sam’s entry with Aston.

“You don’t have to do that,” she whispered.

“Do what?” Sam’s heartbeat picked up its pace, now that he was alone with her. Suddenly everything felt different.

She was the strongest girl he knew, but for a few moments she’d needed him. She hadn’t had a choice in the matter.

“Carry me. I can hobble, you know.”

He bent down, brushing her ear with his nose. “Don’t be so…so Aston for a minute. Okay, Princess?”

She stilled and her chest rose and fell as she inhaled a deep breath.

His voice dropped even lower as he murmured in her ear, “You don’t always have to be made of steel. Let me be strong for you. Just tonight.”

He lifted her, one arm cradling her shoulders while the other wrapped around the backs of her knees. The proximity of her body to his sent a jolt of
need
through him, and he shuddered. He knew she felt it, too, she gazed at him with those wide eyes that only hardened the current swelling in his trunks. She slid one arm around his neck, trailing her fingernails against his nape, and the hair there stood on end in response to her feather-light touch. Her other hand pressed gently against his bare chest, and he wanted nothing more than to lay her back down on the lounge chair and cover her body with his. He stilled himself, because that kind of thinking was going to land them both in a world of trouble.

He just couldn’t bring himself to care very much, after what had just happened in the pool tonight. The threat of losing her altogether had nudged something loose inside him.

Shaking the thought from his head, he carried her through the kitchen, up the stairs, and along the upstairs hallway to her bedroom.

When they entered, he gently laid her down on her bed and stayed close, sitting on the edge of the mattress beside her. As he stared down into her deep blue gaze, her eyelids fluttered.

“Sleep, Princess. You’ve been through hell tonight. Just sleep.”

Her lids fluttered again before they shut completely, her thick black lashes resting against her cheeks.

Her beauty took his breath away, and he couldn’t move a muscle to leave the room.

He heard her stir some hours later, and he rose from the chair in the corner of the room. He’d told Reed he would stay with her, but Reed had been checking on her every hour or so nonetheless.

Sam couldn’t blame him. Aston occupied such a huge space in all of their lives. Sam was now no exception.

He moved until he was standing beside her, and her eyes widened when she saw him.

Sitting down beside her, he took her hand gently in his.

“You’re here.” She breathed.

“Where else would I be?” He lifted her hand to his lips and breathed her in.

He touched her face, brushing a damp strand of hair off of her cheek. She stared up at him, waiting.

“I thought…” he began. He stopped, gazing down at her, and then his words came out in a jumbled rush he couldn’t halt with sense or reason.

“When you fell, and I saw you go into the water, it was terrifying. Then you didn’t come up again, and I lost it. I’ve only been that scared a couple of times in my life, Princess, and the thought of losing you had me shaken. I don’t want to lose you.”

“Sam,” Aston said softly, her voice sounding so forlorn he wanted to push it back inside her so that she could say his name again without sounding so sad. “You have to actually
have
someone in order to lose them.”

“That’s true,” he answered, and a tiny little piece of his heart fell into her lap.

He trailed a hand along her bare leg as she lay on her side, her head angling toward him at his touch. His hand responded on its own to the smoothness of her skin he’d always suspected was there but had never been able to stroke.

She sucked in a breath as his straying fingers climbed. Her leg trembled beneath the rough skin of his palm.

“And I don’t have you,” he continued sadly.

His hand crept higher on her leg, now grazing the way-too-soft flesh of her midthigh. “Jesus
Christ,
Aston. It’s not because I don’t want you. I just know it’d be wrong. I was with Ever for so damn long…it was wrong to want you like I did. And now that I’m free, I can’t let myself jump into something that could end up breaking me.”

She reached out and allowed her fingertips to graze his chest, so softly she barely felt the fine hair on his skin against her fingertips. Fueled by the jump in his muscle, her fingers squeezed his rock-hard pec gently and he froze. A slender index finger traced a light circle around the nipple, and the hand on her leg gripped her tighter.

“Sam.” She breathed. “I’m not going to break you. I’m going to put you back together again.”

He made a fatal mistake; he allowed his eyes to run the full length of her bikini-clad body, taking in the soft curves of her legs and her hip, and the perfect cinch in her exposed waist. His eyes traveled up to the swell of her plump breasts, and then he could no longer remain a spectator. Aston was a contact sport, and Sam knew exactly what to do when he was called into a game.

His lips were covering hers, because he couldn’t stop himself anymore. He didn’t
want
to stop himself anymore. He let his hands stroke every inch of her exposed skin, he couldn’t touch enough places on her body fast enough or thoroughly enough. And as his brain caught up to the massive desire currently building somewhere deep in his gut, he had a thought that maybe he should stop this before they got carried away.