Chapter 37 Sam

I felt my eyes get big as I stared at him.

"You have a new job?"

The level of the playful energy I felt from him tonight started to make sense. I started to let my eyes unfocus a little bit until I could tune in to his people.

"You're the psychic, Sam. I feel like you should know."

I ignored him as I took in information and laid down some cards. My smile grew until I feared it might take over my face, and I bit my lip to try to keep it from getting out of control.

"This is the one that fell into your lap?"

His playful expression froze on his face, and I worried for a split second that I'd said something wrong, but then I recognized the look . The one that people had when they realized I had predicted something so accurately that they were a little freaked out.

"Yeah. That would be the one," he choked out.

"Not to sound dramatic, but it's going to change your life. In some small ways, and some larger ways, eventually. But just yes to everything about it. The people, the work, the... kids? All of it is going to click."

He nodded at the kids part. He was looking at me like I was a little bit scary, but when I met his eyes, his expression turned into something else entirely. I felt heat creep up my neck.

I should have bought the fancy fan to go with this dress. "My only other real question is... do I get the girl?"

The breath caught in my throat, and the din of the shop fell away. I didn't even touch my cards because I knew that's not what he was asking anyway.

"Yes. Without a doubt, Captain Cerulean SeaWolf."

A low chuckle left his chest before he stood and leaned across my table. His fingers traced up my jaw and angled my face up toward him. Our lips hovered a whisper apart for an impossible moment where every inch of my skin could feel his energy, my shields non-existent. Finally, his lips pressed to mine, and I remembered to breathe again. He ended it far too soon, but the loss of contact brought the noise of the store rushing back in. My lips were still tingling, and I pressed my fingertips to my mouth.

"That was an excellent tarot reading. I am leaving you a five-star review on Yelp," he murmured in my ear.

Goosebumps broke out down my arms as I laughed in response, wondering how he made internet reviews sound hot. I stood with him to... walk him out?

Did you walk any of your other clients out?

But I didn't want him to leave. I wanted to pull him into the back room and unlace his stupid puffy pirate shirt that I was hoping he bought rather than rented.

"Can I go grab some food and pick you up once you've closed?"

His eyes kept dropping to my lips as he talked, and it was not helping my runaway imagination. Not trusting myself with words at the moment, I just nodded and watched him walk out of the store, striped pirate pantaloons and all.

"THAT WAS THE BUSIEST Samhain I can remember. You did a wonderful job, dear," Zin said as she gracefully retired to one of the armchairs.

We'd finally made the last crystal sale and locked the door. I made a much less graceful plop into the other chair and kicked my feet up over the arm.

"It was kind of awesome, wasn't it?"

My readings had brought tears to no fewer than three clients, and I felt like I was floating, finding a cloud of happy in my exhaustion.

"Are you ready to head home?" Aunt Zin asked.

"Oh, um, I think I'm going to go to Jesse's and get takeout or something."

"Mhm. He looked quite dashing as a pirate."

"He really, really did." I grinned.

"At least you're over your denial. It was exhausting, to be frank. Have fun, Samantha. You deserve it."

She turned off her office lights and made her way out to the parking lot just before I heard a light knock on the glass.

He was holding a 6-pack of Corona in one hand and a paper bag in the other, grease already soaking through the sides, from the taco place.

This man...

I wanted to hear all about his new job and tell him everything that had happened with the store, but above all of that, I needed to breathe him in and know that we were doing this.

I unlocked the door and pulled him in by the front of his pirate tunic. As soon as his boots were in the building, I wrapped my arms around his neck and tip-toed to meet his mouth. If he was surprised, it lasted for only a split second before he dropped the bag of tacos on the ground and pulled me in tighter.

He teased my lips open, and his kiss was even better than the one I'd been replaying for weeks in my head. The beer found its way to a display table without him ever leaving my mouth, and with his now-free hand, he tugged gently at my braid to deepen the kiss. My nails traced their way from his belt up his sides where he tensed, apparently ticklish there.

I tucked that information away for later and pressed my palm to his warm chest, where I could feel his heart beating as rapidly as mine.

He had somehow walked me backward until my back hit the check-out counter, and both his energy and his body crowded me in the most delicious way. That flutter of new crush and first kisses that his aura always brought was heightened exponentially by his mouth tracing open kisses down my neck. I sucked in a breath as he pulled me impossibly closer, his hands no longer pretending to be on my lower back, and I let out a groan when his teeth grazed my pulse point in response.

"Sam," he ground out, sounding almost pained.

"Mmmmm," I answered, still not feeling the whole words situation.

"I need to bring you home with me before I drag you into Zin's office and get rid of this dress."

"It wouldn't be the first time..." I whispered, thinking that sounded like a much better solution than driving to his apartment, where I'd have to sit all the way on the other side of the truck.

"You're going to be the death of me," he groaned, his body not at all committed to the idea of leaving. "I was a prick then; please, let me do it right this time."

He rested his forehead on mine, and I knew he needed this.

"Okay, we can go. But only if you promise to drive slightly over the speed limit and tell me about your new job to distract me on the way there."

"Deal."

He was pulling me out the door before the word was even out of his mouth, and I had to force him to let me get my purse so I could lock up.

"You look impossibly beautiful in this dress," he said when he finally pulled away from the next round of toe-curling kisses with me pressed against the door of his truck.

"I thought there was something you said about getting rid of it, so I wasn't sure how you felt—"

He stopped me with another searing kiss, his tongue now well-versed in the pressure that made me tighten my fists in his hair.

"In," he commanded, finally opening the passenger door and helping me inside.

"Mmmm, I kind of like bossy pirate captain."

I grinned broadly as he let out a strangled sound and slammed the door, mumbling something that sounded like the death of me .

He did as promised, driving only just over the limit, and he shared everything he knew about the new job. My eyes welled up when he recounted the conversation with his dad, and I pretended not to notice that his did too.

"I am... that's the most perfect first chapter of your new story."

As soon as the words were out, I recognized that they weren't mine, but his guides'. Every once in a while, I tuned in without meaning to and found unfamiliar words in my mouth. My heart warmed as they clearly resonated with Jesse, though, his hand sliding over and his fingers weaving together with mine and squeezing.

"Also... Zin is making me part owner of the shop," I said casually as we neared his apartment.

If we didn't keep talking, I was going to make this a very unsafe driving situation.

His foot pressed on the brake just as he pulled into his complex.

"She what? Sam! How did you let me go on for ten minutes about the rec league and not tell me that?"

"It was only seven minutes. And I like listening to you talk when you're excited about something." I shrugged, meaning it.

He reached across and gripped my chin gently, pulling me toward him. This kiss was short, but it made me feel seen. He got what it meant to me to have a piece of the shop officially.

"You're going to make that place even more magical. But don't tell Zin I said so because I've heard stories about her."

I laughed and agreed to keep his secret.

The frenzied electricity from the shop had subsided a little, but I could feel it buzzing just beneath the surface when he helped me out of the truck and tugged me forward toward his door. I walked in and looked around, confused. Because this wasn't the same apartment I had been in a month ago. The living room was painted a muted green, and there was a beautiful warm wood coffee table in front of the couch. There was framed art on the walls.

"What happened in here?"

"I decided that Emberwood was home, and it should feel like it."

This time he shrugged, and I smacked his shoulder. "Lauren is responsible for the art though. I think it's by some guy your aunt knows... she said it was a friend and that he gave her the prints." I then realized why the style looked familiar since Zin also had an original hanging in her house.

Okay, we officially like Jack .

"Oh, and I made the coffee table." I whirled around and marched over to the beautiful table.

"You made this. Like, not that you built it according to the IKEA directions, but you cut the wood and used power tools?"

"I do run a hardware store."

"Yeah. I guess. Just..."

"Just what?"

"I thought a pirate romance was my thing, but now I'm having some kind of feelings about a sexy carpenter who sweeps the merchant's daughter off of her feet with his beautiful furniture, and then he makes some sort of magical bed, and they—"

I let out a little shriek as he whirled me around and attacked my mouth. I held onto him and let him devour me.

"No more talking. Please," he pleaded when he came up for air.

The heat from earlier bubbled up with a vengeance.

"Aye aye, captain," I agreed breathlessly, amused and absolutely drunk on the power that came with working him up like this.

He let out a low laugh, and his fingers pulled lightly at the bow of my dress's corset top. He tugged me toward his bedroom without breaking contact. We moved until he hit the bed, and he pulled me to stand in between his legs.

My lungs expanded as the corset finally came loose, and the soft purple fabric pooled at my feet. Jesse pressed open-mouthed kisses up my rib cage, and I shivered when he grazed his fingers over my chest before unhooking my bra and sending it to join my dress on the floor.

He looked up at me with something akin to reverence in his eyes, and he gently pulled at the back of one thigh and then the other until I was sitting in his lap, pulling his pirate shirt up over his head and going to work on the ridiculously large belt buckle. Sparks radiated from my shoulder where he was dragging his teeth along my skin.

"You are so gorgeous," he murmured against my neck as I finally worked his belt out of those stupid pantaloons.

My thighs tightened around his hips, and we refocused on each other. Being with him now was not the same as being with him then. I closed my eyes and let his energy surround me in addition to his arms, which were now covered in goosebumps, as I let my nails roam freely down them. The normal images I got when I dropped my shields had intensified from the sweet offering of a jacket on a cool night to a fierce need to protect me. That intensity made sparks flicker in my belly as I recognized the same want from him that I felt for him.

"Jesse... I need..." I got out between breaths.

"Tell me what you need, Sam, and it's yours."

"Just... touch me," I managed.

The calm ocean of his blue eyes was just a ring now, his pupils wide with the same feeling of must-have-right-now that was coursing through my veins.

Do you want this?"

He squeezed my leg where it met the curve of my ass before he left it, trailing his fingers around to the crease of my hip, and finally making it to his destination between my thighs.

"Y-yes." He captured my mouth again and brushed my underwear to the side to slowly press his fingers to my center. My body lit up like the 4th of July when he guided me against him. The pressure made me dizzy, and I was almost certain my brain was going to leave my body. The band of tension that had been building all night, maybe for weeks, or hell, even years, came to its breaking point.

"Let go for me, Sam. I've got you."

It would have been embarrassing how quickly I followed his directions, but the stars bursting behind my eyes couldn't have given less of a fuck. He held me as I came down, my heart threatening to burst out of my chest. I needed more of him.

Shakily, I planted my feet back on the ground and then sank to the floor. He took in a stuttered breath. "You don't have to—"

I stopped him with a pointed glare, and he shut up. I argued with his pantaloons until I won, and I lowered my mouth onto him. His fingers lightly found their way to my hair, my braid already coming loose. His hips move in time with me, and his breaths come out in small bursts.

"Jesus Christ , Sam," he groaned, and I soaked in the high of making his muscles twitch the way they were.