Free Sam’s Creed by Sarah McCarty Page B

much, but right now revealed nothing. She could not imagine what he thought of her. A woman who so boldly invited him to be her lover. His finger probed her tightness. She jumped, bumping his chin with her head. Instead of swearing, he pressed his lips against her temple.
    “A bit nervous, are you?”
    What harm was there in honesty when the truth was so evident? “A little.”
    Sam’s hand left hers. It felt wrong to leave hers there without the guidance of his. He stopped her before she could take it away.
    “No. Don’t.”
    She froze. “Why?”
    It just came out. Wishing it back didn’t do any more good than wishing Tejala didn’t want her. Sam responded with brutal honesty.
    “Because I like the thought of your hand there ready to pleasure yourself if I tell you to.”
    She couldn’t imagine doing that. Didn’t even know how to do that. “Touching oneself is a sin.”
    “So you said, but for someone I doubt even has a kissing-cousin relationship with the concept, you seem to have an awfully long list of things on your list that are sinful.”
    “We are schooled in such things.”
    Beneath her hip his shaft jerked.
    “In sin?”
    “ Dios, no.” Too late she saw the teasing in his eyes. She shook her head at herself. “You are not serious.”
    His smile was beautiful, making her forget for the moment the intimacy of their position and her discomfort with it.
    “Not fully, no.”
    Not fully implied he was partially serious. She shifted on his lap. His shaft jerked again, brushing her more intimately than his hand. She paused, absorbing the uniqueness of the sensation. It wasn’t unpleasant. That had to be a good thing in light of what she was planning.
    “But you were a bit serious?”
    “Just wondering what’s going on in that head of yours. Good women don’t just go throwing away their innocence.”
    Ah, his conscience needed soothing.
    “Maybe in my eyes it would not be a throwing away.”
    “Uh-huh.” His lips grazed her again. She shivered from head to toe and the ache in her womb swelled.
    “So.” He smiled against her temple before repeating the caress. “I take it you’d consider it too much of a sin to touch yourself like this for me?”
    “This” was a slow draw of his finger upward from the well of her vagina to the hard point above, before wandering back down again.
    Did she? Her face felt as if it were burning, the muscles so tight she couldn’t form the words. His finger pressed against her opening, gentle in its demand. She clutched at his shirt and nodded, as for the first time, her muscles parted to take a man. She cried out as the tip of his finger entered in a tiny consummation. Digging her nails into his shoulder, she arched, inviting more.
    He froze. “Damn.”
    The curse buffeted her temple. Heat transferred from his skin to hers, summoning an answering heat deep within her core. A heat that melted all that it touched. A foreign wetness invaded her flesh. He tested it with a light press. His finger slid deeper, easier.
    “Maybe I should take over, then,” he rasped. “Just to spare you the burden of penance.”
    Embarrassment twined further with desire, giving birth to doubt. “You are católico? ”
    For some reason it would feel better sinning with a member of her faith.
    “No, but I’m familiar with the breed.”
    The moisture spread as his fingers glided higher before slipping back down. Horror blended with an agony of embarrassment. Her time of the month had just finished. It could not be that. How did one ask if such a thing were normal? She stalled, searching for the way.
    “You are a heathen?”
    “Pretty much.”
    A shiver went through her, and his smile grew. “You like the thought of that?”
    How did he know the wildness in him attracted her? He couldn’t know. He was just guessing. She licked her lips again and clenched her fingers against the probe of his balm-covered ones. “Of course not. It is wrong to enjoy the misfortune of others.”
    His