SAMANTHA THOMPSON
I haven’t been able to get out of the house for two days, I called the diner and told them I had the flu, I need to know what I’ll do from now on.
There’s no way of pretending that Igor’s thug will leave me alone.
I don’t know if I should pack my bags and try to run away from this hell or if I look for help.
There are so many doubts without answers, I wash my face and look at the mirror, still without believing in everything that happened to me the day before yesterday.
The memories make my hands shake without me being able to control them.
All that I feared most now is not a suspicion anymore, it became reality.
I got an anonymous call from a woman in the afternoon and I remember precisely the words she said.
“Samantha, you thought you were hidden, honey? We know where you work and where you live, I thought the house was really old for someone with a fortune. Go to the trail to Oswego lake at 8 pm sharp and wait for instructions, don’t be smart, I’m not as nice as Igor, have that in mind so no one else gets hurt in this.”
I hung up the phone, I had tears in my eyes and sweaty hands.
I’m chanting a mantra in my head non-stop, but it’s good for nothing.
I CAN’T PANIC, I NEED TO THINK…
I CAN’T PANIC, I NEED TO THINK…
It’s no good trying to run away, they know where I live now, where I work, they must be following me for some time and I hadn’t realized it.
I’ll do what I did the other time I was face to face with Igor: speak the truth.
I don’t know where Igor and Maverick hid the diamonds, I’ve searched the whole house and I didn’t find anything.
That night Igor housed his crony, Maverick, the one he said was his best friend and would be his best man in “our wedding”, in our house, they drank like pigs, then Igor threatened to kill me and he only left because I made him believe I had denounced him to the police and if he killed me, he would be blamed.
I thought Maverick ran away with Igor, but a few days later I read in a newspaper that he was found dead in a road to Maine.
I believe that Maverick was killed in an attempt to clear evidences, and it was probably Igor or his thugs that killed him.
Some of the diamonds disappeared during Igor and Maverick’s escape, since then I’m in cross fire.
Igor’s accomplices think I hid the diamonds and I don’t have the slightest idea if Igor is still alive, if he is also hunting me or where the stones might be.
To convince them I was used as an escape goat and that this fortune is not with me would the be my biggest problem, my worst mission.
I did as the mysterious woman told me to and around 7:55 pm he called me back giving me instructions to be in the beginning of the trail to lake Oswego.
“Don’t tell anyone, otherwise I’ll believe you want to fuck me, Sam, and I won’t let you fuck with my business. Do you understand, girl?”
“Yes, I understood.”
I went ahead and a pick up truck blinked its light to me to stop, blocking my way out.
Two men got out of the truck and I recognized one of them as Max, Igor’s friend, someone he had introduced me as his co-worker.
How did he make me a fool for so long?
Fake friends, a fake engagement.
Even his orgasms must have been fake.
The only true thing about Igor was his name, nothing else.
And the other true thing is that I’m about to die because I believed in love and I trusted a man that promised he would love me and protect me from all and everyone.
What a mistake!
A joke, my life was a bad taste joke.
They told me to lower the window and I did like they said, holding the wheel tight to hide my hands that were shaking and sweating desperately.
I was so scared I could barely breathe, Igor’s fake friend knocked on the door.
“Slowly get out of the car, Samantha, if you cooperate it will all end well.”
I got out of the car and raised my hands over my shoulders, without knowing where to put my hands.
“I want to cooperate, but I don’t know anything, you know me, Max, I was Igor’s finance, he tricked me. I don’t have any idea of where he hid the stones.”
Max’s ‘partner’ started getting anxious and came towards me pulling my hair so I could face him.
“Do you want to die, bitch? Tell me where are the fucking stones!”
“I don’t know, for the love of God!!!”
It was all so fast, I felt my stomach contracting by his punch and the pain of two slaps that hit me full on the chin.
I bend over in pain and fear, till I saw someone coming towards us a several feet away.
I recoiled like a ball to protect myself from a shot and I kept my eyes closed while I could, because I didn’t want to see anyone die in front of me.
Then I heard truck tires skidding down the road, when I opened my eyes, Max’s partner had ran on foot by the trail.
I slowly take my hands off my face and Adam is surprisingly staring at me with a gun in his hand.
“Are you alright, Samantha?”
The words don’t leave my lips, I nod, trying to keep the tremor off my lips, the muscles in my legs are contracting involuntary.
I’m still trying to find some kind of steadiness in my legs and I can’t.
It’s really hard to think rationally, I close my eyes and the terror I felt that day comes flooding back to me, first the fear of getting shot and then the terror of being bitten or devoured by that huge brown wolf that came from the road.
It was a lot to just one day.
I make sure all doors and windows are locked and I sit in the living room with a glass of cold wine and huge relief feeling in my chest.
The bell rings repeatedly and the hair on the back of my neck stand up, I need to hide, will they have followed me?
I hear knocks on the door and I hold my breath, maybe if I remain quiet, still, they will think I ran away and they’ll leave.
“Samantha! Open the door, I know you’re home, it’s me, Adam.”
I open the door, protecting myself from Adam’s inquisitive look, without even realizing I was wrapping my arms around my waist.
He has his uniform on and his gun, he is most certainly working and will want to interrogate me, it was all I really didn’t need it now.
“I came to see how you were and to understand what the fuck happened there, Samantha.”
“Adam, I’m not in condition to talk about it today, please, come back another day.”
“I won’t come back another day, Sam, unfortunately I can’t do that to you.”
“I understand you are doing your job today, with your gun and your badge of man of the law, but for the love of God, all that I don’t need is to remember all that, so, let’s leave this interrogation to another day, please.”
“No, Samantha, I needed to see you and I’m not leaving.”
Adam slowly removed his gun from the holster, then the belt. He kept staring at me while he was taking off his shirt with his badge, the shoes and pants, without looking away, he was surprisingly in front of me only wearing black boxer shorts.
“I’m not in uniform anymore not in duty, can we talk?”
I bit my lips and I approached him slowly.
I don’t want to talk, today I want without the fear adrenaline, I desperately need only the desire and the amazing feeling that I have by your side, to be alive again.
“No questions, Adam, I need you.”
He got near me and pulled me to the couch, staring at my chest.
I don’t know if it was because of our delicious chemistry or because I realized the urgency of life, by facing the idea that we both could be dead now, but the combination of all those elements made our kisses have another flavor.
LIFE, kissing Adam tastes like LIFE.
I still remember the primitive desire I felt having him between my thighs, his skin spattered with blood, fucking even my senses.
He seemed so raw, so wild and untamed, I was never taken that way.
“Can I understand that kiss is a yes? You want me?”
“I do, very much, now!”
He entangled his fingers in my hair and his mouth swiped my lips in all possible manners: easily, urgently, smoothly and voraciously.
I can’t understand how the same man is able to kiss so differently all at once, a virile and welcoming man, all at the same time.
He whispers with his lips on mine:
“Sam, I want you too, very much! Since you left me on that road I don’t think about another thing but being inside you again.”
His hands caress my skin carefully, in a reverence that move me, while I kissed and licked his plumped and soft lips, the salty taste I felt in my mouth were my tears, I made no effort to hide them, it was as if I was purging all fear and pain with those tears and kisses.
“Shh, I’m here now, nothing bad will happen to you, I’ll protect you, beautiful.”
“Make me forget.”
“Don’t hide from me, let me in, Sam.”
His skilled fingers opened my bra, freeing my heavy breast already sensible, willing to be touched.
He held my breast delicately, putting them together and licking my nipples making them harder and turn to a pink reddish shade.
I moaned with the sensation of his mouth caressing me, kissing my neck and nibbling my skin, aroused by his touch.
I raised my hips and pulled Adam’s underwear to his thighs, taking it in the pleasure of the feminine power in having him melting in my hands.
I masturbated him slowly up and dow, the soft flesh becoming both rigid and pulsing, while he grunted trying to contain his orgasm.
“Is this how you like it, Damy.”
“This way, beautiful, but it’s better if you stop now, I want yo cum inside you, hot and hard.”
In the desperation to posses me, Adam lift my hips and buried himself in one thrust.
With each thrust making my pussy deliciously full and then empty, full and empty, sliding his fingers to my clitoris and rubbing it with the wetness of my juices more abundant by the minute.
“Ah, Adam, fuck me faster, I’m so close.”
“Then have it, cum for me.”
The pleasure built inside me in such an intense way that I bit his lips while I came, squeezing his cock with the walls of my throbbing vagina, screaming his name desperately.
Adam spilled himself in me, roaring, growling in a scarily loud way and he sank his teeth in my shoulder.
His fang broke my skin, making me feel pain and excitement at the same time.
I came again in a mix of agony and pleasure while he kept his teeth buried in my skin and I felt the intensity of the gushes of his hot sperm in my guts.
We remained hugged for a long time, enjoying each others warm and sweaty bodies still together, his penis still inside me.
He opened his eyes and saw the wound on my shoulder, and then he licked it.
“Forgive me, Sam, I didn’t want to hurt you, I don’t know what happened to me.”
I realized that, after it healed it was really possible for me to get a scar.
“It’s alright, I know you didn’t want to hurt me, I think I’ll have a scar.”
“I believe so, I’m so sorry.”
I kiss him in the mouth calming him and he smiles for the irony of the situation, while some woman show off their hickeys after an intense night of love making, I got a bitten scar on my shoulder.
Why can’t anything be normal with me or like everyone else?
And then I realize my like is more and more like a bad taste joke.
Hell, where the fuck is my sense? I marked her, now she has my mark and I honestly don’t know where my head was for me to do something as irresponsible as that.
I look at the scar of my fangs on Samantha’s skin and I feel possessive, a need to protect her, welcome her in my arms.
I know that must only happen when a wolf makes the female his companion, but to be inside her, in the most recluse parts of her body, the way she gives herself to me, no hesitation, no reservations, she makes me completely mad, I get out of myself and all I want is to make her mine.
And her taste invaded me in a way that makes me salivate wanting to get inside her again.
We remained hugging, Adam sliding his firm hands through my back, my waist. And we made love one more time, this time slowly, with no hush, we came together while he licked his bite.
We were cuddling in bed, Adam was talking about his life with his brothers, they seem a tight family, he avoids talking about their parents and I reveal a bit about my family, my relationship with my sister Janet, I was anxious with the possibility of Adam asking something that may lead to my life in New York.
“You two made me nervous with the way you stared at me at the bar, you don’t look alike physically, I would have never imagined that Hunter was your brother.”
Adam laughs talking about his brother.
“Hunter is younger than me, but sometimes he behaves like my father, he’s a fucking difficult man, full of rage, but he’s faithful to his family, he’s really terrified of anything to do with drink and driving.”
“You have other brothers?”
He opens his wallet and shows me picture of his brothers, hugging, having a few beers in something that seemed like a picnic.
“Hunter you already know, this one in the back is Connor, he’s a fireman, and the youngest brat is Kayden, he’s a cowboy.”
I put on a robe and go to the kitchen to make two sandwiches of turkey breast for us. Adam finds a few oranges and squeezes them making a cold orange juice.
While we eat, he watches me till he asks:
“From where do you know those guys, Samantha?”
I almost choke with a piece of bread, I drink a little of the juice and talk without looking away:
“I didn’t know them, I was going by and I think they were robbers.”
I tie my hair up in a bun and I know I’m bitting the inside of my cheeks, a ridiculous habit I thing I do when I’m nervous, or lying.
“Sam, that road is a trail that few people know, they looked like they were threatening you, for some reason, that seemed like anything but a robbery. And there was still the break in at your house, for the love of God, are you going to still not tell me everything?”
He raises his voice, annoyed for realizing that I’m omitting something.
“Please, Adam, I have nothing to say.”
Adam went back to the room and got dressed annoyed, his eyes were full of tears, I wanted him to stay a little longer with me to make me feel a women loved a little longer.
However, even though we are involved, he is a representative of the law in this town, Adam will never forget his damn Sheriff’s duty with me.
He returns to the living room and stares at me in a way that is able to undress me inside.
“You don’t have anything to say or you can’t say, Samantha?”
“What does it matter now? The fact that I don’t want to talk more about anything.”
Adam pulled my by the robe, a hand on my hair, he pulled my face to his and kissed me delicately, brushing his lips on mine and before leaving, pulled me a little more.
“I’ll be back, Sam, and I’m going to find out what’s happening to you, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
I want to see him again, I need the feeling of having him with me, it’s so good, I had already forgotten how good it’s to be loved by a man that makes you feel safe.
And wanting to prolong the feeling a bit more, before he got into his car, I ran towards him, wrapped my legs around his waist and kissed him deep, nice, soft, purging all my fears through his saliva, covered by his taste. He kisses me so good, I bit his lips, Adam dragged his tongue through my neck to the wound he made and I felt so good.
“Are you coming back, Adam?”
He stuck his hand inside my roube, holding my breast and kisses me again.
“Always, Sam, you’re my little cherry.”
I laughed, little cherry? Where did he get that from?
“Little cherry, Damy?”
“It’s your taste… Your pussy, the taste of your skin, I still feel it in my mouth.”
I felt my face burn of embarrassment and my thighs got wet with the look the threw at me.
I went back to bed, taking advantage of the laziness of the afternoon, I head the sound of the iPhone message, I read it and I tremble with what I see it written.
You think you’re free, bitch?! The game is over, we know where your sanctimonious mother and your whore of a sister live… It’s always good to visit old friends, wait for news.
Your New York friends.
I’ll have to find a way to protect myself and my family. Even though I don’t want it, I’ll have to look for help, I don’t know if I should get Adam into this, but I don’t know anyone else I could trust.
ADAM VAUGH Another typically calm morning, I wake up hearing Connor arguing with Kayden and I think: “fuck, I’m getting old for this.” I’m already angry because they woke me so early and I come across Hunt trying to hit Kayden with a rolling pin. “What the fuck is going on? Where are your manners? Aren’t you embarrassed of behaving like two brawler brats.” Kayden is still a brat, but c’mon! Connie is 28, he’s passed the time of competing testosterone. Connie gets his underwear from Kay and starts to complain.&
ADAM VAUGH She looks at me disturbed, with no understanding of how we end up in that humid and desert alley. She lowers her legs from my waist and cleared her blond hair out of her face. How can she be this pretty? Delicately I get a handkerchief from my pants pocket and clean between her legs, I still want to keep myself warm in this piece of heaven. I’ve received pictures and some information from the New York Bank robbery and I can’t really say a women as sweet as she was the coauthor of a robbery. Something is wrong or doesn’t fit. I’m still going to find out who is it. However, my instincts tell me I can believe in her, even though she’s hiding somethings.
ADAM VAUGH If there’s anything better in this world than waking up with the woman you desires by your side, I sincerely don’t know. Sam is laying down on my humble bed, with half her face covered by a cascade of golden hair like the sun and her lips half open, like they have been prepared to be kissed by me forever. I look and look again, still excited by conflicting feelings that invade me. I want this girl to me, with a huge intensity that scares me, but Sam is a huge mystery. She claims she’s not involved in the bank robbery, but she doesn’t give me proof, she doesn’t give me the possible suspects. And there’s still photos with that guy that’s is considered suspect in the crime,
SAMANTHA THOMPSON Adam brought me home, like the true gentleman he is. I open the door in an automatic way, still in ecstasy from the wonderful night I had and I kept thinking: I don’t know if I did the right thing in telling him about Igor and the New York robbery, but I’m a bit tired of all this. I’m tired of hiding, of running, of being afraid… If all my fears were only about my relationship with Adam going wrong, it would be way more simple, I’m truly scared about the cold blooded murderer I was sleeping with. I fear for Adam and for his brother’s lives. My god! How can a woman not fall in love with them?&nbs
ADAM VAUGH The sharp pain I’m feeling on my shoulder make me howl in pain. My body is still confused, as if something in me was still kind of out of place, I open my eyes very slowly and the sun light is on my face. My entire body shivers with the breeze that blows on my skin and I realize that I’m naked, naked and in an open space. I breath agitated and lost, with an anger that is hard to contain, the wolf in me is quiet and I’m still adapting to my skin, the man Adam. I get up tasty and scared, I look ahead and Sam is laying down in the middle of the woods, my shoulder is throbbing and I see a deep wound, but nothing that scavenger Kayden can’t fix.&nbs
SAMANTHA THOMPSON It has been two days since I’ve talked or spoke with Adam, it’s hard to concentrate at work, I’ve been having agitated sleepless night and I wake up in the middle of the night scared, still hearing the shots echo, the growl of the wolf that protected me in the middle of the woods, a swirl of thoughts and feelings that has been giving me more anxiety every day. Even though I know I acted correctly, that I’m protecting Adam and the boys, I miss my Damy, I miss hearing his low raspy voice, his male and delicious scent, his soft mouth stuck on mine, so yummy my sheriff, ah! Damy and his cuffs, the mean things he does with my hands tied and his mouth… I was released earlier from M
ADAM VAUGH I can’t remember when I slept so good… In my entire life, my sleep has always been agitated, so many worries, so many responsibilities on me. Sometimes I close my eyes and it’s so livid in my memory the image of my father’s pale and cold body. Uncle Quinn, from Garret pack, because he’s such an old family friend, helped me to dress dad, but I made sure to dress him to the funeral. My father was a handsome man, dark long hair, with livid brown eyes like Connie’s. I remember I combed his silky hair, so like Kayden’s, and without anyone seeing, I cried hidden. An
SAMANTHA THOMPSON There’s nothing better than a day off work, and it’s even more perfect if that day off happens to be a sunny Saturday, as beautiful as this one. Or am I seeing the day so pretty because I’m ridiculously in love? I sincerely don’t know how to answer this question, but you know something? Fuck it, I’m happy and I don’t want to think too much about it, after all this state of wellbeing is so unknown to me, I just want to live it, just feel it. Also, what woman would’t be in the clouds? I sit up
BONUS CHAPTERTHE STRAGGLERS - BOOK 2 OWN HUNTER VAUGHI have a feeling there’s a heavy metal band playing only in my head, I open my eyes very slowly and light hits my iris like a thousand needles.With difficulty I sit on the bed and look around, two naked women sleep entangled together and I make and effort to remind me how did I end up here. This is not my bedroom, I drag myself to the edge of the bed and I get up, stretching myself. The sheet falls off and I hear one of them whistling, provoking me. “What a tasty little ass, right, Sickle?”I smile ratter yellow and get the sheet from the floor, covering myself again.
Peace? Tranquility? That is for common men, mere mortals, not to me, the leader of a pack of straggler wolves, damn messy guys that because of a Mother Nature’s joke, are my brothers. Even though I live is a short distance from these guys, still, there’s no day that they don’t knock on my door to bother me and my female. I open my eyes annoyed for having to wake up so early and then I stare at the alarm clock, I confirm it’s eight o’clock in the morning, hell, eight o’clock, I’m going to get to the police station late again. I was a punctual sheriff, until my little bunny got pregnant and her huge belly bothered her when it was time to sleep.&nbs
SAMANTHA THOMPSON Adam open his eyes and before he closed them again, he smiles at me, I kiss him on his warm lips and he falls asleep again. He’s fever has gone down, but my heart is recoiled, sad, for seeing my love like this, so frail. Uncle Quinn knocks on the door and enters with Hunt, Connor and Kayden, asking me: “How’s Adam?” I touch his forehead and watch his appearance that’s visibly better. “It seems that his fever broke but he’s still very weak, uncle Quinn.”
ADAM VAUGH We were out two nights in a row, I look through the car window and is cloudy, a storm is coming. Afternoon falls, soon it will be almost three days that Samantha was kidnapped and we don’t have get a clue. I called my brothers and set up with Hunter and Kayden at our meeting point, we got in a diner near the road that goes to Mount Hood Meadows, one of the main ski resorts in the state of Oregon. I ordered three double coffees and Hunter and Kayden ordered a large rare porterhouse steak portion. Our wolves are on the surface, I can almost feel the pleasure of a deadly hunt, of feeling in my throat my prey getting destroyed in my mouth. We were making an effort to control the beasts that live inside us, but because of the stress we were under, I don
ADAM VAUGH A country band plays a beautiful song on the stage of the kermess and I hold Sam by the waist even tighter, I’m in ecstasy with the smooth scent of flower and freshness that’s coming from her sun colored hair. My hands go up her blouse and tremble to touch her the naked skin of her back, my mind swirls in one question: what if she doesn’t accept? And what if Sam realizes that staying with me is just a stupid thing? I keep imaging how dad felt when he asked mom to marry him, the fear of being rejected and the decision to honor the name Vaugh and throw myself in the unexpected. The right thing to do is to take the risk and hope she wants me and loves me the same way I love her, from the first time I put my eyes on heres, through the half open door of her house.&
SAMANTHA THOMPSON It’s hard to admit that the feeling of being protected, scares me as much as it comforts me. I left home really young, I always had to get by on my own from a very early age, so all this interaction with a man that opens his arms to me and protects me from danger is a new experience in my life. Since the investigators Taylor and Lopez are after me, following my steps, Adam accompanies me everyday to Mathews. Sitting in a corner table at the bar, investigator Lopez laughs at the irony of me arriving with Adam another day. “Well, well, if it isn’t waitress Samantha and her new nanny arriving to work. From what I can see, things at the police station must real
ADAM VAUGH If there’s anything better in this fucking life than to wake up being kissed by the woman you love, I honestly don’t know. Sam moves around in bed, taking over the space she can and she slides one leg over my thigh, by her eyes I can see she’s still sleeping, but I don’t care, I let myself be wrapped by her sleepy lips, enjoying my little present accompanied by the first beams of light of the morning. Ah, life’s good!!! I have by my side freeloaders and messy Connie, Hunt and Kay. I live in my land, small, precarious, but I have my home and finally, Mother Nature graced me with this tasty little bunny, with lively blue eyes, frisky, her little girl ways and this mouth that drives me
SAMANTHA THOMPSON Adam parks the car by the ranch door and I get out of the car pulling down a huge shirt that’s working as a dress right now. I’m not wearing underwear and that’s because “caveman” Adam, I would complain, if it wasn’t for the huge pleasure I felt when he tore my panties away from my sex. Adam gets my purse and rests his hand on the small of my back conducting me home. He’s wearing my purse over his shoulder and without letting me know he picks me up in his arms, kicking open the door. When we enter the living room we face Hunter, Connor and Kayden sitting on the couch and a strong burnt smell invade my nostrils. The boys yelled and whistled with joy when they saw us
ADAM VAUGH It’s been two days that I’ve been watching Samantha from a distance, but when I try to approach her, she runs away without giving me a chance to come closer. I tried following her to the diner kitchen, but John, who owns Mathews, seeing my misery, held my arm and said to me: “Leave her alone for some time, Adam, give her the time she needs, otherwise it will be worse.” My mind is turning over with only one thought: “WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO…”, Samantha left the ranch after catching me revealing my feelings to Hunter, and now I’m here, again, standing by Mathews door, with this idiot face of mine, desperately wanting her to come home, our home.&nbs