Chapter Five

Rory took off her robe and slipped back into bed with Sam, who had been sleeping on his back, his arm tossed over his head on the pillow. His body seemed to sense that she had rejoined him because he turned toward her without waking up and drew her tightly against his bare chest, securing her bottom against his crotch. He buried his face in her hair like he always did when he slept and sniffed.

Rory froze. He was awake.

"Rory?" His voice was thick with sleep. "Why do you smell like cigarette smoke?" He continued to smell her, lifting her hair from the back of her neck and sniffing there.

"Sam, stop, you're tickling me." She swatted him. Biting her lip, she wondered why she had a leaden feeling in her stomach. Why should she feel guilty for sitting outside with Jim for a few minutes? They weren't doing anything wrong. "I went out to the patio because I couldn't sleep, and Jim was out there smoking."

Sam cursed. "I told that dratted kid he can't smoke out there. What, he couldn't sleep either?"

"Where else is he supposed to smoke, Sam? In the front yard so the neighbors can call the cops on some strange man loitering around the neighborhood? And don't call him 'kid.' He's a grown-ass man." Quite grown, Rory's evil brain added.

"He should just stop smoking, period," Sam growled. "I don't even want to imagine what his liver looks like, never mind his lungs. The old man died of liver cancer, you know, in some trailer park in Kansas."

Rory faced her husband and curled into his side. "Well, Jim is not your father, is he? He's trying his best to turn things around, so you have to give him room to do that. You can't be his protective older brother for the rest of his life. He was smart enough to get nominated for a MacArthur Genius Grant, wasn't he?"

Sam chuckled and slipped his arm around her shoulders. "Imagine composing an entire opera at eighteen. He'd had the whole thing structured in his head before he started getting the notes down, you know. He mentally created entire symphonies without writing any of them down. Jim could have been... so much more."

A spurt of irritation went through Rory at her husband's words. She sat up in bed and crossed her arms tightly under her breasts to glare at him. "So much more? Sam, your brother has two albums that went triple-platinum, five songs that reached number one of the Top Billboard One Hundred. He won Artist of the Year three years in a row in a ten-year career span. What else was he supposed to accomplish?"

Sam looked up at her and groaned. "Rory, come on, it's almost two in the morning. I don't want to talk about my brother. I have to be at the clinic in six hours."

Rory knew she was being ridiculous. She had a tendency to over-defend Jim. It just seemed like Sam didn't understand his artistic brother at all, which was ridiculous since Sam was an artist himself. "Fine, let's go to sleep, then." She slid back down between the covers.

She kept herself turned away from her husband and stared at the wall. What the hell was she doing? Why did she keep picking fights with Sam over Jim? Probably because she'd always been a sucker for the underdog, and no one seemed to be in Jim's corner.

Was that really the reason she stuck up for Jim, though? She bit her lower lip with worry and refused to think about it any further. The answer lurked in the shadows, peeking at her with yellow eyes and waiting for her to investigate. She shuddered.

"Sweetheart." Sam rubbed her back in circles. "I'm sorry I snapped at you, hmm?" He scooted closer to her, lifted her hair, and planted soft kisses on the back of her neck.

Rory tried to resist because she was annoyed with him, but when he pulled her back against him once more, she found him rock-hard and ready for her. His erection poked her butt, and without her permission, her body reacted to his ministrations: the neck kissing, his large hands molding her breasts into his palms, and his whispers in Spanish about how beautiful she was, and how much he loved her.

"Sam," she moaned as he rubbed his hardness against her backside. Wet heat flooded the crotch of her lace panties. "I thought you said you have to get up in a few hours to go to work."

His hand snaked down between her legs and found the delicate nubbin of her core. "I'm up now, Aurora." His voice had dropped and took on a grittier edge. "And I'm fixin' to please my wife."

Rory couldn't help but surrender to the heat that consumed her whenever Sam touched her. His skillful--his surgeon's hand--played her body like a violin as he rubbed her through the fabric of her panties; first, slowly; then quicker with more pressure.

Rory reached up and hooked her arm over Sam's head as he feasted on her throat, the back of her ear; his mouth both kissing and nibbling her. She acquiesced when Sam turned her on her back and got on top of her.

He had already slipped off his boxer shorts and now, he was tugging Rory's panties down her thighs, to her legs, and off her ankles with exquisite slowness. He tossed them over his shoulders and gave her a wolf's grin, his eyes glittering with desire in the dark.

"Sam." He'd stirred her into a fever pitch and now Rory couldn't wait until Sam's hard body was on top of hers and he was deep inside her, pumping with that rhythm he'd mastered over the years.

"I love you, Aurora." He spread her thighs apart and made room for himself in the middle. "So much."

Rory opened her mouth to scream as Sam surged into her, then sealed her mouth with his own, swallowing her cries of pleasure. She arched her hips up so she could make more room for her husband, and Sam answered with deeper, more deliberate thrusts that took her breath away. Rory dug her nails into his back, and as he came down to lay his torso upon hers, she sank her teeth into the flesh between his neck and shoulder.

Sam called her his wildcat in the bedroom. While he preferred it more sensually and slower sometimes, Rory liked it dirty. Sam played along to please her, but Rory believed he was too gentle with her, as though he were making love to a beautiful fairy princess atop a bed of flowers.

This time, she wanted to be ravished. She wanted to incite Sam into f*****g. She didn't want any of this caring and tenderness. She needed him to drive thoughts of Jim out of her mind.

In her most secret fantasies, it was Jim who held her hands over her head and pumped steadily into her while saying her name like a litany in her ear. When she closed her eyes, it was Jim who hovered over her and demanded her submission, forcing her to yield to his passion over and over again.

Rory bit down on her lower lip to keep herself from crying out Jim's name as Sam's thrusts came faster and harder, his breathing ragged in her ear. She moaned and wrapped her legs around his hips. He was close, and so was she.

"Aurora." He threaded his fingers with hers.  "I'm almost… come with me, mi amor."

Rory's orgasm came upon her like pregnant skies breaking open and letting loose a torrent of warm rain to gloriously bathe and dance around in. Sam followed soon after with a guttural groan of satisfaction, his powerful body jerking against her as he sprayed her womb with his c*m.

Rory closed her eyes, savoring the solid weight of Sam's body on top of hers. She buried her fingers in his hair and clutched him to her, praying that this time his seed would take root and she could finally get pregnant.

Sam nuzzled her neck and ears. "God, you're sexy."

Rory laughed. Sam was still inside her, though his p***s was no longer erect. She gave him a squeeze, making him groan. "The flattery is supposed to come before the s*x, Dr. Kelly."

Sam raised himself up, bracketing her head with his elbows, which he used to brace himself above her. "It's before, during, and after in my book," he said with a scoff. "A man should deem himself very lucky when his wife dispenses him her uxorial obligations at his whim, even in the middle of the night."

Rory grinned and pinched his side. "'Uxorial,' huh? I'll show you 'uxorial.'" She reached up and stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "I love you, Sam."

Even in the dimness of their room, his eyes glimmered in response to her words. "Sé que me amas, gatita, pues me siento fuerte." I know you love me, kitten, because I feel strong.

Gatita. Kitten. It was his special nickname for her.

Sam learned to speak Spanish because it was essential to his job as a healthcare professional in Southern California, but he also knew it was important to her because of her Latinx heritage.

In public, when they wanted to talk about something they didn't want others to understand, they reverted to Spanish. It always amused her to see people react to a guy who looked like Sam, Captain America himself, speak fluent Spanish.

Her husband rolled off of her and onto his back, taking her along with him so that she was on top of him this time. He combed his hand through her hair. "I want to give you a baby, Rory. There's nothing wrong with you; you're absolutely perfect. The defect has to be in me."

Rory sighed, resting her hands on Sam's chest and her chin on top of her hands. The specialists said there was nothing biologically wrong with either of them. It was just a matter of time.

"Sucederá para nosotros, querido. No te preocupes."

It will happen for us, darling. Don't worry...