Chapter 3: Christening the Desk

The kiss ignited something primal in both of them, years of suppressed tension exploding into desperate need. Sam's lips were soft but demanding, moving against his with a hunger that matched the fire suddenly blazing in his veins. This wasn't the tentative first kiss of uncertain teenagers—this was raw, consuming, the kind of kiss that burned bridges and shattered carefully constructed boundaries.

Elijah's hands found her face, fingers threading through the silky strands of her ponytail as he deepened the kiss. She tasted like mint toothpaste and forbidden fruit, and when she made a small sound of pleasure against his mouth, every rational thought he'd ever possessed went up in flames.

"God, Sam," he groaned against her lips, his control hanging by the thinnest thread.

She responded by nipping at his lower lip, her teeth sharp enough to make him gasp. "I've wanted this for so long," she whispered, her voice breathless and raw. "I've imagined—"

"Don't." He captured her mouth again, swallowing whatever confession had been about to spill from her lips. He couldn't handle knowing what she'd imagined, couldn't bear the thought that she'd been as tortured by this impossible attraction as he had been.

Sam pulled back just enough to look at him, her blue eyes dark with desire. "Don't what? Don't tell you how I used to listen for you to come home from dates, hoping they'd gone badly? Don't tell you how I'd pick fights with you just to get you close enough to touch?"

Each word was like a match struck against dry kindling. The careful distance he'd maintained, the cold shoulders and deliberately cruel words—it had all been a lie. They'd both been lying, dancing around this thing between them like it might disappear if they ignored it hard enough.

"You're killing me," he said, his voice rough with need.

"Good." Her smile was sharp, predatory. "Now you know how it feels."

She stood from her chair in one fluid motion, and suddenly she was between his knees, her hands flat against his chest. The position was intimate, electric, and when she looked down at him with those flame-bright eyes, Elijah felt the last of his resistance crumble to dust.

"Sam, we can't—"

"We can." Her fingers found the hem of his t-shirt, tugging it upward with determination that brooked no argument. "We are."

The shirt went flying across the room, joining the chaos of art supplies and textbooks scattered across her floor. Her hands were everywhere then—mapping the contours of his chest, tracing the definition in his arms from years of basketball, leaving fire in their wake.

"You have no idea," she whispered, her lips brushing against his collarbone, "how many times I've wanted to do this."

Her confession broke something fundamental inside him. With a growl that came from somewhere deep in his chest, Elijah surged to his feet, his hands spanning her waist as he walked her backward. She gasped in surprise, then laughed—a sound of pure delight that made his heart clench even as his body responded with renewed urgency.

"Where are we going?" she asked, but she was already reaching for the zipper of his jeans, her fingers fumbling in their eagerness.

"Your desk," he said roughly, lifting her easily and setting her on the cluttered surface. Art books and pencils scattered to the floor with a crash that should have brought their parents running, but neither of them cared. Nothing existed beyond this room, this moment, this desperate need to finally claim what they'd been denying for so long.

Sam's legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer, and when she kissed him again it was with a ferocity that bordered on violence. Her teeth scraped against his jaw, her nails dug into his shoulders, and every small pain only added fuel to the fire consuming them both.

"I need—" she gasped against his neck, her voice breaking on the words.

"Tell me," he demanded, his hands finding the hem of his borrowed hoodie and yanking it over her head in one swift motion. She wasn't wearing anything underneath, and the sight of her—flushed and beautiful and completely bare to his gaze—nearly brought him to his knees.

"You," she whispered, her hands working frantically at his belt. "I need you. Now. Please."

The 'please' was his undoing. Sam never begged, never showed vulnerability, but here she was—completely open to him, asking for what she wanted without games or pretense. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

"Are you sure?" he asked, even as his hands skimmed up her ribs to cup her breasts. She arched into his touch with a gasp that made his jeans painfully tight. "Once we do this—"

"There's no going back," she finished for him. "I know. I don't want to go back."

The declaration was fierce, final, and it shattered the last of his noble intentions. With hands that shook slightly from the effort of restraint, he helped her work his jeans down his hips. When he was finally free, when nothing separated them but the thin barrier of her panties, they both froze for a heartbeat.

This was it. The point of no return.

"Sam," he said softly, his forehead resting against hers.

"I know," she whispered back, and there was something almost reverent in her voice despite the desperate hunger in her eyes. "I know what this means."

When she reached between them to push the lace aside, when she guided him to where she was slick and ready, Elijah's vision went white around the edges. The first touch of skin against skin was electric, perfect, and completely overwhelming.

"Jesus," he groaned, his control hanging by a thread.

"Don't be gentle," Sam whispered against his ear, her teeth grazing the sensitive skin below. "I don't want gentle. I want—"

She didn't finish the sentence, but she didn't need to. He could see it in her eyes, could feel it in the way she moved against him—she wanted to be claimed. Possessed. She wanted him to take her with all the pent-up frustration and desire that had been building between them for years.

So he did.

The first thrust was raw, desperate, and perfectly right. Sam cried out, her back arching off the desk as her body accepted him completely. For a moment they both went still, overwhelmed by the intensity of finally being connected, of finally giving in to what they'd both wanted for so long.

Then Sam moved her hips, and rational thought became impossible.

They moved together with a frantic urgency that spoke of years of denial finally breaking free. The desk creaked beneath them with each thrust, books and papers sliding to the floor as Sam's hands scrambled for purchase on the smooth surface. Her legs tightened around his waist, pulling him deeper, and the small sounds she made—gasps and moans and broken pleas—drove him toward madness.

"Harder," she demanded, her nails raking across his back hard enough to leave marks. "God, Elijah, please—"

He gave her what she asked for, his hips snapping forward with a force that made the desk slam against the wall. The sound was loud, violent, and perfectly suited to the raw desperation consuming them both. This wasn't making love—this was claiming, possessing, seven years of carefully buried need finally erupting into something primal and unstoppable.

Sam's head fell back, exposing the long line of her throat, and Elijah couldn't resist leaning down to trace the delicate skin with his tongue. She tasted like salt and sweetness, like everything he'd ever wanted and never allowed himself to have.

"Mine," he growled against her pulse point, the word torn from somewhere deep in his chest.

"Yes," she gasped, her body tightening around him in a way that made stars explode behind his closed eyelids. "Yes, yours. Always yours."

The confession pushed him over some invisible edge. His movements became erratic, desperate, chasing a release that had been building for longer than he cared to admit. Sam matched him thrust for thrust, her body arching and writhing beneath his touch as she climbed toward her own peak.

When she came, it was with a cry that he swallowed with his mouth, her body clenching around him with an intensity that bordered on painful. The sight of her—completely lost to pleasure, utterly abandoned in his arms—was enough to trigger his own release. He buried his face in her neck as he spilled inside her, his body shaking with the force of his climax.

For long moments afterward, they stayed locked together, breathing hard and trembling in the aftermath. The room around them was a disaster zone—books scattered across the floor, her desk lamp knocked askew, papers crumpled beneath them. But none of that mattered. Nothing mattered except the way Sam felt in his arms, soft and warm and finally, impossibly his.

Reality, however, was a cruel mistress.

As the haze of lust slowly cleared, as his heartbeat gradually returned to normal, the magnitude of what they'd just done began to sink in. This wasn't just sex—this was everything changed, every careful boundary obliterated, every safe assumption about their relationship scattered like the debris around them.

Sam must have felt the shift in his mood because she pulled back to look at him, her blue eyes still dark but beginning to show traces of uncertainty.

"Elijah?" she said softly, and he could hear the question in her voice, the sudden fear that maybe he was already regretting what they'd done.

He should reassure her. Should tell her it was worth it, that she was worth it, that he'd burn down the world before he let anyone hurt her for this choice they'd made together.

Instead, he pulled away from her, suddenly desperate for distance, for air, for space to think clearly.

The loss of contact made them both wince—her from sensitivity, him from the cold rush of air against skin that had been warm and welcomed just moments before. Sam wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly looking young and vulnerable perched naked on her demolished desk.

"This was..." he started, then stopped, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

"A mistake?" Sam's voice was carefully neutral, but he could see the hurt flickering in her eyes.

Was it? Looking at her now—beautiful and rumpled and marked by his touch—Elijah couldn't bring himself to call it a mistake. But he couldn't call it right either. Not when their parents were downstairs, blissfully unaware that their carefully blended family had just imploded. Not when the taste of her was still on his lips and all he wanted was to pull her back into his arms and damn the consequences.

"I don't know," he said honestly, and watched her face crumble slightly at his honesty.

"Right," she said, sliding off the desk and reaching for her discarded hoodie with movements that were carefully controlled. "Of course you don't know. Heaven forbid Elijah Vance make a decision without thinking it to death first."

The old familiar anger was back in her voice, but underneath it he could hear something else—disappointment, maybe. Or betrayal.

"Sam, that's not—"

"It's fine," she said, pulling the hoodie over her head with sharp, jerky movements. "It was just sex. Scratching an itch. Nothing more."

But they both knew that was a lie. What had just happened between them had been many things—desperate, primal, world-changing—but casual wasn't one of them.

Elijah pulled on his jeans, hyperaware of every sound from downstairs, every creak of the house settling around them. How long had they been at this? Fifteen minutes? An hour? Time had ceased to exist while he'd been buried inside her, but now it came rushing back with punishing clarity.

"We should..." he started, then gestured vaguely at the chaos around them.

"Clean up," Sam finished flatly. "Yeah. Wouldn't want anyone to know their perfect stepchildren aren't so perfect after all."

The words hit like a slap, but he deserved them. Hell, he deserved worse than that. He'd taken something beautiful—something that had felt like coming home—and immediately started treating it like a crime scene to be sanitized.

"Sam," he said softly, but she'd already turned away from him, kneeling to collect the scattered books and papers from the floor.

"Just go," she said without looking up. "Please. Just... go take a shower or something. You smell like me."

She was right. He could smell her on his skin, could taste her on his lips, could feel the phantom echo of her body wrapped around his. It should have been nauseating, this evidence of what they'd done. Instead, it was intoxicating—a sensory reminder of the most intense experience of his life.

Which only proved how completely fucked up he was.

Without another word, he grabbed his shirt and headed for the door, pausing only when her voice stopped him.

"Elijah?"

He turned, hope flaring in his chest that maybe she'd found the words to make sense of this mess they'd created.

But when he met her eyes, all he saw was hurt and resignation.

"Next time you want to play savior," she said quietly, "maybe knock first."

The door closed behind him with a soft click that sounded like the end of the world.