Chapter 38: Penultimate
For forty-eight hours after the death of EJ DiMera, inspectors and agents of all kinds came to interview Sami, Lucas, Will, Allie, and Johnny on an almost hourly basis. None of the follow-up interviews were as stressful as the first ones. Lucas even started to enjoy them. The interrogations helped to pass time that his family would otherwise have spent irritating each other and climbing the walls. Still, he looked forward to the day that they would be allowed to leave England—not least because Will's snug little house seemed like a palace in comparison to two hotel rooms.
He no longer doubted that they would be able to leave. He could tell from the tone of the questions that, while the investigators wanted to put on a good showing, they did not really want to solve the crime. EJ was dead, and no one in all England (save Johnny) was mourning him.
Enough scraps of EJ's body had been recovered for the police to determine that he had been in the building at the time of the explosion. No one had put forward the theory that he had already been dead. Lucas' gun had clearly not been fired for an extended period of time, and there was no gunpowder residue on Lucas' hands or clothing. Besides, Allie was an infinitely credible alibi.
No one had tested Sami's hands. The blood on her clothing had been explained away.
The general consensus appeared to be that Lucas and Sami would never have presented investigators with the gun and the clothing, and admitted to confronting EJ moments before his death, if they had had anything to hide.
The general consensus was also that EJ had had it coming. Most everyone seemed happy to believe that he, or one of his employees, had caused the explosion.
Or in other words: the world realized what had happened. The world was eager to pretend otherwise. It was cheaper and more expedient than putting Sami on trial and releasing her when she found to be acting in self-defense, or to be temporarily insane, or both.
But Lucas and Sami would still have to find a way to live with what they had done.
Sami was still more troubled than Lucas. That was Sami—always passionate and impulsive and ready to dive off the deep end, good at creating drama but not so good at handling it, prone to fits of believing that karma or fate or a vengeful god was coming for her.
Lucas was more practical. And in the name of practicality, he decided that he and Sami ought to take advantage of their temporary self-imposed detention in the hotel to have a conversation that had been brewing since the moment Sami opened her eyes.
Sami, seeming to sense his intentions, made an impressive attempt to avoid him. Each time Lucas approached Sami, she managed to get herself entangled in a video game with the twins or a phone conversation with Belle.
At last, Lucas cornered Sami.
"We need to talk," he told her.
Her eyes were bright and wild. "Give me another chance," she pleaded.
"Another chance at what?"
She grabbed his hands. "At us. At our family. At our life. At our love. I know you've wanted to get me alone so you could tell me that what happened the other day—us making love—was a mistake. But it wasn't, Lucas! Anything that feels like that can't be a mistake. I love you and I know you love me. You said you loved me, you said it more than once."
"I do love you, Sami," said Lucas quietly.
"But that love comes with limits. And I went past them. I won't this time. I promise. For us, for our children—"
Lucas bristled at the mention of their children. He'd been raising them; Sami had not. He wasn't sure why Sami was using tactics of blatant emotional manipulation before he'd even said a word, but he didn't like it.
"Leave our children out of it," Lucas told Sami. "You know, Will tried to make me promise not to get back together with you. He was afraid we'd end up hurting Allie like we used to hurt him. And Johnny, well, he's barely starting to accept that I'm his father. He's not about to beg us to get remarried. He'd probably rather we didn't."
Sami went pale and sat down shakily. "Will said that?"
"He did."
"When?"
"A few days ago. Right after he told me how he was planning to use certain drugs to do a certain thing that got done without him."
"So he was obviously out of his mind when he said it. He's always thought we belonged together. I know he's an adult now, but… well, it never made me stop wanting my parents to be together. And he doesn't speak for Allie. I guarantee you he doesn't speak for Allie."
"That doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter?" Sami puffed up, full of righteous indignation. "It doesn't matter that a child who has been through everything Allie's been through wants and needs the support of both of her parents?"
"She'll get that support whether we're together or not, Sami. All I'm saying is stop pretending that you and our children are a package deal."
"Fine." Sami, her face still glowing with anger, looked hard at Lucas. "Dump me."
Lucas sat beside Sami. "I never had any intention of dumping you."
"Then why did you make me do all that?"
"All what? You changed the subject and wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise."
"So you want us to be together?" Sami asked.
"Yes."
Sami threw her arms around Lucas and kissed him hard on the lips.
"But, Sami," Lucas continued, "I want to be sure we want the same things this time."
"I want you and you want me." Sami crossed her arms as if daring Lucas to find a flaw in her logic.
"That was true last time."
"And I told you, this time I know that your love has limits, and—"
"My love doesn't have limits!" Lucas snapped. "I'm pretty sure I love you more than any man has ever loved any woman in the history of the world. They haven't invented words to describe how much I love you. I loved you when I danced with you in that cheap apartment in Salem. I loved you when you locked me outside our hotel room in my underwear. I loved you when I was lying on the floor in my prison cell. I loved you when you put Johnny in my arms when he was thirty seconds old. I loved you when you were trying to frame my mother for SEC violations. I loved you when you were telling everyone you could find that I was a serial killer. I loved you when you went after the other mothers at Will's class party with a knife. I loved you when I saw Allie in your arms after she testified last week. I loved you when I saw you walking down the aisle in your gorgeous wedding dress."
"Which time?" asked Sami wryly as she blinked back tears.
"Any time. All the times. No matter who you were marrying."
"Even when I married EJ?"
"Even then. Sami, that's what I was trying to say. My love doesn't have limits, but I do. Asking me to watch you marry another man, raise our children with another man, live with another man, give in to another man's demands, and spend all of your time with another man was too much. I didn't stop loving you, but I couldn't be with you. You weren't here. And I told you that beforehand, but you didn't care. You were going to do what you were going to do."
"EJ's out of the picture now. Permanently."
"Right. But someone else, something else could come along. And I need to know that the next time I tell you that something has to stop—"
"It'll stop. Whatever it is. I'll argue with you—I'm not going to give up arguing with you—but if I can't convince you, we'll find a compromise."
"Thank you," Lucas whispered.
"Thank you for my second chance," Sami whispered back.
"I think we passed second chance about a thousand chances ago."
"Some of those were your fault."
"Most of them. But you never spent thirteen years in jail over mine." As soon as Lucas said it, he wished he hadn't. He had reprimanded Will time and time again for saying the same thing; he couldn't believe that the words had somehow tumbled out of his own mouth.
Suddenly, Sami wasn't so teary-eyed. "I did not tell you to shoot EJ at my wedding," she said furiously. "That was your own bad decision."
"I know, I know. But you didn't make it any easier on me, did you? You wouldn't testify for me, wouldn't admit you'd put me under any stress. You wouldn't bring Allie to see me. You wouldn't agree to stay away from EJ, and we all know how well that worked out."
"How dare you throw that in my face?" Sami demanded. "Do you think it doesn't torture me every minute of every day, knowing what that bastard did to Allie? And to Johnny? Do you think I enjoyed missing ten years of their life, and Will's? Do you really think this is a good time to say 'I told you so?'"
"Considering the way you ignored me then—"
"You know how angry you and Will got the other day when I asked if you were sure letting Allie testify was a good idea? And you felt like since I hadn't been there, someone had to make the decision? Well, when you were in jail, I had to make the decision. It was a bad one. But day in and day out, I was with the twins and I watched Allie missing you. I didn't want Johnny to have to miss the man he thought was his father too. I thought I could help EJ be better. I wanted to help him be better. I wanted to help my family be better. I wanted to be better by making them better. I was always the black sheep and I was so tired of that. Always being the bad girl wore me down. It burned me out. And if I'd done all that work trying to be worthy of you and our children and then I'd testified that I was such a horrible wife that I drove you to shoot EJ—" Her voice broke off and the tears returned. "I couldn't do it, Lucas. I could have done anything but that."
"I know," Lucas whispered. He pulled Sami into a hug. "I know that. I didn't even want to ask you at first. Philip badgered me into it."
Sami shifted in Lucas' arms. "But I finally solved it. He won't hurt Allie or Johnny or Will again. He won't hurt you again. Sometimes—sometimes I was almost glad you were in prison because you were off EJ's radar then. Keeping you in got to be part of his stupid rivalry with Kiriakis Enterprises, but he wasn't threatened. While you were in prison he wanted you alive more than dead. But he's gone now. Gone," she repeated fervently.
She kissed Lucas along his jawline and slid her hands beneath his shirt.
Lucas disentangled himself as gently as he could. "Sami."
She looked at him, confused and hurt. "What?"
"I want to do this with you." He looked her up and down and up again. "I really, really, really want to do this with you. But I don't think we should do it again until it can be about something other than EJ. It should be about us."
Sami nodded and straightened her clothes, though they didn't need straightening. "I agree." She glanced wildly around the room, and then rushed from it, calling "I should check on the twins" over her shoulder.
Sudden silence echoed in the room and Lucas' body ached with emptiness in the place Sami had been. Even the brief brush of Sami's lips on his jaw had made him start to get hard, and now that he had a few seconds to think about it, he realized that he was feeling damned uncomfortable.
"I don't think we should have sex yet? What the hell was that?" he scolded himself aloud.
Then, resolutely, he pulled out his cell phone.
The twins, tired of being trapped inside, announced that no matter what anyone said, they were going to visit the pastry shop that had been their favorite for as long as they could remember.
Sami didn't argue with them. She understood the importance of keeping a low profile, but she also knew that soon her family would be leaving London. She wanted Johnny and Allie to have an enjoyable memory. She wanted to share in the part of their life that she had missed. And she wanted to do something to keep her mind off of Lucas.
His decision to put the physical part of their relationship on hold was a sound one, she knew. She'd had to ask him to do that in the past. But still, it was very… inconvenient. Their lovemaking in the aftermath of EJ's death had been about need and comfort and feeling alive, but it had also been a nasty tease. It had been an appetizer when what she wanted, after years of Lucas-deprivation, was a seven course meal. Multiple seven course meals.
Her stomach was full of butterflies and her panties were damp with excitement. Her nipples felt so hard that she snuck a peek at the mirror to make sure that her bra and sweater were covering them properly. Her hands itched to reacquaint themselves with every bit of Lucas' body. Every time her mind wandered back to Lucas, she felt jolts of sensation in places upon which she was not accustomed to focusing when she was in the presence of her children.
She almost stopped Will when he went to ask if Lucas wanted to join them, but she just barely convinced herself that Lucas deserved this foray into the twins' past just as much as she did.
Will returned with an odd look on his face. "Dad's… asleep," he told Sami. "I think you should wake him up."
"You're a doctor, Will," said Sami irritably. "You don't know how to wake someone up yourself?"
"I missed that day in school," said Will, his voice full of something Sami was too distracted to place.
"Fine." Sami steeled herself and stormed into the next room.
She was greeted by the sight of a dozen flickering candles, a bottle of sparkling cider chilling beside two champagne flutes, and a bed covered with rose petals.
Lucas was wearing only black silk boxer-briefs. His skin was golden in the candlelight and his eyes were dark and fathomless. All signs that the past thirteen years had taken a toll on him had vanished. He stood before her as beautiful as he'd been on their wedding day, as young as he'd been backstage at the Cherish concert, as delectable as he'd been when he'd insisted on parading around her apartment in a glorified washcloth because his shower was "broken."
Sami's eyes widened. "Will?" she called over her shoulder. "I don't want to wake your dad up after all. You three go on ahead, and we'll stay here."
"Already on our way, Mom," Will returned, and from somewhere came the sound of a door slamming.
"Kids are gone?" Lucas asked.
"Just you and me."
Lucas strode forward and covered Sami's mouth with his own. His lips and hands were everywhere at once, tugging off her jeans and sweater, kissing each inch of newly exposed skin. His lips went down one leg and up the other, infuriatingly skipping the area still covered by her panties.
"Lucas," Sami moaned. She wanted to tell him to dispense with the foreplay—they could have afterplay later—but she couldn't find the words.
"Luc—" she tried again, but he kissed her on the lips once more, soft and firm at the same time. The kiss shot straight through her body. Quite unexpectedly, she felt every muscle tighten; her mind, overwhelmed with desire, went blank. Her breath came in rapid, desperate gasps. "Oh, God. Oh, God." She grabbed at Lucas as hard as she could, kissing every part of him that she could reach, but then the universe simultaneously expanded and contracted. She stumbled and became vaguely aware that she was only upright because he was holding her close to his hard, golden body. She slumped into his arms, suddenly relaxed, though not really sated.
"Did you just…?" Lucas asked, looking rather impressed with himself.
Sami nodded shakily. "I think so."
"From a kiss?"
"Yeah."
"Maybe we shouldn't do anything else, then," he teased, but Sami could tell that he was only just holding onto his last shred of control. She slipped her hand beneath the waistband of his boxer-briefs and squeezed gently.
"Sami," Lucas groaned. "Don't. I'm going to—I need—"
Sami had her balance back; she pulled away, making Lucas growl low in his throat. She ripped off her bra and panties and deposited herself on the bed.
"Take everything you need, Lucas."
Lucas did.
TBC