Saying "I do too" became something of a ritual. Or it did for him, anyway. She would declare her love for him, and he would return it. But not by saying he loved her; he would just say, "I do too." He didn't know exactly what kept him from saying more, or from initiating the words himself. It wasn't that he was embarrassed; she knew him inside and out, had seen him through his darkest moments and loved him anyway, and there were no secrets between them. And it wasn't that he wasn't affectionate. He never hesitated to kiss her or hold her in front of his friends or hers, so long as she let him. It wasn't as if no one could tell how he felt about her; his friends dubbed him whipped, and he didn't bother protesting. And it was definitely not that he didn't love her; he loved her with everything he was. He loved her so much that the word itself didn't encompass the emotion. It was too petty and small. It was a word that got tossed about far too casually by far too many people. They said they loved certain foods or television shows or their favorite teams. It was written in greeting cards and sung about by boy bands. Men like his father used it to trick women like his mother into giving away their hearts. The word simply wasn't enough.
But he never believed, not for one second, that when LeeLee said she loved him, she meant anything trite. She loved him wholeheartedly and without reservation. She was free of guile and innocent of malice. She gave of herself freely and without any expectation of gain. So he knew what it meant to love and be loved, because LeeLee defined the emotion for him. He just didn't know how to tell her.
Instead he showed her. She loved the story of his childhood quest to kiss her dimple, so he made a habit of asking to see it and then giving it its own affectionate greeting. When they parted, he never let her go without sweeping her up in a hug and kissing her, either gently and softly if their parents were nearby, or passionately and for as long as possible if they had privacy. He followed Grandma's instructions and carried her things and opened doors for her. He let her pick the movies they watched, and if they were boring romantic comedies or period pieces (which she didn't usually make him suffer through unless one of her girlfriends was also there to sway her opinion), he'd ignore the movie and just watch her. When she twisted her ankle badly while they were jogging together on a slippery forest path after a rainstorm, he carried her home, put her in Sue's car himself, and refused to leave her side until the ER tech shooed him out of the X ray suite. For the next two days, he carried her everywhere until she laughingly forced him to stop. Then he made certain her crutches were always in reach.
And from time to time, he'd look down at her smiling at him, and she'd tell him she loved him, tell him she was so happy to be his, and he'd wonder why she was giving herself to him. He could hardly believe it. Then again, being with her felt like the most natural thing in the world, so perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised.
The only thing that frustrated him was not being able to get enough time alone with her. They saw each other constantly, but there was almost always someone around. And he hated to complain about her generous nature, but he sometimes wished that she would be more generous to him and less to everyone else. On weekdays, either one of both of them was helping Grandma Uley, or she was tutoring Collin, or they were at her house and she was making sure Seth was fed or doing his homework. Sundays they still spent with Grandma, and at nighttime he respected their parents' rules and stayed out of her bedroom. Emily came to visit some weekends, and during others, they still liked to see their friends. The rare Saturday was their only reprieve, when neither had plans with their friends and she came to his house while Allison was still at the resort.
They weren't alone again for four weeks, weeks during which he wondered how he'd managed to go an entire sixteen years of life without her hands and mouth on him. He fantasized about her almost non-stop, getting so distracted in class that he had to struggle to keep his grades up. He set his own dinner on fire one evening while daydreaming about her lips. The only thing that was stronger than his lust for her was his anxiety over pleasing her the way she did him. He knew the mechanics, of course, starting with the insertion of Tab A into Slot 1. But he couldn't fathom when that might happen. He suspected she would be willing if he asked, but he had no idea how to ask. More importantly, he didn't want to try actual sex until he was certain he could make it good for her. On that point, he was much less confident. Terrified, in fact. So he didn't push at all.
But after the first time at his birthday party, she decided she wanted to perfect her oral technique the very next time they had his house to themselves. He reassured her that she was amazing, but she told him there was always room for improvement, and she wanted to be the best. What was he to do if she wanted to practice on him?
Sam tried to be good, not wanting her to think he was only interested in her for her body, but he was too desperate for her. Seeing a hint of her bare skin made his mouth water. Taking off her shirt made his hands itch. Her hands on him made him want to beg. He tried to keep himself in check, he did, but she was just too much. So he let her.
Maybe it was her openness. Maybe it was her effortless beauty. Maybe it was her sense of adventure and experimentation. Maybe it was her enthusiasm, or even her innate competitiveness. Maybe it was just his pubertal hormones taking over, but she was a natural at pleasing him. Everything she did to him made him feel indescribably good.
When she was finished and he finally gathered himself back into some semblance of functionality, he felt a mix of emotions from her. Her smile demonstrated how she truly enjoyed bringing him bliss. A glint in her eye made him suspect she felt a bit of pride for rendering him helpless. And the flush of her skin and her rapid breathing made him wonder how much pleasure she herself derived from the act.
"You're so...," he whispered after he pulled her up to lie on him, and he kissed her. "That was so... so..."
He didn't know how to explain it, but it didn't matter. She murmured, "I'm glad," and then she kissed him back. He felt how stiff her nipples were against his chest, and his spent cock twitched. God. She really was turned on, wasn't she? As if answering his unspoken question, she whispered, "I loved it. I love making you feel good."
He crushed her to him, his hands pressed into the bare skin above her spine. She wiggled above him, her hips squirming, and he slowly lowered one hand to the hem of her pants. She kissed him harder and shifted so she was straddling him, and he wondered whether she was trying to push her core against him through her clothes. He wanted to stop and ask her how far he could go, but neither of them seemed able to separate their lips. So he just let his hand slowly wander downward until he was cupping her bottom, afraid that at any second she'd bat him away. She didn't.
Oh. Wow. The tips of his fingers were getting close to intimate territory. "I want to make you feel good too, LeeLee."
Her only response was a little whimper that brought blood rushing back to his groin. He wanted to record the sound so he could play it back when he fantasized about her. He slipped his hand lower, and when she rocked back to increase the contact, he was hard again. Damn. That was fast. What would happen if he actually got her naked? Would he embarrass himself and come all over her before he had a chance to do anything? Thank goodness she had already gotten him off. Otherwise he'd be in trouble.
He had no idea what he was doing, but increasing the pressure of his hand seemed like a start. She panted and squirmed against him more, and he figured he was on the right track until he realized he would never make any progress with her jeans on. "Will you... Can I..."
That was when he decided she was psychic. She climbed off him, terrifying him that he had offended her somehow, or maybe that he just irritated her with his inability to form complete sentences. But she reached for the button of her jeans. He shot up in his bed and stopped her with a hand, pulling hers away to her sides. He wanted to do that. So she let him.
And then he stared at her. He just looked, slack jawed and wide eyed, while she stood naked in his childhood bedroom, shifting from foot to foot. Maybe only ten seconds passed. Possibly ten minutes. But by the end of it, he was wondering if he could get away with burning every stitch of clothing she owned, and she was wondering if there was something wrong with her body. When she finally moved her arms to cover herself and shrank down a little, his brain finally turned back on. He pulled her hands into his and groaned, "I'm just memorizing you. You're fucking perfect." His voice cracked in the middle, and he felt like an idiot until he saw her anxiety fade from her face.
But then he pulled her down, and he touched every inch of her. He started with what he already knew: her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her shoulders, her arms, her fingers, her breasts. He turned her over and discovered every sensitive spot on her back. He kissed and caressed and licked, all above the waist, until she was squirming. Later she would tell him that it was a more sensual and arousing act than she had thought was possible, while he admitted that the long attention he lavished on her was a way to postpone revealing how clueless he was about what to do with her.
And then she finally begged. Her voice was broken and pleading. "Sammy. God, Sam. Please. Please!" And no force on earth could have stopped him then. His fear was overcome by his need to please her. He turned her onto her back and slipped his hand where she wanted him, and she arched off the bed with a wail.
It was the single hottest thing he had ever seen. He wanted to kiss her, but then he'd be too close to watch. So he sat back on his heels and explored her with his fingers. She was slippery and warm and sensitive, and he had no idea what he was doing.
It didn't matter. He fumbled and prodded and tickled in what felt to him like the most clumsy and ridiculous manner, but purely by chance he touched the right spots, and she responded. And then he realized that he hardly had to do anything at all. He finally slid his middle finger into the hottest, wettest, tightest place in the world, and she grabbed his wrist with her right hand and his bedsheets with her left. He thought he'd hurt her for a second and tried to pull away, but she held fast. And then he realized what she was doing. She threw her head back, pressed herself down more fully against the heel of his hand (where he belatedly realized her clit must be located), and writhed on his hand.
She moaned and whimpered and cooed her pleasure, and he gained confidence as he watched and felt her. She never let go of his wrist, so he couldn't pump his finger in and out like he thought he was supposed to. So he did what he was able. He ground his palm into the little firm nub, and he stroked with his finger.
She was absolutely fucking gorgeous when she came.
X-x-x-x-X
Opportunities like that were few and far between, but over the next few months they explored each other any chance they had. Which were frustratingly lacking, unfortunately. It did help that the winter months were largely void of ways for Sam to earn money, which freed up his schedule slightly. But the more time he was able to spend with her (and Collin and Seth and Grandma and Sue and Harry), the more he realized he needed to earn money so he could buy a car not only for their eventual road trip, but to take her somewhere private. The idea of parking on an abandoned road or trail with his sweetheart had previously seemed like an dumb stereotype, but he finally understood the urge.
He didn't tell his friends about how far he and Leah had gotten; it wasn't any of their business, and he didn't want them thinking of about her any more than they already did (he realized his jealous streak might be too pronounced when he wanted to tape Johnny's eyes shut so he couldn't look at Leah). But they jumped to their own conclusions when he contemplated eventually buying a van. They teased him mercilessly about putting a mattress in the back and curtains over the windows, but they shut both their mouths when he threatened to pummel them both if they implied anything about his LeeLee.
He was awfully smug when he realized they were actually a little afraid of him. Likewise, it didn't escape their attention that he neither confirmed nor denied whether he had actually gone all the way with her.
It was actually his decision to wait. Other than infrequency due to the lack of privacy, which he blamed on everyone and everything, Sam couldn't claim sexual frustration considering her skillful and enthusiastic employment of her hands, mouth, and one unforgettable afternoon in February, her gorgeous breasts. And as the weeks and months passed, he perfected his own techniques. They talked about doing more, but he distracted her with his fingers and tongue until she became as incoherent as he always was.
He didn't tell her, but he wanted more for their first time. At night, as he lay in his own bed staring at the ceiling, he still missed having her in his arms as he slept. For the first several years of his life, her bed was his refuge. It was the place he felt safest, warmest, and most loved. He missed staring at her peaceful face in the moments before he drifted off. He missed seeing her in his dreams while his body was pressed against hers. He missed that the first thing he would see when he opened his eyes was his favorite person in the world. He still felt a little bit wrong every time he woke alone in the morning. So he wanted to sleep with her, literally sleep with her, almost as much as he wanted to have sex with her. But more specifically, the first time he made love to her, he wanted to be able to fall asleep cradled against her afterward. He didn't want to ruin the experience by having to let her go right away.
He was such a sap.
X-x-x-x-X
Bobby said he was whipped. Johnny called him Leah's love slave. He called them jealous. When Rachel started talking to him again (without ever looking Johnny's way), she said her sister was spot on when she dubbed him an idiot savant about Leah. He embraced it. He declared himself a fool for his girl.
A month after Valentine's day he brought her flowers. For the holiday he had given her flowers, chocolate, and a heart shaped locket containing of a picture of them when they were four years old. But Grandma said that flowers shouldn't only be for special occasions. After all, Leah should be just as special to him on a Friday in March as she was on February 14. So he showed up at her house unexpectedly with a dozen red roses. He was fairly certain that those particular flowers were cliches, and he was also sure that wouldn't bother her in the least.
He was right. She loved them, and she was totally surprised because he had told her that he was going to see a movie with the guys that evening. She said she would be busy with Emily anyway, so it would be good timing. He totally forgot Emily would be there until he saw her over Leah's shoulder staring at them with a frown that she was failing to hide. He didn't think much about the frown while Leah hugged him fiercely, but when he turned to kiss her, she only gave him a little peck on the lips and pulled away. Apparently Emily had just broken up with Mark, with whom she had briefly reconciled.
Leah later explained that it made Emily feel bad to see the two of them so in love while she worried she might never find "her own Sam". So Leah asked him not to be quite so physically affectionate around Emily because it made her feel bad, and he reluctantly agreed. It became more difficult not to resent Emily after that, because not only was her very presence limiting his alone-time with Leah (she always spent more time in La Push when she didn't have a boyfriend), but she also hampered him from demonstrating to Leah how he felt about her since he couldn't figure out how to tell her.
But Leah loved Emily, and he would put up with the other girl for her sake. Plus he knew that Emily wasn't really so bad. There was nothing wrong with her, actually, other than the fact that despite knowing each other for years now, she was still just as shy around him as he was around her. He knew this was as much his fault as it was hers. Maybe she picked up on his resentment of her and was just reflecting it back. Or perhaps she resented him for taking her best friend away from her. Really, who could blame her for wanting more time with Leah?
So the next time he knew she was in town, he bought a single yellow rose for Emily along with the bouquet of gerbera daisies he got for Leah. She hadn't minded the clichéd roses whatsoever, but the bright, bold colors of the daisies reminded him of his LeeLee, and he told her so when he gave them to her. The smile she gave him in return was beautiful, but her face positively lit up with joy when he handed the rose to Emily, whose jaw dropped open in pure shock. He mumbled that the florist had explained that it was a symbol of friendship, but he wasn't sure she heard him. He followed Leah into the kitchen, where she was getting a vase for the flowers. He thought Emily wasn't watching them from the next room, so he proceeded to hoist LeeLee onto the counter and kiss her silly.
X-x-x-x-X
He didn't see Emily again until Leah's birthday party. Harry and Sue gifted her with a spa day at the resort, inviting Emily as well as all the girls in her class (which sounded large but only amounted to eight girls in total). Sam obviously had no place at that party, but he and the rest of the boys (minus Austin and Roy, who were unsurprisingly absent) piled into their house for the party afterward. He wasn't sure if the facial and massage she had been given had anything to do with it, but Leah looked even prettier than usual.
Sam couldn't figure out how to get a few minutes alone with her. He had no illusions that he would be able to sneak her off long enough to give her the kind of gift she gave him on his birthday, but he wanted her to unwrap his present without onlookers. But Emily was stuck to her side the entire time. She also knew the twins from spending so much time with Leah, but she wasn't comfortable enough with them or anyone else to break away from her cousin.
He finally sent Bobby in to distract her. Bobby wasn't exactly a ladies' man, but that was probably a good thing. He did have an amazing ability to talk endlessly about movies, though, so he mentioned that Emily and Leah had recently gone to the movies together, and Bobby immediately took over. He took Leah's hand and drew her into Harry's study (he didn't want her parents to think he was trying to seduce their daughter with them looking on, so he didn't take her to her bedroom and he made sure to leave the door open). Then he handed her the package. His mother made him wrap it in real wrapping paper and a bow instead of the newsprint he originally planned to use, and he realized it was good advice when she grinned as she ripped the paper away.
But his heart melted at her soft and joyful expression when she pulled out the little book he had made. He couldn't claim any particular aptitude at leatherwork, but he had done a passable job on the project in shop class. He had embossed the cover with a patterned heart between his name and hers. She ran her fingers over the marks and asked quietly if he had made it himself, and she threw her arms around his neck when he said he had. He laughed and told her she hadn't even opened it yet.
The entire thing was dedicated to the two of them, because he had been inspired at her reaction to the locket containing their childhood pictures. The first page contained a picture of a squalling infant Sam. He captioned it, "This is how I felt until…" And on the very next page, the two of them sharing a bassinet. She was two months old, he was eight months. He lay on his side staring at her as she slept. The page read, "I met you". And so it went. He included pictures of them finger painting together, building towers of blocks, running together on the beach, bare bottomed and perhaps two years old, sprinting away from their harried mothers.
"Apparently I had seen you naked before. I never thought I could forget the sight of your body, but I must have."
"It looked different back then," she giggled.
"You've changed a bit since then."
She snickered and eyed his crotch. "So have you."
There were photos of the two of them climbing the ladder to her treehouse, having tea with Snappy and Mr. Pickles, and crawling over the play structure at the park. Allison was in several, Seth in close to a dozen, and there was a shot of LeeLee making waffles with Grandma Uley. He even added a slightly embarrassing picture of himself staring at her with a slack jaw and glassy eyes while he walked behind her on the beach, blatantly staring at her ass. She was wearing her long-outgrown baby blue bikini that he still missed. He found a picture of them jumping off the cliff hand in hand, a posed picture with their surfboards and huge grins, and a candid she hadn't known existed in which he was kissing her cheek while they sat on a log at a tribal bonfire. He filled three dozen pages with their shared story, but more than half the book was blank. She actually teared up a little when she realized it.
With shining eyes, she looked up at him and asked, "It's for the rest, isn't it?"
"We'll still need a lot more blank books, though." He smiled at her. "That one's..."
"Not nearly big enough," she finished. She kissed him, and her lips were salty from her happy tears. "Thank you. I love it."
"I'm glad."
"I love you, Sammy."
"I do too, LeeLee. I do too."
All the girls thought it was one of the most romantic things they had ever seen, and the boys thought Sam's bare bottom was the funniest. He was happy to endure the teasing because Leah was so happy.
X-x-x-x-X
Soon summer was upon them again, Sam's favorite time of year. He was obviously a big fan of bikini season and going cliff diving and surfing with Leah. But Emily was visiting again, this time for a solid month, so they didn't get much time alone. It would have bothered him more if he hadn't been so busy. He spent as much time working on his summer construction and landscaping jobs as he did in school and doing homework, so it wasn't as if he actually had more time on his hands. But working felt purposeful to him. While he was perfectly good at his schoolwork, better than good if he was honest, he never got the same satisfaction from turning in an assignment as he did from looking at a finished roof whose shingles he had laid. And he had goals, dreams of earning enough to buy a ring for Leah, go to college, and take care of her. Intellectually he knew that school helped him toward those goals, but earning money felt much more concrete.
By June he actually had enough cash to buy an old F-150. The owner had noticed a grinding in the transmission, and the clutch had started slipping. Rather than dealing with the costly replacement of the transmission, he decided to replace the entire thing. Sam brought Harry and little Jacob Black with him to inspect the truck. Jacob discovered a half dozen more problems, including a broken muffler that the owner hadn't disclosed. Harry bargained the price down into Sam's price range. Sam was so nervous about all the necessary repairs that he almost backed out of the deal, but as soon as they were out of earshot of the former owner, Jacob laughed and said that no, the clutch didn't need to be replaced, he only needed to replace the leaky tube and top off the clutch fluid, the grinding would be fixed with a replacement $60 synchro ring, and the muffler was fine, only the exhaust tube needed to be replaced.
So instead of driving his truck back to Leah's house and taking her right out for some private time, which he was positively desperate for, he took Jacob to the auto parts shop and then left it in the Blacks' ramshackle garage.
Three days later he finally took Leah out for a real date all the way in Port Angeles. They ate in a seafood restaurant overlooking the water before walking along the Waterfront Trail with ice cream cones. They headed home when the sun began to set. He kept her hand in his the entire way, but when they drove through Forks, he pulled it to his lips and kissed her knuckles while peeking at her out of the corner of his eye. While stopped at a red light, he unfurled her fingers and kissed the tip of each one, and he saw her squirming in her seat. He tentatively reached over to rest their joined hands in her lap, and when she let go, he slowly inched his fingers down to the the hem of her skirt. She unbuckled her belt and slid toward him on the bench seat, getting as close as she was able. He tried to remember how to steer when his fingers touched the inside of her bare thigh.
"Can we…"
"Yeah," she nodded.
He turned for the remote parking lot at the trailhead leading to Third Beach. It was hardly used, especially at this time in the evening.
But not tonight. There were three other cars parked in the little dirt lot, two of which contained amorous couples. "Oh! I didn't think…" he stammered.
"Right. Let's…"
"Kay."
The second lot was filled with teenagers gathering for a bonfire.
"How 'bout behind the..." she started.
She didn't need to finish her sentence. "Good idea." He headed for the playground. There wouldn't be any families there this late, right? And the playground wasn't next to any open businesses. They passed the tribal police cruiser on the way.
Leah started to giggle. "I think the gods don't want you to get lucky tonight."
He laughed and squeezed her hand. "Nah. You're here with me, so I'm the luckiest guy on earth." They gave up and went back to her house, where Harry and Sue greeted them warmly and told Leah that Emily was coming back the next weekend. He swore under his breath and resigned himself to being a frustrated virgin for a while longer.
X-x-x-x-X
A/N: Thanks again to my lovely beta, Babs81410.