This was good.
“Excellent,” I replied.
Sam smiled again. Then he bent his head and touched his mouth to mine, let me go and muttered, “Shower then store.”
“Gotcha,” I muttered back.
He moved to the stairs. I turned to my list.
I was scratching out the word “shortening” when I heard, “Kia?”
I turned and looked over my shoulder to see Sam at the wall by the base of the stairs.
“Yeah, honey?”
His head cocked slightly to the side and his eyes moved over me. I held my breath because they’d gone that super intense and I suspected he was seeing something, feeling something, something I didn’t understand, while looking at me in his kitchen.
But he didn’t share.
Instead he said, “Won’t be long.”
“Okay,” I replied softly.
He tipped up his chin and disappeared.
I took in a breath and went back to my list.
* * * * *
It was night, the moon lit the ocean, the sound of waves crashing on the beach shifted lazily toward the deck – those, a nice dinner and a good day spent with Sam lulling me into a relaxation I hadn’t felt in years.
Years.
It felt good.
The grocery store mission was successful. I got what I wanted and Sam got what he wanted. I paid close attention to what Sam got which gave me ideas for dinner and, after we left the grocery, we hit the liquor store then we went home.
And Deaver, who I noted trailing us twice, didn’t attack anyone.
A plus.
I put chicken br**sts in to marinade and Sam and I took Memphis for a long walk on the beach. Then Sam and I came back and he took me upstairs for a long, energetic session in his bed.
We emerged from Sam’s bed late afternoon and I met Aziz. Sam was right, he was friendlier if not less scary. He was Arabic, had less bulk than Deaver but not less muscle, though his was lean. He had more height and when he departed he did not share his wish I didn’t get dead. He gave me a look that promised I wouldn’t (thus him being not less scary).
The only thing that semi-marred our day was that twice Sam got calls where he looked at the display on his phone then took them elsewhere. This was not exactly unusual, he had a lot of calls at home where he did that and I suspected they were discussions with Ozzie or his crew of badasses. So I didn’t think anything of it, in Indiana or in North Carolina.
That was until, during the second call, I headed upstairs on bare feet to see to unpacking and I did this while he was in his office on the phone.
The door was open and I heard him say, “Like I said before, tell them I’m considering it but I haven’t made a decision.” He paused, I debated the merits of eavesdropping and before I made a decision, he went on, “They’re impatient for an answer then the answer is no. They can keep their shit then they can wait for me to f**kin’ consider it.”
It was then, considering his tone sounded frustrated and the conversation was clearly not about my safety, not to mention, I had some anxiety about what it was about, harking way back to the conversation I overheard Sam have with Luci, I moved swiftly to the bedroom. For the first five minutes of unpacking, I made way more noise than I needed to. Firstly, I did this to drown out hearing anything Sam was saying. Secondly, I did this because I wanted Sam to know my whereabouts.
When he came into his bedroom, he was no longer on the phone and he was also in his usual not in a sharing mood.
I knew this when he came up behind me as I was bent over my suitcase by the bed, he hooked me around the waist, leaned into me and said quietly in my ear, “Meant it yesterday, honey, make yourself at home. You need to move shit, move it. I’ll stow your bags when you’re done.”
Then he kissed my neck and moved away.
That was nice, very nice and I definitely liked it. But it still wasn’t Sam sharing.
And, it should be noted, Sam didn’t grab his bag and unpack his own stuff.
Whatever.
I did it for him.
A bit later, Sam grilled the chicken at his grill on the deck. I made a salad of raw spinach, arugula, cucumber, carrot, mandarin orange slices and pistachio nuts and prepared some wild rice. I ate mine with a buttered dinner roll we got from the bakery at the grocery store. Sam ate his with an extra breast, double the amount of rice and salad and zero roll.
Sam had also made certain that I had Amaretto and he did this during the detour to the liquor store on the way home from the grocery.
So now I had a snifter (yes, Sam even had snifters) of Amaretto and Sam on a deck at a house on the beach in North Carolina after a good day.
Life was good.
And Sam needed to know that.
So I whispered to the ocean, “Life is good.”
Sam made no verbal response. What he did was a whole lot better.
He trailed the tips of his fingers along the outside of my thigh.
I sighed.
Then I took a sip of Amaretto.
I dropped my hand to rest the base of the glass to the arm of my chair and told the ocean, still whispering, “It was hell, honey.”
Sam again made no response but this time his non-response included physically.
I kept whispering. “Everywhere I’ve been since he’s been gone, I thought was heaven.”
Sam responded to that, both verbally and physically. His fingers glided from the outside to the inside of my thigh and he pulled it toward his until it was resting there and he muttered, “Baby.”
I turned my head to look at him to see he was looking at me. “I was wrong.”
His fingers gave my inner thigh a squeeze.
“This is heaven,” I said softly.
I saw Sam smile.
Then I heard him murmur, “Glad you like my place, honey.”
I shook my head, turned my torso, leaned into my armrest, dropped both my legs into his, imprisoning his warm hand between them and I placed my hand on his chest.
“That’s not what I mean,” I whispered.
Sam twisted toward me, lifted his free hand and wrapped his fingers around the side of my neck.
“What’d you mean, Kia?”
“Anywhere is heaven as long as it’s an anywhere with you.”
The fingers on both Sam’s hands clenched deep, hard, fast and I knew it was reflexively because he didn’t check it and they caused a hint of pain.
Then he was up. Then my snifter of Amaretto was on the deck railing. Then my footrest was shoved out from under my heels. Then I was up, my hand was firm in Sam’s and we were in the house.
He stopped long enough to lock the screened porch door, the front door and quickly punch buttons on the alarm panel.