Then we were in his bed.
There Sam demonstrated to me how I was figuring out Sam demonstrated how much he felt about me.
And two hours later, climbing back into bed after cleaning up and tugging on panties and a nightie, I fell exhausted into Sam’s body and then fell directly asleep.
So directly, I didn’t feel him pull the covers over me.
I also didn’t feel him turn to his side or his arms get tight around me.
And, unfortunately, I didn’t hear his rough-like-velvet voice softly rumble, “Heaven is you, too, baby.” I didn’t feel him kiss my forehead. I didn’t feel him tangle his legs with mine. And, last, I didn’t feel him gather me super close and hold me that way even long after he, too, fell asleep.
Chapter Twenty
Khakis
I woke suddenly when I felt Sam’s arms clamp around me, he rolled us, squeezing the breath out of me when he was on top then he rolled us again and we were in freefall.
I cried out my surprise into the dark.
In the split second it took us to fall, Sam twisted so somehow we landed with bone-jarring thud, me on him, Sam on his back. We stayed that way a millisecond before he rolled us toward the bed then he was knifing up as he growled, “Stay down.”
I did as I was told, heard a drawer open, scraping then Memphis yapped and kept doing it.
What was happening?
Memphis yapped again, quick successions, in a way I’d never heard her yap before.
A warning.
Fear slithered over every inch of my skin.
Then I heard Memphis growl under Sam’s rumbled order of, “Drop it on the bed.”
“Now –” A man’s voice started to say and hearing a stranger in the bedroom in the middle of the night, I quit breathing.
A gunshot blasted the air, loud and terrifying. My body jumped but Sam stayed still and I noted in shock he was the one who fired. Memphis yapped then I heard her claws on the wood floors and with my baby on the move, without thinking, I jerked into action.
Sam clipped, “Kia, stay the f**k down.”
I sucked in air, stopped moving and stayed down as I heard what sounded like Memphis attacking one of her chew toys but she wasn’t playing. She meant business.
“Drop it on the f**king bed,” Sam bit out.
“Get the dog off me,” the man said.
“Drop your f**king weapon on the f**king bed.”
Ohmigod. Ohmigod. Ohmigod!
What was happening?
I heard the soft fumf of something heavy falling on the bed.
“Now get this f**kin’ thing off me!” the man snapped.
“Memphis!” Sam called sharply, the noises Memphis was making stopped, I heard her claws clicking then I heard another soft fumf on the bed and I knew Memphis was moving toward Sam. “On your knees, hands up, palms to me, fingertips at your ears,” Sam ground out then came a barked, “Do it. Now!”
Oh God, oh God, oh God!
“Kia, up,” Sam rumbled.
Immediately I got up. Sam was reaching across the bed toward something at the same time he had his head back and his eyes and gun trained on the dark shadow of a man on his knees across the room.
“Get me some shorts,” Sam ordered.
I didn’t delay. Sam was standing there na**d holding a man a gunpoint. I could see this would be uncomfortable.
I hurried across the room, opened a drawer, grabbed a pair of his shorts, left the drawer open and ran back to him. He handed me his gun and I took it without dropping it even though holding a recently fired therefore clearly loaded and deadly weapon freaked me way the f**k out.
“He moves, you even think he’s gonna move, shoot,” Sam instructed.
“Right,” I whispered and now it was me who was aiming my eyes and a gun at the man on his knees.
Sam took the shorts from me and in about two seconds he took the gun back from me.
I just stopped myself from heaving a sigh of relief.
“Turn on the light,” Sam demanded.
I turned on the light. Then I saw Memphis in reaching distance so I snagged her off the bed and cuddled her to my chest.
“Behind me, stay there.” Sam kept the commands coming and I kept doing as I was told.
Then I peered around him at a man with nice hair cut, khaki pants and a golf shirt. He was slim, fit and very alert.
And, lastly, I guessed he was my hit man.
“My next directive to my woman is dialin’ nine, one, one. You got two minutes to talk me outta that,” Sam told the man.
“We need a chat,” the man told Sam.
“I’m guessin’ that since you breached my security system and approached with your gun not at the ready, the f**kin’ safety on. Now you got a minute and a half for your chat. Don’t waste more,” Sam returned.
“I need assurances,” the man stated.
“Think your broker gave you those,” Sam retorted.
“Need them direct from you. I do not need Tanner Layne on my ass. Man’s bad enough but he comes with f**kin’ Ryker and he’s a pain in the ass. Now both ‘a them come with a man named Devin Glover who’s a serious f**kin’ pain in the ass. I want it direct from your lips, I stand down; you give the order for those ass**les to stand down.”
“You already got that through your broker,” Sam told him, clearly losing patience.
“Yeah, well Layne, Ryker and Glover are pains in the ass but I’ve had the opportunity to look into Nightingale and I need to know him and his f**kin’ whack jobs in Denver won’t get a wild hair and go on a mission just for shits and giggles,” the man shot back.
“Don’t control Lee or his boys,” Sam stated. “My advice to you, now you’re on their radar, don’t do anything to piss them off. Further advice, you already done somethin’ that would piss them off, you disappear and do it really well.”
“Fuck!” the man exploded and I jumped then I pressed Memphis and I closer to Sam’s back.
Sam didn’t move.
The man started bitching.
“That cunt didn’t pay me to put up with this kind of f**kin’ headache.”
“You made a bad career choice. These are your consequences. Now do not stand there wastin’ my time. I’m givin’ you a good deal and you f**kin’ know it. As much as it shits me to allow it, a deal’s a deal and the deal is, you stand down, you walk outta here and breathe free. You got ten seconds to decide. At eleven, I’m incapacitating you and then you’re goin’ down another way.”
“I’ll stand down,” the man said immediately.