Sam wasn’t done.
“Seein’ you sittin’ alone that night after dinner, so beautiful, so f**kin’ beautiful, speakin’ to you only for you to turn and face me and see you had tears in your eyes. Those tears, Christ,” he bit off the last word on a snarl. “Never in my life… never felt that. I didn’t f**kin’ know you and seein’ those tears in your eyes f**king undid me.”
Oh my God!
“Sam –” I whispered and his h*ps ground into mine.
“Do not speak, Kia.”
I closed my mouth.
“Burned in my brain,” he muttered.
God. What was happening?
“You opening the door to me wearin’ that white dress. You in my arms tellin’ me about your girl with her cardboard cutout. You lyin’ beside me tellin’ me about your Mom makin’ birthdays special. You on the boat, the wind in your hair. You at the table, your head in your hand, your eyes on me. You driving down on my c**k after I set you on fire.”
He remembered everything. Everything about me. Every moment. Every word.
God, God what was happening?
His arms around me got so tight it was difficult to breathe even as he threatened to tear apart my heart saying, “Should have let you have your breakfast pretending to ignore me.”
This wasn’t good. This wasn’t right. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
Sam kept speaking. “I didn’t and now you’re mine, Kia. Mine,” he declared on another powerful arm squeeze that forced the breath right out of me.
Then suddenly his voice gentled but there was an edge to it that made my heart clutch. A hopelessness. A melancholy.
“Burn us into your brain, baby. Every second, every breath, burn us into your brain.”
I tried again, “Honey –”
That was all I got out before one of his hands drove into my hair, fisted and he rumbled, “No, Kia. Say nothing except to promise me.”
“We need to –”
His entire, massive body pressed mine into the headboard and he growled fiercely, “Promise me.”
I stared into his face in the dark, my heart beating, my lungs burning, my stomach hurting and I was lost. Clueless. I didn’t know what to do. What just happened, all he said, he was in the grip of something fierce and ugly and I didn’t know how to beat it back or let him know I was at his side to help him fight it.
So I took the only option available to me.
One of my hands slid up his neck to cup the back of his head and my lips brushed his before I left them there and whispered, “I promise you, baby.”
His arms got tight again then his mouth moved down my cheek and he pressed his face in my neck and held me. Even when he pulled out, he kept his face in my neck, my body pressed against the headboard and he kept holding me.
I held him back then finally, I turned my head and in his ear I whispered, “I need to go clean up.”
“No.” His head came up. “Tonight, you keep all of me with you. You don’t wash any of me away.”
“Okay,” I said instantly even as his words tore at my heart.
Then he pulled me from the headboard, shifting us so we were in our usual positions, Sam on his back, me tucked close to his side, cheek to his shoulder. But this time, his other hand crossed his chest and his fingers drifted through my hair and back and again and again.
I tangled my legs with his and pressed closer.
Then I turned my face to his shoulder, kissed his silken skin and whispered there, “I love you, honey.”
His hand settled on cheek a moment before it went away and he muttered in a normal Sam tone, “Good.”
I let out my breath, turned my head and laid my cheek back on his shoulder.
Sam’s arm got tighter.
He fell asleep way before me.
Hours later, I woke up alone.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Listen to Your Heart
One month later…
I was standing at the basin in the bathroom, brushing my teeth when Sam walked in wearing running clothes. That was to say loose shorts, a loose shirt with the sleeves cut off and running shoes.
He walked behind me, stopped, kissed my shoulder then found my eyes in the mirror.
“Gonna run. Be back before your folks hit the road.”
I nodded, still brushing.
He held my eyes.
I tried not to hold my breath.
Then he shocked me when he suddenly whispered, “Love me?”
It took everything I had not to fall to my knees.
As usual, he’d figured me out. He knew I was struggling.
He knew.
I triumphed, pulled the brush out of my mouth and answered, “Yes.”
He closed his eyes but I knew he tried to hide it because his arm went around my belly, his face quickly disappeared in my neck and against the skin there, he muttered, “Good.”
What he did not do was tell me he loved me.
He never told me he loved me.
Never.
His arm gave me a squeeze, he let me go and walked out of the bathroom.
When I lost sight of him, my hand shot out to curl around the basin. I dropped my head and closed my eyes. Then I held on tight and I held on a long time.
Then, when I felt I could do it, I lifted my head, slid the brush into my mouth and resumed brushing.
* * * * *
The day of Luci’s breakthrough everything changed between Sam and me.
None of it… not one thing… was good.
At first, I almost didn’t notice. It was just a niggle. But I put that down to his weird mood when he got back from Luci’s and the episode when he woke me up in the middle of the night, made love to me then forced that promise.
It was easy not to notice but I had to admit, I was kind of in denial. Still, Luci was getting her house ready for the market, Celeste was still there and Luci was still processing, talking, working things through.
We also had a short visit from a man called Joe “Cal” Callahan, Sam’s security specialist. Like Tanner Layne and Lee Nightingale, Joe Callahan was tall, dark, built and unbelievably gorgeous. He also had a scar on his face that marred his perfect male beauty in a way that was hot but also made him more than a little bit scary. But in the short time he was there, although gruff and mostly monosyllabic, he smiled a lot which made him a bit less scary. He also openly took a phone call from his woman which became a call where he also spoke to his woman’s two daughters during which his face got soft, he smiled even more and he laughed often.
This made him not scary at all.
That was until he traced how my hit man breached his system. This clearly pissed him off. Definitely a man who took his business seriously, had built a reputation and was not fond of that taking a hit. He did not need to make adjustments considering how the hit man breached his system included the hit man bribing someone at the electric company.