Humiliated, I closed my eyes tight, tried to turn my face away and Sam allowed this, his thumbs gliding from my jaws but he kept me pinned and he kept his hands at my neck.
Then he ground out, “He hurt you.”
Oh man.
Oh God.
How did this happen?
Why couldn’t I keep anything secret?
I kept my eyes closed and my face averted.
Sam kept going.
“He did it often.”
I couldn’t escape him so I did the only thing I could. I twisted my neck deeper to turn my face further away in hopes he couldn’t see it.
“He didn’t check it, not once, not f**kin’ once,” Sam kept speaking, his voice now abrasive.
He wasn’t pissed. He was angry.
Oh God!
Sam didn’t relent.
“He broke you.”
“Step back,” I pleaded.
He didn’t step back.
He did something entirely different.
Both his arms closed around me, one at my middle back, the other around my shoulder, his hand up and curled tight at the back of my neck, his fingers pressing in to keep my head turned away and his mouth was at my ear, so close, I could feel his nose brushing my hair.
“I didn’t know.” Now his voice was rough a different way. “I didn’t know. If I had known –”
“Sam, don’t,” I cut him off. “Please just move away.”
His arms got tighter and he ignored me. “I’d never hurt you.”
I swallowed and stopped talking.
“I wanted your attention, Kia. That’s it. I get where you are now, baby, and I’ll never do that again and I would never, no f**kin’ joke, baby, please get this, I would never, ever hurt you.”
I stayed silent.
Sam stayed close.
I didn’t move.
He didn’t let me go.
God, I needed him to let me go!
I swallowed again, hard, and I did it to swallow back tears so my breath hitched and my chest jumped with the effort and his arms got tighter.
“My Dad beat my Ma.”
My head snapped around as my eyes opened, his head jerked back at my movement and his hand at the back of my neck instantly moved to wrap around its side.
“You see that as a kid, you live it, you’re powerless to stop it, it marks you. You got two choices, you keep that shit alive by givin’ in and perpetrating it on your family or you vow it’ll end with him. My brother and me, we vowed it’d end with him and that’s where it ended, Kia. We got older, taller, bigger, that shit stopped and you want, I’ll tell you how me and Ben made it stop but it was us who made it stop. I haven’t seen my Dad in nineteen years and this is because, he knows I see his face, he won’t be conscious long enough to blink at me. You get where I’m comin’ from with this?”
Stunned speechless at his open, raw sharing, I nodded.
He watched me nod. Then his eyes moved over my face. Then they changed, filling with something that made my body tense so tight, I thought tendons would snap but he didn’t seem to notice as the flame that lit in his eyes quickly built to an inferno.
And I would know why when he spoke again.
“Cheated on you and beat you.”
Oh God.
“Sam –”
“You, f**kin’ you. Look at you. What the f**k?”
I pressed my lips together.
He wasn’t done.
“Any woman but f**k, f**k,” he clipped. “You. You. Takin’ a hand to you would be like takin’ a razorblade to La Scapigliata.”
His last two words jolted me out of our current drama and I blinked then whispered, “What?”
“What?” he shot back, still pissed, definitely, and thus not following me.
“La Scapila-what?”
He stared at me.
Then he repeated, “La Scapigliata,”
I felt my brows draw together. “What’s that?”
“La Scapigliata?”
“Yeah.”
“La Scapigliata. The Head of a Woman. The Lady with Disheveled Hair. By da Vinci. It’s unfinished but it’s still a masterpiece. It’s in Parma. I’ve viewed it twice and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
My mouth dropped open and this wasn’t only because Sampson Cooper, ex-pro football star, ex-dangerous commando and current big, tall, powerful hot guy would be talking about an unfinished masterpiece by da Vinci but because he’d compared me to the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He looked at my mouth then he looked in my eyes then his arm and hand gave me a squeeze before he stated, “Now, I think she finally f**kin’ gets me.”
“Sam –” I whispered.
“I’d never hurt you, Kia.”
“Sam –” I tried again.
“Never, don’t give a shit what you said, what you did. I would not take a hand to you and I would not cut you down anyway I could, verbally or mentally.”
“Sam –” I tried yet again.
“I scared you just now, I get why but I didn’t mean to and I won’t ever do it again so I need to know you believe me.”
“I don’t.”
Yes. That was what I said. It came right out of my mouth and it caused a flash of something I didn’t like to see to score through Sam’s eyes.
“Baby,” he whispered.
“I barely know you,” I whispered back.
He held my eyes.
Then he muttered, “Four months.”
“Sorry?” I asked.
“You said he got whacked four months ago.”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“You’re sellin’ your house, gettin’ a new place and off on vacation, sitting on balconies, drinking alone, tears in your eyes. It’s too early. You aren’t ready to believe me.”
You know, seriously, it was beginning to piss me off how often he figured me out.
So much so, I informed him of this fact.
“You know, Sam, it’s beginning to piss me off how you figure me out. How the heck am I supposed to be intriguing and mysterious if you keep figuring me out?”
Yes. Again. That’s was what I said.
And I knew I didn’t imagine my extreme idiocy when he suddenly burst out laughing, throwing his head back to do it then bending his neck so he could bury his face in my neck and finish doing it as his hand at my neck slid to become an arm tight around me.
“I can see that was amusing to you, the problem is, I wasn’t being funny.”
His head came up, his dark brown eyes still dancing with hilarity and his arms gave me a squeeze. “Intriguing and mysterious?”