“That’s a better answer,” he whispered again very, very scarily.
“Sam –”
He cut me off again.
“I protect my woman as I see fit. You agreed to that.”
“Well, yes, I did,” I concurred. “But how does this fit into that?”
“I protect my woman however she needs to be protected and whatever she needs protection from.”
Oh.
Now I got it.
“So, essentially, what you’re saying is you decide how I need to be protected, what I need to be protected from and therefore there are times when you’ll decide what I need to know and when.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No in the sense that there’s nothing ‘essentially’ about your statement.”
He couldn’t be serious.
“Sam!” I cried.
“What?” he asked.
“I’m not a little girl and that’s just… it’s just… I don’t know what it is but it isn’t right.”
“How isn’t it right?” he shot back.
I threw out an arm saying, “I don’t know, it just isn’t.”
Sam uncrossed his arms and planted his hands on his hips, leaning in and exploding, “Jesus, f**k, Kia! When this shit is over we will never be back here so when it’s done, we won’t have this problem unless, hope to God not, some other shit comes up. But this shit isn’t over. There is a woman out there who wants you dead. She’s incarcerated now but the man she hired isn’t. This is serious shit and we agreed I’ll deal with it so I’ll f**kin’ deal with it and, sweetheart, I wake up and live and breathe worry that I’ll miss somethin’ or someone will f**k up and the consequences of that is you bein’ dead and now we know that threat is real. You wake up and go on viewings with your girl and giggle yourselves sick. You sit with your Mom after eating a chicken breast stuffed with cheese and surrounded by three slices of bacon which explains why she needed a heart valve replaced though she clearly didn’t get the message and you two gossip and cackle about everyone in town. You didn’t ask to meet Lee and Tanner. You haven’t asked to meet the men who are lookin’ out for you. I assumed that meant you were puttin’ this shit in my hands where it belongs. And I was glad of it. The only thing I have to hang onto is I got control of this situation and my woman can giggle with her friend and gossip with her mother. I might worry, she keeps eatin’ her mother’s food, she’ll need a heart valve replacement in ten years but I see you emerging from the shit he left you, I’m good with that and can focus on the other shit he left you. What I’m not good with is havin’ this conversation that you promised me we would not have.”
He stopped speaking and scowled at me.
I pressed my lips together.
Then I defended myself. “Okay, I get that but I have to tell you I wasn’t aware of all the nuances of that agreement and I still might not be.”
“Then let’s clear this shit up,” he offered. “You trust that I got matters in hand. You trust I’m lookin’ out for you. I pay for makin’ you safe. And you trust that the decisions I make are done for rational reasons I’ve thought through with you in mind. Does that work for you?”
“Um… yes,” I muttered.
“Fuck,” Sam muttered back.
Since we seemed to be concluding things, I thought it important to add, “I still don’t want Memphis going outside off the lead until she’s more accustomed to your house.”
Sam again scowled at me.
Then he asked, “Fuck me, how the f**k can you piss me off to an extreme and then, right after, be cute and make me want to laugh?”
I was being cute?
I thought it prudent not to ask that question and instead remain silent. So I did.
Sam didn’t.
He ordered, “Come here.”
It was then I thought it prudent to do as he ordered. So I did.
When I did, Sam’s arms folded around me and I returned the gesture.
He tipped his head down and caught my eyes. “We good?”
“I don’t like it that you live and breathe worry about me.”
“Soon, I won’t have to.”
I pressed my lips together. Then I nodded.
Then I did a face plant in his chest.
“I didn’t ask to meet the guys because, well… with everything else, it kinda slipped my mind,” I told his chest.
“You wanna meet ‘em?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll arrange that.”
I sighed. Then I whispered, “Okay.”
One of his hands slid up my back, my neck and into my hair where his fingers cupped my head. His other arm held tight.
Okay, well, there it was. We had that out.
It wasn’t everything but it was something.
I still wanted more.
But standing in Sam’s arms, in Sam’s house which underlined the fact he was definitely not a euro-trash Lamborghini man and doing it after he made logical explanations that all were embedded in looking out for me one way or another not to mention he admitted to living and breathing worry about me, I’d take this for now.
Definitely.
* * * * *
I was close. Oh God, I was close.
I was on my hands and knees in front of Sam… no, strike that. I was on one hand and my knees in front of Sam, my other hand was between my legs, my finger adding to the magic Sam’s thrusting c**k was making.
It was going to happen, I knew it.
And, as ever, it was going to be fabulous.
Then, before it did, Sam pulled out. I whimpered in surprise and was about to protest when his fingers wrapped around my forearms, he yanked me up so my back was pinned to his front and my arms were pinned in front of me with his hands at my wrists.
Then his mouth came to me ear and he growled, “Are you my woman?”
I opened my mouth to speak but he kept growling.
“Or are you mostly my woman?”
Oh God.
I should have known he wasn’t going to let that slide.
“Sam,” I whispered and his hands gave my arms a gentle shake when I said no more.
“Answer me, Kia. Who am I f**king right now?”
No one since he pulled out.
I didn’t point that out.
Instead, I turned my head and pressed my temple into his neck. “Baby –”
“Answer me.”
“Are you my man?”
Yes. That’s what came out. Naked, on my knees, held captive by Sam who was the same, that was what I blurted.