by Mary Calmes
"But she didn't."
"No, she didn't."
"Are you mad at me?"
"No," he said, passing me a plate with a very large cheese and ham omelet on it. "I just want you to get it finally. I want you to realize that you are not a superhero, you are not bulletproof. You need me to protect you, and I need to do it.
All I want is to stand between you and the world... please just let me."
I nodded.
"You agree, but then you just go off and do whatever the hell you feel like."
But I had learned my lesson. I was tired of being scared. I would let Sam take care of me.
"So what?"
"Give me another chance, okay?" I asked him. "I promise to start making phenomenally good choices from here on in."
He squinted at me. "Who are you kidding? I just want you to let me know what's going on so I'm not blindsided and so I can be there every time to dig you out."
I let out a deep breath. "Absolutely."
He shook his head like I was exhausting. "You want salsa on that?"
"Yes, please."
I cleaned the kitchen as he went and collapsed on the couch.
"Oh, by the way," he called over to me. "I got a call from vice today, from a Detective Adams."
I turned from wiping down the stove and looked at him.
"Do you know who that is?" he asked, leaning over the back of the couch to look at me. His smile was sly and I had no idea what was causing it.
"No."
"Think hard."
"I have no idea."
He grunted. "What if I told you that his first name was Carrington?"
"Oh." I smiled at him. "You got it wrong. The detective's name is probably something else, and he was calling you about Carrington Adams. He was the guy that got out of jail with me."
"You mean he was the guy you got out of jail."
"Yeah."
"Uh-huh. Well, guess what, baby? That guy was a cop."
"No, he wasn't."
"Yeah, he was. Turns out he was undercover. He's a vice detective investigating several different pimps in the city and you got him out of jail."
It took me a minute to process what he was saying. "Oh shit."
He grinned at me.
"So he was never in any real danger."
"Nope."
"Oh shit."
"I think you owe like a dollar in the swear jar."
I leaned back on the counter. "So where did he... I saw him get on a plane."
"You saw him walk through the door to a jetway, you never saw him get on a plane."
"He must think I'm like a total idiot."
"Nope, he thought you were undercover too—maybe vice, possibly on a task force, but he was sure you were on the job."
"Hilarious."
"He said that Rego James is on his way to prison."
I nodded.
"He also said that you took quite a hit from him that day."
"I don't remember."
"The hell you don't, you just don't want me to get mad about something I can't do anything about."
Precisely.
"You know Detective Adams said that you were really brave and really hot."
I laughed as I came out of the kitchen, turning off the light as I crossed to the couch to stand over him. "I'm sure that's exactly what he said."
He put his hands on my hips and pulled me down on top of him, easing me into his lap. "Okay, so maybe he left out the hot part, but he did say that you were brave and that he felt like you would have protected him with your life. He was really impressed, Jory, he said it over and over."
I straddled his hips, pushing against him as he pulled my shirt off over my head and tossed it at the chair beside the fireplace.
"You did an amazing job with everything you know, I don't think I told you enough... you were really something the way you figured things out. I think I might talk to you when I can't solve something. Maybe you can help me with my cases."
"Don't patronize me," I teased him, loving the way his fingers were tracing my spine.
"I'm being serious," he told me, staring into my eyes. "But we gotta talk about this later."
"Why?"
"'Cause right now I can't think."
And just that statement and the way he was looking at me heated me right up. When he lifted me, stripped off my sweats, and then pinned me under him on the couch, his lips on my neck, his skin against mine, his hands sliding all over me, I wondered how I had ever thought of living without him.
I wondered what I would have done if he had given up on me and gone away, as I'd told him to so many times.
"I was never gonna give up," he told me.
"What?"
"You just asked what you would have done if I'd given up."
"I guess I was thinking out loud."
His smile was gentle as he eased me forward. "Baby, I was never going to give up on you. You belong to me. You're mine."
And the possessive declaration was something I loved to hear.
"Lemme tell ya again."
I didn't argue.
Chapter Eighteen
For Michael, I had been patient. For Beverly, I was tolerant. For the sake of peace, in the spirit of getting along, I had stayed calm, kept a smile plastered on my face and bit my tongue. But now I was free. The gloves were off because the wedding was over. The bride and groom had retired alone to their lavish penthouse suite upstairs, while most of the guests were still enjoying the open bar that would be serving until midnight. Because the bridal party was supposed to be there in the morning, to have brunch with the newlyweds before they left on their honeymoon, Sam and I had a room at the hotel. I had watched the wedding from my seat beside his mother, but Sam had been a groomsman. It was this honor/burden that had started the whole mess.
Beverly Stiles, Michael Kage's fiancee and now his wife, had nine bridesmaids in her wedding. They had all been wearing dresses with diamond-cut backs that flowed in long lines of voluminous black fabric to the floor. What came to mind when you saw them was movies from the 1940s where the women were all elegance and glamour. It was like a fashion show instead of a wedding, and when Amanda Rinehart had walked down the aisle ahead of her best friend, the bride, there had been gasps.
She was a stunning woman, tall and graceful and oozing confidence that you could feel. With her jet-black hair pulled up into a French twist, her sapphire eyes and flawless, creamy skin, no one could take their eyes off her. She looked like a model, but I knew she had just been made partner at the law firm where she worked in Manhattan. And she could cook too. She was, Beverly said, a triple threat. She had beauty and brains and made her grandmother's Italian meatballs from scratch. Any man in their right mind would want her.
The bride had confessed to me before the first day of the four-day marriage juggernaut that she was worried about Michael falling for her best friend, as had every man she'd ever dated. I told Beverly that Michael Kage loved her and her alone. She did not need to worry. Turned out I was half right.
Michael had made no bigger a fool of himself over Amanda Rinehart than any of the other men. Even Sam had noticed her, and was nicer than usual. I didn't like it.
When Beverly came to me the morning of the bachelor/bachelorette parties and asked if I could help her get the wedding programs reprinted, I asked her what was wrong. I had designed and printed them over a month ago, so the last-minute panic had me confused. It turned out that there was nothing wrong with what I'd done; the change had only to do with Amanda. She was insisting on walking with Sam.
"I'm sorry, what?" Dylan needed clarification again. I had told her twice and she was still looking at me like she didn't believe me. We were at our office later that same day.
"Beverly wants the programs reprinted because Amanda says that the best man is too short to walk her down the aisle." I repeated for the third time.
She did the thing where her eyebrows scrunched up in the middle. "Let me get this straight. The mai
d of honor is stepping down as maid of honor two days before the wedding because she doesn't want to be taller than the best man."
"Right."
"And the bride is gonna let this princess have her way?"
"Apparently."
"Are you kidding?"
"No."
"What's going on?" Aubrey Flanagan asked as she walked into the office the three of us had shared for the past year and a half.
So Dylan told her, and she gave me a funny look.
"What?"
"Who does she want to walk with?"
I arched an eyebrow for her.
"Oh, no way," Dylan chimed in. "The prima donna wants to walk with Sam?"
My shrug was my answer.
"The bitch is hot for your man," Dylan teased me. "Better watch out, Jory—the man used to be straight, after all."
I shot her a look and Aubrey started coughing. I flipped them both off.
That night, at the bride and groom's last night of freedom out on the town, the men and women had apparently bumped into each other. I hadn't been able to go as I was pinch-hitting for Dane at a dinner Aja was having for a visiting speaker on educational reform. My brother was out of town, so his wife had asked me to go with her as her date. Thus occupied, I had apparently missed Amanda's impromptu pole dance at the strip club, which met with thunderous applause from everyone in attendance at Michael's bachelor party. The lap dance she gave Sam afterwards was the talk of the table the following evening at the rehearsal dinner. It suddenly made sense why I had been attacked when he got home the night before. She had started his libido raging and I had been the recipient of his attention. Knowing that she turned him on did little to improve my mood.
The fact that I had agreed in advance, along with Sam, not to mention our relationship in front of Beverly's very Christian, very conservative Midwestern family was not helping matters. None of her family or friends knew what I was to Sam. No one had any clue that the rings on our fingers signified the wedding we'd had in Canada a year before, or that, as far as the city of Chicago was concerned, we were domestic partners. That Michael had agreed with Beverly that it was the best thing to do in front of her family had saddened me, but in the end, I understood. It was her day, not mine.
Who was I to ask her to let me have my way? Why should my agenda top hers?
"So, Beverly will let this girl go from maid of honor to bridesmaid so she can walk down the aisle with Sammy, but you and Sammy can't be a couple at her wedding?"
I looked at Jen as she sat beside me at the table.
"Huh," she grunted. "That's funny."
Turning to watch Sam and Amanda slow dance with the other couples on the floor, I didn't think it was so funny. It was, in fact, the exact opposite.
Just the bridal party was invited out for drinks after the rehearsal dinner, so I went home and packed for the following night. Sam stumbled in after two with smudges of lipstick on his collar and reeking of Amanda's perfume. When he tried to grab me, I sent him to the shower. I found him a half an hour later, passed out naked with only a towel wrapped around his waist, in the middle of our bed. I covered him up and went to sleep on the couch. I was woken in the middle of the night, and my irritation slept longer than my desire for him. I was carried back to bed, and his kisses and his hands coaxed my anger right out of me.
I woke up there alone in the morning. He had more things to do with the rest of the bridal party and didn't want to wake me. He had made me coffee, though, and the note on the nightstand that told me where he'd gone was under a mug of it. I felt better until I got to the wedding.
Everyone around me, except Sam's mother, commented on what a beautiful couple he and Amanda made. And I knew that Sam's dad didn't mean to hurt me with his comments, he loved me after all. But there was, I knew, in the deepest, hidden part of his heart, the hope that maybe—just maybe—
someday Sam would come to him and say that being gay was over and he was ready to find a wife and have kids.
"Jory."
I turned my head to look at Regina and found her smiling at me.
"Angel." She smiled, patting my hand as we waited to leave the church. "No one looks better beside Sam than you.
The two of you make the most beautiful couple I know."
I nodded and squeezed her hand.
"Think about what your ring means to you. Going to a wedding, any wedding, should always make you think of your own and reaffirm your love."
Even if no one in the place knew I was married?
"It only matters what you know," she told me like she was reading my mind.
I felt better, even though Amanda spent the entire reception practically in Sam's lap. She danced with him and led him to and from the floor with her hand in his; she fed him things off her plate and laughed like a hyena over everything he said. When she caught the bouquet, since it was basically tossed to her, she begged Sam to go up and catch the garter. He flat-out refused, and no amount of cajoling or begging or whining was going to move him. He smiled when he said no, his eyes twinkled, but he wasn't moving. Married men didn't catch garters, and even though Sam didn't tell anyone at Michael's wedding that he was, in fact, married, he wouldn't have lied if he'd been asked directly. Denial was not part of Sam Kage's repertoire. When the best man caught the garter, Amanda took one shot with him before walking over and climbing back into Sam's lap.
They took many suggestive photos, to the catcalls and whistles of the crowd.
"Good for Sam for not being a hypocrite," Dylan commented when I told her what was going on downstairs. I was in our room, changing, when she had called to check in on me. "I mean, the man is married, after all."
"Is he?"
"Jory Harcourt!" she yelled over the phone. "That's a terrible thing to say! Of course he's married! He's married to you! I was there when you guys exchanged your really weird really sweet vows."
I laughed, remembering Sam and me standing in front of everyone and the justice of the peace in Toronto. I told him that I would love him forever and I would stick like glue no matter what. His smile, the look in his eyes, told me everything, even before he promised to use the swear jar for our kids' college fund, to never let me get away from him again, and to love me until he was dead. It was a little maudlin, but Dane said "okay" really loud and everyone laughed before Sam grabbed me and kissed me breathless.
"Don't be a drama queen, okay, Jory? Sam loves you desperately. You just need to go back down to the party and remind him that this woman, this Amanda whoever, ain't got nothing on you. I've seen you all dressed up, my friend...
even my husband thinks you're hot."
I couldn't hold in the laughter. Leave it to my best friend to jolt me out of feeling sorry for myself. I was really very lucky. "Yeah? Chris thinks I'm hot?"
"Chris," she called out, "come tell Jory you think he's a sexy piece of ass."
I lost it completely. She was a mother, for God's sake.
Everyone that was staying overnight had moved to the bar by the time I got back downstairs. The bridal party was still drinking, along with some family members, friends, and various stragglers. They were all sitting toward the back, all still in their wedding finery, bridesmaid's dresses, tuxedos, suits, and gowns from the formal affair, definitely showing signs that the festivities were coming to an end. High heels had come off, ties were discarded, and shirttails were hanging out. It was about comfort, since no one but me had left to shower and change. I walked to the bar, ordered a snifter of brandy—it was late after all—and then walked over to the table where Sam was.
"Jory," Sam's cousin Joe greeted me drunkenly, taking my hand the way he always did. The Kages were a big touchy-feely group. "I was wondering where you were."
Sam's head turned from talking to Amanda and his eyes hit mine.
"Hey." I smiled at him, taking a sip of my drink.
He looked me up and down before he rose and moved out of the cluster of chairs around the table to stand in front of me.
> "I was thinking I'd go out while you stay here and hang with everyone."
He took the snifter from me and took a sip of the brandy as he stared down into my eyes.
"Okay?"
Slight shake of his head as he passed me back the glass. I took another sip and licked my lips. It was really good brandy.
"Sam, come sit down," Amanda called over to him.
His eyes were on my mouth and he said something.
I had to lean closer because I could barely hear him.
"Sorry?"
"I said I didn't get to tell you how good you looked in your suit before."
"Oh, thanks."
"Every time I got over to your table, you were off dancing with another one of my cousins."
"You've got a lot of cousins," I teased him.
His smile was slow, lazy, and very sexy. "And they all liked you."
"Those nice Catholic girls from New York are scary, Sam."
He chuckled. "Oh baby, I know."
"So you liked the suit?" I fished.
"I did. I wanted to see it come off."
I smiled at him. "Maybe I'll just go up to the room and wait for you."
"No waiting necessary," he said gruffly, taking the glass out of my hand and setting it down on the table before taking hold of my hand. "Night, everybody."
He tugged me out of the bar after him and then to the elevator in the lobby.
I chuckled.
"What?" he growled at me.
"Why are you all mad?"
He gestured at me like I was nuts. "I'm not mad, but look how you're dressed to come down to the bar? What were you thinking?"
I was in a pocket T-shirt and old, faded jeans, I didn't see the problem. "How am I dressed?"
"And you're all clean and... your hair's wet."
"Which has what to do with anything?"
The muscles in his jaw clenched as he squeezed my hand.
"You can stay down here if you want. I didn't come down here to rush—"
"You're being such an ass," he said, shoving me into the elevator as soon as it opened.
Before the doors could close, there was a hand to stop them. Amanda was there, along with three other women.