Space in His Heart

by Roxanne St Claire

  What was wrong with her?

  “Nothing,” she mouthed as she dabbed at her lower lip. Nothing was wrong with her. This was a perfectly normal female response to an overdose of the testosterone and pheromones that emanated from the single hottest guy she’d seen in years.

  In the mirror, her cheeks grew pink and her eyes glinted in anticipation. She couldn’t remember the last time a guy got to her like this. Since college, her life had been nothing but advertising. Which was turning out to be miserable.

  So why shouldn’t she make out with him? Just one kiss.

  One long, hot, wet, crazy…

  The door creaked, inching open. She leaned back against a towel rack, watching the mirror, waiting for his face to appear.

  “Hey,” he said softly when their eyes met in the mirror.

  “I’m freshening my lip gloss,” she said, as though he’d asked if he could come in. As if a guy like Zach would ask.

  He stepped inside, instantly taking every molecule of air in the room and replacing it with heat. Behind his back, he locked the door. “Lip gloss is a waste of time, Sammi.”

  Still pressed against the towel rack, she slipped her lower lip under her tongue, tasting the gloss, aware she’d never made it to the top lip. “No one calls me Sammi and lives.”

  He closed the space between them. “Then it looks like I’m about to die happy.”

  Attempting to swallow, she looked up at him, his sheer closeness stealing her ability to talk.

  “Did you get enough air out there?” he asked.

  She nodded, still speechless.

  “Good.” He slid his hands onto her waist and slowly glided up her sides. With a little pressure, he eased her arms up, like he expected her to reach around his neck. “’Cause I’m about to take your breath away.”

  He pinned her arms over her head, his eyes scanning her face from top to bottom like he couldn’t decide where to start.

  The effect was dizzying. She was helpless, vulnerable, exposed. And completely seduced.

  He lowered one hand and thumbed her bottom lip, gliding across the slick gloss, his nostrils flaring as each breath grew tighter. Her chest rose and fell, mere inches from his.

  He put his thumb to his mouth and slowly ran his tongue over the remnants of her lip gloss, an imperceptible grunt from his throat.

  Holy hell… hot.

  “You ready, Sammi?”

  Her body coiled with sexual response. Her nipples hardened, her knees buckled, her toes curled, and her arms grew heavy with the need to wrap around him.

  “Cause once we start, sweetheart, we’re not gonna stop.”

  She tried to breathe, tried to come up with a quip or a comeback, but all she managed was a powerless gasp. Instantly, his mouth was on hers, trapping that breath in her lungs, covering her lips, teasing her with the tip of his tongue.

  Sweet mother of God, this was a kiss.

  Dreamy, wet, and warm, her lips burned and melted at the pressure of his mouth. He tasted like Sam Adams and peppermint, bitter and sweet. She lost her grip on everything but their kiss, a perfect exchange of affection and attraction. Under her feet the world spun away and disappeared.

  A low moan from his chest vibrated in hers. The first press of his hips pulsed and pulled her into him. His palm settled on her waist while his thumb brushed under her breast… grazing so close to her nipple she wanted to cry with need.

  He angled his head, deepened the kiss, and dragged his hand down her bare arm leaving a billion goose bumps behind. With both hands finally free, she closed her fingers over his face, whiskers scraping her palms as she slid her hands into his hair.

  Finally, he inched back but she couldn’t open her eyes. Couldn’t come back to earth. She sure as hell couldn’t talk.

  Neither could he. When she looked at him, he was staring at her, memorizing her, silent. For a long, endless minute, she stared back at his flawless face.

  Zach Angelino, where have you been my whole life?

  “I’ve got nineteen nights left. How many can I have, Sammi?” Gruff, raspy, his voice was an unholy baritone that made her blood course and pool and bubble.

  “Nineteen nights, Sammi.” He kissed her again, harder this time, his hands gripping her, his palms moving up to capture her breasts. “How many?” he demanded.

  She arched, helpless, his erection huge against her stomach. “Nineteen.”

  # # #

  Zach didn’t need to open his eyes to know she was gone. The sheets were no longer tangled and pulled to her side, silky hair was no longer brushing his cheeks, the scent of woman was just a lingering memory, and there was no soft, familiar breath like music in his ear.

  He knew the routine now. After a week and a half of waking up in Samantha Fairchild’s bed, he was used to her slipping out while he was asleep, covering him generously like she hadn’t just spent the night sheet-stealing, and kissing his cheek before puttering about her apartment to get ready for work.

  He loved to lie in her bed, hands locked behind his head, and watch her step into precious, lacy underwear, then cover all that sexy skin with something conservative and crisp. A few times he’d managed to get all those corporate clothes right back off again and make her late for work. She hated that. And by hated, he meant she came three times in five minutes.

  But then she’d leave to conquer the world of advertising. He’d drink some of her designer coffee, read the Globe, then head down to his sister’s apartment to pester her while she tried to write an article or interview a source. Then he’d work out, maybe run around the reservoir at Cleveland Circle, although today he had other plans. But mostly he was waiting… for Sam. When she came home, they got horizontal and happy.

  Several times a night.

  It wasn’t a shitty way to spend his last three weeks in the States. As long as they kept this thing light and sexy, he could kiss her goodbye and, well, kiss her goodbye. And so far everything had been low key and very, very sexy. The goodbye kiss was still another week and a half away.

  The snap of a cell phone closing made his eyes pop open.

  “I’m going straight to hell.” Sam stood in the doorway, wearing nothing but that lacy stuff he’d been thinking about and one extremely sly smile.

  He sat up on one elbow to get a better look. “Wear that. The devil will give you special privileges.”

  “You are the devil.”

  He grinned and threw the covers back to invite her in. “Offering heaven, not hell.”

  She took a few steps closer, tapping the cell phone to her cheek playfully. “Don’t you want to know my sin?”

  “After we commit another one. C’mere, Sammi.”

  “I lied to my boss.” She bit her lip, eyes sparkling. “I told her I had an emergency.”

  He indicated his hard-on, already prominent and ready. “Not a lie. Get over here.”

  She laughed, easing onto the bed. “You’re not listening to me, Zach. I’m taking the day off.”

  She might as well have said she was moving to the North Pole. “Seriously?”

  “Seriously.” She finally curled up next to him. “We have the entire day together. What do you want to do?” She closed greedy fingers over his erection, her touch familiar but still incredible. “Other than the obvious, of course.”

  His eyes shuttered as she stroked him, automatically rocking into her. Instantly she melted into his arms, closing her eyes and lifting her chin to give him access to that sweet spot he loved on her throat.

  Like they’d been lovers for years instead of days, they barely needed to speak to tell each other what they wanted.

  Then he remembered Nino. He stopped mid-lick to lift his head. “I’m going to Sudbury today to see my uncle.”

  “I’ll go…” Her voice trailed off, but she didn’t have to say the rest. With you.

  He froze a little inside. If he took her to his family’s house, if he walked through that door and introduced her to Uncle Nino… it changed everything. That wa
s not keeping things low key.

  She watched his wheels turn, no doubt putting it all together in that razor-sharp head of hers.

  “Nevermind,” she said quickly, reaching for the phone. “I’ll call Amber back and tell her I solved the emergency.” Something flashed in her eyes… hurt? Disappointment?

  How about a reality check? Didn’t she realize that in less than two weeks he’d be boots on the ground in the most dangerous place in the world?

  “Don’t do that,” he said, surprising himself by taking the phone and closing it. “You know as well as I do you’ll never steal another day off.”

  “Or you could hang with me today and go to see your uncle tomorrow?”

  She was offering him an out. One that would be easier, and safer. No family ties. No chance for Nino to meet Sammi and make big old Italian eyes behind her back as if to say, Ragazzino, she’s perfect! I smell love in the air!

  “Nino is counting on me today,” he said. Christ, that sounded pathetic. Why didn’t he just take her? Nino would love her. It didn’t have to mean… anything.

  “You really should spend some time with the rest of your family before…” Once more, she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “Before I leave,” he said flatly. “No use tiptoeing around it, Sam. I’m going to war in, what? A week and a half?”

  A little muscle in her jaw pulsed as she nodded. “All the more reason to go see your uncle.”

  All the more reason to take her with him. Or not, depending on his perspective. And ever since he first kissed this woman all his perspective seemed to do was… change.

  “I want you to come with me,” he said gruffly.

  She just looked at him.

  “I do,” he repeated, convincing himself. “Nino will love you.” Which, of course, was the problem.

  “All right,’ she said, closing her eyes and sliding a long, bare leg over his. “But first let’s celebrate my lying to the boss.”

  In a space of one touch, one kiss, one moan of helpless surrender, he forgot Nino and Iraq and the calendar. All that mattered was Sam’s slick, soft skin. All that mattered was Sam’s mouth, trailing a path south to taste every inch of him. All that mattered was the burning hot need that rocked both of them every waking minute.

  Sex.

  But was that really all that mattered? With this amazing woman who made him laugh and made him… feel things he had no right to feel?

  Yes. It had to be, at least until he came back from the war. If he came back.

  “Hey.” Sam’s voice pulled him out of the fog, her hair dangling over his body as she looked up at him. “Where’d you go?”

  Where was he about to go, that was the real question. Truth was, he was the one going to hell.

  “I’m just thinking.” He reached down to tunnel his hands in her hair, palming her head, inching her up. “About how much I want to kiss you.”

  She crawled up his body, torturing him by dragging herself over every inch along the way. “Then kiss me and stop thinking about anything else.”

  Lowering her face, she pressed her mouth over his, making the connection that had become as natural as breathing to them. When her eyes closed, he just kept looking at her.

  Forget Baghdad and IEDs and terrorists who lurked around every filthy corner. None of that really bothered him. But this woman? This kiss? This feeling in his gut?

  This scared the holy hell out of him. And Nino Rossi would figure that out in about four and half minutes.

  # # #

  “And this, child, is what Italy smells like.” Nino Rossi waved the basil leaves under Sam’s nose, his knobby fingers clutching the stems tightly. She inhaled, closing her eyes in appreciation of a scent ten times more pungent than any bag of store-bought herbs, one of a dozen wonderful smells assaulting her in the backyard garden.

  “Beautiful,” she agreed.

  “Italy,” he repeated, pronouncing the word like it had no middle vowel, his raspy voice an aging, deeper version of Zach’s. Uncle Nino moved around his garden with surprising ease and grace for a man who had to be nearly eighty years old, although Zach had warned her he either didn’t know or wouldn’t admit his actual age.

  He looked past Sam to focus his deep brown eyes on Zach, his dark brows furrowing his forehead into a ripple of lines that ran up to a balding head fringed with gray wisps. “You remember Italy, ragazzino?”

  Zach shrugged, his hands stuffed into the pockets of khaki pants, his own brow drawn as he ignored the garden to look over the lake that backed into the yard where he’d grown up. Although, Sam had yet to hear him refer to the big colonial where the Rossi family was raised side by side with two Angelino Italian imports as home. “Barely,” he admitted. “Haven’t been to Italy in a long time.”

  “Too long,” Nino said, bending over to pluck more basil. “Come here, Samantha. Let me show you how to pick the best leaf for the Genovese pasta. Then I’ll teach you how to make it.” Looking up, he bared yellowed teeth in a teasing smile. “It’s Zaccaria’s favorite.”

  “Zaccaria?” She threw a smile at Zach before kneeling. “Is that the Italian version of Zachary?”

  “Yes,” Nino confirmed. “And you may call me pro zio, which is Italian for Great Uncle. Which, in my case, is redundant.”

  She laughed and let him lead her hand to the greenest leaf. Wordlessly, Zach walked past the perimeter of the garden patch and started down the hill toward the lake.

  “He seems happy,” Nino said, watching his great nephew. “It’s good.” He nodded, smiling. “Someone like you could keep him alive over there. Give him a reason to come home.”

  Her breath caught a little, and she covered by looking over her shoulder at Zach’s powerful silhouette, his shoulders so strong and broad, his hips narrow. Right down to her toes, she felt… everything. Attraction. Desire. Affection. As much as she tried to convince herself otherwise, her feelings had deepened faster and harder than anything she’d ever known.

  It had become increasingly difficult to think of Zach as just a fun, romantic fling.

  But she was too smart to admit that to Zach, or this keen old man. Especially when she could practically smell the fear on Zach in bed this morning at the mere thought of her taking the next step and meeting Nino.

  Zach Angelino, for whatever reason, wanted to keep this thing… a fling.

  “He has plenty of reasons to come home,” she said, busying herself with the basil. “This wonderful family, for one.”

  “Ehhh!” Nino waved a hand, then pushed himself up, but needed the hand Sam automatically offered. “He’s never really felt a part of this family.”

  “Of course he does,” she replied. “He probably just doesn’t show it like Vivi.”

  “When those two were orphaned in Italy,” Nino said. “I was given the greatest responsibility—and one of the greatest joys—of my life. Their mother, Rossella, was my sister’s daughter, and even though I moved to this country long before Rossella was born, she was very important to me.”

  Sam listened, the smell of the herbs and the press of the sunshine making his story somehow more poignant.

  “When the cancer took her, nine years after her husband had been killed, I should have fought her will and let them stay in their home country.” He blew out a low, sad sigh. “But I didn’t because, frankly, I wanted them here. For Vivi, it was good. She fit into the Rossi family like another one of the kids. For Zach?” He shrugged. “He’s always been on the outside looking in.”

  She stole another look at the young man standing lakeside now. “I think he could fit in anywhere, with anyone,” she said. “He’s so confident and capable.”

  Nino gave a wry smile. “Don’t be fooled by all that bravado. He lost his father as a baby and his mother as a child. Now he’s surrounded by death and dying in this war, his own life on the line every time he puts on his boots and picks up a gun.”

  “I really don’t know him that well yet,” she admitted.

  “All
you need to know,” Nino said, placing the basil in her palm and closing her fingers over it, “is that Zaccaria Angelino is capable of great love. He just doesn’t realize it.”

  Her heart stuttered around a little as she smiled at him. “Really, Nino, we just met less than two weeks ago.”

  “Great love,” he repeated. “You just have to be patient.”

  She turned to look at Zach, who strode up the hill toward them, his hands still in his pockets, his attention riveted on Samantha now. Her whole body warmed at the sight of him, and she knew—just knew—it wasn’t purely a physical reaction. Not for her.

  “He’s worth the wait,” Nino said.

  “I know that,” she said softly.

  “La fidanzata.”

  “Excuse me?” The Italian word had gone right by her. “I didn’t understand that.”

  But Nino just smiled. “Some day you will.”

  # # #

  Over Sam’s head, Zach was only able to see the blue numbers of the alarm clock with one eye. But that was all he needed to watch them progress, minute by minute, second by second, from 3:18 when she had finally fallen asleep in his arms until now, 4:57.

  In three minutes he would find the strength to separate his hand from the much smaller one he held fisted against his chest. He would lift his head from this pillow and, for the last time, inhale the citrusy scent that always clung to her hair like she’d washed it in lemon juice. He would pull his body away from hers, the imprint of her skin forever in his memory.

  And he would go to war, a different man than the one who’d left Baghdad four months ago.

  This was never supposed to happen, damn it. The thought made him tighten his grip on Sam’s hand and she rustled the sheets, adjusting her body so her backside curved into his stomach even more perfectly.

  He wasn’t supposed to do anything during this leave but rest and recuperate, readying himself for the toughest assignment he’d ever face. This time he’d be in charge of four squads, with the job of supporting Delta ops and Navy SEALs to clean out al-Qaida caves and safe houses. Death around every corner, behind every wall. Death.