by Liz Peters
It was all she could do not to crawl across the back seat of the car and move to sit across his lap as they made their way to Murphy’s. Instead, she kept an eye on the back of the driver’s head and satisfied herself with threading her fingers between his and holding his hand for the remainder of the ride between her apartment and the bar.
At least the drive was short. She told the driver they would be out in around an hour and then head off to Saint Jacques for the remainder of the evening before the two of them got out of the car. Reid held the door open for her and offered her his hand. She wasn’t used to someone being a gentleman, and honestly it was unexpected from Reid. For someone who put off such a bad boy aura at times, he was a gentleman at the most surprising times. As they headed into the bar, she hoped that tonight was going to go as she planned.
Chapter Four
This joint was exactly the kind of place Reid had imagined when Sam had said they were going out for drinks and dinner. Of course, he hadn’t imagined being chauffeured around the city either. It wasn’t exactly his style. He’d been in cabs before, but having a driver was something that he could absolutely say was a brand-new experience for him. It was a little weird having someone who probably made more than him in a year at their beck and call waiting out in the parking lot for them to get ready to leave. He figured he would get over it though. Sam didn’t have a car, and the restaurant and bar were too far away to walk to. They had to get there somehow.
Going out for dinner and drinks back at home meant you were going to Tucker’s Bar and Grill over in Morristown, the nearest town of any kind of size to the ranch. They had four kinds of beer and a menu of mixed drinks that was half a page long. You could get a burger and fries and play pool over in the back of the place for the night, nursing a beer until it was time to head back home when they kicked everyone out at two am. Maybe Reid wasn’t exactly expecting this place to be just like Tucker’s, but with a name like Murphy’s it seemed like it was going to be some kind of pub or bar of the type he’d walked into a thousand times before. He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Maybe this place had started out like one of the bars he was used to, but it had clearly been updated in the recent past. The walls were done in light wood panels that matched the floor and the golden hued painted surfaces everywhere else. The bar top wasn’t the ancient lacquered wood he was expecting, but black marble with red, upholstered seats pulled up to the bar. The room was well lit, another change from what he was used to, with golden colored light fixtures that hung from the ceiling. He was half afraid to sit on one of the stools and mess the place up. He didn’t have any kind of idea what kind of drinks this place was even going to serve up. Was he even going to be able to get a beer or a glass of whiskey without having to get a college degree to figure out what to order?
Sam lead him to a table near the corner of the room just before a slender waitress in a black pencil skirt walked over to take their order. His request for beer came with a list of craft beers that was longer than the to do lists that Rob liked to leave for him back at work when he was pissed off at him. It took up the front and back of a piece of paper. He finally spied one he recognized and ordered it before Sam rattled off the name of a drink he’d never heard of before. The room was full of guys in business suits and women in dresses that cost more than his monthly paycheck with shoes to match.
“So,” he grinned over at the woman across the table from him, “come here often?” He wasn’t sure what else to say, but Reid knew he needed to lighten the mood. The way things stood right now there was this awkward space between the two of them that he wasn’t sure how to cross.
She shot him a smile that melted into a laugh as she leaned her chin on her hand and an elbow on the table. That was the woman he’d fallen for back at the ranch, the one who’d gone shot for shot with him by a campfire and let him drag her back to her cabin and spend a night tangled up in each other. He was glad to see that. It reminded him why he’d taken a plane and a couple of taxis to get here and spend this time with her, why he’d taken a chance at laying his heart out for her.
“Yeah, actually I do. This is where I usually hang out after work. I come here with one of the girls from the office and we just drink a ton of stuff we shouldn’t and complain about work and life and whatever else is going on.”
Reid liked hearing about her life. He felt like he didn’t know nearly enough about her yet, and he was going to take every chance he could to learn more about her. Glancing around the room, he imagined her sitting here with some girlfriend from work and kicking back drinks until she was tipsy and laughing. He was pretty sure she was absolutely gorgeous while that was happening, and he wasn’t sure why he was the guy who got to sit across from her right now. To be honest, Sam was way out of his league. Not that he wasn’t capable of getting a beautiful woman, but she was a whole lot more than that.
Sam was not just beautiful. Beautiful girls were a dime a dozen. You could find them littering just about any bar between here and the Pacific Ocean. She was smart, a lot smarter than him. He’d barely made it out of high school, and college hadn’t even been something that he imagined in his wildest dreams. She was successful, and he’d bounced around from job to job until he landed one where the foreman could tolerate his smart mouth and even worse attitude. She was fully capable of taking care of herself. Sam didn’t need anyone else. But she wanted him. He still had no clue why, even if it was completely obvious to him what he saw in her.
“Wouldn’t I like to be a fly on the wall one of those nights?” He grinned and grabbed the bottle of beer that had been set down in front of him, pulling a long swallow out of the slender neck.
“Oh, would you?” She raised an eyebrow, letting her foot run along his leg under the table. “What do you think you’d see that you’re not getting to see right now?”
“You letting your hair down, Beautiful.” His answer was quick and straightforward, and he delivered it looking her square in the eye. That’s what was missing tonight. That’s what was different than the night they’d spent drinking around the campfire. Back at the ranch she was just being herself. Tonight she was trying too hard to make sure everything went right. It kept her from having half as much fun as she should and him from being able to relax. “So why don’t you let go of all these plans and expectations you have about tonight and just have a good time? You don’t have to impress me. You impressed me a long damn time ago. I’m impressed every time you open your mouth. What I want is you, comfortable and relaxed and mine. Trust me. I’m not going anywhere. You’re not going to chase me off if we don’t eat at whatever French restaurant you’ve got your mind set on or if we don’t have drinks that cost more than my jeans, Legs. You’ve got me. Hook, line and sinker. I promise.”
Reid figured he’d put his foot in his mouth. It was something he was good at. He wouldn’t have blamed her a bit for reaching across the table and giving him a solid slap across the cheek, but he said exactly what he’d meant. He wanted her to relax and have a good time and stop trying to impress him.
She leaned back in the booth across from him, downing most of the drink that was left in her glass in one long swallow. She was either gearing up to tell him off or agree with him, and he wasn’t sure which one it was at all. This woman kept him on his toes. He had to admit that much about her, and it was something he enjoyed. She took a breath, letting the glass rest on the coaster in front of her.
“Why don’t we pay for these drinks and blow this popsicle stand then. We can let the driver go for the night and walk home. Grab a bite to eat on the way. I don’t even care what we get — burgers, hot dogs, tacos what the hell ever. I just want to spend the rest of the night with you and not worry about anything else. You were right, Cowboy. I had tonight all built up in my head, and I planned out every minute of it. I’m tired of making plans. Let’s just go see what kind of trouble we can get into?”
Reid downed the rest of his beer in one long gulp, shooting her a grin from acro
ss the table. “Alright then, Legs. Let’s go have an adventure.” He waved down the waitress from across the bar, paying the check with one of the bills in his wallet and telling her to keep the change before they slid out of the booth and he slipped his arm around her waist, pulling her into his side.
“That’s my girl. Now come on and let this driver go home so we can get lost trying to find a way back to your place before midnight.”
She laughed, leaning into his side, and slid a hand into the back pocket of his jeans. “I plan to get you back to my place long before that. The real question is, am I going to be able to keep my hands to myself between here and there.”
He leaned in, lips brushing across the shell of her ear as he whispered to her, enjoying the shiver that ran through her as soon as he started talking. “I sure as hell hope not, Legs, because I don’t plan on keeping my hands to myself for longer than it takes to get out of this bar.”
She groaned and leaned into him, closing her eyes for a moment before she turned and caught his eyes. “Let’s go before we both get in trouble.”
“Legs, I was in trouble from the minute you stepped out of that cab back at the ranch, even if I didn’t know it yet. Come on though. I’m hungry, and I probably need to eat before I find out how you look in nothing but those shoes.” He grinned and led her out of the doors onto the street into the early evening air.
Chapter Five
The rest of the night was spent having more fun than Sam could ever recall having in the entire time she’d lived in this city. They’d walked the distance home, stopping in to have a couple of cheeseburgers and beers at a hole in the wall she hadn’t even known existed, even though she’d lived only a couple dozen blocks away from the place for the last three years. She couldn’t remember laughing so much or so hard ever in her life.
They’d stopped again to get ice cream and spent the rest of the walk finishing up the cones before they headed into the lobby of her building. Usually, she took the stairs, but there was something about her that wanted to take the elevator this time. Being in the enclosed space with Reid had her teeth bearing down on her lip. The two of them had been hands on all night. There were times when it seemed like he couldn’t take his hands off of her She grabbed his shirt, pulling him into her as her lips crashed into his. The alcohol she’d drunk earlier in the night roaring through her system as she got even drunker on his kisses until he moved, lightly slamming her against the wall as they got lost in each other.
The cold pressure of the wall against her back took her breath away. Somehow Reid always seemed to be able to do this to her, to leave her dizzy and panting after a simple kiss. She wanted him in her apartment, up in her room, and this elevator wasn’t moving fast enough for her taste. Her fingers worked at his buttons, wanting to run across the lines of his chest. She didn’t even care that they hadn’t gotten up to the right floor yet. This elevator was glacially slow. There was a reason she preferred taking the stairs, but there was no way she was going to be able to walk up them and keep her hands off him for another minute. It had been all she’d been able to manage for most of the night, taking stolen kisses and letting her hands move along his skin whenever she could. Now that they were back in the building she needed his body on hers, skin on skin.
Tonight hadn’t been anything like she planned, and that had made it amazing. She’d started the day with such careful plans for what she intended to do, and Reid had demolished all of them. He called her out on being a control freak and showed her how to let go and have a good time. It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and she found it endlessly sexy that he could let loose like that and get her to let go just as much. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him in the first place. That and the fact that he was good with those hands he worked with on a daily basis. She intended to remind herself just how good he was with them before the night was through.
The elevator dinged when they finally hit the right floor and the doors slid open to let them out into the hallway. Sam didn’t miss a beat when she hooked a finger through the belt loop of his jeans and tugged him out behind her, fishing the keys out her bag with the other hand in the same moment. He wrapped his arms around her waist, leaning down to run a line of kisses along the curve of her shoulder and throat while she struggled with opening the door.
It should have gone quickly, but he was bound and determined to see how hard he could tease her as she fumbled with the keys. She dropped them on the floor and gave up for a moment, just turning around in his arms to pull him back in for another kiss, her fingers threading into his hair and giving the short blonde locks a gentle tug as she pressed her lips to his with a soft moan. Reid leaned into her, pinning her back against the door, his hands moving under the edge of her shirt to trail over her bare skin.
Reid kept her there for a few long moments, but it wasn’t long enough when he pulled away, resting his forehead on hers. She let out a frustrated groan when his lips broke away from hers, hungry for more, and he chuckled.
“Legs, I don’t think you want me to fuck you right here in the hall, but if you don’t watch it I’m not going to be able to stop myself. One of us needs to get those keys and get us in the door before it’s too late.”
She knew he was right, but that didn’t make her any less reluctant to let him go long enough to lean down and snag the keys. At least it was an opportunity to take the time to tease him as she snaked her way back up his body. She paused to nip at his thighs with her teeth, her fingers moving to work loose his belt buckle. She glanced up at him before she held the keys up in his line of view.
“Why don’t you see how good you are at getting the door unlocked while you’re distracted, Stranger?” The challenge was clear in her voice. It was more of a dare than anything. Sam was turning this into a game, hoping that Reid was going to enjoy the playful challenge.
She glanced up and down the hall before winking at him as he took the keyring that was dangling off her finger with a low groan.
“I’m going to get you into this apartment, and you’re going to be in trouble as soon as I figure out which key unlocks the door.” He half growled as she went back to her work of popping open the button on his jeans and tugging down the zipper before he even managed to start to sort through the keys on the ring. She hadn’t told him which of them was the one that fit the door locks on purpose. She intended to take her time teasing him while he figured the puzzle out.
She leaned in, teeth grazing against the skin of his stomach until she caught the edge of his boxers with them and pulled them down in a smooth motion. Her hands rested on his hips, and she used them to hold his pants up enough to keep them from falling into a puddle around his boots on the hallway floor but kept them just low enough that she could tease him with her mouth while she listened to the keys jangling in his hands. It was a race at this point, to see who was going to get to their target first.
Sam’s target was getting her lips on Reid’s skin, every inch of it that she could manage before the two of them were inside. Her tongue traced the line of the vee at his hip downwards, listening to the groan it dragged out of his lips while he worked on getting yet another key into the lock unsuccessfully. She was pretty sure he’d already tried that same key twice, but she wasn’t about to ruin the moment by stopping to bring it up. Besides, this was exactly what she was going for.
She grinned to herself as she set back to work, this time using one of her hands to free his full length and stroke slowly along his shaft, glancing up at him.
“How’s it going up there, Stranger?” The amusement in her voice was clear, and the need in his was absolutely apparent when he replied to her.
“Not half as well as it is down there, Legs. You look fucking beautiful on your knees, though.” He slid the last key into the door, turning it deftly and twisting the handle to half-throw the door open, just before she flicked her tongue across his thick tip drawing a low moan from his throat.
“Now get your sexy ass ins
ide so you can finish what you started.” He reached down, offering her a hand to help her stand before he pulled her inside and kicked the door closed behind them. Reid kept his focus on Samantha as he kicked his boots off and to the side of the couch, letting his jeans fall with them without giving them a second thought. His eyes blazed into hers as he curled a finger in her direction summoning her closer.
Sam stepped over with a coy look on her face, fingers going to work free the buttons of her blouse as she moved closer.
“Yes?” She kept her voice playful, slowly putting one high heeled foot in front of the other as she closed the distance between them.
“Get back on those pretty knees, Samantha, and get over here, now.”
Sam grinned like the cat that got the canary, moving to her knees as she covered the distance between them in a slinky crawl, kissing and biting her way back up his legs until she was in the same position she’d been in just before he’d managed to open the door. She shrugged off her blouse and let it fall to the floor behind her, keeping her skirt on.
He groaned again, the sound echoing the one he’d made out in the hallway as she swirled her tongue around the tip of his cock again, sending a shudder through his frame when she followed through with wrapping her lips around his shaft and leaning in. He threaded his fingers into her hair, pulling her in closer until the head of his cock hit the back of her throat and she let out a muffled sound. She loved the way his fingers felt in her hair, and the way he used the hair he’d twisted into a knot around his fist to guide her motions. She let go and let him direct her until she was lost in the way it felt to have him in her mouth and the way the carpet dug into her knees with each forward motion.