“I’m fine,” she said in response to Daff’s concerned question, while her eyes sought Brand out again. She considered his dishonesty about his relationship with Laura Prentiss and her visceral reaction to him lying about it. She had been angry, but that anger had been out of proportion to the nature of their relationship. She was the one who had put a moratorium on conversations of a personal nature, and, whatever his relationship with the pop star, it was personal. And when he’d tried to tell her it was none of her business, she’d taken offense. Taken offense when he’d chosen to implement one of her own rules.
Her mind switched to thoughts of his concern for her over the last few days, his phone calls and texts, his genuine supportiveness last night, and the interest he still had in her. And she concluded that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to grab this non-relationship with Brand with both hands and just run with it.
“Hey! Lia! You still with us?”
“What?” Lia shook her head and looked at Daff, who was snapping her fingers in front of Lia’s face. “Oh, sorry. I was thinking.”
“About?”
“I have plenty of free time for studying. And I can always go back to dating later.”
“What do you . . .” Daff began, then tracked Lia’s line of sight to Brand, who was laughing at something Charlie had said. “Crap. Seriously? Lia, don’t let him break your heart, okay?”
“Don’t worry, sissy. This thing between Brand and me has a very limited time line. I’m well aware of that. My heart’s under lock and key. But . . . I enjoy him. I don’t see why I can’t continue to enjoy him until he leaves.”
“Oh man,” she heard Daff breathe.
Lia smiled widely. Gosh, she felt light as a feather.
She was watching him again. Brand wasn’t sure what to make of that. Lia had been staring at him all evening. She’d been generous with her smiles, too. Those beautiful, genuine smiles that he so enjoyed. When they finally sat down around the small, crowded dinner table, he found himself sitting between Lia and Charlie. He felt like he was sitting way, way too close to Lia. Her arm brushed against his every time she moved, and when she spoke with him, which was often, she leaned in close enough for him to breathe in her tantalizing scent and trapped his eyes with her beguiling gray stare. It was driving him insane. He was uncomfortably erect and trying very hard to keep his reaction hidden from the rest of the group.
When she touched his arm with her fingertips and he nearly jumped out of his skin, his reaction drew every eye at the table and Sam mumbled an apology, feeling his cheeks heat in the process.
“I just wanted you to pass the salt,” Lia murmured into his ear, her voice husky with amusement. Her mouth was so close, he could feel her warm breath wash over his temple, and he swallowed down a groan.
She was fucking killing him.
She excused herself and sauntered off to the bathroom, and Sam bit back another groan as he watched the seductive sway of her hips. He felt a kick on his shins and identified the assailant as Daff. He glared at her and she glared back, raising her eyebrows meaningfully at the same time. He knew she was trying to warn him not to stare so blatantly at Lia.
His phone buzzed; he lifted it to glance down at the screen and nearly swallowed his tongue when he saw the message.
I miss your €====3!!
He blinked. Then gaped at the message for a long moment.
“Bad news, bru?” Mason asked in concern, and Sam immediately switched off the screen and dropped the phone facedown on the table.
“Uh, no. Just unexpected.” His phone buzzed again, and he fumbled for it. He couldn’t resist a quick glance and felt his face redden.
Do you miss my (|)?
What in God’s name was she trying to do to him?
“Brand? What the fuck is going on with you?”
“Mason, language,” Daisy reprimanded in a long-suffering voice, obviously knowing it wouldn’t make a difference.
“Sorry, angel,” Mason apologized, lifting Daisy’s hand to his lips for a quick kiss.
“I, uh . . . ,” Sam began to say, but his words stalled when Lia strolled back into the dining room, not betraying by a flicker of an eyelid what she’d been up to. Mason and Spencer, with that fucking old-fashioned courtesy of theirs, both stood up when Lia sat down. Sam lifted his butt an inch from his seat as a nod toward good manners before sitting down again. No way was he standing up in his current state.
“It’s something that I’ll be seeing to later,” he continued pointedly, answering Mason’s question and still not looking at Lia. She went back to her dinner like nothing was amiss.
“Anything I can help with?” Mason asked, and Sam choked on a sip of wine.
“No, thanks. I can definitely take care of it myself. Uh, Lia—” He dared a look at her and she met his eyes guilelessly, her eyebrows raised in question. “Mind passing the salt back, please? I missed the hell out of it.”
“What a weird thing to miss,” Charlie observed, and Lia coughed delicately, her face pinkening slightly as she caught his meaning.
“Not really,” he said, smiling at Charlie. “I adore salt. Can’t get enough of it. Could eat it for days.”
This time it was Lia who choked on nothing but her spit, and Sam hid a grin as Charlie wrinkled her nose.
“That’s really bad for your health,” she said, concerned. “You can get high blood pressure, high cholesterol. Think of your heart and your kidneys.”
“You’re a smart kid. Don’t worry, I understand that everything is better in moderation. No matter how tempted one is to overindulge.”
The rest of dinner continued uneventfully. Lia thankfully kept her hands to herself, barely acknowledging him, while Sam manfully fought to get his erection under control. Thankfully, he was decent again by the time the meal ended and surreptitiously watched as Lia sat chatting and joking with her sisters and Charlie—inevitably discussing Daff and Spencer’s pending nuptials—while the men cleaned up the kitchen.
She left a full half hour before the rest of the party disbanded, citing tiredness. Sam watched her leave, waited ten minutes, and finally took the opportunity to send her a message.
I want you. He knew the text lacked finesse, but he wasn’t a sweet talker by nature. He had at least refrained from using the word fuck in the text. Which, for him, was as romantic as it got.
I know. He didn’t have to wait long for that two-word response, and he glared at his phone screen, annoyed that she was being so fucking stingy with her words.
While he was glaring at the screen, another word popped up.
Soon.
The promise had him champing at the bit, and he waited impatiently while Spencer and Daff—his ride home—chatted their way through another drink. Charlie kept herself busy by taking selfies and random other pics for her Instagram account. Thankfully, she was respectful enough not to include Sam in her pictures. He didn’t want anyone to know where he was spending his convalescence.
Sam tried not to show his impatience and kept up his end of the conversation, but he was relieved when Spencer playfully prodded Daff in her side and suggested they get a move on.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Lia had parked her car around back so that it wouldn’t be visible to Spence and Daff when they dropped Brand off. She had let herself in, using the spare key that Mason and Daisy kept hidden under a loose brick on the porch step, and sat waiting in the dark, cold living room.
She heard the car drive up, and her heart sped up in excitement at the thought of seeing Brand again, of being with him, of touching him and being touched. She was trembling in anticipation.
Her phone buzzed, and she glanced down at the screen and smiled.
Get your gorgeous butt over here, sunshine. I fucking ache for you.
The front door opened, and she stood up. He didn’t see her—his eyes were on his phone, waiting for her response.
“I ache for you, too.” His head jerked up, and the living room light flashed on. She blinked
rapidly as she tried to adjust to the sudden brightness. Before she knew it, she was in his arms and he was groaning and kissing her.
Deeply, passionately, and voraciously eating her mouth.
Neither of them said a word. She wore nothing beneath her coat, and when he pushed it down, he said a worshipful prayer of thanks before kissing and suckling her naked flesh. He was so familiar with what worked for her that he immediately homed in on her erogenous zones, and her knees buckled at the intense responses he was so good at drawing from her.
Before they knew it, they were lying on the thick rug in front of the cold hearth, entangled in each other’s arms. His injured arm was still weak, but he was a more confident and masterful lover with the use of both arms and it gave her a taste of what was to come once he regained full use of the limb. For now, his right hand made up for its previous lack of participation by stroking and touching and playing with her nipples, her sensitive skin, her highly sensitized femininity. It was amazing, and he gifted her with two orgasms before he even got partially naked.
“Sunshine, I love the sounds you make when you come,” he whispered against her lips. “Soft and breathless and desperate.”
“Make me come again,” she begged, her hands drifting down to his straining crotch. “Make me come with this.”
He groaned, the sound low and frantic. He fumbled with his fly, his right hand still clumsy, and she reached out to help him with the task. His hot, hard length spilled into her hands, and she latched onto it, stroking it eagerly. He arched out of her touch.
“Sunshine, you’re killing me. No touching for now, okay?”
She lifted her hands to his head instead and tugged him down for another kiss. And while their lips and tongues entangled, he entered her with one swift, deep stroke. Lia cried out against his mouth and raised her knees to cradle him closer.
“Oh, Brand,” she moaned, and he stopped thrusting, holding himself still inside her. She sobbed and pushed herself up against him, wanting more.
“Sam,” he muttered. “I want to hear it. Call me Sam.” She was too desperate to give the command much thought, her entire being focused on his delicious heat inside her. She needed him to move, to give her what she was so frantic for, and she would do or say anything in this moment for the culmination she craved.
“Sam,” she whispered, and he buried his face in her neck and thrust into her. “Sam.” Another thrust.
“Oh my God, Sam.”
He sobbed and thrust even deeper than before.
“Sam, please . . .” She bit into his shoulder, planted her feet on the floor, and lifted her hips to meet his thrusts. When she finally came, she screamed his name. A long, drawn-out cry. One syllable stretched out into nine.
Not Brand.
But Sam.
Sam couldn’t catch his breath. He held Lia close, cradling her in his arms like she was the most precious thing in his life, and he felt like he was slowly asphyxiating, because he just couldn’t fucking breathe.
He finally moved, leaving her wet warmth and automatically reaching down to discard the condom when he comprehended that there wasn’t one. Which a) explained why the entire encounter had been so fucking amazing and intense and b) was completely unprecedented for him.
“Fuck,” he swore vehemently. “Fuck, fuck, fuuuuck!”
“What’s wrong?” she asked groggily, sitting up and pushing her messy hair out of her face.
“I forgot the condom.” She gasped softly at his revelation.
“I thought things felt a bit . . . damper than usual,” she said tactfully. “Um. I don’t have anything to worry about, do I?”
“What?” He was still a bit dazed, and it took him a moment to register her question. “Jesus. No. Of course not. I’m sorry. I was tested for everything when I was in the hospital. All clear. And you’ve been my only partner since last November.”
“Oh. Well, I’ve never had a partner other than Clayton,” she confessed. “And he always used a condom. I did have tests after our breakup, because I wasn’t sure how much I could trust him.”
“So that only leaves, uh . . . the other thing.” God, this was awkward, especially when she stared at him with those innocent gray eyes.
“Other thing?”
“You know? Pregnancy?” She inhaled sharply, and her hands automatically flew to her tummy in a protective gesture. Oddly, the instinctive movement elicited an unmistakable wrench of possessiveness in Sam.
“Pregnancy?” she mused, her eyes bright. “A baby? Imagine that, a little blond boy or girl. Probably stubborn and charming in equal measure.”
Sam swallowed, trying to ease the dryness in his throat and mouth as he envisioned said child. A little brown-haired girl with gray eyes and a beautiful smile. She would be a sweet little thing, always laughing and . . .
He shook his head violently. What the fuck was wrong with him? Why the hell was he picturing babies?
“Of course, I won’t expect you to be involved or anything. Don’t worry. I can raise him or her myself.”
Over my dead body! He felt himself glowering in response to her claim, pissed off that she would automatically exclude him from his kid’s life. He was about to vehemently tell her that she would do no such thing when she lifted a hand to her mouth and giggled.
“Oh my gosh, the look on your face!” He stared at her, confused. Maybe she was hysterical at the prospect of an unplanned pregnancy. He couldn’t believe he’d been so careless. He never forgot the condom—well, aside from that time in the barn with her, but that had been a fraught encounter and he’d remembered the condom after only a few strokes. This time . . . okay, this time had been fraught as well. But still, this was fucking inexcusable. He found himself considering all possibilities. He would take care of her. Despite her claims that he didn’t have to. If she was pregnant, she and the baby were his responsibility, he would—
“Brand, I’m on the pill.” His thoughts came to a screeching halt at her revelation, and it took a moment for him to process her words.
“What?”
“The pill.” He didn’t know why, but the information startled him.
“You are?”
“Yes, I went on it a week before my wedding date in a futile attempt to stave off a wedding-day period. I found it convenient to stay on the pill after that. It kept my cycle regular.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before now?”
“Well, I figured—considering the nature of our relationship—that it would be best for us to continue using condoms. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have teased you. I just couldn’t resist. You looked terrified. I feel kind of bad now.”
Terrified? Far from it. Stunned by his own carelessness, maybe. Overwhelmed by the notion that a whole new person could result from that carelessness and a steely resolve to be part of said new person’s life if it came to that.
What had terrified him was the inexplicable pang of disappointment he felt when the possibility of that baby had disappeared with just a few words.
He watched Lia gather her coat and push herself up from the floor. She was getting ready to leave.
“Stay,” he whispered, getting up as well. She paused in the act of shrugging into the coat and stared at him for a long moment.
“No.”
“Lia, we have to rethink these guidelines of yours.”
“Agreed. We can discuss them tomorrow and find a list that works for both of us, but this one rule remains sacrosanct. No sleeping over, Brand.”
“I’d prefer it if you called me Sam.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s my name.”
“So’s Brand. Mason calls you Brand.”
“You’re not Mason.”
“How am I different from Mason?”
“I’m not sleeping with Mason, for starters.”
“You’re not sleeping with me, either.”
“Fine. Jesus! I’m not fucking Mason. Look, call me Sam, okay? I just . . . I like it more.”
&n
bsp; “If it means that much to you, you should tell Daisy and Mason to use Sam. You shouldn’t be called Brand if you dislike it. I’ll tell—”
“Christ, Lia. I don’t give a fuck what name they use. I like it when you call me Sam.” He watched her process the words, chewing the inside of her cheek as she considered what he’d said.
“Okay,” she decided. “Sam.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll be around tomorrow morning to fix your breakfast,” she informed him.
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know,” she said easily. “But I want to.”
She walked toward the door and Sam watched her go, frustrated that she wouldn’t stay.
“Lia, don’t get me wrong . . . I love that we’re back on the coitus carousel, but why did you change your mind about us? Was it because of the shitty dates?” he asked before she reached for the doorknob. She turned to face him, leaning back against the door as she considered his words.
“Not really, it was mostly because I want this. And I was talking myself out of having it because it didn’t suit the image I had of the Dahlia McGregor I should be.”
“And which Dahlia McGregor is that?”
“The same Dahlia who saved herself for the man she was supposed to marry.” She shook her head and laughed self-deprecatingly, the sound ending on that little snort he was growing to like more and more. “And look how that turned out. Not the engagement, but the actual intimate act. Clayton was . . . unsatisfactory, to say the least. A fast fumbler. And then he blamed my lack of enthusiasm on me. If I’d gone through with the wedding, uh . . . sex would have remained a disappointment to me. I would never have known how much better it could be.”
She hesitated and blushed before saying sex. Still so shy about verbalizing certain words when she seemed so comfortable sending naughty texts to him. Not to mention how expressive she was during sex. He found that idiosyncrasy positively adorable.
“It made me think, and I recognized that I don’t want to go back to being that willfully ignorant Dahlia McGregor again. I like what we do together. I understand that it’s temporary, and I intend to enjoy it while it lasts. Without guilt or shame.”
The Wrong Man Page 25