A Vow to Love

by Sherryl Woods

  As it was, she barely managed to plant a kiss of gratitude somewhere on his shoulder. It felt so good, she snuck in one more on his neck. She thought she heard him groan, but before she could figure out why, she sighed and drifted off to sleep.

  Sam's entire body, head to toe and especially in between, ached with longing. It had been a mistake picking Penny up in the kitchen. He should have forced her to walk to the bedroom under her own steam. The gallant gesture had turned out to be the sweetest torment of his entire life. The woman cuddled like a friendly kitten.

  He stood beside her bed even now that she was sound asleep in his arms. He was unable to overcome his reluctance to put her down. There was something so trusting in the way she'd twined her arms around his neck, so innocently sensual in the kisses she'd bestowed. She felt right in his arms, as if she belonged there. The temptation to believe that taunted him.

  Unfortunately, if he didn't put her into the bed and under the covers very quickly, he was not going to be responsible for his actions. From the moment he'd awakened to find her standing over him, her fascinated gaze locked on his all-too-responsive body, he'd been fighting a battle with temptation. He had mistakenly figured that getting her out of that living room untouched meant he had won the battle.

  He waged one more war with himself and managed to emerge on the side of the saints. He lowered her to the bed, pulled the sheet up over her and counted himself lucky. Another victory.

  But he couldn't seem to make himself walk out the door. He debated a long time over it, too. He gave himself at least a dozen logical, moralistic reasons for getting the hell out of her bedroom, topped by the fact that things between them had gone too far already.

  He had only one reason for staying: she might have a nightmare. He figured that outweighed all the others in favor of leaving. He also figured he was lying to himself if he believed that was the only reason he was stretching out beside her, albeit on top of the covers, arms over his head, hands dutifully linked behind his neck.

  Now he was the one who couldn't sleep. Every square inch of him fairly hummed with awareness of the woman beside him. He decided if he made it until morning without losing his mind or doing something they'd both regret, he would reward himself by taking the day off, going fishing, taking a drive in the country, anything to put several hours and a lot of miles between him and Penny.

  That vow did not take into account that Penny was a restless sleeper. When she rolled onto her side and flung her arm across his chest, Sam sucked in his breath and counted to ten.

  When she snuggled into his side and used his shoulder for a pillow, he groaned and counted to a hundred, very rapidly. When that didn't help, he started over and slowly and determinedly counted to a thousand.

  When she shifted again and slid her bare thigh across his, his willpower snapped. Even with that thin, cotton sheet between them, he could feel her heat. His body responded as if they'd skipped foreplay and gone straight to the peak of lovemaking. He was throbbing with the desperate need for more intimate contact. He wanted to fill her, to feel her moving in response to the urgent rhythm he set. He'd played with fire by getting into this bed, no matter what his motives had been.

  And he'd lost. He wanted her so badly his teeth ached. He might as well admit that she'd gotten under his skin. But what would he do about it? Making love to her while she was sound asleep was not one of the options, he told himself sternly. He wanted her awake and willing. Unfortunately, he knew in his gut that it wouldn't be all that difficult to make that happen.

  Drawing on one last shred of decency, he made himself concentrate on taming the pace of his heart. Relaxation therapy, that was the ticket out of this fix. Maybe those stress reduction classes he'd been forced to take would pay off, after all. He deliberately slowed his breathing. With one arm, he settled Penny more comfortably--and less provocatively--in his embrace. With the other he smoothed the tangle of hair from her face. His fingers lingered on her cheek. It was as soft as he'd remembered and flushed from resting against his shoulder.

  She sighed contentedly.

  So far, so good, he told himself. She was sound asleep. He'd tamed the immediate need to seduce her. He glanced at the clock. It was 3:00 a.m. Penny had set her alarm for six. Only three more hours of this torture.

  It was only later, when she was wide-awake, thoroughly indignant and warm as sin in his arms, that he wondered why the hell he hadn't gotten out of her bed when he'd had the chance.

  Wedged between Sam and the wall, Penny scrambled out of Sam's arms and onto her knees on the bed. She yanked the sheet up to her chin even though she was wearing perfectly respectable pajamas, then glared down into Sam's amused expression.

  "What the hell are you doing in my bed?" she demanded, not pausing to consider the fact that a couple of days ago this was precisely where she'd wanted him.

  His eyes glinted with barely contained laughter. "Isn't that what the three bears asked Goldilocks?"

  She scowled at him. "I'm not up on my nursery rhymes. I'd prefer to deal with your presence, your uninvited presence, in my bed."

  "Do you recall my crawling between the sheets with you?"

  "No. Absolutely not."

  "Then how can you be sure you didn't invite me?"

  "Because I would never, not in a million years, have done that," she said staunchly, despite the fact that a little voice in her head was screaming liar at the top of its lungs.

  "You're sure, absolutely sure?" he asked, his expression all innocent puzzlement.

  "Sam Roberts, I am not in the habit of inviting anyone into my bed."

  "Oh, really? I'm delighted to hear it."

  She eyed him warily, wondering at the genuine note of pleasure she'd heard in his voice. What did that mean? Probably nothing, she decided.

  Penny wanted badly to cut her losses, but she couldn't quite figure out how a lady went about exiting a bed with a very attractive, very sexy man in it, especially when she very much wanted to fling herself on top of him. She considered telling him to leave, but the memory of his lack of clothing stopped her. Telling a naked man to parade across the room was more than she could cope with at 6:00 a.m.

  So, it was up to her. Dragging the sheet with her, she stood and stepped over him with as much grace as she could muster, then hopped off the bed onto the floor.

  "I hope when I get out of the shower, you will have the decency to be up and dressed," she said without looking at him.

  "What about my shower?"

  She knew where he was heading with the question from the suggestive tone of his voice. She tried to cut him off. "Take one at home."

  "No time. I could join you," he offered cheerfully.

  She whirled on him. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

  "Not half as much as I was enjoying having you cuddled up next to me."

  A vague memory of snuggling up to something warm made Penny's face burn with embarrassment. And his arms had been around her when she'd awakened. How they'd gotten there was irrelevant. A denial appeared to be pointless. She just shot him what she hoped was a withering look, walked into the bathroom and slammed the door. And locked it. She didn't trust him a bit when he was in this kind of provocative mood. Only when she figured she was safe did she allow herself to smile.

  Things were definitely heating up, whether Sam wanted them to or not. She figured it was only a short leap from sleeping together in the traditional sense to sleeping together in the euphemistic, sexual connotation of the phrase.

  She could hardly wait.

  Chapter 10

  "So there I was, pinned between him and the wall, and he wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing," Penny told Didi later that morning during a coffee break. She still hadn't entirely come to grips with everything that had gone on the night before. Something told her that Didi would be able to give her a wiser, more experienced and definitely more objective view of the amazing events.

  "And you got out of the bed," her friend said, her expression registerin
g total disbelief.

  "Of course I got out of there."

  "Why?"

  Why, indeed, Penny thought to herself. "Because he would have hated me if I'd stayed and he would have hated himself even more."

  Didi waved off the explanation. "The man is nuts about you. He didn't show up at that diner last night out of a sense of obligation. He was clearly terrified that something might happen to you."

  "Sure," Penny agreed. "And he would have blamed himself. That's all."

  Didi rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Will you wake up and smell the coffee?" She waved her cup under Penny's nose for emphasis. "Don't you ever look into the man's eyes?"

  "Yes."

  "Well? What do you see?"

  "I see a man who's fighting his own instincts."

  "Exactly," Didi said triumphantly as if an inept pupil had finally grasped an important point. "And why do you think he's doing that?"

  "Because he wants me."

  "Bravo!"

  "But he doesn't want to want me," Penny reminded her. "You've spent enough time around him. He's the most stubborn man on the face of the earth. Do you honestly think he ever does anything he doesn't want to do?"

  "Oh, I'd say he's on the edge right about now. Do you think he crawled into your bed last night to keep you from rolling out?"

  Penny chuckled despite herself. "No, I suppose not."

  "I know not. All you need to do is turn up the heat another notch and he will be powerless to resist."

  Penny doubted her ability to overcome Sam's resistance under any conditions, but even she had to admit that she'd seen definite signs that he was wavering. But when the mighty fell, did they go graciously or did they wind up resenting the very person who'd brought about their downfall?

  For a solid week Sam worried about the lighthearted enjoyment he'd gotten from tormenting Penny about their sleeping arrangements. That worry had brought him to Johnny's Place night after night, hoping that a workout with the punching bag and a few rounds in the ring would drive the memories from his head. It hadn't worked. Even so, he was back at it again tonight, sure that this time would succeed in accomplishing what all the other times had not.

  Sweat poured down his chest. His arms ached from pummeling the bag, but still the images were there. He'd liked watching the pink tint flood into Penny's cheeks. He'd thrilled to the fire of indignation sparkling in her eyes. Most of all, he'd taken a definite masculine pride in seeing her respond to him and believing with everything in him that he was the first to affect her that way.

  Some people would have told him it was just a typical macho reaction and maybe it was. But he had the disturbing feeling there was more to it. This had been Penny, not just any woman he'd asked out on a casual date. Hell, with most women he didn't waste time on all the preliminary flirting. The women he chose were more than willing to accept the casual status of a relationship with him and leave it at that. They knew the rules and found them satisfactory.

  With Penny, all of his carefully crafted rules had flown out the window. Some of that had to do with her ties to Brandon Halloran. Her grandfather would personally escort Sam to an abandoned island and leave him there if he hurt Penny, if he used her and abandoned her.

  Most of his reaction, however, had to do with the woman herself. She had admitted that she didn't indulge in casual affairs. In fact, if he had to hazard a guess, she hadn't indulged in any affairs whatsoever. Sam found that to be both a blessing and a curse. The thought of her with any other man made his stomach twist into knots. He was almost irrationally relieved to know it was something he didn't need to think about. And yet...

  And yet, things would have been a helluva lot simpler if she'd been like every other worldly woman he'd been attracted to. Virginity was a definite complication for a man who craved simplicity. Women, especially women Penny's age, who'd waited all their lives for the right man, were very dangerous to a man who didn't want to be anybody's destiny.

  Just the thought of entanglement in a relationship made him slam his fists into the punching bag with a force that jarred him. His breath was coming in pants as he took out his frustrations on that inanimate object.

  "I--" He slammed a right cross into the bag.

  "Will--" He jabbed with his left.

  "Not--" He aimed a right about chin high into the bag.

  "Get--" An uppercut with his left rocked him on his heels.

  "Involved!" He delivered a knockout punch with his right.

  "Hey, Sam, who're you talking to?" Randy asked, watching him with a puzzled expression.

  "Myself," he admitted. "Take it from me. Wait until you're at least forty before you start to date."

  Randy grinned at him, his expression all too knowing. "Ms. Hayden giving you trouble?"

  Sam scowled at him. "Ms. Hayden has nothing to do with this. What gave you that idea?"

  "She's been talking to herself a lot this week, too."

  Small comfort, Sam thought. "You seeing a lot of her?"

  "Just what we talked about. I walk her to work in the morning and meet her at night. She's a terrific lady. Did you know she's got an undergraduate degree in microbiology and is getting her Ph.D. in English?"

  Sam personally thought that was a sign of a woman who couldn't make up her mind what she wanted to be when she grew up. Randy obviously thought otherwise. In fact, he was showing all the signs of developing a full-fledged crush on the lady. He'd even started letting his hair grow into a more traditional style.

  "She says she'll tutor me to get my high school diploma and then help me apply to colleges."

  Sam stared at him in amazement. Randy had never before expressed the slightest desire to further his education. Apparently working miracles was another of Penny's hidden talents.

  "That's great," he said carefully. "What do you want to study?"

  Randy suddenly looked downright shy. "Criminal justice," he admitted, his gaze fixed on Sam for approval. "I want to be a cop, so I can help kids like you do."

  To his astonishment, Sam felt the sting of what might have been tears in his eyes. The kid was finally on the right track and for the first time after months of worry, Sam was certain Randy would make it. Oh, he had his reservations about police officers who spent years learning theory before they discovered the realities of the streets, but Randy knew all too much about the streets. He'd do just fine with or without college. If Penny had talked him into higher education, Sam didn't want to discourage him in any way. And he couldn't ignore the signs of hero worship written plainly on the teen's face.

  "You need any extra help, you let me know," he said, his voice gruff with an emotion he couldn't express. "And when the time comes to get on the force, I'll see what I can do."

  Randy grinned. "Ms. Hayden already told me you would."

  Sam laughed. "Oh, she did, did she?"

  "I think she's really got it bad for you."

  Worry warred with pleasure. Pleasure won by a hairbreadth. "Oh?" he said, even though he thought a man had to be pretty pitiful to be pumping a sixteen-year-old for information about a woman.

  "She asks about you all the time. I guess that means you haven't seen her lately."

  "Not for the last few days, anyway."

  "How come?"

  "I've been busy."

  "Don't wait too long," Randy warned. "There's this guy from the lab. I think he's got the hots for her. He's been hanging around a lot."

  Sam hit the punching bag so hard, it jarred his teeth. He would not, he absolutely would not, ask about the man. It was her life. She could date anyone she wanted. In fact, that's what he'd been hoping for, right? To be let off the hook?

  "Who is he?" he demanded.

  Randy grinned at him. "Nobody, man. I just wanted to be sure I had things pegged right."

  Sam chuckled despite himself. "Go get ready, kid. And you'd better be on your toes in that ring, because I am out to get you."

  They went five rounds with Randy holding his own before the teen looked up
at the clock and called a halt. "I've got to get to the lab. Ms. Hayden will be off soon."

  Sam made a split-second decision. "Take the night off. I'll meet her."

  Randy shot him a man-to-man grin. "I think she'll be real glad to see you."

  That was a slight overstatement, Sam discovered as he watched Penny pick him out of the cluster of people lingering on the sidewalk outside of the lab. She lifted her hand in a halfhearted wave, but her expression was nervous.

  "Where's Randy?" she asked when she'd joined him.

  "Hi, Sam. Thanks for coming, Sam. I've missed you, Sam," he prompted, and saw a smile tug at her lips.

  "Hi, Sam," she began, but left it at that.

  "Hi, short stuff. I gave Randy the night off. I thought we'd go to Rosie's."

  "Did I hear an invitation in there somewhere?"

  He grinned. "Would you like to go to Rosie's?"

  She grinned back at him. "I would love to. But let me warn you, I'm starved. I never got out of the lab for lunch today."

  "Given Rosie's prices, I doubt you're going to break me. If you do, she'll probably extend me credit."

  "Based on your good looks and personality, no doubt."

  "Based on the tab she's been running for me ever since I've known her. She keeps hoping maybe someday I'll hit a lottery and turn most of it over to her."

  Rosie welcomed them with exuberant hugs and chastised them for staying away so long. Penny turned a commiserating look on Sam.

  "I was here last week. How about you?"

  "Two nights ago."

  Rosie wasn't fazed. "You should come every night, like it was your mama's table. Sit and I'll bring you wine."

  While Rosie fussed over them, Sam studied Penny. "You're still not sleeping, are you?" he asked eventually.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Those dark circles under your eyes don't look like the latest style in makeup. You worried about Tank?" He regarded her slyly. "Or are you missing me?"

  "You? I haven't given you a thought," she said, but not very convincingly. "I've been studying late and getting up early for work."