She could say no. She would say no.
But then Sam closed his eyes, remembering the way Alyssa had kissed him in the back hallway of the Wal-Mart. Holy, holy Jesus. She was fire in his arms. For a few minutes there, he’d been convinced that she was going to come. Just from a dry hump in a public corridor.
He’d almost lost it himself, but his excuse was that he’d been celibate now for nearly a year.
Sam squinted at the ceiling. Was it possible …?
Nah. He’d seen the way she’d kissed Max. The fucker.
Still … Maybe it meant that Max wasn’t so great in bed after all.
Yeah, wouldn’t that be nice? Sam wasn’t any closer to sleep, but thinking about Max being unable to keep it up, or maybe just boring Alyssa to tears, was definitely better than thinking about Donny burning to death or Mary Lou and Haley jammed into some trunk.
But even better than the thought of Max, impotent, was the idea of Alyssa maybe being as desperate for Sam’s touch as he was for hers, not because she missed great sex, but because she missed him.
In which case, if he called her on that phone, she might say yes.
Which was why he couldn’t call. Because if she said yes, then in order to stick to his plan about growing something real, Sam would have to be the one to say no. And he did not have a good history with that particular word. At least not when it came to Alyssa Locke and sexual intercourse.
Sam heard Alyssa’s cell phone ringing through the thin motel walls. He sat up.
Was that Jules calling her? Or Max?
Either way, it was probably news.
He could hear the murmur of her voice through the wall, but try as he might, he couldn’t make out the words. Probably because his heart was pounding too freaking loudly.
Please God, let her come hammering on his door to tell him that those bodies in the trunk were definitely not Mary Lou and Haley.
He heard her stop talking, heard only silence.
Then the sound of water running, a toilet flushing.
Then nothing.
Until she knocked, softly, on his door.
Oh, no.
That was not a jubilant knock, and Sam knew that the news was not going to be good.
Please God …
“Still nothing absolutely conclusive,” she said before he even got the door all the way open. “Jules said they’re having some trouble with the dental records. The fire was … apparently very hot.”
Sam nodded, just looking at her.
She’d had an overnight bag in the back of her car, and unlike him, she had a change of clothes. She either slept naked or her pajamas were too revealing, because she’d thrown her jeans and that baggy T-shirt back on.
She’d splashed water on her face before coming over here—part of her hair was still wet—but despite that, her eyes looked red, as if she’d just been crying.
As she looked back at him, tears welled in her eyes. She covered her mouth with her hand as, Jesus, her face contorted and she started to cry.
Nothing absolutely conclusive, she’d said.
Sam’s ears roared as he pulled her into the room, into his arms, closing the door behind her.
“What did Jules tell you?” Sam asked, even though he knew. Mary Lou’s driver’s license or something else that could identify them had been found near the car.
“I’m sorry,” she said as she cried into his chest, this tough-as-nails woman who fought so hard never to be seen as weak.
He clung to her as tightly as she was holding him. God, give him the strength to endure this. “Please, Lys, tell me.”
She looked up at him. “They were killed by a shotgun, at close range, same as Janine.”
That was it? That was the bad news?
Sam nearly fainted from the relief.
“I’m so sorry,” Alyssa said, holding him even tighter.
It was beyond nice that she was in his arms. And he was definitely blown away by her tears, but …
“You do know that you can’t match slugs from a shotgun,” he told her. “Forensics can’t know for sure it was the same weapon. That’s why people use shotguns to kill other people. And come on, Lys, there must be thousands of shotguns in this part of Florida alone.”
She lifted her head to look at him again, wonder in her eyes. “You still don’t think it’s them.”
“I’m trying hard not to,” he told her. “I’m scared to death that it is, but … What you just told me isn’t good news, yeah, but it’s not bad enough to make me quit hoping.”
She was so beautiful, gazing up at him with streaks of tears on her face and such emotion in her eyes. It was hard to believe he’d once thought she was cold and unfeeling.
“You stopped hoping they were still alive as soon as the news came out that those bodies were found, didn’t you?” he asked her gently.
She nodded, fresh tears escaping. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Sam said. “Don’t. Don’t apologize.” He touched her face, but trying to wipe her tears away was futile because they were still pouring down her face. God, she was crying and she wasn’t trying to hide it from him. “It’s just … I don’t get it. I mean, maybe I’m the one who’s being overly optimistic, but—”
“Bad things happen,” she told him earnestly. “It’s just part of life. I guess I think it’s easier to assume that when the … the piano falls from the sky, it’s going to fall on you. Otherwise, you’re blindsided. And if that happens, you may never get back up.”
When the piano falls, not if. Oh, Alyssa. What a way to live. With potential pain and heartbreak lurking around every corner.
And the only way to effectively counter it was to prepare for the worst to happen.
Or maybe even to run away from the good things—like love. If you didn’t let yourself love someone, you couldn’t lose them.
No wonder Alyssa had fought so hard for so long to keep Sam out of her life. And when she’d finally opened up, finally agreed to give him a chance, to give their relationship a try, he’d gone and dropped a piano named Mary Lou squarely on top of her.
“I guess that makes me a pessimist, huh?” she told him, pulling out of his arms. As he watched, she crossed the room, heading to the mirror and sink by the bathroom, pulling several tissues from the slot in the counter. “I wish I wasn’t. It’s not something I particularly like about myself. But—” She blew her nose. “I was only thirteen when my mother died. I think a lot of kids who lose a parent become pessimistic. And those numbers probably increase among the kids who lose a parent to violent crime.”
“Oh, man.” Sam sat on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t realize …”
“I don’t talk about it much,” she admitted. “It’s still …” She looked around the room. Anywhere but directly into his eyes. But then she did. She made herself hold his gaze. “It’s hard to talk about. I still miss her so much.”
Sam nodded. “I’d really like you to tell me,” he said quietly. “I want to know you, Alyssa.”
She started to cry again. “Shit,” she swore. “I’m a mess tonight.” She got another tissue from the counter, and then came over and sat down on the bed, next to Sam.
Not right next to him, but close enough.
She looked at him, and her eyes were watery and her nose was red, and she said, “You know, I think that was probably the nicest thing any man has ever said to me—that you want to know me. So if you just said it because you were looking for some play—”
“No.” Sam cut her off. “I said it because I meant it.” He moved back, away from her. “And I’m not sleeping with you again until you really get to know me.”
She laughed at that. “Yeah, like you wouldn’t be all over me if I gave you the least little encouragement.”
“You sat on the bed, and I just backed away,” he pointed out.
He watched her realize that that was true.
“You said something day before yesterday about hiding in a closet,” he told her. “Did you act
ually see your mother get killed?” He braced himself for her answer, praying that he’d gotten it wrong.
“No,” she said. “It was …” She closed her eyes, shook her head. “It was Lanora in the closet.”
Lanora, her niece? No, Lanora was also Alyssa’s youngest sister’s name. Lanora, who had died several years ago from complications from a pregnancy.
And how often did that happen in these modern times? Talk about pianos falling from the sky …
“Can you tell me about it?” Sam asked her.
Alyssa nodded. “I’d like to,” she said quietly—three little words that filled his heart with so much hope he was sure for a minute that he was going to start to cry, too.
But she didn’t notice. She was back to looking at the floor.
“I was at school,” she told him. “My mother stayed home from work that day because Lanora had a stomach virus. I guess my mother was tired because Lanora had been up all night. They were both taking a nap when someone broke in. You know, any other day, the apartment would have been empty.” Her voice shook.
“Aw, Jesus,” Sam said.
She glanced back at him. “Yeah. Lanora told me that Mommy woke her up by putting her hand over her mouth. She told her to get in the bedroom closet, to hide. I guess they were lying down together, in our bedroom, and my mother heard a noise out in the other room. We didn’t have a phone in there—she had to get to her room to call 911. I don’t really know exactly what happened. She must’ve surprised whoever was in there—some addict looking for things to sell for drugs. They caught him when he sold our stereo to a pawn shop for ten dollars.” She made a sound that was something like laughter but had nothing to do with humor.
“He killed my mother for ten dollars,” Alyssa told him. The tears that were now in her eyes were from anger, and she brusquely pushed them away.
Sam didn’t know what to say. “I’m so sorry.”
“The police report said she was struck in the head with a blunt instrument,” she continued. “The injury wasn’t bad enough to kill her, except it did. There was swelling and hemorrhaging, and she never regained consciousness.”
Alyssa had been only thirteen. “Where was your father?” Sam asked. She hadn’t mentioned her father before today.
“He and my mother split up when I was eight—after Lanora was born. He just dropped off the map. He completely disappeared, except he sent a check every month. And then the checks stopped coming, and we found out he’d died in a car accident.” She looked at him. “I think right until then my mother hadn’t given up hope that he’d come back.”
Sam nodded. “Hope can be a pretty powerful thing.” He knew all about that.
Alyssa nodded, too. “We had a rough couple of years. But things were actually starting to turn around. We had plans to move out of that neighborhood.”
She was silent for a moment, and then she looked at him again and said, “To this day, I do not understand why she didn’t just hide in the closet with Lanora.”
“She wanted to protect her,” Sam said. “She had no idea that whoever was out there wasn’t going to harm your sister, that he wasn’t going to search the closets and—”
“I know,” she said. “I just wish …” She shook her head, wiping her eyes again. “I came home from school and the street was crawling with emergency vehicles. Tyra—my other sister—had gone over to a friend’s house after school. I remember being glad about that when I realized the ambulance was there for Mommy. Oh, God, Sam, all that blood on the kitchen floor …”
Sam closed his eyes, flooded by a memory of tomato sauce, bright against the kitchen tile in Walt and Dot’s house. Jesus, imagine if that had been blood. It had been bad enough as it was.
“I really want to put my arms around you, Lys, but I’m afraid you’d take it the wrong way.”
“I think I’d like it,” she said, barely loud enough for him to hear, “whichever way you meant it.”
He reached for her, and she met him halfway, which was such a freaking mistake, because there they were, smack in the middle of his bed, holding on to each other.
But okay. He was a grown-up. Embracing a woman he craved more than oxygen while in the middle of a bed didn’t mean that he had to take off her clothes and bury himself inside her.
Even if she took off her clothes, he could leave his pants zipped. Well, except for the fact that he wasn’t wearing pants and his boxers didn’t have a zipper.
It was entirely possible that if he could keep this from turning sexual, he might succeed in impressing her. She might realize that he was serious. Then when he finally got up the courage again to tell her that he loved her, she’d realize he meant I love you instead of I want you.
But, oh, Jesus. Jesus …
“The police didn’t realize that Lanora was in the closet,” Alyssa said into his neck. “They’d searched the apartment, but they weren’t looking for a little kid. At first I thought whoever had hurt my mother had taken Lanora. But then I went into the bedroom and heard her crying. She was in the closet—Mommy had told her to stay there, not come out.”
Sam closed his eyes as he stroked Alyssa’s hair.
“By the time I found her, she was completely traumatized. I’m sure she heard whatever happened, but she blocked it. She used to have these nightmares and I’d wake her up and she’d say that Mommy was screaming. She never got over it,” Alyssa said. “All her life she was running from all that fear and pain. She tried to shut down the noise in her head with drugs and alcohol and stupid, empty sex.”
And Alyssa had tried to take control of her own emotions. Don’t get too close to someone who might leave you. And always, always expect the next piano to drop directly on your head.
“So now you know,” Alyssa whispered. She pulled back to look into his eyes.
Oh, man, that look on her face meant … Sam knew this woman well enough to know that she craved physical intimacy right now for a lot of different reasons.
The first being comfort.
The second was that she was unbelievably hot, and she just plain flat-out loved having sex.
But the other reasons were more complicated. They had to do with her expectations when it came to him, and the way she’d defined their relationship in the past as one of pure sex.
He didn’t want her to look back on this moment and be able to discount their solid emotional connection. He couldn’t risk letting it be over-shadowed by the physical, by the lightning bolts that were going to shoot around the room if he let himself so much as kiss her.
“I’m not going to kiss you,” Sam told her.
Alyssa didn’t believe him. He could see it in her eyes, and then he could taste it as his lips brushed hers.
“Ah, fuck,” he said, completely disgusted with himself, and kissed her again.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Alyssa put her arms around Sam’s neck and kissed him back.
This was a mistake. She knew it was a mistake. Every other time she had let herself fall under this man’s spell had been a bona fide, screaming, full-throttle, hit-the-wall-going-a-hundred-miles-an-hour mistake.
But while it was happening, while she was here in the denial phase, making love to him was, without doubt, the best idea she’d ever had in her entire life.
It had been too long since she’d been in his arms, in his bed, but every kiss, every touch was so familiar. She recognized the way she fit against him so perfectly, his taste, his scent, the heat in his eyes.
Sam was wearing only his boxer shorts and she let herself run her hands across his back—all that smooth skin, satin over rock-solid muscles.
His hair was short and darker brown than she remembered, all his golden, sun-bleached ends on some hairdresser’s floor back in Gainesville. She was used to it being much longer, down around his shoulders. She’d loved running her fingers through it.
But even cut short this way it was still nice to touch, so soft and thick, and without it in his face, his eye
s weren’t hidden from her. She could watch him watching her as he kissed her, touched her.
She kicked her legs free from her jeans and yanked off her shirt and pushed off her panties.
Sam groaned, letting go of her and lying back on the bed, one arm up over his eyes. “Oh, Jesus, you’re naked.”
Alyssa laughed. “Is that really a problem for you?” She pulled off his boxers so that his erection sprang free. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Praise the Lord for his magnificent creations.… “It sure doesn’t seem to be.”
But he stopped her before she could take him in her mouth, pulling her up with him so that they were both kneeling on the bed. “Just tell me that you honestly know what you’re doing. Promise me this isn’t just a reaction to stress, or high emotion, or Jesus, I don’t know what.…”
His eyes were so blue. He was looking at her so searchingly, as if he were trying to see inside of her head.
Alyssa looked back at him. Was it possible that he was seriously going to stop them from …
She spread her legs apart, and he swallowed, his eyes following her movement. But he didn’t touch her, and when he looked back at her, he shook his head slightly, desperation in his eyes, even as he laughed. She could read his mind very clearly. Don’t do that to me.
But she was determined to do that—and more. She reached to touch him, and he caught her hand.
“Please,” he said. “This is important to me.”
He was serious. And she couldn’t lie to him.
“I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing,” she admitted. “I just know that right now I want you so much.”
It was not the correct answer. She could see his disappointment.
“I’m sorry if that’s not enough,” she said. She brought his hand down, between her legs. “Are you sure it can’t be enough for tonight?”
There was no way he could miss the fact that she was completely ready for him. He didn’t pull his hand back, so she rocked against him, pushing his fingers slightly inside of her. Oh, yes.
“I’m not going to do this,” he said on an exhale, as if he’d been holding his breath. But just like before, when he told her he wasn’t going to kiss her, he began touching her, his fingers moving on their own, exploring.… He shifted closer.
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