“I’m so proud you, honey. I know it can’t be easy.”
Annie nodded, accepted his hug, and reflected that she never, ever thought that she’d actively go looking to bring Billy into her life – but here she was, preparing to maybe do just that. She held Sam tighter, already drawing strength from him for what she was afraid might be an ugly, awful fight.
In the end, though, and oddly enough, it wasn’t her dead and buried past that came back to life and rose from the grave. It wasn’t the shadows of her yesterday that came crawling out, blocking the sun of today. It wasn’t her past that set up residence in the present.
No. No, it was Sam’s. And it ended their lives as they knew them… and many, many other people’s lives too.
Chapter Nine
Sarah staggered off the dance floor at The Cave, the hottest, coolest bar in Denver, and collapsed at the VIP table. She grabbed her glass, drained it of all wine, then nodded as Maria held up the bottle, offering more.
“Yes, please,” Sarah said, slurring a bit. “I’m gonna be sooooo sorry tomorrow, but right now, I don’t care.”
“Aw, hell, it’s your Hen Party night,” Mirrie said, cradling her glass of pineapple juice. “Enjoy yourself.”
“I’m gonna get totally drunk, then go home to Jax and attack him while he sleeps. And he’s gonna love it.”
Gabs whooped and raised her rum-and-coke. “I’m gonna do that Aidan too! After I brush my teeth, though, because I can’t kiss him with alcohol breath.”
Sarah hesitated, looked over at Naomi. She knew that Aidan and Mirrie and Naomi were all alcoholics in various stages of recovery, and she’d agonized about inviting the two women to a bar practically drowning in booze. They’d both calmly declared themselves fine with it, and Mirrie had added that if things got to be too much, they’d just duck out early, with apologies. Still, though, Sarah wanted to be sure they were alright.
Before she could speak, though, Naomi piped up.
“Sarah, I’m fine. Mirrie is fine. Really. If I weren’t, I’d tell her. She’s my AA sponsor, and she’d get me out of here and talk me down. Alright?”
“Alright.”
“And truthfully, I’m thrilled to be out in a dance club. It’s been years, and I’d forgotten how much I love dancing.” Naomi looked around, her short blonde hair shining in the lights. “I’m going to get Matt to take me dancing sometime.”
The other women stared at her, then burst out laughing.
“What?” Naomi asked, genuinely unnerved. “What’s funny?”
“Oh, nothing, nothing at all,” Tessa sputtered. “Just the thought of King busting a move on a packed dance floor.”
They laughed again.
“First of all,” Naomi said with great dignity.”I don’t think the youth of today call it ‘busting a move’ anymore, so you just aged us all, Tessa, thank you very much.”
Tessa grinned, raised her Margarita. “Long live the nineties!”
“Second of all, Matt happens to be an amazing dancer.”
“Yeah?” Sarah said with healthy skepticism. “The mountain has the moves, huh?”
“Oh, honey.” Naomi grinned. “The mountain can shake. Rocks my world on the regular, I can tell you.”
“Argh! Stop with the sex talk!” Sarah said, clapping her hands over Annie’s ears. “My mother is here!”
Annie laughed, removed her daughter’s grip. “I do know a few things about sex, sweetheart. I mean – you do know where you and your brother came from?”
“So you had sex once for sure and got two kids out of it,” Sarah said. “Beyond that, I don’t want to know.”
“No?” Annie said coyly, twirling her straw in her Mojito. She was happily buzzing, happily enjoying her daughter’s party, happily thinking about going Sam’s after. “You don’t?” She took a big gulp. “Ohhhhh-kaay then.”
The younger women blinked at Annie. Sarah looked horrified, then intrigued.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Sarah gulped some more wine. “You mean – you’re – you and this guy that you dated and won’t tell me about… are you two –”
“We are indeed.”
“Argh,” Sarah mumbled. “I don’t know if I can handle this information.”
“Have another drink!” Maria said helpfully, then saw that there wasn’t actually much wine left. “Ummm… maybe just start drinking from the bottle now?”
“Mmm-hmmm.” Sarah poured the wine directly into her mouth, leaned back. “OK, Mom. Go. No, wait.” She drank again. “Now go.”
“Well, you know him,” Annie said. “You met him a few years ago, and then again recently.”
“Yeah? Who is it?”
“Sam Innis.”
“Sam…” Sarah choked on her wine, and Tessa merrily patted her on the back. “Sam Innis? Doctor Sam Innis?”
“The one and only,” Annie said. She turned to the other women who were listening avidly. “When Sarah was badly hurt a few years ago, Sam was in the E.R. the night that Jax, King, and Mac brought her in. He’s a trauma doctor and surgeon.”
“Ooooh.” Mirrie’s eyes were huge. “Wait, I know him.”
“You do?” Sarah asked her. “How?”
“Through Mac, mostly,” Mirrie said. “They’re friends from the hospital, have been for years, and they get together and play basketball sometimes. In fact, when I was beaten up by the Fallen Angels, it was Sam Innis who saw me first in trauma, and called Mac in to assess the damage to my brain. It’s because of Sam that we even met.”
“He gets around, this guy,” Tessa said. “Saving lives and playing Cupid.”
“Wait,” Sarah said suddenly. “How old is he?”
“Uh, well, yes.” Annie squirmed. “He’s… he’s a bit younger than I am. By about… erm… by about fifteen years.” She gulped down the rest of her drink. “Give or take a year.”
“Shut the front door!” Naomi squealed. “You go, Annie!”
“Mom!” Sarah was horrified and delighted in equal measure. “Your boyfriend is practically the same age as my fiancé!”
“I – oh, God. I actually never thought about that.”
“This is awesome,” Mirrie declared. “I am in awe of your awesomeness, Annie.”
“Thank you, darling,” Annie said. “And I’m in awe of your alliteration.”
The women laughed again, though Sarah still looked a bit shocked.
“You OK with it?” Annie asked her now. “I mean… maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Of course you should have, and of course I am!” Sarah said with emphasis. “I’m thrilled for you, Mom. You’re dating a smoking-hot younger man, who also happens to be a kick-ass doctor who helped save my life. You think I’m not going to be President of his fan club?”
“Well…”
“You’re bringing him to the wedding, right? To my and Jax’s wedding?”
“I was thinking about it.” She hesitated, peering at her daughter’s face. “Is that alright with you?”
“Mom. Mom, listen. Are you happy with him?”
“Yes, sweetheart. I really am. He’s kind and funny and sweet. He’s a great cook, and we talk about everything.” She glanced around the crowded bar, saw a gorgeous young woman staring fixedly at her from a few tables away. Idly, Annie wondered if she was a diner customer, decided that with those clothes and jewelry, she probably wasn’t. “It’s just – it’s easy with him, you understand? No secrets, no playing games, no wondering if he’ll call, no worrying how he feels about me because he tells me that I’m amazing. And when I’m with him, I feel amazing. I – I believe him when he tells me that.”
“Then that’s all I care about, you know?” Sarah said, then she gave a wicked grin. “That, and the fact that you’re finally having sex with someone, and bonus, it’s a smoking-hot younger doctor!”
“Argh,” Annie muttered, suddenly embarrassed and struggling to her feet. “If you’ll all excuse me for a minute?”
“We’ll talk about you while you’re gone!” Gabi told her. “You totally know that, right?”
“I do totally know that.” Annie gave them a saucy wink, prepared to sashay to the bathroom like the hot cougar that she was. “Talk away, ladies.”
**
Annie washed her hands, gazed at herself in the bathroom mirror. Wow. She looked pretty hammered, but that was only because she was.
A woman appeared at the next sink and Annie sensed her staring at her before she actually looked up to confirm it. It was the woman from the table outside of the VIP area, the one who’d been giving her this exact same look – and neither version of the look was particularly nice.
“Hello,” Annie said. “Do I know you?”
The woman raised a perfectly-plucked dark eyebrow, curled her perfect lip. “Ummm… no. Where on earth would we have crossed paths, do you think?”
Hmmm. Her tone was as un-nice as her look, and Annie had the strong urge to roll her eyes at the snotty little bitch. But years of remaining polite in the face of rudeness – painfully gleaned through encounters with thousands of surly diners – kept her eyeballs in check. For now.
“I just noticed you looking at me, out in the bar. I wondered if maybe we’d met somewhere.”
“Oh, no.” The woman tossed her long, dark hair, and it fell in a shimmering waterfall down her back; it looked like a sultry midnight river, complete with shiny-star highlights. “I was just so… impressed to see someone like you here.”
God, Annie knew that she shouldn’t rise to the bait, that she should just turn and leave. But she found her back was up, and she was irritated, and she wanted to know just what the hell Little Miss Snotface was talking about.
“Someone like me?” Annie asked in her sweetest voice, and with an earnest, wide-eyed, slightly vacant expression that she was sure the alcohol helped her achieve. “What does that mean, someone like me?”
“Oh. You know.”
The woman’s dusky purple eyes moved up and down Annie’s body with open disdain now, and suddenly, she was painfully aware of the differences between the two of them. The bitch in the bathroom was much taller, much slimmer, definitely had bigger breasts, and was flaunting all of those assets in a short black skirt and a white blouse that was tied, casually, to reveal several inches of muscled midriff.
Annie, on the other hand, had put on a long, slightly-too-snug wrap-dress, one that she’d skimped and saved for years ago and which had seen better days. It was the best thing that she owned, though, and she’d wanted to look nice for Sarah’s party to celebrate her wedding in less than two months. Besides, Annie didn’t care if she was older than almost everyone else in the club by more than twenty years, and twenty thousand times less hot and stylish – it’s not like she’d been hoping to pick up.
But now? Now she was suddenly self-conscious about the bulge of her stomach, the faded material of the dress, the tangled ponytail that kept her hair off her shoulders.
“You know,” the woman repeated, her eyes lingering on Annie’s face as if clocking every wrinkle. “It’s so great when an older woman isn’t intimidated by places like this, of clubs and bars full of sexy young things half her age, all walking round half-naked. It’s really just a meat market out there, right, and I know there’s no way that my Mom would be caught dead in a pick-up place where everyone’s just looking for the hottest person to have sex with.” She gave a gentle laugh. “I admire you for going where you’re so clearly a fish out of water. I hope to have your courage when I’m your age.”
“Oh.” Annie felt all the fight drain out of her. “Right.”
“Anyway.” The woman picked up her purse, turned her back on Annie, effectively dismissing her. “Have a lovely night! I hope that you and your friends – are you a book club? – enjoy yourselves.”
And she swept off and out, and was gone, leaving Annie to stare at the almost-fifty-year-old woman in the mirror; even as she did, she could swear that she could see her hair turning grayer, her face getting more wrinkled, her teeth loosening, all ready to fall out. She wondered if she’d ever felt less youthful, vibrant, sexy.
Just then, her cell rang and she dug in her purse to retrieve it. When she saw Sam’s number flashing up, she automatically broke into a huge smile, despite her sudden insecurity and annoyance.
“Hello.”
“Hey, princess. How’s it going?”
“Good.” She grabbed her lipstick – might as well make some effort to salvage my face, even if it’s like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic – and applied it. “Are you finished work?”
“Yep, just walking out to my car. When will you be over, honey? I’ve got something for you.”
“Ooooh.” Right away, her stomach jumped. “Is it a present?”
“Sure as hell is, and it’s dying to be unwrapped.”
“I like presents.”
“Do you now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So, how drunk are you, princess?”
She blinked at herself in the mirror, suddenly feeling like a teenager being caught out by her parents. “Uhhh… a bit?”
“Mojitos?”
“Mmm-hmmmm.”
“How many?”
“Uh – three? No, no… four.”
He laughed, and she heard the car door slam. “Maybe you want to go home tonight, baby? Sleep in your own bed unmolested?”
“Are you kidding me?” she said, grinning widely. “Molest me. Please.”
“Then get your tipsy ass into a cab when you’re ready to come and get your present.”
“OK.” She put on a spritz of perfume. “I was going to leave soon anyway because I have to be at work by eleven. I’ll leave in maybe an hour?”
“An hour is perfect, honey. I’ll eat and shower and lounge around in a towel waiting for you.”
“Just a towel?” she purred.
“And a big smile.”
**
Exactly ninety-nine minutes later, Annie paid the taxi driver and climbed out, carefully avoiding a massive puddle on Sam’s driveway. Spring was around the corner, and the snow was melting rapidly, leaving puddles the size of ponds all over Denver.
She walked up to the front door, raised her hand to knock, but it flew open before she could even touch the wood. She took one look, and was pleased to see that Sam was as good as his word.
“A towel, huh?” she teased him, stepping into the warmth of his arms.
“And a smile,” he responded, his breath on her hair, her cheek, her neck. “Nothing more.”
“Nothing?”
“Well…” He kissed her throat, slowly, softly. “I do have something for you, honey.”
“Where is it?”
“Under the towel.”
“You don’t say.”
“I do say.” Sam took her coat, then stepped back a bit to take her all in. “Wow, Annie. You look beautiful, baby.”
She looked down, suddenly shy and feeling like she might burst into tears. After talking to Sam, she’d gone back to the VIP area, of course, chatted with Sarah and the other women, and drunk about six glasses of water to sober up… and the whole time, she’d felt old, fat, and dowdy. The bathroom bitch was nowhere to be seen – Annie had presumed that she’d mounted her broom and flown away – but her words and her looks had burrowed under Annie’s skin, taken up space there, started to itch and fester.
The whole taxi ride over to Sam’s house, she’d been self-conscious and unsure, all over again, about being a much-older woman with a hot much-younger man, and she’d battled hard against feeling fat and wrinkly. And now that she was here, and now that she saw how he was looking at her – like she was the most stunning, incredible, wonderful
woman that he’d ever laid eyes on – she was reassured. She kicked the bathroom bitch out of her head, made the decision to listen to Sam, to herself. Nobody else.
“Thank you,” she said now. “It’s my favorite dress.”
“I can see why. It hugs you in all the right places, doesn’t it?”
"You think?" She slowly undid the buttons and he watched her avidly. "Shall I keep it on, then?"
"Hell, no," he rasped. "Get that goddamn dress off, baby."
"Bossy," she murmured, as the dress dropped to the floor. "Is that better?"
"No." He turned her. "Bedroom. Now."
They made it as far as the sofa six feet away. He pushed her down, roughly, without any grace, and she felt her breath leave her as her back hit the cushions. Sam knelt beside her, running his hands over her neck, her shoulders, her breasts. He flicked her bra hook, yanked the bra off and threw it on the floor. Then his hands moved down her body, down her stomach, down between her legs. She gasped and opened her thighs to his touch. Even through her nylons and panties, he felt her heat and his cock hardened almost to the point of bursting. He moved to the elastic waistbands and moved his fingers inside.
Annie was almost dizzy with feeling. His touch burned against her skin, and she wanted nothing more than to be open and spread beneath his fingers, her sweet centre juicing and wet for him.
He grasped her black nylons now, pulled them down in one movement. She lifted her hips to help him, and he rolled them down her legs, tossed them in a ball at the end of the sofa. Sam stared at her black lace underwear; he could see her soft auburn curls through the wisp of material. Their eyes met.
“I want to touch you,” he said.
“I want you to.” She took his hand and placed it on her sex, pressed down on the top. “Please.”
His long fingers hooked under the waistband of her panties, paused. She stifled a gasp and waited, trembling now. He pulled them down, slowly, watching every inch being exposed. Her skin was soft and pale and perfect, more perfect than his memory of them. When he saw the trimmed hair of her pussy, he licked his lips. He wanted to be down there again. He wanted to taste her, suck her dry, lick her deep and long.
Lush Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 8) Page 14