He laughed again. “I’m not a hero.”
“That’s not how I remember it,” she murmured, focusing her gaze on his shirt collar when it became too difficult to meet his eyes.
“What sort of working relationship do we have when you pretend I don’t exist any time I’m here without Grace?”
“The kind that doesn’t make me crazy.”
“Is that how you treat a hero?”
She laughed despite herself. “It is when I’m pretending you don’t exist because I want to rip off all your clothes and plaster myself to you every time we’re together.”
He raised one brow. “That doesn’t sound quite right to me.”
Embarrassment washed through her, but Trevor stepped into her space, crowding her, when she would have turned away.
“A better idea would be if we both had our clothes off.” He traced one finger along the skin above the collar of her baggy T-shirt. “What’s fair is fair.”
She bit down on her lip and ignored the sparks of desire that skimmed along every single one of her nerve endings. “It was actually a bad idea. Forget I said anything.”
“Fat chance,” he whispered and brushed his lips across hers.
It only took a second for the kiss to ignite into something hot and hungry. Even though it was the worst idea in the world, Sam lost herself in the feel of him. He tugged her closer, lifting her into his arms, and she wrapped her legs around his lean hips. He tasted the same as he had years ago, like mint and memories. He was the innocence she’d lost and everything she once longed for.
He kissed her like she was his whole world. It had been forever since she’d felt anything so perfect. His fingers tugged on the hair tie holding her bun in place, and then his hands sifted through her hair. His mouth felt like it was everywhere at once—on her lips, her jaw, the sensitive spot just behind her ear that no other man had taken the time to discover.
She dug her fingers into the taut muscles of his shoulders, needing to get closer, needing all of him at this moment.
“More,” she whispered. “Now.”
“Demanding,” he said against her throat, and she heard the smile in his voice.
He lowered her to the small sofa and pulled back, grabbing the hem of his shirt and tugging it over his head.
Sam’s mouth went dry as she stared at him. She’d certainly seen plenty of men’s chests in her day, most of them shaved and oiled—a part of the modeling world that never ceased to creep her out. Trevor looked like he’d gotten his muscles the old-fashioned way, and the strength and rugged masculinity of him had parts of her she’d forgotten existed shuddering back to life.
“Your turn,” he said, his blue eyes wild and a little bit daring.
She lifted her T-shirt over her head, suddenly wishing she’d saved some of the lingerie she’d been given by the companies she modeled for over the years. In reality, she favored plain satin bras and the one she was wearing now was even a little faded. She started to apologize but Trevor lowered himself again before she could speak, trailing kisses over the tops of her breasts as he cupped one in his big hand.
“So sweet,” he whispered, his breath warm against her sensitive skin. He eased her bra straps down and then reached around her back to undo the clasp.
She gave a shaky laugh. “You always had a talent for that.”
His tongue snaked out to circle the tip of her nipple. “Wait until you see the other talents I’ve developed.”
“Cocky much?” she asked and then gasped when he nipped at her.
“You talk a lot.” He turned his attention to her other breast and Sam lost the ability to speak for several minutes as he drove her crazy with his mouth. She hadn’t felt this good in forever.
And just like that, the happy bubble of lust carrying her along for this ride burst. She didn’t trust feeling good. From what Sam had learned over the years, anything that could make her feel this good and forget everything in her life, including her own damn name, was dangerous.
“You think even more than you talk,” Trevor whispered, lifting his head to look into her eyes.
“How do you—”
He kissed the tip of her nose. “Sweetheart, either your brain is going five hundred miles an hour or I’m doing something wrong. Neither is a great option, but to save my ego, I’m banking on it being your brain.”
“It’s my brain,” she admitted, shifting underneath him.
He didn’t let her go, only trailed his fingers up and down her arm, his body still pressed to hers in a way that made her want to ignore her brain. If only it were that easy.
“Tell me,” he said, nuzzling his nose into the crook of her neck.
“We never . . .” She broke off, swallowed, embarrassed that she was having trouble putting the words together.
“Went all the way?” he asked softly.
She gave a sharp nod.
They’d fooled around when they were younger, but Sam had the idea that she wanted to save her first time for the night of prom. It had been a silly, girlish fantasy fueled by too many teen movies, but Trevor hadn’t seemed to mind.
As it turned out, she’d been in Milan during the spring of her senior year, her high school dance only a distant thought. Not quite distant. Thoughts of the dance and Trevor going with someone else had consumed her during the long, boring hours of the photo shoot she’d been hired for.
When the shoot was done, she’d left on the makeup that made her look a decade older than eighteen and gone to the bars with the other models. It hadn’t been difficult to pick up a willing Italian man. She’d lost her virginity the night of her senior prom, just not the way she’d planned it.
“What if it’s not good now?” She murmured the words quietly, almost to herself.
“You’re kidding, right?” He lifted his head, staring into her eyes so intensely that some of her doubts were immediately burned away. “Because everything else might be a complicated mess, but this . . .” He motioned between the two of them. “What’s between us at this moment is bound to be amazing.”
“Why?” The question popped out before she could stop it. “If you’re expecting something based on years of me posing for the camera in matching lingerie, there’s a promise in those pictures I can’t deliver.”
She pointed to where her discarded bra lay on the wide plank floor of the office, unable to meet his gaze any longer. “I’m not the woman in the photos,” she said, letting out a soft laugh as she did. “I never was.” Maybe she was trying to repel him. As much as she wanted to feel the promise of what he offered, trusting him would only lead to disappointment. “Bryce was the one who liked sex.” She paused then added, “But you know that already.”
“This is you and me.” His voice was rough and careful, like a slow ride down a gravel road.
“That could be the problem. I haven’t done . . .” She waved her fingers between the two of them. “This in a while. Sex . . . it’s never been great for me, which always made me feel like I was doing it wrong. So I had more sex hoping to feel something, but that left me even emptier.” She tried to wiggle away but he held her steady. Time to deliver the deathblow. “For my mom, sex was about power. For Bryce, it was wanting to feel loved. For me . . . it’s nothing.”
He didn’t say anything for several moments, and she waited for him to walk away. She sounded like a head case, but when she’d started her new life in Colorado she’d vowed to never again be someone she wasn’t.
He traced one finger along her jaw, gently tipping her face so she looked at him again. “I see you,” he whispered. Those three words wrecked her.
Then he added, “I want you,” and she was a goner.
“The real you is better than a thousand photographs.” He kissed her slowly, thoroughly, and her doubts once again melted away. “Any man who didn’t realize that is a complete ass,” he said against her lips, making her smile. “I know this is going to be amazing because it’s you and me, Sam.”
His voice was s
oft, at odds with the rough calluses that covered his palms. She loved the feel of them against her skin because they made her know they weren’t just kids fooling around anymore. Trevor had been a boy when she’d left. Bryce had tried to steal the one thing—the one person—Sam hadn’t been willing to share. But now Sam had the man. Only she had the man he’d become.
“Just the two of us,” he murmured, somehow understanding what this moment meant. It was a tiny balm to her heart to understand that it might hold the same significance to him. “Do you get that? Nothing else is in this room with us. Not the past, not the mistakes we’ve made or the ones that are bound to come moving forward. Let’s put your brain on hold and concentrate on us. Just us.”
“Just us,” she repeated and drew her fingers over the hard planes of his chest, gratified at the shudder that rippled through him. Anticipation poured through her as her body remembered what it was to be wanted by this man. How with just one look he could make all the walls around her heart crumble. It was dangerous territory and she should get out while she still could. Instead she said, “I like the sound of that. I’m long overdue for some amazing.”
He sat back then, his fingers catching in the waistband of her yoga pants. “I want all of you,” he whispered, and when she nodded, he tugged them down over her hips.
His muttered curse was the sweetest compliment she’d ever received, and she let the desire in his eyes fuel her own. She’d never felt as beautiful as she did at this moment.
He grabbed his wallet from his back pocket before unbuttoning his jeans and lowering them and his boxers to the floor.
A tiny moan escaped her lips at the sight of him. He chuckled, took a condom from his wallet, and then bent over her again. She was so damn ready, but Trevor didn’t seem to be in a hurry. How could he not be in a hurry?
Instead he used his hands and his mouth to show her his other talents, and she was suddenly grateful for the years it had taken to get here. She was old enough, experienced enough to realize what a gift this was, the need and longing and being with someone who was determined to wring out every bit of pleasure from her. Only when she was arching and panting underneath him did he slip on the condom and slide into her.
She gasped at the feel of it, and he stilled above her. “Am I hurting you?” he whispered, his voice a rough whisper.
“No. It’s . . .”
Everything.
But she said, “It’s good.” She wrapped her legs around his hips and they moved together. He was far from her first, but this felt new. Moving with Trevor was more than a physical act. It felt like her soul and his were joined. She was too old for silly, girlish expectations of sex, so she put them out of her mind and gave herself over to the now. Here with him. With every one of her nerve endings thrilling with each thrust.
And when she lost herself in his arms, she tried very hard to ignore the fact that beneath the mind-blowing release was the pressure of her heart, beating in a way it hadn’t for over a decade. Only one man had ever touched the very center of her, and she was afraid she’d just given him the power to once again break her heart.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Several days later, Trevor was the one doing the avoiding. Although maybe he wasn’t the only one. Maybe that afternoon had shifted Sam’s world as well. He sure as hell wasn’t going to ask.
Nope. He was too busy shoring up all the cracks in the walls he’d built around his heart. He lifted a piece of drywall into place in the kitchen, thinking it was easier to rebuild a snow-damaged cabin than manage his own shocking response to being with Sam.
How had things gone so sideways? He was a single dad, which made him discerning in his partners, but he wasn’t a monk. He liked sex. Hell, what man didn’t like sex? He’d spent more time than he cared to admit through the years wishing that things had gone further with Sam when they were together, that he’d had that memory to carry him through.
Now he realized being with her when he was a teenager would have ruined him for any other woman.
He felt ruined.
And it pissed him off.
Sam Carlton wasn’t for him.
She was a thorn in his side, a fact that had been highlighted with laser-beam focus by his daughter, who he’d found Googling the websites of well-known modeling agencies last night when she was supposed to be studying for a science test.
He and Grace had gotten into a huge fight, one that ended with her slamming the door to her bedroom. He’d stood on the other side of the door and listened to her make a call. To Sam, of course.
He’d stomped away before he heard Grace’s response to whatever Sam was saying on the other end of the line. Even if Sam was undermining him, he knew it wouldn’t change his pounding need for her. He’d only feel like more of an idiot for wanting her.
Avoiding was easier.
Grace had begged to spend the day at the camp, helping Sam repaint the girls’ bunkroom. Balancing the schedule for the repairs with running his company was more difficult than he’d first guessed it would be, so he welcomed a chance to get ahead on the kitchen. He enjoyed losing himself in the work, the exertion and concentration it took to get everything right.
He spent too much time these days glad-handing potential clients and catering to the whims of the ones he had. He loved the craftsmanship that went into building custom homes but not always the customers who hired him. His business was close to the point where he could be more discerning in the people he chose to work for, but that hadn’t always been the case. Despite what his daughter believed, everything he did was for her, even the things that made her hate him.
Not for the first time he wished his nana was still with him. Janet Kincaid had been a lifeline for a nineteen-year-old kid raising a baby on his own and had remained his best ally until a sudden heart attack claimed her life almost two years ago.
She’d had the uncanny ability to remain calm in any situation. He’d certainly given her plenty of reasons to lose her cool once he’d come to live with her, but she never did. He needed a little of that serenity in his life and desperately wished for someone to bridge the gap that had formed between Grace and him.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, the way he’d seen his grandmother do a hundred times over the years when he’d challenged her.
A sound came from the doorway and he turned, half expecting to see her ghost come to visit him from the great beyond, his own bizarre version of Ebenezer Scrooge’s nighttime visions.
Instead a curvy woman with dark curls surrounding her face stared at him, a girl who looked to be a year or so older than Grace at her side. The woman gave him a tentative smile. “Hi,” she said. “You must be—”
“Is Sam in there?”
The dark-haired woman took a few steps forward as a tiny redheaded woman came barreling into the kitchen. A preteen boy, who had brown hair but was otherwise a spitting image of the redhead, followed her. Another taller woman, who looked familiar to Trevor, although he didn’t think they’d ever met, came in at the tail end of the group.
The redhead tipped her head toward Trevor. “Where’s Sam?” While it was posed as a question, it sounded like an accusation, the implication being that he might have her locked in a closet.
“She’s painting the girls’ bunkhouse,” he said, and dusted off his hands on the front of his canvas work pants.
“Is her niece with her?” the first woman asked, her voice gentler.
Too bad Trevor didn’t feel gentle right now. “My daughter is with her,” he answered.
The woman opened her mouth to respond but the redhead shook her head. “I thought you must be the one,” she said, definitely an accusation now. She turned to the two kids. “You guys find Sam and introduce yourselves to Grace. We’ll be over in a few minutes.”
Trevor’s eyes narrowed at the familiar way this stranger spoke his daughter’s name, as if she knew her. As if her connection to Sam trumped the fact that he was Grace’s father.
The two kids disap
peared and the tall brunette, who Trevor suddenly recognized as Kendall Clark from her role as a morning news anchor, came toward him, a friendly—if distant—smile on her face. “You must be Trevor,” she said, extending her hand.
“No, he’s the Easter Bunny,” the redhead muttered, and Kendall threw her a glare.
“I’m being polite, Jenny. You should try it.”
“Not with someone who lied to my friend,” Jenny shot back.
“I’m Kendall, a friend of Sam’s,” Kendall said, ignoring the petite spitfire.
Trevor shook her hand—he at least had better manners than Jenny. “You’re the Denver newscaster.”
She nodded. “This is Chloe Haddox.”
The raven-haired woman, Chloe, flashed a wide smile. “Nice to meet you.”
“And Jenny Castelli,” Kendall added.
“I can’t say it’s nice to meet you,” she told him with a curl of her lip.
“Likewise, I’m sure,” he answered and earned a more genuine smile from Kendall. What the hell kind of whacked-out friends did Sam have?
“We came up today to talk wedding plans,” Kendall explained.
“And Claire and Cooper wanted to meet Grace,” Chloe added. “Claire is my stepdaughter and Cooper belongs to Jenny.”
“Lucky boy,” Trevor mumbled.
“Damn straight he is,” Jenny answered, ignoring the sarcasm in his comment. “Just like Grace is lucky to have Sam as her aunt.” She pointed that finger again. “You shouldn’t have kept them apart this long.”
“Jenny, stop.” Kendall’s voice was low with warning. “This isn’t our business and we promised Sam.”
The redhead let out a quick laugh. “I promised Cover Girl nothing,” she told the other two. “But I have her back.” She came toe to toe with Trevor. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re a jackass for keeping that girl a secret. I don’t care what kind of mistakes Sam’s sister made. Sam shouldn’t have to pay the price for them.”
Trevor felt his temper flare, both in being called on the carpet for something that these women knew nothing about and for the truth in Jenny’s reprimand.
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