Fortune Finds Florist

by Arlene James

  “No,” he said, quite distinctly, and Sierra’s heart leaped into her throat.

  She sat down next to him, perching on the tiny sliver of cushion left to her. For a long moment, she waited breathlessly for what would happen next. Half a dozen heartbeats later, she began to wonder if he was even awake. “Sam?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why don’t you want me to go?”

  He sighed, richly, deeply, and his hand lifted from her leg. Rising caressingly upward, it skimmed over her belly and breast, brushed against her throat and slid around to the nape of her neck. She couldn’t breathe. Her nipples had tightened to painful little points, and her heart was slamming in her ears like a big bass drum.

  “You know,” he said on a long sigh. “Make love.”

  Make love! She closed her eyes, thrilled down to her toes. Why shouldn’t they make love? She and Sam were a great team. With Sam everything seemed so clear, well, maybe, but even when they argued, Sam could always make his point without killing her sense of self, without making her feel small and devalued. This intense physical attraction was just a part of what was, what could be, between them, but she hadn’t dared hope.

  Now suddenly the future lay spread out before her like a patchwork quilt. The pattern was too complex to discern clearly at this distance, but it was beautiful; and this was her chance to make it happen.

  “Oh, Sam.”

  She slipped off the loose robe and leaned forward.

  He was dreaming. He understood that. Grass waved, tall and green, on one side of him, golden wheat on the other. No, not him. Them. They lay on a hillside, close—so close—blue sky and white clouds overhead, a field of flowers below, every color of the rainbow standing in regimented rows. Sun soaked into their bare skin. He had made love to her there on a hillside that didn’t exist, looking down on the farm, their farm. He smiled, feeling his own heartbeat, and knew that he would wake soon. Any moment now… Any moment.

  “Sam, your boots. Just let me get your boots off.”

  “Sure thing, sweetheart.” The boots first, then anything else you want.

  Wait. Hadn’t they been naked before? Stupid dream.

  “Stretch out now.”

  He was trying to make sense of that when he felt himself falling in slow motion, and then something floated down on top of him, something he couldn’t see. He felt a flutter against his cheek and the corner of his mouth. A lovely, flowery scent wafted over him. He knew that scent. Sierra. Suddenly aware of the great heaviness in his groin, he strained upward toward her, and when he opened his eyes, Sierra was bending over him. Lovely Sierra. Beautiful Sierra. Sexy, delicious Sierra. He wished he wasn’t so tired, that he could fill his hands with her bright hair.

  “I’ll leave you to sleep now.”

  Leave? She wasn’t supposed to leave. She always stayed in his dreams, and they made love, over and over again. In his dreams.

  “No.” He shoved at the thing enveloping him and reached out for her. There. Warm, silky flesh.

  “Sam?”

  Ah. That was better. His arms felt lighter. The cobwebs were gone. The ache in his groin intensified.

  “Why don’t you want me to go?”

  Silly question. “You know.” He reached up, found smooth skin, soft hair. Sierra. His Sierra. How he needed her. Strength and exultation filled him. He could have what he wanted, everything he wanted. Sierra. “Make love.”

  “Oh, Sam.”

  She was on top of him. Interesting. That’s not how it usually happened. Was that her breast in his hand? He felt her mouth on his. God, that was sweet. Better than he remembered. Better than he usually dreamed. And not quite as good in other ways. He ached, and he needed to feel pressure on that ache. If he could get her between his legs, he could bring her weight more firmly into contact where he most wanted it, but the right leg felt trapped, and when he moved the left it fell down or off…. Where were they? What kind of dream was this? Or was it a dream at all?

  He caught her hair in his hands. Soft. Incredibly soft, but alive, satin coiling between his fingers. Her kiss grew a little frantic, and white-hot pleasure slammed through him. Power surged throughout his body, and he poured it into the kiss, eagerly pulling every taste from her, plunging deeper and deeper, searching for her very essence.

  He shifted slightly, wanting her beneath him, and he knew then that they were reclining on a couch and that this was no dream. He abruptly sat up. Gasping for air and still disoriented, he glanced around, making out certain shapes in the darkness. There was a lamp, table, chair and moonlight reflecting on a television screen. This was Sierra’s den.

  He looked at her, stunned that he was awake and here with her. He took in the long fall of her hair, frothing about her shoulders in wild tumbles, and the slow, sultry smile that gleamed pearly in the moonlight. He fuzzily remembered driving back to her house and dropping down onto her couch, irritated that the movie hadn’t yet played out. The next thing he knew they were on that hillside, naked. Obviously he’d fallen asleep. The ache in his groin told him that the dream had left him unfulfilled.

  His eyes popped wide as she reached down, grasped the hem of her nightgown and peeled it up and off over her head, letting it drop from her fingertips. Before he could stop them, his hands reached out for her. Silk. Warm silk. And so beautiful that she was almost painful to look at, her pale, graceful body gently curving and swelling in all the right places. He knew the many reasons why he shouldn’t be here like this with her, but in that moment they just didn’t matter.

  She lifted onto her knees beside him, and he instinctively rose to meet her, awed by the sylphlike delicacy of her body. Leaning into him, she slid her arms about his neck, bowed her head and lowered her mouth to his. His heart beating with the force of a ball-peen hammer slamming down onto an anvil, he embraced her. They fit together perfectly. He marveled at the match as her mouth plied his.

  A familiar surge of masculine energy lifted him, and with it came the urge, the need to possess. Capturing her face in his hands, he pushed her down on her heel, bending her head back with the force of his ravenous mouth. Her hands slid down his body and she tugged urgently at his shirt. He covered one breast with his hand, squeezed it gently, and suddenly she shifted and went down onto her back.

  Kneeling between her legs, he looked down at her there, her pale body open to him, hair spread like flame against the dark cushions. Moonlight slanted across her face, showing him the wildness in her eyes, the surrender. He ripped off his shirt and opened his jeans, feeling strong, free, primitive.

  She moaned softly, and blind lust swirled together with the frantic need to please her. He twisted around, thrust his legs out in front of him, shucked his jeans, his shorts, his socks in one long, smooth motion.

  “Sam,” she said, reaching for him.

  He moved into her arms and stretched out atop her. Their mouths melded in the sweetest kiss imaginable. He let his trembling hands wander, caress, probe, until—both frantic now—he joined their bodies. She put her head back and made a sound somewhere between laughter and sobbing.

  “Sierra?” he asked uncertainly.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “Oh, yes.”

  He lifted himself above her and began stroking them both toward oblivion.

  She gripped the soft, knit blanket beneath her with both hands, placed her feet flat against the cushions and curled her spine upward. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for the wonder of being loved by Sam Jayce. Nothing could have. Such tenderness, such power was unimaginable. She had known that he was young and strong and handsome, but she hadn’t realized that he was physically, sexually perfect, filling every part of her with an authority that frankly astounded.

  He didn’t try to kiss her again, just held himself there above her and systematically turned her mind to jelly with the full, rhythmic stroke of his body against and into hers. She couldn’t even give back, only take, exult in and survive the taking. She made sounds, wordless exclamations of wonde
r completely beyond her control.

  At one point she managed to reach up and splay her hands against the sides of his head. He turned his face into one palm, sank his teeth into the tender flesh of her wrist and never faltered in his rhythm. Her head spun, and blackness broke over her. She cried out, and he gave her his weight then, his mouth coming down over hers, his tongue driving into the sound that flowed up out of her throat.

  Sometime afterward she floated up from the abyss and into swelling awareness. He slid down her body and found her breasts with his mouth and hands. Within moments she was gasping and bucking beneath him again. Rising above her once more, he began stroking slow and deep, filling her utterly again and again.

  He carried her higher this time, to the very stars, the rush of sensation frightening in its intensity, glorious in its completion. She screamed. She cried. Or did she? Perhaps. She didn’t know. Floating in a sea of euphoria with Sam as her anchor, her sanctuary, she didn’t care.

  Gradually, she realized that it was Sam who churned that sea into tumult, who drove the waves upon which she rode, reaching for his own completion, and that he had never ceased. Gladly, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held him as he stroked closer and closer to his destination. She held him tighter as he began to shudder, as his muscles grew rigid and his head drew back, jaws clamping against a roar he would not let out. She held him until his flesh melted into pliability and his head fell forward onto her shoulder and, finally, his bulk settled onto her in boneless collapse.

  She felt the spurting heat deep inside, and closed her eyes, happy, even with the knowledge that they had been inexcusably foolish on at least one level. Perhaps love was always foolish. She only knew that nothing and no one could ever equal Sam. Lifting his head with her hands, she brought her mouth to his, kissing him with all the grateful wonder in her. Love like this was worth any foolishness, any risk, any effort.

  “Sam. Sam. Sam.” She kissed his name onto his lips, again and again, never suspecting that he could simply sit up and leave her until, suddenly, he was doing just that. “Where are you going?”

  “Home.” He snatched up his underwear, stuck his legs through and pulled it up. “Where I’m supposed to be.” He reached for his jeans. “Where are the girls?”

  “A-asleep upstairs.”

  He yanked his socks on. “I’ll be back for them in the morning.”

  “Sam, please, you can’t just go.”

  “Can’t? Can’t?” he parroted angrily. “This is what I can’t do, Sierra, what I’ve already done!” He stomped his feet into his boots.

  “Why?”

  Snatching up her gown, he shot to his feet and threw it at her. “This is not a love affair, it’s a business arrangement!”

  She sat up, crossing her legs and shielding her body with the nightgown. “This has nothing to do with business.”

  He found his shirt, tossed it on over his head. “We can’t pretend the business doesn’t exist, Sierra.”

  “I’m not saying we should.”

  “We’re risking everything, the whole future of the operation,” he argued, stabbing first one arm and then the other through the shirtsleeves.

  “I don’t see how.”

  He rounded on her, shouting though he kept his volume tightly leashed. “I’ll tell you how. We’re mismatched, Sierra. Our circumstances are just too different. I could never compare with you, not as an equal. It’s stupid to think otherwise.”

  “That’s absurd.”

  “No. That’s fact. You want it in numbers? You want it in black and white? Ask your attorney. Ask the accountants. Ask anyone!”

  “I don’t care what anyone else says about it!”

  “No? I do. I’ve worked too hard to be someone I can be proud of, someone the girls can be proud of. I can’t let anything get in the way of that. I just can’t. They already have too many strikes against them. I won’t have it said that their brother’s no better than a gold-digging gigolo.”

  “Oh, Sam, no. Don’t even think such a thing. I never would. I never could.”

  “It’s what they would all say, the whole town.” He sounded tired, sad. “You know it is.”

  “Not if the farm is a success.”

  “Well, it isn’t a success. Not yet, and maybe never, especially if we keep doing this.” He strode toward the door.

  “Sammy, please, don’t leave.”

  He paused, and she reached out to him there in the shadows with every ounce of emotion in her. “I don’t have a choice,” he finally said in a choked voice. “I never did.”

  Sierra collapsed back onto the sofa, listening to his footsteps clap hollowly through the house. Her body still hummed with the magic he had worked in her, but her heart felt as if a fist had reached into her chest and squeezed it dry. She wept for a long while, silent tears gliding from her eyes and past her ears to wet her hair.

  How stupid could she be, seducing him like that when he was half-asleep? How could she have forgotten how proud he was? How dedicated? He was only trying to do the best for everyone. She understood. She could see the situation from his eyes, but that wasn’t the only way to see it.

  He didn’t realize how lucky they were. Maybe his youth played against him in that, but she knew how rare this thing between them was. Well, maybe he didn’t know, but he wasn’t stupid. He would see. He would learn. He had to.

  Sitting up, she fumbled with the nightgown until she found the front and pulled it on. Then she shifted to the other end of the couch, laid her head on the pillow against which he had so briefly rested and slipped beneath the chenille cover. She would sleep here where they had made love and try to believe that he would come to his senses.

  Chapter Eight

  “Morning, Sam.”

  He was later than she had expected and obviously wary, but she didn’t let that deter her. Rising from the table, she moved across the kitchen and greeted him with a casual kiss on the cheek. The girls, watching from the breakfast nook, giggled. Sam glowered and cleared his throat. His arms were full of fresh changes of clothing for the twins. He shifted his gaze over her shoulder, addressing the girls.

  “Morning. How was the movie?”

  “Great!”

  As the twins launched into a vivid, disjointed description of the cinematic treat, Sierra calmly turned away and took an extra plate from the warming oven, while Sam moved toward the table. He draped a change of clothing over the backs of each of the twins’ chairs, nodding and murmuring assent as they unfolded the story. Sierra carried the plate to the table and set it down next to her own.

  “I hope you like waffles,” she said when the discourse died down. “The girls insisted on having them this morning.” She ignored the refusal in his eyes.

  “They’re yummy,” Keli announced.

  “And they’re already made,” Sierra added, forking two large, buttered waffles onto the heated plate, “so you might as well sit down and eat.” She smiled and reached for a bowl of strawberries. “Fruit?”

  His gaze met hers, telegraphing his feelings perfectly. He didn’t like acting as though last night hadn’t happened, but he didn’t have a choice in front of the girls. She spooned the fruit onto the waffles and reached for the syrup.

  He stepped over the chair and sat down, mumbling, “Looks good.”

  She tried not to smirk. “We only have maple. Hope that’s okay.”

  “Sure.”

  Sierra poured maple syrup onto his plate until he lifted a hand to stop her. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked up his knife and fork and cut into the waffles. Though clean-shaven and ready for work, he looked rough around the edges. She hadn’t got much rest herself, and she wasn’t above hoping that it had been the same for him, so just as he delivered the first bite to his mouth, she asked, “Sleep well?”

  He cut her a sideway glance that could have drawn blood, before dropping his gaze to his plate and beginning to eat with single-minded efficiency.

  The girls finished one by one a
nd left to dress for the day. The twins had their outing with Lana, and Tyree’s father was coming for her, having planned a weekend with his elderly parents in Houston. Since they were meeting at the shop, Sierra had already packed Tyree’s bag. Keli was the last to leave the room. As soon as she was out of earshot, Sam laid down his fork and looked at Sierra.

  “Sierra, about last night—”

  “Last night was wonderful,” she said, stabbing a piece of waffle with her fork, “right up until the moment you decided it shouldn’t be.” She poked the bite of waffle into her mouth and chewed.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t decide any such thing.”

  She swallowed. “Really? That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “All I said was that it shouldn’t have happened.”

  “And I disagree,” she informed him.

  “Damn it, Sierra,” he hissed, “I won’t—”

  “Sam?”

  Clamping his jaw shut, he whipped his head around. Kim and Tyree stood side by side in the doorway. Kim was holding one of Tyree’s shirts in front of her.

  “Can I wear this today? Please?”

  Sam rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “I don’t see why that’s necessary.”

  “But it’s so much prettier than mine,” Kim said, adding with a gush of praise, “Tyree has the coolest clothes.”

  Sierra groaned inwardly.

  “Your clothes are the best I can afford, Kim,” Sam snapped.

  Kim seemed shocked. “I—I know. I just like Tyree’s top better.”

  “Your things were always good enough before.”

  Kim blinked and Tyree sent a puzzled glance at her mother. Sierra gently laid a hand on Sam’s forearm. He snatched away, then glanced worriedly at the girls and drew a deep, calming breath.

  “Your clothes are very pretty, Kim,” Sierra said calmly, “and you’re so very pretty yourself that it wouldn’t matter if they weren’t.”