“Let’s go!” Sam yelled.
People were rushing past us now, and he dragged Billie in the throng of people—this was a large building. I dug deep and got to my feet again, my lungs screaming for clean air. We made slow, but steady progress, Billie still passed out in Sam’s arms. A male voice, loud, panickey, hollered in Spanish behind me. A hard shove, and I gasped, falling forward. My injured wrist didn’t hold me, and my head smacked onto the hard, hard floor.
Chapter Fifteen
We Have Top Men Working On It Now
The ocean. The soothing roar seemed familiar. I peeled one eye open to behold him, that lovely man. He grinned at me, a single, solitary dimple peeking from the left side of his face. Nicolette waved from beside the bed. I smiled in response, even though nausea washed through me over and over again, un-focusing my eyes and replacing them with vortexes of sick. I couldn’t have gotten up if I’d wanted, and no freaking way did I want to move.
“Samantha?”
I flicked my gaze up to his again. His irises came into focus—deep brown flecked with green in the center. “Yes?”
He licked his lips and brushed a soft hand across my forehead. “Good to have you back.”
“Who are you?”
Pure white. Even his lips drained of color, and his hand flew up to cover them.
Oh, shit. I couldn’t do it to him. “Just kidding,” I croaked, my mouth dry, yet sticky, like the floor of a movie theater. I stank of smoke. “Hi, Sam.”
His head shook back and forth, an incredulous pendulum. “What the fuck, Samantha?”
“I wanted you to know how shitty it is from my end.”
The oaths he uttered hadn’t been invented yet—my mother and her capacity for poor-quality spawning featured prominently in them, as well as several bodily functions. I started to laugh, but ow, so much pain. My busted lip felt swelled to the size of a doughnut.
“You two are messed up,” announced Nicolette before giving me a shoulder squeeze then leaving what I now saw was a hotel room—ultra-modern, filled with natural wood and chrome. “For real—get therapy!” she yelled from the hall.
Sam stood well away from me, breathing hard, his jaw wired shut with anger. I smiled. He shook his head and narrowed his eyes.
“I got hit on the head,” I said. “I was confused?”
“Are you asking me if that excuse will work?”
“Yes?”
He huffed and returned to the bed. After another minute of pointed glaring, as if he wanted me to specifically suffer through it, he sat beside me once again. “Billie’s been arrested.”
“I assumed.”
“Nicolette saved everyone in the building. It was completely amazing.”
And that’s how you use your mother-fucking wonderful friends to defeat the villain and save the innocent while you lie comatose and useless.
“Did—did the place burn down?”
“No. But whoever’s condo that was is gonna have a bad time.”
While a kindly doctor took me in her firm hands and examined my head, Sam told me how they’d found me. I’d supposed that once again, Sam had tracked my phone, and I was right. Such a useful app for the regularly kidnapped.
When I’d never returned from my non-lunch, Ellen had begun calling. And calling. Seriously, I could never listen to those voicemails. Then, she’d decided to spew her worry and anger and curses onto Sam. He’d looked up my phone, figured out that it was off, but last at Teterboro Airport, and called Nicolette. Apparently, the police had zoomed in, determined which plane was being used by Billie, and through some wizardry had located it heading south, so they’d followed in a plane of their own. Nicolette had said that she wouldn’t allow Ellen to join them—she’d have an angry reception when we got back home. But if I knew my Ellen, she’d forgive her angel in about two seconds.
Hey—at least no one had shot me this time. I was calling today—tonight?—a win.
After the doc declared me damaged but mostly fine, she left, and Sam continued glaring at me. “I’m sorry, Sam. It was an assy joke.”
“Why the fuck would you meet Billie alone?”
His tone made my brain vomit. “I— I—”
“Stupid. So stupid!”
Tears welled up, because my body decided that my headache should be that much worse. “I’m sorry.”
“We almost lost you!”
They spilled over my cheeks, and I crumpled into myself. You’d have thunk that after all I’d been through, I wouldn’t trust anyone. The sobs ripped from my gut, and I couldn’t look at those dark, hurt eyes anymore, so I rolled to the side. The bed sagged, and his arm slipped around me from behind while I cried. He squeezed my hand and said, “I’m sorry, baby. Shhhh, it’s over now. I’m sorry.” He sounded helpless, forlorn, and pity squashed my tears.
I fought to slow my breathing.
“You promised me a movie date,” he said. “I’m just disappointed and taking it out on you.”
Well, we couldn’t have that.
While I bathed away my kidnapping, Sam ran out to get us a meal of street-stand Cuban pizzas, fritters and fresh juice. He’d brought me a couple of days’ worth of fresh clothing from home, bless him.
We ate on the bed. I asked him, “Why the hell didn’t Billie bring help with her?”
He shrugged. “I think she underestimated you.”
“That’s just stupid. I’m three and zero for taking out criminal organizations.”
“You may have had help.”
“Yup, I did it all myself, because I’m the heroine.”
He plopped his cheesy dough onto the paper plate. “Of what?”
Of the movie in my head, of course. Everyone should be the star of their own movie! If you don’t think you’re the heroine of your own story, then who will be?
I just winked and downed the rest of my guava juice. I grabbed the remote, flipped on the TV. Hunky Harrison Ford brightened into view, opened his mouth, and said something in a different man’s Spanish-speaking voice. “Lookie what I found. Raiders of the Lost Ark, only about thirty minutes in. It is one of the few absolutely perfect movies, and I mean that objectively in every way. Movie date.”
Sam’s dimple peeked out. “I guess it’s better this is a private movie. We both look like hell.”
He was not lying. I’d enjoyed beating up Billie, but my hands throbbed with every heartbeat. Half my face was a bruise. My ‘pistol-whipped mouth bruise’ had joined forces with my ‘being-shoved temple bruise’ to create Mecha-Bruise, the actress’s career-ender. Or, at least, career-postponer. And it all hurt like I’d met the wrong end of Thor’s hammer.
“Oh, no,” I said. “I’m gonna look like shit for Ellen’s wedding. And I’m supposed to throw her a bachelorette tomorrow night.”
“They’re postponing the grand jury for me. Ellen can wait, too. You will sit and rest.” He got up on his knees to say it, and his now almost human-colored face looked so handsome that I quieted down.
He nodded and said, “Hmph,” after I’d obeyed him, and I let him feel his momentary, domineering man feelings. He fluffed up pillows against the tooled-leather headboard and sat me there for the movie. I couldn’t understand a damn thing Indiana said, but I didn’t need dialog to follow along with sexy mofo Harrison Ford, who frowned at Marion almost as well as Sam frowned at me.
Sam snuggled in beside me, putting a warm arm around my shoulders and a thick blanket over my legs. I sank into him, trying to dare myself into really relaxing. Was it over? Would Taylor’s grandma show up next to drag me to Jamaica? Rubbing my arm, Sam said, “Breathe, Samantha.”
How could I breathe? The question of whether or not I would keep my husband still paralyzed my lungs.
Tonight was not the night, however. Tonight was a fun date night with an appetizer of international hostage-taking. But I could barely keep my attention on the movie, for there’s nothing like almost dying to get the whore-moans pumping. His thumb absentmindedly traced my shoulder, and
his legs warmed mine under the blanket. I sat up a little, draping one knee over his, and he settled into my side even more. I tucked the arm between us under the blanket, and he took my fingers in his. I hissed in momentary pain, but managed to hold on. “Your poor hand is cold,” he murmured.
“Mmm-hmm.” We sat like that—chaste, warm, snuggly—until he yanked me to him, his arms clutching me against his body, his mouth punishing mine. Really, punishing.
“Ow! It hurts!” I protested when he came up for air.
“I’m sorry.” He turned us onto our sides and placed one gentle finger on the swollen half of my mouth. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Just…kiss me where it doesn’t hurt.”
“We should watch—” He cracked a half-smile while his hand slipped from the small of my back an inch south. “I mean…damn it, Samantha, where doesn’t it hurt?”
I grinned, even though it pained me. I pointed at my boob. “Here.”
He chuckled and bent to place a sweet little kiss on the upper swell of my breast.
“Here.” I placed my finger on my belly, where my tee had revealed my navel. Obediently, he shifted down the bed and pressed his lips to the spot, lingering a little this time.
Puppy eyes flicked up my body to meet mine. I swallowed and, not letting his gaze escape me, popped open the fly of my jeans and slid the zipper down. I slipped my pointing finger into the V of the fly and whispered, “Here.”
“I’m sorry, where?”
I would not laugh. “Here.”
He finally looked at the area in question, barely below his face level. His tongue ran out to lick his lips, and I temporarily lost the ability to breathe.
“That sounds suspiciously like sex.”
I swallowed. “Not according to President Bill Clinton.”
“So we’re operating by 1990s rules.”
I nodded.
“I’ll need bleach for my hair. Only the tips, Timberlake-style.”
“Nooooooo!” I leaned down to kiss him, my busted lip be damned, but he squirmed out of my way and began pulling off my jeans.
“This is just one time,” I said.
“We’ll see what the doctor says.”
I smiled, closed-mouthed, because I actually thought I might drool. What’s a little we-almost-died sex between friends, right?
“Miss, please point out for me one more time where it doesn’t hurt?”
I started giggling, and he settled over my legs with such a delicious, expectant look on his face that I short-circuited for a moment or two. I slid my hand over the mound of my pussy and touched myself. “Here,” I managed to get out, just. Wet. I was ready for him in no time. Oh, hell, I was ready last week.
I lifted my hand away, but he caught it and took it into his mouth. I fell back into the pillows. Head injuries feel a lot like Sam being sexy—both render me incompetent. His tongue danced on the tips of my fingers, giving me a heady idea of what would come next.
My pants were halfway off my butt when he said, “Samantha—”
It wasn’t a whispery moan, like “Samaaaaaaantha.” It wasn’t a cry of delight, like “Cheeseburgers!” Nope, it was a clit-blocking word, and my whole body tensed.
He continued, “No, no.” He sat up. “We made a deal, and I think we should stick to it.”
I clutched at my open fly and wiggled to sitting, feeling pretty stupid now, but not so desperate that I would beg. “Oh, okay. Sure. That’s very responsible.”
“Let’s watch the movie.”
“Oh, okay. Sure. The movie. What a great movie.”
Old Sam would never have stopped me breaking my own rules. Never. He’d have made a parade in my honor, for rules were things that he generally abhorred. But New Sam. New Sam…
New Sam had started letting me down gently. Oh, he still lusted after me, that much was obvious by the boner in his pajamas. But the other stand-up part of him said he shouldn’t bag the wife he’d soon be divorcing. Maybe he’d already replaced me with my nubile neighbor. Damn them both!
I didn’t even have the wherewithal to close my pants. I just tugged the blanket over me and stared at the TV without seeing. Oh, he was so solicitous—fetching me water, fluffing pillows, tucking more blankets around my cold feet. What of my cold heart? Not to mention my cold, abandoned vadge, left forlorn and keening silently into the Cuban night, a lone wolf of loneliness. Sam shot furtive glances my direction, so I smiled for his benefit. But I knew, deep down in my heart, that he’d made a decision. Sure, he was here now, and he’d come to get me. But that didn’t mean love. That meant responsibility. That meant self-preservation. That meant Ellen is very good at screaming and cursing at you until you do what she says.
After the movie, he slept in his own room, and I had one of my weird school dreams. I was attending a dance, and Sam was the prom king. They were about to read the name of the prom queen, and I nearly peed myself in my poufy 80s gown with excitement. So I decided to try to find the bathroom because my bladder was too full to do the Roger Rabbit. I ran down hallway after hallway to find the toilet, but there were none, just long, shiny rows of lockers. Finally, I circled back to the gym, and the entire student body stood in a circle around a single, solitary toilet. Sam, a plastic crown on his head, pinned a stare on me and pointed at the commode. That’s when the phone woke me up.
I scrambled for it, my head aching, my body urgently telling me why I’d dreamed about having to pee. I snatched my phone from the nightstand and took it into the bathroom. “Hi, Ellen.”
“I blame myself, really.”
Uh-oh. This was a new tactic on the Railroad to Guilt Town.
“You, Samantha, are not a person who can rely on her good sense. I should not have let you run off with Billie. Everyone who likes you is a criminal—except for me. I guess I’m a holdover from before you started acting as a short-legged magnet for the dregs of society.”
“I’m peeing right now. During your lecture.”
“That horrible man is to blame.”
“Yes.”
She gasped. “Did you just agree with me?”
“He’s gonna dump me. I can feel it. He wouldn’t have sex with me last night.”
Silence.
I continued, “And if you say ‘good’ to any of that, I’ll call the bar I’m sending you to tonight and tell them to only use well drinks.”
“No!”
“Yes!”
I flushed the toilet and put her on hold while I washed my hands. Then I left her hanging for another minute because I am not a petty person.
She greeted my return with, “I thought you’d dropped your phone in the toilet again.”
Jeez! Do it one time! Twice? Wait—
“I’m sorry, okay?” She huffed and made the phone crackle. “If he’s so stupid as to leave you, then he’s a hopeless fuck who will deservedly die alone surrounded by sewer rats. Rabid ones. Zombie ones. Ones you could enslave and train…”
“Did you just write a new book?”
“I might have.”
I flopped belly first onto the bed. “Thanks, babe.”
“We should postpone my bachelorette.”
“Nooooo!” Turning onto my back, I said, “No, there are no more days. I’ll let the planner know I’m not going to be there, and you go have fun with everyone else.”
She sniffed. She gurgled.
“Ellen—are you…are you crying?”
“No!” she sobbed. In between heaves, she said, “I just wanted you to be there!” Heave. “I never thought I’d be able to get married, and now you won’t be here!”
My feels glommed my chest, and I clutched it to contain myself.
“I miss Nicolette, and I miss you, and you really need to stop befriending freaks!”
Even her sob-fests ended in censure for Sam. I said, “I guess I shouldn’t audition to be on Hannibal.”
She faux-screamed, and we fell into fits of giggles. “Jesus,” I groaned. “Crying friends are annoying.”
“It is my revenge against you for all the pathetic sobbing you’ve made me witness.” She laughed, and her voice was gentle.
She loved me, and I loved her, even when we got super ugly.
“I’m totally going to be there for your historic wedding. I’m gonna need about three hours of makeup, though. But so will you, because you’re going to crrrryyyyyy.”
“No, I’m not!”
“When you see your darling in her gorgeous dress, lookin’ so pretty, probably with a little cleavage, you’re gonna cry, ’cause you’re in loooooove. And you’re gonna be married, at last, because politicians finally pulled their heads out of their asses.”
My romantic words made her tear up all over again, and I snickered at her. Her joy glowed through every part of me, making me feel better than I had in a while. Love was all that really mattered, wasn’t it? Love for lovers, and friends, and surprisingly sexually adventurous mothers. People to care for, of all sizes and walks.
“At least Sam is alive,” she said quietly, sincerely, without her usual vinegar on the subject. “You never know what will happen. And if he’s not meant to be, then call Daniel Zhang. He just broke up with his last model.”
I laughed, considering that yes, I probably could talk my way into my former co-star’s bed and yes, it would be an orgasmic consolation prize. Not a hundred percent consolation, for I didn’t think that Daniel and I were written in the stars. I wasn’t nearly cool or sophisticated enough for that guy.
Ellen had already talked to Nicolette that morning, so she let me know that we’d probably get to go home tomorrow. I told her I’d see her soon, and we hung up after singing a rousing rendition of We Go Together.
The Feds were in Cuba, wanting to talk to me and Sam—and Billie, presumably. They’d taken over the case again, and apparently Mean Mulder and Scully were not happy that we’d allowed the NYPD to make the high-profile arrest. Served them right.
I gritted it all out, not really getting to spend any time with Sam, as they questioned him a lot longer than they bothered with me. We shared the flight home, but he was quiet. He still held my hand during take-off, but not one lick of dirty limericks were whispered in my ear.
The Wrath of Dimple Page 21