by Karen Anders
“I’m more frustrated that the van was stolen and that gives us zero leads on those guys. My gut tells me we are still being followed.” He glanced in the rearview mirror for the tenth time.
“I’m not betting against your gut.”
“Short of getting our hands on one of those guys and getting information out of him, we’re kinda dead in the water.”
“Then maybe we should try to do that.”
“How?”
“By setting a trap.”
He frowned.
As he pulled into the garage, he turned to her and without even saying anything, he felt her forehead.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if you’re feverish.”
“I’m not.” Although his hand was as hot as a brand, and the way he touched her jacked up her heart into a fluttering beat.
“We can do it, Sam.”
“You go lie down on the couch and I’ll get all this stuff inside and get it put away. Are you hungry?”
“Don’t dismiss me.”
“I’m not, Olivia. You’re on my mind now 24/7.”
He swore softly, the curse tumbling off his tongue; then he bit his lower lip.
She heated from the inside out as if she did have a fever. The tension between them always seemed to just be there. So easy for it to flare. All it took was a curse and the way he took that full bottom lip into his mouth just as she’d been fantasizing about doing for the past hour.
He sighed, dropped his head and rubbed at his temple.
“I can feel you all primed for an argument, Olivia. And I’m tired. Bone-tired. Can we just...get the food in the house and eat?”
She relented because now tenderness welled up in her. She understood he must be tired. She was hurting and she was primed for a fight. Maybe it was all that unfulfilled sexual tension that was tormenting her, making her take offense at every word that came out of Sam’s sexy, full-bottom-lipped mouth.
“I’m sorry, Sam. I usually am an easygoing person.”
“Well, I’m used to giving orders.” He looked at her. “So get going.”
The laugh was unexpected as it cut the tension, and both of them heaved a sigh of relief. She got out of the truck and did as he asked, mostly because her arm did hurt and she really couldn’t help him carry stuff, and second, because she needed a break. She stretched out on the couch and turned on the TV.
Before she knew it, Sam was gently shaking her awake. “Dinner’s ready.” The sun had gone down and the heavenly smell of chicken drew her off the couch into the kitchen. They settled at the table and dug in.
Now that she had some food in her, she felt ten times better. Sam picked up and started to take care of the dishes. The sight of him being all domestic was so cute. Obviously he was used to fending for himself, being a bachelor and in the military. Her curiosity about him had run rampant since her brother asked her to follow him. She guessed that was a good thing being a P.I., but now that she’d met him, she was even more curious.
“How long have you been in the service?”
He twisted from the sink to look at her. “Almost ten years. I enlisted when I was twenty-three.”
“So you’ve been out on many missions.”
“Yes.”
“In the Middle East?”
“Mostly, but I’ve been all over the world. Can’t say more than that because—”
“It’s classified.”
He smiled and turned back to the sink and started to load the dishwasher. “Right.”
“Did you go to college?”
“Yes, majored in political science, but I’m no politician. I left that up to my mother and Trey. I went through two years of law school and hated it. Although I did love trying cases in moot court.” He started the dishwasher. “You want to play gin?”
“Sure,” she said.
He grabbed a deck of cards out of one of the kitchen drawers and sat down at the table. “We play a lot of cards when deployed. Passes the time.”
“What other kinds of schooling did you get in the military?”
He dealt out the cards. “I went to officer training school at Fort Benning in Georgia. My other military training and education includes the Infantry Maneuver Captains Career Course, Ranger Course, Infantry Officer Basic, Infantry Mountain Leader Advanced Marksmanship Course and Airborne School.”
“You jumped out of planes?”
“Hooyah.” He made his first discard and it was Olivia’s turn.
“I always wanted to try that.”
“Jumping out of a plane? Piece of cake. The first step is the hardest.”
She laughed when he grinned at her.
“Maybe someday...” He trailed off.
“What?”
He shook his head. “I was about to say maybe one day we could do that, but we both know that’s probably not going to happen.”
“Because you’re going back.”
“Yes, it’s always been the plan.”
“But is it still the plan?”
He shrugged. Then picked up her discarded card and set down one of his own. “Are you under the impression that I spill my guts to anyone who asks me questions?”
“Don’t you?”
“No. I barely talk at all to anybody. Why is it so easy with you?”
Out of anything he’d said to her in the past, including that statement about how beautiful her hair was, this made her blush.
“Maybe because I’m pushy?”
“Ha! You’re pushy, but that’s not why.”
“Maybe it’s because you argue with me so much, talking is a relief?”
He chuckled. “No, that’s not it, either, but, for the record, you can hold your own, honey. I like that about you, even though it drives me crazy.”
She studied her cards, then chose one. Sam picked from the deck and after a second discarded one she could use. She picked it up, set down her cards and said, “Gin.”
He counted up his cards and recorded their score on a pad of paper. “Did you go to college?”
“Several times. Wasn’t for me. After the second time, I thought John was going to lose it, especially when I told him I was going to backpack across Europe.”
“I bet.”
“I’ve had good life lessons, got my certification in massage therapy, did other odd jobs like I told you, then settled down to be a P.I.”
“Sometimes it takes time to find your niche.”
“In my case it did. John was never really happy with my final choice, but he was always proud of me.”
“Business is good?”
“It is and recently I’ve had more work than I can take on. I was thinking of hiring someone to work with me.”
He dealt out the cards and they played a few more hands.
After the final hand, Sam went into his bathroom and got some first-aid supplies. “Let me change the bandage before we go to bed.”
They went into the living room and Sam sidled up close to her to get at the bandage on her upper arm. His fingers were gentle and sure as he carefully unwrapped it and discarded the bloody bandage on the coffee table. He examined the wound. “Looks good. Lucy did a fine job.”
“I guess you’ve done this a few times on the field of battle.”
“More than I care to name. Most not this minor.”
“Ouch,” she said, wincing when he dabbed on more antibiotic ointment. “It doesn’t feel minor from where I’m sitting.”
“Sorry.” He then put on a gauze pad and wrapped more gauze around it, securing it with medical tape.
“It really hurts to get shot,” she said, “a burning and stinging pain.”
“It’s the temperature from the bullet. It comes out super
heated from the chamber from friction. When it hits, it’s literally burning lead.”
“Have you ever been shot?” she asked softly.
“Shot at plenty, shot a couple of times.” He dragged up his T-shirt and showed her the long scar on his waist. “Got between the body armor. Hurt like hell, same for my quad.”
She had to take a couple of deep breaths, one for the scar and one for his tight, washboard abs.
“You ready?”
Her eyes popped up to his.
“For bed.”
Not really, unless it was to snuggle up to him for both comfort and relief of some of that sexual tension.
They rose together and Sam headed off down the hall. Now that it was time to go to sleep, she felt apprehensive and a frisson of fear crawled up her spine. What if someone tried something in the middle of the night?
Sam realized about halfway down the hall that she wasn’t following. He turned to look back at her. “Olivia?”
“I’m coming.”
When she came up to him, he put his hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she lied. She didn’t want him to think she was a baby or a coward, but she was definitely feeling apprehensive. Okay, more than that. She was scared.
“If you need anything...”
“I know.”
“Good night.”
She settled into the bed, her nerves on edge all of a sudden. Every noise made her start and she thought about the man who had dragged her away from Sam. Thought about his determination. What would have happened if he’d gotten her into that van? She shuddered with the thought. She didn’t think she’d be breathing right now.
She closed her eyes tight and tried to relax until she finally started to drift. Then darkness gripped her by the throat and she couldn’t breathe. The man in the mask appeared, the image of his face alternating between his masked and unmasked face until his eyes were deep black sockets of nothing. Those empty sockets sucked the very life from her.
She woke with a start and sat bolt upright in bed feeling pain shoot up her arm. She gasped softly.
She threw back the covers and rushed to Sam’s room. Her steps slowed as she got to the bed. He was facedown, the sheet tangled around his hips so that it left his back and legs bare.
She looked at the long line of his body, from his bare feet and strong ankles to the shape of his legs, his hips beneath the green shorts he wore and his broad back.
His back was a mass of scars, but the skin beneath her hands when she had given him his massage was soft and smooth. She followed the line of a vertical slash across his shoulder blade and down the taut muscle over his ribs.
Her gaze traveled back up again to his barely there hair that was so soft against her palm. Then her eyes fell to the nightstand and the wicked-looking pistol that was within easy reach of his hand. She wasn’t sure if he’d put it there in response to what had happened to them today or if he always slept with it beside his bed.
She wanted to break down and cry to think of the pain and the agony and the fear he must have endured, and she wanted to curl up with him. Have him hold her against that hard, strong chest.
“Sam?” she said. She was unable to go back to her room, unable to face any more nightmares.
He sprang awake as if he were spring-loaded. He went from deep, even sleep to wide-awake and ready for action.
“Olivia. What’s wrong?”
She tilted her chin to look up at him, the blue of his eyes like midnight in the semidark room. “I lied. I’m not okay.” She bit her lip, the fear suddenly alive in her.
He was off the bed in a heartbeat. He came forward, silent on bare feet, setting his hands on her shoulders and looking into her face.
“I’m scared,” she whispered. Without a sound, he pulled her into his arms, against his chest, careful of her injured arm. One hand delved into her hair and pressed her head beneath his chin. “It’s okay. Everyone gets scared.” His voice was hushed.
“Can I stay with you?”
He stood for a long moment with his eyes closed and his jaw set.
“Of course.” He moved back onto the bed and settled against the pillows. “Olivia, so you want to—”
She shot forward and onto the soft mattress, sliding her body over his until she was against all that hard, hot muscle. It felt as though she’d wanted to be here forever.
He exhaled a long, heated breath, soft against her cheek. “I guess that’s a yes.”
Her skin caught fire just from that one soft puff of his breath. She knew what he was feeling because she was right there with him.
She moved her leg and it brushed against his. The warmth of him seeped into her, calmed her nerves.
“Oh, God, Sam, you feel so good. So safe.”
His fingers tightened in her hair, her scalp prickling under the grip that tilted her face up to his. His kiss fierce; she could taste the resistance in it, but the hot need welled up the instant he touched her. He drew one hand down through her hair, pausing at the small of her back, spreading his palm until his fingertips curved around her waist. He held her that way, the peaks of her breasts pressed into his bare chest through silk and lace, their shape swollen and spread against him. It made no difference that she had asked to be here, that they were trying to resist this—it all whirled away and left only awareness, his body a bruising pressure against hers, his hand locked in her hair and the taste of him consuming her.
Olivia spread her hands across his bare skin. His chest was taut, hard and smooth, the broad muscled expanse beneath her fingers hot against her exploring palm. The heat and desperate longing to cherish and hold him spread to her body—she burned where she touched him; she burned all through, a hot ache that coursed from the fierce possession of her mouth down to her breasts and belly and legs—a pleasure that bloomed between her thighs and made her move and press and mold to him as if she could make him part of her.
“Olivia,” he mumbled, a harsh breath against her lips. “We should stop. God...stop.”
But he held her still; he didn’t stop. He kissed her throat, pushing back her hair, coiling it around his fist. She opened her mouth and allowed her tongue to taste the bare skin at the curve of his shoulder.
She felt him groan. His powerful muscles moved, salty skin sliding past her tongue as he pushed her back on the bed. He hung above her on braced arms, cursing softly even as he grasped her shoulders and bent to kiss the base of her throat and nuzzle while his body pinned hers against the mattress.
She felt his hands at her waist, pulling the silky nightgown upward, tugging the fabric with rough and frantic moves. Soft air caressed her bared thighs and then her hips. He spread his palm across her flat stomach and made a sound of excitement, a rough note deep in his chest. His forearm drove her shoulder back against the cotton sheets as he bowed to reach her breast.
He kissed it through the silk, his tongue finding the tip and drawing it against his teeth until she arched and whimpered with the searing swell of pleasure. Her reaction touched off something primal in him, something that he’d never felt with any other woman he’d ever been with.
Growling, Sam lost himself in her body, tasting the delicious heat, sliding his hand into the crevice between her legs. He wanted her passionate, he wanted her arching her sweet body upward, begging for what he burned to give. He caressed her groin at the apex of her thigh and slipped two fingers into her slick opening, his tongue and lips closing on the peak of her breast.
She was moist and hot, insanely inviting. He drowned in her, in the tightness of her, in the way she closed her legs convulsively on his hand. His fingers slid, pushing, exploring deeper and deeper until she began to gasp and tremble beneath him.
He tugged at her nipple while his fingers went deeper to the spot he knew was there inside her, the spot
that would ignite a fire so hot it would singe him. His thumb found her core, and he pressed there, rubbing with a slow and steady rhythm. Heat flashed through him, the fierce desire to thrust and sink into her, to spread her and take her delicious softness in absolute possession.
He started to withdraw, to reach for his shorts and free the aching pressure there, but her body followed the move. Her hips curved upward. She tossed her head, pushing into his hand while her fingers raked his back. Deep into the desperation for him, she clutched at him, holding his head to her breast. She arched with a strangled moan—that long, lovely strain of female ecstasy—and then her body was shuddering against him in a way that made him want to explode in response.
But he didn’t. From somewhere amid her collapse into panting oblivion, he found a vestige of reality. He folded down next to her, dragging her against him, his chest heaving.
“Sam, please,” she pleaded softly. “Please.”
“I’m just not good for anyone right now. I shouldn’t be...” He barely got out those words. This time Olivia went on the offensive. She slipped her hands beneath the waistband of his shorts and felt her fingers curl around his aching dick.
He thrust helplessly upward, his hips leaving the bed. He groaned. A sound he’d never heard before, intense and tight, and suddenly he felt the way he did right before a mission. Focused, intent. She let him go, slipping off her underwear, and then grasped the waist of his shorts.
He grabbed her wrists, even as she continued to jerk against him. “Olivia. Let go.”
She tussled with him and he felt as if he had a tiger by the tail and he simply loved it. This woman, this beautiful, contrary woman.
He was trying to do the right thing here, and she was fighting him every step of the way.
“No, Sam. I want you.”
He let go of her wrists, going for the side drawer of his nightstand, reaching for the condoms when she took him in her mouth and he lost his damn mind.