The Promise He Made Her

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  To touch every inch. With reverence.

  He was hard to the point of pain. He needed to sink himself in and find relief. But he had so much to do first.

  This one-time thing was the only chance he was going to get. He had to make the most of it. Know everything. Get it all. Give it all.

  He had one time to show her how great sex could be for her.

  Her touch was at once skilled and naive. Schooled and completely innocent. Her body curved and inviting. All woman. Luscious. But it was those brown eyes that drove him.

  He might question his sanity later, but as he lay beside a half-clad Bloom, Sam kept looking into those brown eyes. Kept seeking them out. They were his guide.

  And his salvation.

  * * *

  HER SKIRT WAS GONE. So were her panties. She’d lost track of them. Of time. Still with her blouse hanging off her shoulders, and her bra bunched at her back, Bloom rolled over. She wanted her naked detective beneath her so she could taste him like a man wanted to be tasted. She started at his chest, because she couldn’t seem to get enough of it, and then started downward.

  Pausing at his stomach, she found almost as much pleasure there as she had at his chest. It was just...fine. So strong and masculine and...Sam. It protected his vital organs.

  And he was vital.

  Vital.

  She paused, even while sexual vibrations pulsed through her.

  He wasn’t vital. The experiment was.

  The heat pumping through her blood hadn’t cooled yet. But she kept putting off the inevitable. Every time she felt like he might mount her, enter her, she moved. His fingers had lightly explored her body, but when they’d started to do more...she’d moved.

  She didn’t want the deliciousness to end.

  Not the moment. Or the feeling.

  What if she couldn’t get there? What if this anticipation was all there was for her?

  Buying herself some more time, she moved lower, knowing exactly what to do. How to do it. The tip of him lay just beneath his belly button. She should see the velvety softness. Could practically taste...

  “Bloom?” With the hoarseness still clouding his voice, Sam pulled her up. “This is just you and me. You don’t have to perform.”

  How had he known? And why was she burning up even more? Why hadn’t she just gone cold?

  The moment could have been awkward, but it didn’t get that far. Sam was kissing her again. Full mouth, nothing-held-back kisses that went much further than mouth to mouth. She could feel him, the man who’d just honored her in a way she hadn’t even known to want, and let him feel her, too.

  “I want you,” she said. “Inside me.” The words were foreign to her and felt so natural.

  “Not yet,” he told her. “Trust me.”

  She did trust him. And so when he told her to lie flat and open her legs, she did so. “This is my treat.” His breath sent shivers all over her as he started at one breast, licking, tasting, kissing and nipping, moving up to her nipple, across to the other breast.

  She was wet. Not just from his mouth. And she didn’t care. Her hips moved of their own accord. She was on a glorious journey and her job was to ride it out. He moved to her stomach and she liked him there, too. Liked having him tend to the protection of her vital organs.

  An odd thought. And yet, it meant so much to her.

  But when he dipped lower, when his chin brushed the top of her pelvis, she started to panic. She pulled at his shoulders, feeling weak and ineffective as he continued on his path.

  “Sam...” Her entire body was trembling. Her voice sounded frightened, tremulous, even to her own ears. But he didn’t stop.

  He just continued on down, stroking her with his fingers, with his tongue. Her body arched, reaching for him, reaching for more. She didn’t know herself and didn’t care. With her fingers clutching the comforter, she let Sam do whatever he wanted.

  A crescendo rose inside her. With no warning, no time to think or process, she cried out. And then cried again as everything just...exploded. Wave after wave after wave of the most exquisite pleasure. More than she’d ever imagined. And even as she rode those waves, Sam quickly sheathed himself, moved up her body, positioned himself between her legs and pushed himself home.

  Her body pulsed around him, taking him and letting him go, and a new, unbelievable swell happened, from deeper inside her. Her muscles convulsed with it. She was dizzy and euphoric and never wanted it to stop.

  Sam groaned, once, twice, he tensed and trembled and she felt the heat as he emptied himself inside her.

  They were done.

  * * *

  HE HADN’T MEANT to fall asleep. But then, he hadn’t meant to have sex with her, either. Sam woke sometime during the night. The bedroom door was open and Lucy had jumped up on his feet. They were where she normally slept when the room was theirs.

  Bloom lay with her back to him, facing the opposite wall.

  He could stay. Who was to say he’d woken up?

  He could even cuddle up behind her. His ex-wife used to cuddle him in his sleep.

  Wife. Which spelled relationship with a big R.

  As quietly as possible, moving as little as necessary, he slid from off the top of the rumpled bed. Seeming to understand the criticalness of the situation, Lucy jumped down as well, watching him.

  He made it halfway across the room without looking back. When he did, he saw the naked back and perfectly rounded bottom of the most incredible woman he’d ever met.

  He saw her shiver.

  He couldn’t just leave her that way.

  Quietly, carefully, Sam crept back. He lifted the king comforter from Lucy’s side of the bed, carried it over and laid it atop a still-sleeping Bloom.

  She didn’t move. Her deep sleep spoke of extreme exhaustion.

  Due, in part at least, to the incredible sex they’d shared.

  No matter what else they had going on with the investigations, the destruction and the damage, the court case and an insecure future, one thing was for certain.

  Her experiment had been a success.

  * * *

  BLOOM’S SECOND APPOINTMENT Tuesday morning was with Heather Ramirez, the young mother whose husband beat her for the last time on the night she turned him in and he committed suicide. That was the night that he’d also turned his anger on their baby boy for the first time, forcibly yanking him from his mother’s breast and throwing him on the couch.

  Tuesday’s session was unscheduled. Heather had phoned the service that handled Bloom’s calls when she wasn’t in the office and booked the first available appointment.

  While she’d thought she’d have the hour after her seven o’clock to prepare for the rest of the day, Bloom felt it was probably for the best that she just stay busy.

  She was a little shaky that morning. Due to the night before.

  She wasn’t worried about her and Sam. Afraid that they’d gone too far or made a mistake. They’d done what they set out to do. And the morning had been just like any other. She’d only seen him as they left the house for him to follow her to work.

  He’d asked her if she was okay, she’d said she was fine. Then they got in their respective cars and drove off.

  She was great with all of that. Happy about it. She just hadn’t counted on the aftermath of the hormone surge, the adrenaline surge, the endorphin surge that had accompanied the first orgasm she’d ever had. And the second one, too. The dissipation of said hormones was causing her a bit of...depression.

  So she would work harder than ever. Helping others took the focus off herself. Put life back into perspective. She was a very, very lucky woman.

  In charge of life.

  Able to choose whatever she wanted to choose for her course to the future.

 
She had the money to buy what she wanted, too.

  And lived in paradise.

  Sam had called during her first appointment. And then he’d texted to tell her to call him as soon as possible.

  Heather was waiting when she showed out Donna Graph, her regular Tuesday, 7:00 a.m. patient. The girl’s face was tear-streaked. Sara Havens, the full-time counselor at the Stand was with her. Heather was staying at the Stand. Someone there watched her baby son when Heather had her sessions with Bloom. And whoever was free drove her over.

  Sara wasn’t usually free. Bloom hoped the baby was at the Stand.

  Bloom invited them both in, but Sara, who’d counseled Bloom and didn’t counsel Heather, opted to stay in the waiting area.

  In the two minutes she’d been gone, Sam had called again. She didn’t have time to talk to him, but sent a quick text.

  Am I in immediate danger?

  His response was quick. No.

  She put the phone down, uneasy.

  It could just be a coincidence that Sam was trying to reach her and the victim whose in-laws he thought were responsible for the recent threats against her and the Stand was sitting on her sofa crying softly.

  Sam didn’t believe in coincidences.

  She wished he was there, too.

  Which was ridiculous. She liked him, but she didn’t need him. She didn’t need anybody.

  And liked it that way.

  Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  What in the hell... She tuned out her inner voice to tend to the matter at hand. It was important.

  Bloom sat beside Heather on the couch. She didn’t touch the girl. But she stayed close. Human contact was often a healer in itself.

  “Can you tell me about it?” she asked. If the in-laws had that baby...

  She had to get Heather to talk. To get Sam whatever information he might need...

  When the teenager looked up at her Bloom’s stomach felt like lead. Once a pretty blonde, Heather looked...horrible. Pale. Sick.

  “I killed them.”

  Whatever she’d been expecting it wasn’t that.

  “What?”

  “They went to court yesterday, to file for custody of my baby,” she said. “They have more money than I do. They have a home. I don’t even have a job yet. I quit high school to have him, thinking my husband would support us, and I can’t even get insurance money because he killed himself and...”

  Her mouth was thick with saliva as she spoke, her eyes blurred with tears.

  Bloom also noticed for the first time that Heather’s hands were dirty. Like she’d been playing in the dirt.

  “I’ve never had anyone, Dr. Freelander. All my life I’ve been alone, and then I met Omar and he was so sweet to me. When I got pregnant and he wanted to marry me...I finally started to believe that I could be like everyone else. That I could have a family of my own. But his parents hated me. They said I got pregnant deliberately to trap him. They didn’t want him to quit college to work. They didn’t want him to marry me. They were on him all the time. Every day. It wasn’t his fault that he was taking it out on me. Who else did he have? I got that. But when he threw our baby...

  “Do you know what could have happened if the baby hadn’t landed on the cushion? His neck could have broken... He could have died.”

  “Tell me what happened with your in-laws.” Bloom was calm. In control. Caring for the young girl, and aware of her professional responsibilities, as well. Anything Heather told her would be in complete confidence.

  “I know the police were looking for them. I was, too,” Heather said, her tears subsiding for a moment. “I was scared it was them threatening you and Ms. McDaniel and hurting those guards after the detective showed me that photo, but it wasn’t them. I found out they were in Los Angeles, staying with friends while they saw a lawyer and filed papers to take my son away from me. They’d left their cell phones at home and didn’t want anyone to know what they were doing until they knew for sure they could and should do it. Their friend is some kind of counselor, I guess. Mrs. Ramirez called me last night and told me what they were doing. She wanted me to understand, she said, and said that if I’d just cooperate and let them raise my baby, they’d let me see him whenever I wanted. She told me all the things they could do for him that I couldn’t. And said what a better life he’d have with them, and I knew that when they told the judge those things I was going to lose my baby.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Heather was there because she needed to talk. She’d have run if that had been her intention.

  “I told Mrs. Ramirez I’d come over to talk but I wasn’t bringing the baby with me. Then I called Maddie, you know, the child care worker at the Stand, and asked her to stay with him. I went to the Ramirezes’. They were being all nice because they thought I was going to give them my baby. I asked if I could see Omar’s room. I knew he used to have a gun there and I told myself if it was still there, it was a sign that I should use it.”

  Bloom felt sick. Physically nauseous. Despair was more lethal than anthrax.

  “The gun was there. So I used it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  SAM REALLY HATED it when things didn’t go according to his plan. Almost as much as he hated it when his hunch was wrong.

  The Ramirezes weren’t his perps in Santa Raquel. They hadn’t taken Gomez down, hadn’t knocked out the guard at The Lemonade Stand, vandalized Lila McDaniel’s car or broken into Bloom’s house and slashed her paintings.

  They’d been in LA, seeking counsel, both legal and otherwise. And then they’d filed for custody of their grandson. They’d been upright citizens, trying to deal with a devastating situation in the best way possible.

  He’d liked them for criminals.

  And now they were dead.

  He wasn’t lead on the case. He wasn’t really on the case at all, though he’d been called.

  Forensics would process the scene.

  But the suspect had confessed and was in custody. Her young son would be put in the system. He was young enough that his chances of adoption were good.

  Sam had one hell of a headache, from lack of sleep, he was telling himself. He was bothered that Bloom had had a murderer in her office that day—and bothered that she would have been upset by the experience, too.

  Mostly, he was angry that he had no leads on who had attacked two armed guards, slashed paintings and vandalized a car.

  What was he missing?

  He spent the rest of Tuesday and into the evening looking. He’d have stayed at his desk all night if not for the fact that Chantel expected him at the cottage to relieve her at eleven.

  At ten to eleven he shut down his system and went home.

  He greeted an exuberant Lucy, and spent a few minutes in the yard with her just because it felt good to do so. Felt normal. He thought about a beer and decided against it. Thought about throwing in a load of laundry. Decided against that, too, and went to bed.

  He didn’t so much as look at the closed bedroom door across the hall. Other than a brief greeting at their cars that morning, he hadn’t spoken to Bloom since the night before. They’d texted.

  When Heather Ramirez had been ready to turn herself in, Bloom had called Chantel.

  He knew that she was living by their agreement the night before. They’d conducted an experiment purely for her personal knowledge base. She was showing him that nothing had changed between them.

  And expected him to show her the same.

  Only problem was, as he lay on the top of his covers in sweats and T-shirt, hard as hell and aching in every bone in his body, he knew that he was lying.

  Somehow, in the space of a few hours, everything had changed.

  It was up to him to see that it changed back.

  * * *


  BLOOM WASN’T CHANGING her mind. Not even thinking about it. She didn’t want to change her mind. She and Sam had conducted an experiment. They had not started a relationship. She didn’t want a relationship with him.

  She just wanted to watch the movie one more time.

  To make sure that she caught every aspect of it. Learned fully from it. She wanted to know if it had been a fluke, how much she’d liked sex with him the first time around. The first time she’d ever liked sex.

  She listened as Sam settled in for the night.

  And then she got up.

  Her choice was well considered. She’d spent all evening on it. And had counter choices ready depending on which of the various responses she’d anticipated actually happened.

  And a wild card abort plan, too, in the eventuality that she received an unanticipated response.

  She concentrated on the plan, the thoughts, rather than on the hormonal cocktail shooting through her veins as she crossed the hall.

  Sam slept with his door open so he could hear her or anyone in the rest of the house. She’d known that from the first night. Because he’d prepared her in the event she wanted to make a kitchen run in the middle of the night.

  He’d neglected to say that he slept fully dressed—albeit in more comfortable clothes than the pants and tie he’d had on the night before.

  Thoughts of that tie sent another ripple of cocktail through her. He’d worn that tie all night.

  It had given her the ability to look at him in a whole new light every single time she saw him dressed for work.

  And that way of thinking had no valid point. Or purpose.

  Lucy lifted her head as Bloom drew close to the bed. Sam didn’t. But he was watching her with his eyes wide open.

  Of course he would be.

  He was there to protect her from intruders. What good would he be if he didn’t know someone was intruding on his own bed?

  She lay down. Lucy jumped off the bed.

  “This doesn’t change anything,” she whispered.

  He didn’t. “Understood.”

  She found out that the movie was even better the second time around. There were things she’d missed...