“It doesn’t feel like I did.”
“Well you did.” He brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Just knowing you were nearby always made me feel better.”
She smiled up and him and he had the sudden, utterly insane impulse to tell her he loved her. He clenched his teeth, knowing it would be disingenuous, not to mention a fucking cliché—telling a girl you loved her right after you’d fucked.
“I like that you play the drums,” Sam said. “I saw you playing through the window once. You looked beautiful.”
“I think you’re beautiful all the time.”
She smiled at him, then it faded slightly. “Scott, I know we were messing around but I don’t want to be a dick or a liar. I kind of meant what I said before. I want to explore what’s between us, but I can’t be a couple right away. My life is still so crazy and work’s full on. I’m worried if we jumped into a relationship, I’d explode from combined pressure.”
Scott ignored the metallic taste of disappointment in his mouth. “That’s fine. What do you need?”
“For you to be…patient with me, no labels, no heavy expectations. I just want to hang out and have sex and see how things go. Are you all right with that?”
He hesitated. No labels was one thing, but having to deal with Sam seeing other guys would driving him plum crazy. “Would you still be seeing other people?”
“Oh god, of course, no one else! I haven’t even looked at a guy since dad left.”
She sounded so horrified Scott laughed, which made Sam slap his chest. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“I…don’t know how to answer that without offending you. I don’t want to offend you, I want to kiss you again.”
“Always so polite, aren’t you, Galahad?”
But she kissed him all the same, making his head spin.
“Do you still want some pie?” she said when they broke apart. “It’s good, I promise.”
They didn’t bother with plates, they just ate it out of the foil tray with forks. It was perfect. The buttery crust, the juicy red fruits that were tart and sweet, the creamy layer beneath that made the whole thing orgasmic. Still, it was only a dessert. The woman sharing it with him was far more appetizing. Scott only took a couple of forkfuls before he shoved the pie out of the way and kissed her again.
They made out on the floor, Scott shoving a knee between hers as they kissed and dry-humped one another like the hormone-crazed teenagers they used to be. Sam didn’t have any more condoms and neither did he, so they did it dry, his dick between her legs, rubbing and stroking until both of them came.
“That was insane,” she said, when they were done.
“It was,” he agreed, still wanting to say he loved her and wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
After a few minutes of cuddling, Samantha stood up, buttoning her dress so she looked fully dressed again. She kissed him goodbye and promised to call, and though he wanted her to stay, he knew that if this was going to work, she needed the time and space to collect herself again.
The minute her silver Yaris drove away, Scott sat back down behind his drum kit. There was a niggle in his brain, telling him he should have taken the time to mention his father, mention the twelve voicemails about her business, but he set it aside. He’d just slept with Sam DaSilva, he wasn’t going to fuck this up. Nope, he was going to fight and win Samantha’s heart and his father could just sod off—the miserable bastard. He drummed the riff from Eye of The Tiger, grinning from ear to ear.
Chapter 18
Sam should have known something was up. Tabby didn’t get up early for anything, not even for work. Especially for work. Yet there she was, standing at the counter of Silver Daughters Ink at eight in the morning.
“What are you doing here?” they asked simultaneously.
“I’m coming in early to sketch for Fadeout,” Sam said. “What are you doing here?”
Tabby shifted around guilty. “I…also wanted to get some work done, early in the morning-like.”
“Bullshit.” Sam eyed off her sister. “You’re not the one stealing shit, are you?”
“No! Fuck no!”
Tabby looked so horrified that Sam felt guilty. In truth, stealing wasn’t Tabby’s style; crackpot schemes and blue hair was her style.
“Just be honest,” she said to her sister. “I’m going to work out whatever fucking devious plot you have on, anyway, so just—”
There was a shuffling sound out back, a rustling that implied one or more living beings shifting around. Sam gripped her keys in her hand like a weapon. “Is someone else here?”
“I…um…”
Sam swore. “Fucking hell, Tabby, what’s wrong with you? I swear to God, if you’ve been shagging in any of the tattoo chairs, I’m going to kill you.”
Without waiting for an answer, she marched to the back of the shop and grabbed the door to the courtyard.
“Wait,” Tabby called. “If you stop now, I’ll work for you forever. I’ll tattoo seven hours a day for minimum wage and I’ll make you Instagram famous.”
“I don’t want to be Instagram famous,” Sam snarled. “I want to know who or what you’re hiding.”
She flung the door open and stepped out into the morning air. She’d been expecting to see one of Tabby’s indie rock boyfriends covering his dick with his hands, but the guy in front of her was broad shouldered and dressed in a suit. He was also oddly familiar.
“Hi Ms DaSilva! Hi! Hello! How are you?”
“Toby?” Sam squinted at him. “What are you doing…?”
But that immediately became obvious. Sam could see a wicker basket peeking out from behind Toby and inside it were six fat black and gold puppies tucked into the side of their snoozing mother.
“Oh fuck off!” Sam whirled around to look at her sister. “Are you serious?”
Her sister held up her hands. “Okay, yes, it’s not ideal but we need to keep them here, even just for a little bit. Otherwise, Toby’s parents are going to bump them off!”
“I’ll bump you off! We can’t keep them here! This is a tattoo shop. I have clients! I can’t be mothering a bunch of puppies.”
“I’ll do it,” Tabby interjected. “I’ll look after them!”
“You’ve got three sessions booked for today! You can’t be running out of the studio every fifteen minutes to feed puppies!”
“Ms DaSilva?” Toby ventured. “I can understand why you’d be upset, but I can’t take these dogs back home. If I do, my parents will get rid of them. That’s why Tabby offered to let them stay here.”
Sam whirled around to face the young man and realised his clean-cut handsomeness had one hundred percent played a motivating factor in how this had happened—her youngest sister could never resist a good-looking boy.
“Look, I feel for you and the pups,” she told him. “But Tabby was in no position to offer you our courtyard. Is there anywhere else they can go?”
“Well…”
A plaintive whine caught Sam’s attention. The puppies were wriggling their way out of the cloth basket and running toward Sam. She briefly admired their round eyes and silky coats before snapping back to Toby. “I get you guys were just trying to do the right thing, but we can’t keep them here. There must be other options. Puppy kennels? New owners?”
“Well, they shouldn’t be away from their mum right now,” Toby said, his blue eyes wide.
“That’s why we brought them here,” Tabby said. “When they’re weaned and ready to fly the coop, I’ll do an Instagram spray and people will snap the pups up like lattes.”
“But until then, they’re just going to live in our concrete courtyard inhaling Noah’s cigarette smoke?”
“They’ll be totally fine,” Toby assured her. “I’ve brought everything you need to look after them. I’ve got puppy milk and Weet-bix and water bowls—”
“What about Scott?”
Toby blanched. “Um, what about him?”
“He’s your boss. He was also th
inking about getting a puppy. Does he know you’re here, bulk-storing them in my courtyard?”
Toby mumbled something incoherent.
“Sorry, what was that?”
“Scott, uh, doesn’t know about the puppies. He told me that he’d pay to put them in a kennel if I asked him to—”
“Great! Problem solved.”
“Only it isn’t,” Tabby said. “We looked it up and keeping six puppies and Mopsy in a kennel until the pups are weaned would cost almost six thousand bucks.”
“Fuck!”
“That’s what I thought,” Toby said quickly. “I was worried if I told him about the pups needing a home, he’d feel obligated to pay for the kennel, anyway, and then he’d hate me. Also, maybe fire me.”
Sam pressed her palms to her temples. “Right, okay. This is problematic.”
“What should we do?” Tabby asked.
“Just give me a second,” Sam pleaded. “I need to think.”
Mercifully, Tabby and Toby backed away, crouching over the basket and crooning to the puppies. Sam closed her eyes and contemplated her next move. On one hand, she had an obligation to make sure the puppies were safe. On the other hand, she was not equipped to deal with a dog rescue. Fadeout was less than forty-eight hours away and for the first time since her dad left, Silver Daughters was fully booked for the day. She needed all hands tattooing and answering phones, not patting adorable mini-dogs. She wanted to recruit Scott’s help, but that felt selfish, not to mention childish. She was a fully grown woman, she shouldn’t be running to her…whatever Scott was, to make her problems go away.
Then again, wasn’t she supposed to be learning to trust him? They’d seen each other every night for the past week, fucking on his couch, eating pizza in front of his TV, talking and laughing about everything and nothing. It was nice, but it wasn’t real life. Real life was addressing your problems and this puppy situation was a definite problem.
“If you don’t want to deal with the puppies, you could just go inside and pretend they’re not here,” Tabby said with the worst attempt at nonchalance Sam had ever heard.
“No chance.” Sam made up her mind then and there. She would go to Scott in the hope that his Galahadian poshness would know how to resolve this situation. She unclipped her keys from a loop on her jeans and jangled them at Toby. “Want a lift to work?”
Toby looked uncomfortable. “Um… yes? I mean, how come?”
“Because I’m going to have a chat with Scott about the state of these puppies and I might as well kill two birds with one stone.”
“Okay, cool,” Toby said with obvious relief. “He’ll take the news better coming from you.”
Here’s hoping, Sam thought. Her stomach knotted with the knowledge she’d be visiting Scott at his place of work. They were still firmly in the early stages of…whatever they were doing, and visiting him at work seemed an extreme leap in intimacy.
“Can I come with?” Tabby asked.
“Not on your life,” Sam said. “You’re going to stay here and look after those puppies, by yourself, because I swear if you rope anyone else into this, I will dead-set murder you. I’ll be back in an hour and a half tops.”
“Fine,” Tabby said glumly. “Let me know how the vibes are vibe-ing when you get to the office, Tobes. My sister and your boss have been straight banging all week, probably without condoms, so I bet the energy will be electrifying.”
Toby’s mouth parted slightly and Sam inwardly cursed her sister’s name. She grabbed Toby’s arm and dragged him toward the front door before Tabby could impart any more idiotic suggestions. She steered him toward her Yaris, shaking her head at what had just happened. “Do you have any sisters?”
“No, I’m an only child.”
“Good for you. Now, what’s the fastest way to your office?”
Thankfully, Toby proved adept at direction and despite peak-hour traffic, they were near the banking district in under half an hour.
“We have a little bit of time,” Toby said. “Should we bring Mr Sanderson—Scott—a peppermint latte? That might put him in a better mood for the, you know…”
“Dog bribery?”
“Yeah.”
Sam agreed it couldn’t hurt and they went to the coffee place Scott allegedly preferred. Toby ordered three lattes and pulled out his wallet before Sam could even blink. When she tried to give him a fiver, he waved it off. “Don’t worry about it. I brought the pups to your house.”
“You were trying to save them in fairness,” Sam said, taking her coffee. Taking in the man’s handsomeness and extremely agreeable nature once more, she decided to do the right thing. “Toby, are you involved with my sister? Because if you are, I’m obligated to warn you she’s a loose cannon of the highest order and she will destroy you.”
Toby gave a pained smile. “I don’t think Tabby’s interested in me. She’s just helping me with the pups.”
“Right…well, stay away from her. She’s like if Doc Brown from Back to the Future was a hot girl with no moral compass.”
“But that sounds fun.”
“As my dad used to say, ‘so does joining a commune, but four months later all your clothes have holes, your records are scratched to shit and people steal your weed and call it a ‘collective compromise.’”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, sometimes things that sound fun turn out to be a bad idea and Tabby’s the human embodiment of that concept.”
Toby frowned. “You know she raves about you.”
Sam noted the defensiveness in his tone and recognised this warning was already coming too late, but she needed to persist. For his sake. “I love Tabby, I think she’d incredible, but I know what she’s like. And what she’s not like.”
“And what’s she not like?” Toby said with obvious distrust.
Oh you beautiful, naive boy… “She’s a tornado. Fun to look at and totally oblivious to the damage she causes. She’s hectic and you seem…” Sam searched for a tactful way of saying it.
“Boring?”
“Nice,” Sam corrected. “Nice and straight-edged—which isn’t a bad thing at all. It’s just not a thing Tabby knows to leave alone. She’ll wreak your head, mate.”
Toby ignored her, pointing toward a huge glass building. “That’s work.”
Sam watched the well-dressed men and women scurrying about with corporate purpose, wondering how many of them had ink beneath their Country Road skirts and Armani suits. Not many, she bet. Even during their most faux-rebellious phases, true blue-blood yuppies avoided the needle.
“We’re on the thirty-first floor,” Toby said apologetically, steering her toward a glass and chrome lift. Sam noticed his voice had changed, gone smoother. He was also walking with his shoulders back, making him seem about a foot taller. The elevator opened as they approached and everyone inside it eyeballed her as though she’d grown a second head. As soon as the doors closed, she turned to Toby. “What’s wrong? Are you not supposed to bring guests?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“It’s your…well.” He cleared his throat. “You’ve got a lot of tattoos and there’s kind of a dress code…”
Sam looked down at herself. It had been a nice morning and she hadn’t brought a jacket. The vines, the kitten, the cherry blossoms adorning her arms and shoulders stood out stark against her skin. Fucking hell, she’d been in Brunswick too long, hanging out with Noah and Gil and the similarly tattooed. This was a cleanskin paradise and she stuck out like a sore thumb. The elevator dinged, announcing Scott’s floor. Sam’s gut contracted. “Fuck, I didn’t even think about a dress code. Maybe I should go?”
“If you do, will you keep the pups?” Toby asked hopefully.
No, she wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Even her old man wouldn’t have let six half-spaniel, half-Rottweiler puppies run wild in their courtyard. She would have to see Scott in his natural element, besuited and sitting behind a big desk.
“S
how me where he is,” she told Toby.
As Toby steered her around the desks, Sam felt the otherness of her ink more acutely than she had in years. All the women in his office were dressed various forms of grey, cream and pink. Why hadn’t she worn something other than black jeans and a tattered Chronic Masterbaters t-shirt?
Scott wasn’t in his office and they retreated back into the pastel pen.
Toby scanned the room. “Don’t worry, if he’s not here and he’s not in a meeting, he’ll be in the kitchen.”
“Show me.”
Scott was in the small, staff kitchen washing a mug in the sink. Her stomach dropped like an elevator capsule. God, he looked good, slick and smooth, the day having not yet put wrinkles in his suit and ruffles in his hair. She’d planned to let Toby announce she was here but she couldn’t stop herself from walking up and wrapping her hands around his middle. “Hey, Galahad.”
“Samantha!” Scott sounded alarmed and amazed. He turned and pulled her into his arms. “What are you doing here?”
“Emergency visit.”
He grinned in the way that made his eyes crinkle adorably. “In the staff kitchen?”
“Obviously. Was that Marvin the Martian I saw on your mu—”
He kissed her in that perfect Scott Sanderson way, warm and deep and soft, but not too soft. She melted against him, forgetting everything except that he was here with her. It was all okay. It was all fine. Scott would take care of this. Scott would know what to do about the puppies, and even if he didn’t, everything would still be fine because he would be there.
Toby gave a loud fake cough. “Mr Sanderson, I think you should—”
The warning came too late. She and Scott were still hugging each other when a woman’s voice cut through the moment like a knife. “Scott? What is going on?”
Sam turned to see a handsome woman in a liquid black pantsuit. Her expression was drawn, her lips tight. Fucking hell, fifty million dollars said this was Scott’s boss. Feeling panicked, she held out a hand. “Hello, I’m Sam DaSilva.”
So Wild Page 27