Rescuing Samantha

by Nicole Flockton

  His thumbs brushed away her tears and his lips pressed against her forehead in a soft kiss. “I know, sweetheart. I know you’re scared, but as I said before, by not saying anything you’re only putting yourself, and your family, in more danger. Trust me, Sam. Trust that I’ll do everything I can to keep you and everyone around you safe.”

  “What about you? Who will keep you safe?”

  “Me. I’ll keep myself safe.”

  Sam noted in all his declarations he didn’t say he’d promise to make sure nothing happened to anyone, just that he’d do everything he could. She supposed that was better than nothing.

  Silence stretched between them. The tension that had lived within her the last half an hour drained away. Being wrapped up in his arms on the couch was giving her a semblance of safety and she supposed that was the reason for him doing what he was doing. Just holding her and not saying a word. The fact he was waiting for her to start speaking wasn’t lost on her. He had the patience of a saint, not surprising considering his job would require countless hours of laying still, observing what was happening before taking the necessary steps to ensure the job they’d been sent to do was executed accurately.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” Beck asked after another few moments of quiet.

  “No.” The way she was feeling if she tried to put something in her stomach it would only come straight back up.

  “It’s getting late and I know you have an early morning call. But I can’t let you go without you telling me what’s going on, Sam. I’m not going to let you walk on set tomorrow not knowing if I’m going to have to take evasive action. I can generally act immediately if I have to, but I much prefer to have a plan. You can’t keep it quiet any longer. After tonight, I’m going to be calling Ox, Riley, and my former team lead, Fort, to brainstorm a solid plan of action. We need to stop whoever is after you and we need to stop them sooner rather than later.”

  Taking a deep breath, she pulled out of his embrace and put some space between them. It would be better to explain everything if she wasn’t practically sitting in his lap. “You’re right. I do have to talk about it even though I’m scared to. I can’t go on like this. I miss my family. I want to see them.”

  Not being able to share the biggest day of Rayne’s life, still cut deep. After their parents died she and Rayne had talked about weddings, not as much as Rayne and Mary, but still they’d discussed dress colors and what type of flowers. Rayne, being Rayne, had understood when she’d lied and said she’d been offered a part in a movie and the filming was taking place during her wedding. That was all in the past, though, she could never get it back and had to live with looking over the pictures Rayne had sent her.

  “Why can’t you see them? It’s not like they can’t look after themselves. You did say your brother is in the Army and your sister is married to a Special Forces operative. If anything they’re the best type of guys to be associated with.”

  Sam sighed. “I know. What you’re telling me isn’t anything that I haven’t thought about. But you should know the unpredictability of life on a Special Forces team. You get called away at any moment. There was no way I was going to let Rayne be in a position where she was in even more danger because I’d told them what was going on.”

  “Sure, when I was on my team, there were occasions when we were only given an hour’s notice before we had to be wheels-up. Don’t you think by not saying anything they’re more at risk than if you’d said something to them?”

  “What do you mean?” Confusion filled her. Was Beck telling her that being quiet was worse than informing them?

  Beck closed the small gap she’d created. His hard thigh rested against hers and immediately warmth flowed through her. How was that even possible through two layers of denim? The heat increased when he placed one of his large hands on her leg. “If you’d said something to them, when the guys were called away they could’ve put plans in place to make sure their women and children were safe. By not telling them, they had no idea that there was even a possible situation where their families where threatened.”

  Samantha sat back and processed Beck’s words. Shit, in doing what she thought was the right thing, was in fact the wrong thing. How could she not have looked at it that way? “I can’t believe I didn’t see that. Didn’t even think it.” She looked up at him and could feel more tears building in her eyes. Hadn’t she cried enough tonight? “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

  Beck framed her face with his hands. She looked into his eyes and didn’t see any censure in their blue depths, only compassion and a hint of lingering desire. “I know, sweetheart, I know. I’m not saying it was the wrong thing at all. You did what you had to do. But now you have me. You’re not alone.”

  For a few heartbeats they stared at each other. A craving, stronger than anything she’d allowed herself to feel before built in her and she wanted to forget about talking and kiss Beck. Go back to where they’d been only an hour ago, wrapped up in each other’s arms. His lips ravaging hers while their hands explored their bodies.

  Sam mentally shook herself out of the pent up need. Later, maybe, after she’d told him everything.

  As if reading her mind, Beck leaned forward and pressed his lips against hers. A soft gentle kiss that was over before it started, but it consumed her the way their earlier kiss had done.

  “Tell me, Sam. Tell me everything. It’ll be okay. I’ll keep you safe.”

  Again he didn’t promise to keep her safe, but she had no doubt he’d do all he could to make sure nothing bad happened. “I know. The texts started about eighteen months ago. At fir—”

  “Eighteen months?” Beck blurted out. “You’ve been dealing with this for that long? Why didn’t you block the number or at least change yours?”

  Sam held onto her composure. If only she could’ve done any of those things. “I didn’t have a lot of money to be able to change my number, and if I did, I’d have to explain to Rayne and Chase and, as you know, I was trying to protect them. Besides, for the first couple months after I got this number I was always getting calls asking for Loretta. Initially, I thought the messages were for her, so I just deleted them.”

  God, even to her own ears it sounded so bad. “I know what you’re thinking,” she said to Beck.

  “What am I thinking?”

  “That I’m like the people in horror movies who go into the woods when they should stay in the house. The people everyone calls too stupid to live. But I’m not. You already know I took self-defense classes and stuff. I made sure I could look after myself. Plus my life was so crazy at the time. I was living from paycheck to paycheck, focusing on my career. So I put up with the…inconvenience.”

  Beck didn’t say anything and she was beginning to think he was about to walk away when he spoke. “I suppose that makes sense, but what about after you worked out that the messages were for you. Why didn’t you change your number then?”

  “There were times when I would go weeks, months without a message. In fact, I was all ready to go to Rayne’s wedding. Had booked a ticket to Texas when I got a text with a picture of Rayne walking out of the bridal shop with her best friend Mary and some other girls. When I saw that I knew I couldn’t go to the wedding. So I cancelled my flight, made up an excuse to Rayne and stayed home crying in my ice cream.”

  “Was there a message with the picture or just the picture?”

  “There was message.” Sam murmured, not even having to look at her phone to recall the message. “It said, you don’t want anything to spoil your sister’s day do you? If you show your face at the wedding it will be the biggest mistake of your life.”

  “Fuck.” Beck muttered the word under his breath but it was loud enough for her hear. “Please tell me you still have the messages and you didn’t delete them.”

  “Yes I still have them.”

  “Good.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out her phone, handing it to her. “Show me them all.” The steel in his voice sho
uld’ve frightened her. In that moment he was every inch the dangerous SEAL he once was.

  As much as she wanted to keep everything hidden, she couldn’t. No way would Beck let her get away with fobbing him off again. Sam grabbed the phone off him and entered the code to unlock it, her stomach dropping as she re-read the message that had been sent earlier. “Here,” she shoved the phone back to him. “If you click this most recent message it’ll take you to the message thread.”

  Beck took the phone and Sam swiped her hand down her leg, as if wiping away the taint from the messages. She watched Beck’s face as he read them. His lips tightening as his finger scrolled down the thread. The knuckles on the hand holding the phone got whiter and whiter. “Fuck, Sam. Why the hell didn’t you go to the police? The contents of these messages shouldn’t be taken lightly,” he growled out.

  Sam jumped up from the couch, hurt at the accusation in his tone. “You think I don’t know that? And I told you why I didn’t tell anyone about them. As much as it doesn’t make sense to you, it made sense to me. Right or wrong. Dumb or not. I did what I did to protect my family. They were my only concern. I wasn’t thinking about me.”

  She turned her back on him and walked out of the room. God, just when everything was looking up in her life, she still had this threat hanging over head. The man she hoped would help her was looking at her as if she was the dumbest creature on earth.

  And it hurt. It hurt so much.

  Beck watched Sam’s retreating figure and threw the phone on the couch. He’d handled it all wrong. But reading those messages and seeing how they escalated and got more threatening had him wanting to punch his fist through the closest wall. Instead he’d taken it out on Sam. He should’ve treated her better. She’d told him how she was feeling and the reasons for doing what she did. He shouldn’t have yelled at her.

  Before he went after her, he needed to make a couple of calls. Checking his watch he calculated the time difference between him and Ash. It was too late to call him, the guy was probably snuggled up in bed with his wife. Firing off a quick text to him instead, Beck then pulled up his contacts, hoping like hell his team wasn’t on a mission.

  He pulled up Fort’s number and drummed his fingers as he waited for the call to connect. “Beck, hey man, how’s it going?”

  A smidgen of the tension and anger flowing through him settled a bit upon hearing his team lead’s voice. But he didn’t have time to make small talk. “Hey Fort, are you available for a conference call tomorrow? It’s important.”

  No way would he expect Fort to meet him in LA, not when he was down on the base in San Diego. If he wanted to meet Fort in person his friend would have to take the whole day off to come up to LA. And there was no way Beck was going to leave Sam vulnerable and take off for the day to meet him. Who knew what could happen. It seemed like whoever was targeting her knew about him being on set on a daily basis.

  His mind went to Miles, he’d backed off a little after the first time Beck had arrived on set. But that didn’t mean Beck hadn’t discounted Miles as a person of interest and one to be watched closely.

  “Absolutely, I can arrange to be free at eleven, will that work?”

  “That should be fine. I want to co-ordinate a conference call with you and Ash to talk about the case I’m working on.”

  “Whatever you need, man, I’ll be there. You know I’ll always have your six. Always”

  Beck closed his eyes and took a moment to appreciate Fort’s words. Even though he was no longer part of the team, knowing he could always call on his team meant a lot to him. “Appreciate it. I’ll send you a text confirming the time.”

  “Sounds good.” Fort paused and Beck braced himself to hear what was going to come next. “How’s everything going? Is the job with Ash working out?”

  How much did he tell Fort? Did he tell him how his body still woke up at five in the morning, alert and ready to go to PT, only for him to step out of bed and have his ankle remind him that he wasn’t going to joining his teammates any time soon. Instead of punishing his body until his muscles screamed, he headed for the treadmill and walked instead of running. Anytime he tried to run he could only do about ten minutes before his uneven gait made it too awkward to do any more.

  “The job is more complicated than I thought it was going to be. But when it’s over I still have plans to relocate to the east coast.” Although the thought of leaving Sam behind and never seeing her again, except on the big screen didn’t sit well with him. As hard as it was at the moment he knew, to fully heal and leave his past behind, he couldn’t remain on the west coast. Being so close to his former life, even now, was hard to deal with. Yet Sam did make it a little easier to bear.

  “I think you should reconsider. You’ll hate it in New York. It’s crazy busy with so many people living there. All those taxi cabs honking their horns will drive you crazy. Not to mention the fucking snow in winter. You need the beach, man. You need the sun.”

  “The only difference between California and New York is the weather. There’s millions living in Cali. At least New York has the subway system so I’m not going to be stuck in traffic like here. I will concede that I’ll miss the beach.”

  Fort laughed. “Yeah, there’s nothing like a good surf on a hot summer’s day.”

  Beck and Fort had gone surfing on a regular basis. Since his injury, he hadn’t tried to see if he could still surf. He hadn’t been sure how his ankle would take being on a slippery board. But maybe he should hit the beach and try to surf, one last time before he headed back to New York.

  A picture of Sam standing on the shore, her hand shading her eyes from the sun. A huge smile on her face as she waited for him. The sound of her squealing when he pulled her in tight for a hug against his wet body.

  Damn, if he allowed himself to, he could visualize a million scenarios like the one he’d just imagined.

  Fuck, he needed to get himself under control. He couldn’t let himself get drawn into Sam’s orbit. The job he was employed to do was to protect her, not fall for her. That wasn’t in the job description and he would do well to remember that. Not to mention the plan to move to the other side of the country.

  A thump sounded from the floor above and Beck immediately stood, his senses on alert. “I’ve got to go. I’ll be in touch.” He disconnected the call before Fort could respond. Pocketing his phone, he raced out of the room and headed upstairs. His ankle protested loudly as his took the steps two at a time. At the moment, he didn’t care, he needed to make sure Samantha was okay.

  “Sam, are you okay?” he hollered as he reached the top of the stairs. Beck took a moment to see if he could hear her response before striding to her room.

  Without knocking he flung the door open, his heart pounding, both from exertion and fear that somehow, some way the person threatening Sam had managed to get past security and into the house. Security on the property had been updated and tightened ever since Amberley had been poisoned by a crazy suitor her parents had tried to set her up with.

  “Beck, what the hell are you doing in my room?”

  Standing in the doorway leading from the en suite bathroom to the bedroom was a towel clad Sam. Her hair was wet and curled around her shoulders. Droplets of water dotted her lightly tanned skin above the towel line. His dick tightened in his jeans and he cleared his throat.

  “I-uh-I heard a thump. I came to see if you were okay.” He should look away from her. Look at anything but the way the pale green piece of toweling covered the bare essentials.

  “I knocked over a bottle of body wash when I got out of the shower. I’m fine.”

  Beck bit back a groan at the thought of Sam standing beneath the shower head, her body coated with small bubbles from the body wash. Her nipples standing to attention. Her head thrown back as water cascaded over her body, washing the soap away.

  Walk away. Walk away. Walk away.

  The mantra echoed around his mind and while he knew that’s what he should be doing, his feet had
other ideas. They moved toward Sam, closing the distance until he stood in front of her. The scent of jasmine and mint wafted around him. The need to breath it in consumed him.

  “Beck,” Sam whispered. “What are you doing?”

  She asked the question and her hand went to his chest, splaying across his heart. Their gazes meet and, like before when they’d kissed earlier in the evening, fire lit her brown eyes. Beck reached out and lightly touched her cheek, feathering his finger down her face to the pulse beating rapidly in her neck.

  “You’re so beautiful, Sam.” They weren’t the words he meant to say, but he wouldn’t take them back because they were true. “I need to kiss you. Taste you again. Please tell me you want that?” Her body was swaying toward his and he adjusted his stance, wrapping his free arm around her towel-clad body to steady her.

  Her answer was to wind her arms around his neck and press her breasts against his chest. “Yes.”

  Moaning, he captured her lips and took what she was freely giving. Her mouth opened beneath his and he thrust his tongue inside. Everything he’d told himself while he’d been talking to Fort flew out of his mind. Keeping his distance from Sam was impossible. She called to him in a way he’d never experienced with a woman before. He admired her. The way she looked after her family, even though she was endangering her own life. How could he condemn her for doing what she thought was the right thing? He couldn’t. While he may not agree with her methods, he admired her for her instinct to protect. Wasn’t that what he’d done as SEAL? Protect the innocent no matter how dangerous the situation was to himself? Sam may not have had the tools he had, but she’d worked with what she had and her family remained safe.

  God, how he wanted to sink into her. To kiss and sample every inch of her body. But he couldn’t not yet. Not while he had a job to do.