And they hadn’t.
Well, it appeared I’d said three words and still I said too much.
I looked out the side window. Sam drove without speaking. After some time, he turned into the forecourt of a rather large but weirdly not imposing pink villa.
He rolled the Lamborghini to a stop, a red-coated valet rushed to his door and another one rushed to mine as I undid my seatbelt and saw Sam turned to the valet but shaking his head.
Then, when I’d released the seatbelt, he turned to me.
His hand shot out, caught me around the back of my neck and pulled me across the short expanse of the car to within an inch of his face and when he had me in position and I was concentrating on breathing, he rocked my world.
“There are very few, very f**kin’ few people, Kia, who get what’s precious in this world. They work their asses off for pure shit and think they’d fight and die to keep it. You don’t fight and die for shit. You fight and die for things that matter. You are the first woman I’ve met outside a life that leads you to understand that shit who gets that. And straight up, baby, you gotta know, I like that a f**kuva lot.”
Oh… wow.
“Sam –”
He shook his head, his eyes dropped to my mouth, I kept consciously breathing in air and letting it out then his eyes came back to mine and he brought me half an inch closer so I stopped breathing completely.
Then he whispered probingly, his eyes staring deep into mine, “Unless life led you to that.”
At that moment, that close, with his hand on me, his eyes looking deep into mine, I wanted to hand him another secret.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
He could never know.
Because I understood right then that I was an imposter. Sampson Cooper thought I was someone I wasn’t.
Celeste had been wrong. I didn’t need to find a man who proved his worth before I shared my secrets.
Sam needed to find a woman who proved hers before he shared his.
And I decided, staring in his eyes, I would live that night with Sam, live it to its fullest.
I’d need it because it would have to last a lifetime.
And that was why I answered, “Can we go in, Sam? I need champagne.”
Sam said not a word. He also didn’t let me go. And lastly, he didn’t release my eyes.
Finally, he spoke and when he did, he did it with a quiet warning that made my heart hurt.
“I see it, Kia, and I get this is gonna take effort. But what I’m sensin’ is, you don’t notice I’m makin’ that effort. Don’t f**k up, baby, and, out of habit, reinforce your shields to hold back a threat that doesn’t exist. You get me?”
Okay, it was safe to say he was kind of freaking me out with how much he knew when I thought I was doing a bang up job keeping it guarded.
Without a single clue as to how to reply, I licked my lips to buy time. His eyes dropped to them, I watched them heat, their heat made heat rise in certain areas of my body and his fingers tensed at my neck.
Right, mental note, when Sam Cooper was an inch away, don’t lick your lips to buy time.
His eyes came back to mine and, when they did, immediately I nodded.
He let me pull away two inches and he did this with his mouth twitching.
Then he said, “Fuck me, how a woman can be so transparent and so full of shit at the same time is beyond me, but, baby, you got it down to an art.”
Well! I was so sure.
“I’m not full of shit,” I informed him.
“Your eyes run through every play you can make before you even twitch. Don’t know what I do or what shuts off in you when you forget that bullshit and be real but, I promise you, Kia, I’m gonna find out.”
Uh-oh.
That didn’t sound good.
I had no idea how to respond so I decided to go with annoyed bravado.
“Sam, I keep telling you, I’m not playing at anything.”
“Then, baby, you are totally clueless but still an idiot savant with this shit because I’ve had my fair share of experience and you’re a master.”
Seriously?
I mean, seriously?
“All right, Sam,” I retorted acidly. “I’ll tell you what’s not a good play. What’s not a good play is telling your date on your first date that you’ve had your fair share of experience.”
He burst out laughing and jerked me forward the two inches I gained and, let me tell you, watching him laughing that close was hot.
Shit!
He was still smiling when he stopped laughing and asked, “Honest to God, you think you can convince me you didn’t already know?”
“Didn’t already know what?” I snapped.
“I played football then I joined the Army, these are not the occupations of a man who does not like to get himself some and often. You know both. You also know I played pro ball so you know I had choices and there is no way you can convince me you think I’m a man who wouldn’t avail myself of that every chance I got.”
Was he for real?
Suddenly, I was rethinking Sam needing a good, loving, decent woman working hard to prove she was worthy of his secrets. Suddenly, I was thinking Sam needed a woman, any woman, to kick him in the shin.
“You aren’t making things better, Sam,” I warned, pulling at his hand.
This was a mistake. That hand tightened. I got the message. Do not pull away.
I stopped pulling.
His hand told me one thing but his face was smiling huge and in a way that did crazy things to my system, crazy things that felt really good at the same time they scared the shit out of me.
Then his hand pulled me closer but his head veered to the side and, at my ear, he whispered, “You cannot bullshit me, you know what kind of man I am. What you don’t know is, I like to get me some but everything you do, everything you wear, everything you say, every signal you give tells me I’m gonna really like gettin’ some of you.”
Oh.
My.
God.
Ohmigod!
Oh. My. God!
Before I could get my stalled systems (heart, lungs, brain) functioning again, he released me and he did it in a way I’d never forget, in a way no woman would ever forget, in fact, I figured I should find some way to tell the world so his smooth move could hit history books.
And this was, his mouth left my ear and his lips trailed down my jaw at the same time his hand left the back of my neck but his fingers also trailed down the other side of my jaw. Both touches were light, a tease, a dare, making me want more and telling me I’d have to go for it to get it.