The VIP Room(39)

“Who is Sergey?” I asked, needing to know. Sam had reacted to the name as if it had meant something to him.

“I’m guessing it’s Tsepov.”

“The Russian mob guy? The one with the poker room where Tim said Nolan was playing?”

“Yes.” Sam flicked his eyes to me. In the dark, they gleamed a hard, deep blue. “And no. You are not going anywhere near that poker room or Tsepov. I’ll call Axel when I get home and see what he’s got. But you’re staying out of this.”

“Sam, I think-” He cut me off before I could say anything else.

“No. Just no. I get that you need to help find your brother. But if Nolan loves you anywhere near as much as you love him, do you really think he wants you getting tangled up with the Russian mob?”

“No,” I said. Then, in a small voice, I admitted, “If he was really thinking of me at all, he wouldn’t have gotten involved with them, either.”

Sam took my hand and squeezed. It was no more than he’d been trying to point out for a while. Nolan lived with me. If he’d been across town, or in another city, things would have been different. But when we shared an address, anything he brought home was tied to me. He’d put me in danger. And for what? Why? With a sigh, I looked out the window and let my thoughts drift. I wanted a break, just for a little while. I didn’t want to think about Nolan. I didn’t want to worry.

Sam parked the car in the garage and came around to help me out. Like he had the day before, instead of giving me his hand, he slid his arm around my back and lifted me out, pressing my body into his. At the impact of his hard chest, my nipples beaded into points and I let out a tiny gasp. I wasn’t a small woman, but Sam was so big next to me, tall and all muscle.

I tried not to whimper as he lowered me, scraping my nipples against his chest, the impact barely dulled by our clothes. Just before my feet touched the concrete, he swore and lifted me again, raising me to waist height. My legs instinctively locked around his waist in a tight clasp, holding him to my body.

With a groan, he pressed me into the side of his truck as his mouth came down on mine. My sensible side was nowhere to be found. I opened for him, my lips warming under his, my tongue reaching into his mouth. His kiss stole my breath away as I fell into it, sinking my hands into his hair and gripping tight to keep him exactly where he was.

Sam’s hips pinned me to the side of the truck, and I felt the hard length of his cock pressing through layers of denim to tease me. I couldn’t help but rock my hips into the delicious friction. When his hand snaked under my shirt to splay across my back, I shivered from the heat and strength in his fingers. A twist of those fingers on the clasp of my bra and the band fell loose.

He didn’t hesitate in leaning me forward to get to my breasts, and I was too far gone to stop him. His hands now more frantic than practiced, he leaned me back into the truck and pushed my shirt up, dragging my bra with it, until my breasts were exposed in the dimly lit garage.

“Fuck, Chloe. I swear you’re the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen,” he groaned. I might have doubted him, but the look in his eyes, the hunger and rapt devotion convinced me that, whatever I thought, Sam loved my breasts. Before I could think about what he was doing, he dropped his mouth to one nipple and sucked.

My head fell back with the shock of hot pleasure, thunking against the truck’s frame. I moaned and arched my back, offering him more. With the press of his hips and the clasp of my legs holding me up, Sam had both hands free, and he used them. Strong fingers closed over my breast, plumping it, feeding my nipple into his mouth as he sucked harder, then shifted his head to feast on the other side.

I rocked against him, the pressure between my legs sending me higher, flooding my body with more pleasure than I’d ever felt from a man, more than I’d dreamed in those times I’d slid my own fingers between my legs and imagined what it would be like with Sam.

“Sam,” I moaned, as his fingers closed over one nipple and he tongued the other. “Sam, please. Please.”

I didn’t even know what I was asking for. Not really. But the promise of his mouth on my breasts was shredding my intentions. All my protests about a relationship with Sam had drifted away, dispersed by this dizzying pleasure and the reality of being touched, not by a man, but by Sam.

Who knows how far it would have gone if his phone hadn’t begun to ring. At first we ignored it, too lost in our desire for one another to care about the insistent beeping in Sam’s pocket. When the phone fell silent and then began to sound again, Sam groaned and pulled away, drawing a moan of disappointment from between my lips.

Still, he ignored the phone, gently pulling down my shirt, his eyes not meeting mine. He answered the phone, his arm around my shoulders firmly leading me past the hood of the truck and into the back hall of the house.

“What do you have?” A pause. “I’ll call you back when I’m in my office. Give me a minute.”

Sam walked me to his bedroom door and stopped. His eyes touched on mine, then skated away, their normally vibrant blue dark and shadowed.

“Chloe,” he said and stopped. “I-”

“Sam, it’s-”

“No,” he said, interrupting. “Don’t tell me it’s okay. I promised you I wasn’t going to push you. Or take advantage. And I’m not. I won’t. I’m not going to change your mind like this. I’m sorry. Go to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”