Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(123)

When he came into his bedroom, he was no longer on the phone and he was also in his usual not in a sharing mood.

I knew this when he came up behind me as I was bent over my suitcase by the bed, he hooked me around the waist, leaned into me and said quietly in my ear, “Meant it yesterday, honey, make yourself at home. You need to move shit, move it. I’ll stow your bags when you’re done.”

Then he kissed my neck and moved away.

That was nice, very nice and I definitely liked it. But it still wasn’t Sam sharing.

And, it should be noted, Sam didn’t grab his bag and unpack his own stuff.

Whatever.

I did it for him.

A bit later, Sam grilled the chicken at his grill on the deck. I made a salad of raw spinach, arugula, cucumber, carrot, mandarin orange slices and pistachio nuts and prepared some wild rice. I ate mine with a buttered dinner roll we got from the bakery at the grocery store. Sam ate his with an extra breast, double the amount of rice and salad and zero roll.

Sam had also made certain that I had Amaretto and he did this during the detour to the liquor store on the way home from the grocery.

So now I had a snifter (yes, Sam even had snifters) of Amaretto and Sam on a deck at a house on the beach in North Carolina after a good day.

Life was good.

And Sam needed to know that.

So I whispered to the ocean, “Life is good.”

Sam made no verbal response. What he did was a whole lot better.

He trailed the tips of his fingers along the outside of my thigh.

I sighed.

Then I took a sip of Amaretto.

I dropped my hand to rest the base of the glass to the arm of my chair and told the ocean, still whispering, “It was hell, honey.”

Sam again made no response but this time his non-response included physically.

I kept whispering. “Everywhere I’ve been since he’s been gone, I thought was heaven.”

Sam responded to that, both verbally and physically. His fingers glided from the outside to the inside of my thigh and he pulled it toward his until it was resting there and he muttered, “Baby.”

I turned my head to look at him to see he was looking at me. “I was wrong.”

His fingers gave my inner thigh a squeeze.

“This is heaven,” I said softly.

I saw Sam smile.

Then I heard him murmur, “Glad you like my place, honey.”

I shook my head, turned my torso, leaned into my armrest, dropped both my legs into his, imprisoning his warm hand between them and I placed my hand on his chest.

“That’s not what I mean,” I whispered.

Sam twisted toward me, lifted his free hand and wrapped his fingers around the side of my neck.

“What’d you mean, Kia?”

“Anywhere is heaven as long as it’s an anywhere with you.”

The fingers on both Sam’s hands clenched deep, hard, fast and I knew it was reflexively because he didn’t check it and they caused a hint of pain.

Then he was up. Then my snifter of Amaretto was on the deck railing. Then my footrest was shoved out from under my heels. Then I was up, my hand was firm in Sam’s and we were in the house.

He stopped long enough to lock the screened porch door, the front door and quickly punch buttons on the alarm panel.

Then we were in his bed.

There Sam demonstrated to me how I was figuring out Sam demonstrated how much he felt about me.

And two hours later, climbing back into bed after cleaning up and tugging on panties and a nightie, I fell exhausted into Sam’s body and then fell directly asleep.

So directly, I didn’t feel him pull the covers over me.

I also didn’t feel him turn to his side or his arms get tight around me.

And, unfortunately, I didn’t hear his rough-like-velvet voice softly rumble, “Heaven is you, too, baby.” I didn’t feel him kiss my forehead. I didn’t feel him tangle his legs with mine. And, last, I didn’t feel him gather me super close and hold me that way even long after he, too, fell asleep.

Chapter Twenty

Khakis

I woke suddenly when I felt Sam’s arms clamp around me, he rolled us, squeezing the breath out of me when he was on top then he rolled us again and we were in freefall.

I cried out my surprise into the dark.

In the split second it took us to fall, Sam twisted so somehow we landed with bone-jarring thud, me on him, Sam on his back. We stayed that way a millisecond before he rolled us toward the bed then he was knifing up as he growled, “Stay down.”

I did as I was told, heard a drawer open, scraping then Memphis yapped and kept doing it.

What was happening?

Memphis yapped again, quick successions, in a way I’d never heard her yap before.

A warning.

Fear slithered over every inch of my skin.

Then I heard Memphis growl under Sam’s rumbled order of, “Drop it on the bed.”

“Now –” A man’s voice started to say and hearing a stranger in the bedroom in the middle of the night, I quit breathing.

A gunshot blasted the air, loud and terrifying. My body jumped but Sam stayed still and I noted in shock he was the one who fired. Memphis yapped then I heard her claws on the wood floors and with my baby on the move, without thinking, I jerked into action.

Sam clipped, “Kia, stay the f**k down.”