Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(22)

I pressed my lips together and tried to force this new knowledge out of my brain. I was failing at this when Sam spoke again, taking my attention and when he took it, the way he took it, he took all of it.

“So tell me, baby,” he asked gently, his tone in his deep, rough-like-velvet voice gliding along my skin, coating it with a sheen that was like an invisible barrier that I knew, if I had a lifetime of his voice stroking that soothing ointment along my skin, nothing would ever harm me and my head turned to him. “You get this, what do I do?”

I was lost in his voice, so lost, his question confused me. “What do you do?”

“Gordo was my boy, we spent a lot of time together, good times. He also had my back in some serious situations and there was no one I trusted more than him. Knowin’ Luci loves him like she does, witnessing her devotion even after he’s gone, gotta admit, Kia, I dig that. Gordo deserves that. But time is passing. She’s young and she’s got a life she isn’t livin’ because she’s dedicating hers to livin’ mine. How do I stop that?”

There was something about this question, an intimacy, a trust that threw me. I’d been in his presence three times and he was asking me a question the answer to which was beyond important. It was about friendship and the wrong answer could lead to the wrong action and might result in the end of their friendship and that could mean me giving him an answer that would guide him to a loss of something that was unbearable.

And, for some insane reason, I found my mouth telling him that.

And I did it like this, “I don’t know, honey. I don’t know Luci so I can’t say and I’d never give blind advice when something as important as friendship lies in the balance. Your friend, if he knew what would happen to him, would trust you to handle her with care. And I wouldn’t be handling her with care if I pretended to know the answer just for the sake of giving you one.”

Sam didn’t reply but the air in the car changed again. This wasn’t an intense pulse. But whatever it was shifted in like it was going to stay awhile, it was warm, languid and it had the kind of feel you wanted to float in forever.

I faced forward, trying to ignore the air and what it was doing to my state of mind and understanding of the world.

“Kia,” Sam called.

“Yeah,” I answered the windshield.

“Your friends handle you with care?”

Oh man.

Shit.

I closed my eyes and opened them, trying to think fast of how to answer without giving away any secrets.

When I did this by not speaking at all, undeterred, Sam compounded his question.

“His boys?”

I pressed my lips together.

Then I gave away a secret, I didn’t say much and hoped it wasn’t too much.

“Yes,” I answered his first question, paused then answered his second question softly, “and no.”

“Right,” he murmured, that word quiet but heavy with an easily read edge of harsh.

This said he got me and he gave a shit. This said he understood and he knew exactly what kind of “boys” Cooter had. And being a man, this meant he could probably guess a variety of ways, some of them likely accurate, of just how Cooter’s friends did not handle me with care not only after his death but prior to it.

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.