Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(58)

Then she stopped dead and stared at us, her lips parting and her eyes darting between us.

Clearly, neither Sam nor I were doing a good job hiding the fact that she’d interrupted an intense conversation.

Then she muttered, “But, I think, I must go and…” she looked around her, “do something first. I’ll be back in –”

“No, that’s okay,” I said quickly, suddenly finding my body pushing back my chair. “Sit. Eat. I, um… we’ll…” I stopped talking, eyes glued to Luci, I surged up, panic controlling my movements, I grabbed my purse and whispered, “I suddenly don’t feel so well. I need to go back to the hotel and lie down. Enjoy shopping.”

Then I took off, dashing through the tables like the fraught heroine in a romantic comedy.

Enjoy shopping?

Ohmigod!

I was a nut. I was an idiot. I was a loser.

And I totally could not do this with Sam.

I wasn’t going to bore him away.

I was going to annoy him away.

God, he was so pissed.

And he couldn’t have sex with me without wearing a condom in case he caught something from me.

Something Cooter might have given me.

Before last night, I had one lover and still, he’d tainted me.

And if the tests didn’t come back clean…

I closed my eyes and nearly ran up the sidewalk, going as fast as my sandals would take me, my breath coming heavy and not from rushing, from holding back emotion. I didn’t know whether to cry, scream or find something to throw because I was so f**king angry.

At myself.

But especially at Cooter.

I slid through the doors to the hotel, raced up the stairs, pulling my key out of my bag as I went.

I was standing at my door, making my second attempt to slide the key in the lock when an iron arm clamped around me.

I choked back my surprised cry, twisted my neck and looked up to see Sam’s hard jaw, a muscle ticking in his cheek, the key was pulled from my hand, Sam inserted it and then we were in my room.

I tried to escape, pulling free from his arm but he caught me, twisting me on the way back so the front of my body hit his, his arm went back around me tight but his other hand slid into my hair, holding my head steady so I was right there when his face got in mine.

I expected him to blow, my body braced and I winced, preparing for it.

But when his voice came, it was soft, gentle but still velvet rough.

“Talk to me, baby.”

I stopped wincing and looked into his eyes.

Then I told him the truth.

“You don’t need this drama.”

“Kia –”

I cut him off. “Luci doesn’t either.”

And she didn’t. Neither of them did.

God.

God!

I ran away from the table like the fraught heroine in a romantic comedy.

How humiliating.

“Don’t worry about that shit; tell me what’s in your head.”

“Sam –”

“What’s in your head?”

“I can’t –”

His face got closer. “Tell me. What’s in your head? Tell me everything that’s goin’ through your head.”

“I’m unclean,” I blurted and his head jerked.

Then he asked, “What?”

“Sam,” I shook my head, “just let me go.”

“Kia –”

“Just let me go!” I shrieked, losing it, tearing out of his arms, taking four quick steps back, I yanked my bag off my shoulder and threw it on the bed.

He started toward me but I lifted up a hand as if to fend him off and he stopped.

“He hit me,” I whispered, it just came out and I watched Sam’s body go rock solid but I couldn’t stop the words flowing so they kept coming. “He backhanded me and he did it so often, I had a scale, how bad it was, I’d rate it. My head whipped to the side that was a one. He took me to the floor that was a ten. And that was the worst because if I hit the floor, more often than not, he’d kick me.”

Sam didn’t move, not an inch, not a twitch, his eyes didn’t even leave me.

“He wore steel toed boots to work.”

Sam moved then, or at least the muscle in his cheek did.

He knew what I was saying.

“I tried to leave, six times, Sam, and never, not once, did I call Mom or Dad, Kyle, Missy, Paula, Teri. Even Ozzie. What was the matter with me?”

“Kia –”

“They would have helped.”

“Kia –”

“It was like, like…” I shook my head and threw up my hands, “like I didn’t actually want to leave.”

“I need to come to you,” Sam said gently but I shook my head again.

“No.” I took another step back, compounding the denial and kept right on talking. “I… he… he’d get mad when I left and he… it was bad when he got me back, Sam. I learned. I learned not to leave. And he was mean and not just mean to me. I mean mean. I tried to figure it out, what changed in him, why he wasn’t who I dated in high school. He was always cocky but he was never mean. But, after he got kicked out of college because his grades were so bad and we got married and life wasn’t so easy, he wasn’t the glory boy anymore, he had to work at things; he got mean. And I worried he’d do shit like slash their tires or get them in trouble at work or follow them, mess with them, freak them out. My Mom had a heart valve replacement, like, seven years ago. She’s okay now but it was scary before we figured out what was wrong. She couldn’t take that. Teri and Missy are single. Paula only got married last year and Rudy would never let anything hurt her, not ever but that wasn’t… she hadn’t started with him until I… until after I gave up.”