Heaven and Hell (Heaven and Hell #1)(95)

“I got money.”

“So do I, Sam.”

“Kia,” he said warningly, his face getting closer. “Don’t cross this line. I protect myself. I protect my home. I protect my family. And I protect my woman. I do it how I need to do it. No discussion. Are you with me?”

“Are you saying you’re with me?” I asked cautiously.

“I’m saying I want you breathing for long enough to figure that out.”

I wanted that too so that was a good answer… kind of.

“So you’re not with me?” I whispered.

“Kia –”

“Sam.”

He held my eyes.

Then his other hand came up to my neck and he stated, “I feel somethin’ for you, it already runs deep. We may as well get this straight, I don’t know where this is goin’ but I like where it is, I like how it feels and while we figure it out, it’s exclusive. That means you’re mine. I protect what’s mine. That’s where I am, that’s where you are. Now are you with me?”

I wanted to be. Boy did I want to be.

But I wasn’t.

So that was why I said, “If this doesn’t work, it ends and we’re over, I don’t want you to find another woman you like being with and me being on the list of how women have screwed you over. This isn’t your problem, it’s mine. I have the money and I want to pay.”

His fingers gave me a squeeze and his face got even closer when he whispered, “That, baby, that right there says you will never be on that list. I can tell you not a single woman I’ve been with even offered to pay for a drink. You are not them, I knew it before but I know it even more now.”

I lifted one of my hands to rest on his chest and whispered back, “Okay, I appreciate that, but I still want to pay.”

“You’re crossing that line, Kia,” he stated, his voice getting an edge.

“Sam, I have to,” I pushed.

“No,” he returned, his voice now hard, so hard I blinked. “Right now, this is what we are. Right now, this is working. Right now, there’s no chance this is gonna end and we’re gonna be over. So right now and for the foreseeable future, you… are… mine.”

His hands swayed me (and Memphis) gently with each of the last three words and my eyes were riveted to the intensity in his. He could be intense but this was something different, deeper, starker, profound.

He kept talking.

“And you’re under threat. I lived from the minute I could make a memory to the minute I tossed that ass**le outta my mother’s house not able to eliminate the threat that was livin’ in my own goddamned home, my mother in danger, my brother in danger, my family, including me, ruled by an iron fist, a fist that lashed out randomly and brutally. That is not happening again, sweetheart. Danger darkens my door and threatens what’s mine, I’ll handle it. This is me and you gotta know this about me. If you can’t see it my way, you gotta beat it back, keep your mouth shut and let me do this because we’re not having this conversation again, not after this shit is over for you and, if we go the distance, not in our future. I protect what’s mine how I gotta do it and with no discussion. Now, Kia, whether you’re with me or you’re not, right now, you say you’re with me.”

I stared up at him thinking, sometimes, what Sam said went too.

Therefore I did the only thing I could do, I whispered, “I’m with you.”

Sam held my eyes, body unmoving, the intensity didn’t shift from his gaze and I knew something had a hold on him and I suspected it didn’t all have to do with me.

Then he sucked breath into his nose, muttered, “Right,” pulled me up to him as his head tipped to me and he kissed my nose. His hands left my neck, he rubbed Memphis’s head and continued on another mutter, “Shower then I get this shit done.”

Then he turned and started down the hall.

“I’m not your mother.”

Yes. That was me.

I didn’t know where it came from but it came from somewhere and then it came right out.

Sam’s body locked for a half a second then, stiffly, he turned and looked at me.

“Come again?” he asked quietly.

I held his eyes then I pulled in a breath, bent slightly, dropped Memphis to her feet, straightened and looked at him again.

And when I did, I knew where it came from.

So I told Sam.

“What just happened there,” I said carefully, “was not about me. You don’t talk about you very much but I think you’re reliving what happened to you when you were a kid. I’m not your mother. I don’t know what happened with that but what happened to me is my responsibility, not my Dad’s, my Mom’s, Ozzie’s or anybody’s. And now I’m in this mess and that’s my responsibility too.” He opened his mouth but I lifted a hand quickly and whispered, “I said I was with you, I’m with you, I promise, honey. I’m not crossing that line. It means something to you so I won’t.”

He closed his mouth.

I kept going.

“But this is still my responsibility. I was young and stupid but I made the decision I made and it happened. Now it’s clean up time and this is different. This isn’t your Mom and your brother. I’m not alone. I never have been. If you’re sorting through past demons while going through this with me, you need to face that and I think we both need to know that isn’t clouding how you feel about what’s happening here.”