Beyond What is Given(25)

Damn. It was supposed to be better now that I’d seen Grace, remembered my responsibilities, but my brain ran away the minute Sam stepped into my sight. Something was changing in me that I couldn’t stop, like a cracked dam ready to explode and eviscerate everything that lay beneath it. Four days away from her and I was ready to crawl out of my skin to see her smile or hear her laugh. The parts of me that were waking up to her, craving Sam’s sunshine in the darkness were way overpowering the saner parts of my brain screaming for distance.

My trip hadn’t built up my defenses, it had taken a chisel to the mortar.

Sam handed a towel to one of the local guys and gave him a sweet smile as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. My stomach clenched as the guy reached out and touched her arm, and I took a step toward them.

Sam retreated from his touch, still smiling, and it turned into stadium-worthy bright when she saw me. “Grayson!”

She ran the ten feet or so that separated us and flew into my arms. I caught her easily, pulling her against me while her feet dangled off the floor. She hugged me, her grip strong as her vanilla scent overwhelmed me with an unearned sense of peace. Home.

“Ooh, I’m so sorry.” She tried to pull back. “I just jumped right on you!”

I held her tighter, my hand splaying wide along the small ridges of her spine. “I don’t mind.” She melted, resting her cheek along my neck. “How’s my kitchen?”

“I burned it to the ground. I missed you!” She laughed, pulling back to beam that gorgeous smile at me. “And guess what?”

“Guessing with you can be dangerous.” I raised an eyebrow and tightened my grip around her back to keep from gazing any farther south.

“ESCC let me in! I went and talked to the guidance officer, and they’re letting me take classes. I know not all of them will transfer once I get back to the university level…” Her mouth fell a little, like a child who’d been told their artwork wasn’t nice enough to hang on the fridge.

“That’s great, Sam. In fact, I think it’s amazing.” She’d faced her demons head-on and came out victorious.

“Hey, Masters, you maybe want to put her down? Or were you thinking of benching her?” Carter called out with a laugh.

Sam pressed her lips together and dropped her eyes. “Naw,” I called back. “I could, though, as small as you are.” I whispered the last part to her.

Her eyes flew back to mine, wide and impossibly green, and I let her slide down my body, for once taking in every nuance of the way she fit against me, the press of her breasts against my chest to the way her fingers sparked my nerve endings to life as they trailed absently down my chest. Awareness sizzled between us. I’d flipped a switch from friends-only to whatever it was I was flirting with, and she knew it.

I wasn’t sure I was even sorry.

“I came by to tell you I was home. You get back to work; I’ll work out until you’re ready to head home.”

“You don’t have to walk me out.” Her lips curved up, and her eyes darted back and forth between mine, like she was trying to figure out what was going on.

Good luck figuring it out, because damn if I know.

“I know.”

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head with a perplexed smile. “Did you hit your head while you were home?”

“Nope. Now get back to work before you get in trouble.”

“Uh huh.” Sam left to head back to work, and I changed, then took up the station next to where Carter had set up.

“Water,” Sam said as she set the bottle next to the bench. She gave me a shy smile and skipped back to the desk.

I unabashedly watched her walk away.

“What’s the deal there?” Carter asked.

I turned my attention back to the weights, anxious to lose myself in the burn. “No deal, just watching out for her.”

“Or just plain watching her.”

My eyes shot up to his in clear warning.

“Hey, I’m not judging. Sam is gorgeous, and funny, and…damn.” He took a long drink while he watched her lean across the counter to clean it.

“What the hell would you know about Sam?” My fingers dug into the dumbbells.

He raised an eyebrow. “Feeling touchy? I spent some time with her at the barbecue while you were home doing…whatever it is you do when you go home. She’s a firecracker.”

My veins ran thick with something hot that tasted a lot like a jealousy I had no right to. “No. Just… No, Carter.”

The West Point prick had the nerve to grin at me. “Oh, this is going to be fun. You scared you’ll be second choice this time?”

“She is not a game.” I leveled him with a glare, and he leaned back.

“Relax. I have no intentions of fighting over a girl ever again.” He sighed. “Ever.” He took another drink and eyed Sam. “Besides, she’s the first person I’ve seen get under your skin in the year I’ve known you, Masters, and that’s saying something.” He looked back at me and waited for a response.

“We’re not having a moment, Carter. This”—I motioned between us—“is not happening.”

He shook his head and laughed. “Someone needs to warn her what an * you really are.”

Grace’s face sprang to mind, not like I’d seen her this weekend but before it happened. Her smiles, laughs, the way she’d slide over in the Mustang to lay her head on my shoulder. Then…after. The way she’d looked through me when I’d held her…when she’d stopped seeing me.