“Talk to me,” he ordered gently.
I shook my head, put my hands to his biceps and pushed back as I started, “Sam, I –”
His arms got tight and it was proved positive I was totally clueless because he was not a small man, he was a tall man, he was definitely a muscular man and thus I should have cottoned onto the fact that he was a very strong man and I knew this in that instant because his arms separated, one going low at my waist, one going up to rest under my shoulder blades. They got tight in a way I knew there was no escape even without trying and suddenly I found myself chest to chest, hips to hips and thighs to thighs, pressed deep to Sam Cooper.
Then his neck bent and his face was an inch from mine.
My stomach pitched, my knees wobbled and my mouth clamped shut.
When he had my undivided attention, he said in a firm, unrelenting but still somehow gentle voice, “That was not a request.”
“I need some space, Sam,” I whispered and it was breathy mostly because I was breathing so hard I was close to panting.
“You’re not going to get it.”
Say what?
“Sam!” I snapped.
“Talk,” he returned.
“I get to decide when I want to talk, not you,” I retorted and that was when it happened.
Right then.
Right there (nearly).
Within maybe ten minutes of showing up at his dead, best friend’s wealthy, gorgeous, famous wife’s fabulous villa on Lago di Como, it happened.
Sam released me with one arm but only to twist, taking me with him and putting the champagne flute on a table within his reach and he repeated this maneuver when he divested me of my bag. Then he shuffled me backwards out the door. Once there, he turned me to his side, his arm clamped around my waist and he pulled me to the very end corner of the terrace balustrade, alone, no one close. There, he twisted me into the corner and caged me in.
And through this, I lost it. Completely. I forgot who he was but I didn’t forget who I was. I didn’t forget what I learned at the hands of my husband. It had been months but I remembered it in excruciating detail.
And Sam’s actions brought back Cooter’s lessons and fear gripped me, extreme and paralyzing.
So when his hands came to either side of my neck, his thumbs at my jaws forced my head back to look at him and I did, his head jerked with his flinch so violently, it was like I struck him and I knew it was written all over my face.
“Baby,” he whispered and his voice was not rough-as-velvet. It was just rough.
“Step back,” I whispered and there was no way to miss the plea.
“Kia.”
“Step back.”
“Kia.”
“Step back.”
There it was.
A whimper.
Weak. Exposed.
Humiliated, I closed my eyes tight, tried to turn my face away and Sam allowed this, his thumbs gliding from my jaws but he kept me pinned and he kept his hands at my neck.
Then he ground out, “He hurt you.”
Oh man.
Oh God.
How did this happen?
Why couldn’t I keep anything secret?
I kept my eyes closed and my face averted.
Sam kept going.
“He did it often.”
I couldn’t escape him so I did the only thing I could. I twisted my neck deeper to turn my face further away in hopes he couldn’t see it.
“He didn’t check it, not once, not fuckin’ once,” Sam kept speaking, his voice now abrasive.
He wasn’t pissed. He was angry.
Oh God!
Sam didn’t relent.
“He broke you.”
“Step back,” I pleaded.
He didn’t step back.
He did something entirely different.
Both his arms closed around me, one at my middle back, the other around my shoulder, his hand up and curled tight at the back of my neck, his fingers pressing in to keep my head turned away and his mouth was at my ear, so close, I could feel his nose brushing my hair.
“I didn’t know.” Now his voice was rough a different way. “I didn’t know. If I had known –”
“Sam, don’t,” I cut him off. “Please just move away.”
His arms got tighter and he ignored me. “I’d never hurt you.”
I swallowed and stopped talking.
“I wanted your attention, Kia. That’s it. I get where you are now, baby, and I’ll never do that again and I would never, no fuckin’ joke, baby, please get this, I would never, ever hurt you.”
I stayed silent.
Sam stayed close.
I didn’t move.
He didn’t let me go.
God, I needed him to let me go!
I swallowed again, hard, and I did it to swallow back tears so my breath hitched and my chest jumped with the effort and his arms got tighter.
“My Dad beat my Ma.”