I thought he was going to hold it and he did but first he lifted it to his mouth and brushed my knuckles against his lips before he dropped it to his thigh and muttered, “Grateful for that, honey.”
For a second, I didn’t speak. For a second, the whisper-soft touch of his lips on my knuckles, the sweet way he did it, why he did it, grateful to me for talking to a friend he was worried about, took that moment to burn in my brain.
Then I whispered, “Not a problem,” and squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back.
I kept my gaze steady out the windshield and thought of Travis Gordon being impatient with the lushly attractive Luciana’s game, walking away from her and when she ran after him, asking, “Done with that shit?”
That was so Sam. In fact, he almost said the same thing to me when he thought I was playing a game.
And Sam was so big, so strong, so powerful, so vital, I couldn’t imagine him suddenly being none of those things and instead nothing but gone.
So I sucked in breath through my nose and remembered my promise to Luci not to waste a second.
Fifteen minutes later, my promise was put to the test when we were standing outside my door, Sam slid my key out of my hand, opened it and held it open for me to go in. He followed me, threw the key on the table by the door and stood there.
I was walking in, pulling my purse off my shoulder when I noticed and looked back at him.
“Come here, Kia,” he ordered gently.
I threw my bag on a chair and walked to him, head tilted in confusion.
When I made it to him, his arms slid loosely around me, he tipped his chin down and he said quietly, “I’ve been pushin’ and today, I see I pushed too hard. I’m gonna give you some space tonight. You get up, call me and I’ll meet you for breakfast before we go.”
I stared up at him.
He bent his neck and kissed my nose.
My nose.
“Sleep well and have good dreams,” he whispered, gave me a light squeeze, let me go, turned, opened and walked through the door.
I stood there while he did all that except, when the door started closing, I caught it, moved into it, leaned into the hall then asked Sam’s departing back, “You’re leaving?”
He stopped, turned and looked at me.
“You need space,” he informed me.
“Don’t tell me what I need, Sam. Only I know what I need.”
He held my eyes.
I leaned further forward, stretched out an arm and grabbed his hand.
That was all I had to do.
In half of one of his long strides, he was at me, crowding me and I was back through the door. Then he bent and, with a small, surprised cry, I was over his shoulder. The door clicked shut and in five strides Sam tossed me on the bed.
Then he followed me down.
*
Eight hours and forty-five minutes later…
Sam and I walked into the dining room together holding hands and, when his eyes caught sight of us, dropped to our hands then back to my face, I didn’t have to speak Italian to translate the maitre d’s look of pure, unadulterated glee.
Chapter Eleven
That Means Somethin’ to Me
Five days later…
It was mid-morning and I was at the pool waiting for Sam to finish working out so I could make the big move from the pool to the beach.
This was the way our days were rolling out: up (make love), breakfast, I would go to the pool, Sam would go to the hotel gym to work out or take to the streets for a run. Then Sam would shower, come and get me (this was an added or alternate making love time slot) and go with me to the beach. In the afternoon, we’d find food and since Sam would be d-o-n-e, done with lying around at the beach, I’d shower, we would jump in the Jeep he rented and explore.
On our first day there, I learned Sam was not a lying around on the beach man, he was an action man. Although I was a lying around on the beach gal, it was cool he was an action man because exploring was fun. It was also cool that, even though he was an action man, he gave me my time by the pool and beach and he did it without complaint.
It was a nice compromise, something I’d never experienced before in my life. With Cooter I did the compromising, I didn’t know what it was like to have a fair dose of what I wanted before I gave in to what someone else wanted.
It felt good.
And, with Sam, giving in wasn’t giving in, as such. Giving in led to some great times.
For instance, we found a tiny, awesome fishing village set in a spectacular bay while we were exploring. We got there late afternoon and stayed there well into the evening because the open taverna where we had dinner had a band that was killer, Greek music, lots of clapping and, in the end, dancing, though, Sam didn’t dance, but an old guy pulled me up and I had a blast.
We also found the cave where Zeus was born after driving up a hair-raising mountain road that was totally worth it once we climbed further up the mountain on foot and then climbed down to Zeus’s birthplace.