The man certainly knew his way around the female anatomy well enough to give me the best orgasm of my entire life. Never mind Slave. I didn’t want to think about how many women he’d practiced on or what it meant that I loved every second of it. I especially didn’t want to think of other things I would like to let him do to me, becauseI didn’t want to be that kind of girl.
Not anymore. I had overheard Dad call me wicked when he and Mom learned I was pregnant, and it had taken years of therapy with Dr. Morrison for me to believe I wasn’t. Still, my past relationship with Rick and the resulting consequences of that should have been a powerful reminder to tread cautiously. Besides, Sam wasn’t part of my lifelong plan.
But those lips. That devilish tongue. How he was so turned on by what he was doing to me, he needed to touch himself.
No.
He was too dangerous, made me feel too much, as if I were some life-sustaining thing to be worshipped. Wanted. Needed.Craved.
I didn’t deserve any of that. To remind myself of this last night, I should’ve opened Mom’s email with the subject lineHer Numberinstead of waiting outside his bedroom door.Her Numbershould be made into a warning label I could slap on any available body part when I lost sight of the safe path I needed to take. That or Warning: Pregnancy Can and Does Occur After Unprotected Sex. Warning: Hot Man Ahead—Proceed With Caution. Warning: You Are What You Eat So Cannibalism Totally Makes Sense. If only that last warning label reallywouldsummarize that email, then life would be so much simpler.
After I readied myself for day two of my internship, I traipsed downstairs with an easy smile I hoped looked perfectly relaxed. Inside, however, my blood sizzled at the idea of seeing Sam again. Rounding the corner into the kitchen, I willed that feeling to disappear, and when it didn’t at the sight of him, I tried to breathe through it. And failed miserably.
He stood at the island, half naked like always, hunched over a cup of coffee. His blond hair curtained his vivid blue eyes, and some of it stuck to the rough stubble along his jaw. The same stubble that had scraped my inner thighs in such a delicious way. As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, his tongue skimmed his bottom lip and his mouth tipped up in a devious grin.
Bastard.
“Morning,” he said.
I forced my gaze away from him to Riley who was pouring himself a cup of coffee. He was the picture of professionalism dressed in slacks, a crisp button-up shirt, and a striped blue tie.Hewas supposed to be the safe brother, the one my parents had planned a lifetime of neat and tidy with before they whisked me away to Wichita for Dad’s new job. When I had the baby nine months later, I was too tainted for anyone’s son after that.
“Good morning,” I said, more to Riley than Sam.
“Sleep well?” Riley blew into his cup and strode to the island.
Bags shadowed the skin underneath Riley’s bloodshot eyes, but his fingers marched a sporadic rhythm on the island and his gaze flicked all over the newspaper spread in front of him as if he wasn’t really reading it. It made me wonder how many buckets of coffee he’d already guzzled to fight off his hangover. Between the two glasses of wine he’d had at dinner and the countless beers when we got home, I imagined he wasn’t feeling 100 percent today. I wished I could blame his level of alcohol consumption on his poor behavior in the restaurant, but my gut told me that had little to do with wine and a lot to do with growing up. He just wasn’t the same person I knew as a kid.
If he heard us last night, he didn’t give any indication.
I nodded. “Pretty well.”
“You didn’t stay up too late reading your book porn, did you?”
Okay, the use of that tired phrase was getting really old.
“No book porn last night,” I said, trying to make my voice light.
Sam sat up and looked at me with a trace of a smirk tilting those lips. “So just regular porn, then?”
I strode to the cabinet for a cup to hide the blaze that flamed the tips of my ears.
“Watch it, SamRam,” Riley warned.
“Nope. Just a regular, quiet night with a regular, quiet book.” Quiet because we’d had to be, and the thrill at what we did with Riley in the very next room made it all the more exciting. So not regular at all.
My hands shook as I poured the coffee. It didn’t matter how thrilling it was or how he made me feel or the things he could do with his hands and tongue. There was no room in my life for Sam Cleary. Period.
As if to prove it to myself, I whirled around and slammed into a wall made of muscle and tanned skin. Coffee sloshed out of my mug and splashed dangerously close to a pair of bare feet attached to a half-naked man. Sam stood in front of me, a breath away, gazing down with his signature grin, seemingly unaware how close I’d come to scorching a few of his toes.
“Sorry,” I breathed.
His nearness spun the room, which was now empty except for the two of us. Where had Riley gone?
“He went upstairs. He doesn’t know,” Sam said as if reading my thoughts.
His gaze slowly tracked down my body, shooting electrical surges to my lower belly. My breathing staggered, my nipples hardened, and my whole body turned traitor in the length of time it took for his eyes to return to my face.
“Can I get some of that?”
