I laughed at the boyish sparkle in his eyes. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m undead serious,” he said, completely deadpan.
I just about dove headfirst into the pan of gravy with bouts of laughter that left my limbs feeling like jelly. He made it so easy to forget that I hadn’t seduced him to go see Rose and practice my information-finding skills, and I almost didn’t care about the repercussions. Almost.
When I regained my composure, or as much as I could have around Sam, I said, “God, I needed that. Thank you.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “You’re welcome.”
“And thank you for letting me stay here.”
“You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his tight, black T-shirt. “No more thank-yous or I’m going to have to start charging you rent.”
“Fair enough.” The timer chimed, and with an oven mitt, I checked the bacon-wrapped pork chops. “Not quite done. Or at least I don’t think so.”
He moved to my side, his body heat warming my skin. His musky leather scent mixed with the sizzling kitchen smells into some kind of divine sensory overload. I turned to him for his response, but discovered his gaze trained on me.
He thumbed my chin, parting my lips, his eyes shuttered with a worshipful heat when he leaned in. My breath caught. The erratic knocking in my chest tipped me closer to him so our mouths were inches apart. Desire pooled between my thighs, and I reached a hand for his waist to steady myself.
“You’ve been preoccupied,” he said softly, removing his warm hand from my face.
“I’ve been busy,” I corrected, trying, and probably failing to make him believe me. He’d likely not forgotten about our run-in with Rick.
“You can talk to me, you know. Rose—” He swallowed at the first mention of his sister he’d uttered since I’d arrived, and my heart broke for him. “She said I’m a good listener, so...”
I nodded and looked away, not wanting him to read what I already knew. “Do you remember when she begged Riley for days to turn on the sprinkler in the backyard so all of us would play tag with her?”
“Yellow bird tag,” he said with a frown.
“Yeah.” I drifted my hand at his waist up to his chest, flattening my palm against the hard muscle, as if to soak away his pain. “Why did she call it that?”
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “She was always complaining that we would never let her win, that she was always it. So I started wrapping a yellow band aid around her finger. I told her it would give her wings.”
A pressure unfurled inside my chest, both pleasant and painful, lightweight and heavy, and wove the beautiful and complicated sum of all those parts into the center of my heart. I didn’t quite understand the feeling or where it came from, and I found I didn’t really want to. It was enough to just exist, and I would hold it close.
I stared up into those shockingly blue eyes. “You’re a good person, Sam.” My voice came out a whisper through my clamped throat.
He chuckled, bitter and dry. “I let my little sister win at tag. That’s all.”
“You don’t like to talk about—” I started, but an alarm pierced the air in deafening wails. I covered my ears and winced.
“Smoke alarm,” Sam shouted and pushed the off button on the stove. “It’s the bacon grease.”
I elbowed open the kitchen door and waved the smoke outside. Sam found a broom and stabbed the alarm that had every intention of causing permanent hearing damage.
This had to be someone’s idea of a joke, and I had to admit, it was kind of funny. Was it really bacon grease or had we just heated up the kitchen with our combustible attraction? Or had I eaten too many cornballs for breakfast?
Even now, my eardrums shaking, I was still breathless and simmering from Sam’s touch. Watching the muscles in his shoulders and arms flex while he tried to smash the alarm with the broom handle wasn’t helping me calm down any, either. Neither was the focused set of his jaw, his blond hair falling across his forehead, or his angry glare. The man had passion for every single thing he did.
The alarm ended as abruptly as it began, and the silence somehow seemed just as loud. I let the tension from the noise whoosh from my lungs then closed the door behind me.
“You killed it?” I asked, glancing at the alarm.
“I think so,” he said with a sigh.
“And that’s why you don’t put bacon in the oven, huh? Go ahead and say I told you so.” I’d been attempting something crazy by introducing Sam to a different part of a pig, but I supposed the smoke alarm was a warning to rethink that strategy.
He cocked a smile while his gaze drank me in. I shivered despite the summer heat I’d let inside washing across my bare skin and the burning in his eyes.
