He peered at her, a skeptical arch to his brow. “I’m not sure I believe that.”
“Believe it,” Samiah said. “I hate admitting this, but I’m still so nervous about this entire thing.”
Nervous and scared. But confessing that would kill the mood for her.
“But why?” Daniel asked, clearly oblivious to the threat his questions had to her postsex buzz. His fingers drifted along her arm, moving in a languid caress. “You’re so damn good at your job. Why don’t you think you wouldn’t be just as good at the app?”
“Simple. I can’t control what happens with the app,” Samiah answered. “With the job—not just the job at Trendsetters, butanyjob I ever take—I know that I can succeed as long as I do what’s expected of me. And, because Iamme, I’m not going to stop at just what’s expected. I’m going to go above and beyond.”
“Of course,” Daniel said.
“That’s just how I roll,” she said with a laugh. “But it’s different with the app. I can create the most amazing thing ever, but what if I can’t find an investor? What if I put in all this work, am lucky enough to find an investor, and then the app tanks?”
“You wouldn’t be the first person to experience that,” Daniel said.
“I know, but it…it scares me,” she said.
She swallowed hard, a thick lump of emotion catching in her throat as one of the most profound memories from her childhood came crashing to the surface.
“Back when I was in the third grade, just before my eighth birthday, I woke up one night and went into the kitchen for a Capri Sun.” She smiled. “They were supposed to be school snacks only, but I would sneak one from the refrigerator and blame it on my sister.” She blew out a deep breath. “I remember walking in the kitchen and hearing this strange sound I’d never heard before coming from the breakfast table. I walked just beyond the kitchen island and noticed my dad bent over, his arms folded atop the table, his head resting on them.
“He was crying.”
Silence stole across the room, the only sounds those of the light traffic on the city streets below.
“I asked him what was wrong, even though I knew I’d get scolded for being up past my bedtime. But instead of telling me to go back to bed, he brought me onto his lap and apologized to me. He said we wouldn’t be able to go to the zoo for my birthday because they needed to save money. He’d lost his job earlier that week.” She nestled against Daniel’s chest, resting her cheek on his smooth skin. “This all happened before he became a teacher,” she continued. “My dad went back to school in his thirties, got his degree, and started teaching just as I entered high school. Thankfully, it wasn’t atmyhigh school,” she said with another laugh.
“But that night, when I saw my daddy crying like his heart had broken in two, it did something to me. He was Superman in my eyes. He was the person who put a Band-Aid on my cuts and kissed them when I cried. Seeing him in that state is something I will never, ever forget.
“That night, he told me to make sure I controlled every part of my life, because when you’re not in control awful things can happen and you can’t do anything about it. That’s why I need to control as much as possible.”
She’d worked enough of this out in her head some time ago, and knew that her rigid adherence to her checklist had something to do with this intense need she always had to be in control, but she’d never put voice to the words.
It was only recently that Samiah began to wonder if this was why she’d never pursued a real relationship before either. Because she couldn’t control the way someone felt about her. Just the prospect of finding herself in such a vulnerable state caused her breath to hitch.
“You may think you can’t control what happens with this app, Samiah, but you do. You control how it looks, how it operates, everything. And when you’re done with it, it’s going to be so brilliant that you won’t be able to field all the offers you’re going to get. You have nothing to be afraid of.”
He dipped his head and captured her mouth in a kiss that stole the breath from her lungs, and the fear that suddenly came over her had nothing to do with her app or her job or anything else.
The thing she feared for the most right now was her heart.
Chapter Twenty-One
Acrisp wind, scented with an amalgam of freshly cut grass, earthy wet soil, and burning hickory from a nearby smokehouse restaurant, hit his face the moment he opened his car door. Per Samiah’s instructions, he’d parked near the baseball diamond on the south bank of Barton Creek in Zilker Park. Despite the early hour, nearly half the parking spots were already filled with Austinites eager to enjoy what promised to be a beautiful Sunday.
Daniel still couldn’t describe the sheer euphoria that swept through him when Samiah asked if he wanted to join them. Her friendTaylor wanted to test out a boot camp–style fitness classand needed feedback before adding it to her repertoire. He didn’t care that he was here to play guinea pig. She was opening up another part of her world to him; that’s what counted.
Leaving her, naked and twisted up in those silken silver sheets this morning, was, without a doubt, the hardest thing he’d done since returning from his final deployment. He would carry the memories from last night with him long after he returned to Virginia. The sounds she’d made, the sensation of her damp skin sliding against his, the way it felt to sink into her warm, welcoming body. Memories of the way she’d responded would stay with him forever, a mental storage bin of erotic keepsakes he could open whenever he wanted to replay one of the most amazing nights he’d ever experienced.
It scared the hell out of him. Because those same memories would no doubt torture him once she was no longer in his life.
Instead of turning left and driving toward the freeway when he pulled out of her building’s parking garage in the early hours before dawn, he’d headed in the opposite direction, grabbed a cup of weak coffee from an all-night diner, and meandered around downtown Austin for a full hour. Concerns over what these past few weeks meant to his future dominated his thoughts. This wasn’t a random hookup that he could walk away from. Last night had left an indelible mark on him. Therewasno walking away.
Extricating himself from the web he’d allowed himself to become enmeshed in would require skills Daniel wasn’t sure he possessed. Most frightening, he wasn’t sure he wanted to get out of it. He didn’t want to even think about how he would get out of this because he knew it would fucking kill him to leave.
Except he had to leave. If there was one given in all of this, it was that his time in Austin was temporary.
The question was, when hedidleave, would he have the chance to tell Samiah goodbye or would he just disappear? It could go either way. He’d had jobs in the past where he was there one day and gone the next. No forwarding address. No Facebook profile for his coworkers to find him. Nothing. He became a ghost.
