Just when Sam was about to give up and take another anxiety-inducing cab ride to the nearest hotel, the front door whirled open. Standing before him in all her furious glory was a fuming hot little firecracker. She narrowed her eyes as she swung the front door wide. “What the hell do you…”
The firecracker’s eyes widened in surprise. Sam’s widened in amazement. He gulped at the sight that greeted him. His arousal was instantaneous and extremely painful.
Lord have mercy.
It was Cupcake. A very sexy, all grown up Cupcake. She was molded into a pair of Daisy Duke shorts that just begged a man’s mind to wander to what was inside of them. And the jersey she wore,his jersey, he thought possessively—gawd damn!
Sam’s eyes trailed over the shirt, noticing with much delight how his boyhood jersey fit Cupcake snugly across her bountiful breasts. He looked closer and realized— oh baby!—she wasn’t wearing a bra. Her large nipples were puckered into points that reminded him of cherries on top of a sundae. He bet they tasted like them too. He shifted uncomfortably when his erection grew larger, but couldn’t seem to break his gaze from that jersey.
Sam sensed a little furious tension emanating from the object of his desire when she cleared her throat, all but demanding he look her in the face. Reluctantly, Sam tore his gaze from her chest to her eyes. And oh baby, she looked just as good up there! Gwen’s eyes were still as green as ever. Her hair was still long, tawny, and sleek, and yes, it was pulled up into that cock teaser of a topknot. And her lips—sweet Jesus!—he’d never noticed how full and ripe they were before. Man oh man what lips like those could do to his…
Sam cleared his throat, trying his damnedest to erase his brain of its wayward thoughts. He supposed Gwen would take it badly if after eleven years of absence, he suddenly burst through the door, threw her to the carpet, and buried himself deep inside of her like a caveman who’d been gone too long from the cave. Ahh well, that could happen later.
Sam offered Gwen his most killer smile. The same one he reserved for a lady he was wantin’ to score big-time with. It was the grin that showed off his white teeth and lifted one corner of his mouth in an ever so slightly rakish way. “Hi there, Cupcake. Can I come in?”
Chapter 4
Gwenyth was briefly disconcerted by the fact that her first impulse upon opening the door and realizing who was standing there was to throw herself into Sam Tremont’s arms and beg him to make love to her. She sighed dejectedly. He’d never welcome that. He thought of her as a—gee how sweet—little sister.
Gwenyth’s face colored slightly when she realized that Sam was staring straight at her chest. Great. Just great! He was obviously wondering why she had kept his #33 jersey after all these years. He probably thought she was still pining away for him. Well, she’d show him. Gwenyth Jones pines over no man! She might still fantasize about him, and her last serious relationship two years ago might have broken up after she’d inadvertently screamed out Sam’s name in a crucial sexual moment, but she never, ever pined, damn it!
Clearing her throat and quickly donning what she hoped was a nonchalant air about her, Gwenyth waited for Sam to meet her gaze. And when he did, her knees all but buckled. She knew his eyes were blue, but she hadn’t remembered them being that blue. And when he smiled—good grief—she almost forgot that it wouldn’t be at all the thing to tear open his very fashionable blue jeans, jump into his embrace, and impale herself on his flesh then and there. Lord knows she was wet enough to make it an easy entry.
Sam’s voice broke through Gwenyth’s daze, causing her to straighten up and take a deep, steadying breath. “Hi there, Cupcake. Can I come in?”
Cupcake—he still called her Cupcake. Annoyed by how much wetter her panties were growing with each word he uttered, she ruthlessly squelched her attraction to Sam, consigning it to the nether lands, and concentrated on answering his question. Smiling like the gracious southern hostess Verlene had taught her to be, she gracefully threw her hand toward the hall. “By all means, come on in.”
Sam inclined his head, his eyes never leaving her. Was she going crazy, or was he studying her dimples like a snake caught in a mesmerizer’s hold? She shook her head mentally, telling herself she was only imagining things. Thrusting her hands into the back pockets of her cutoffs, she regarded Sam. “Would you like me to show you to the bedroom?”
Sam gulped. She watched in fascination as his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down in time with his swallow. Great. Just wonderful. He was looking at the jersey again. “Sam?”
Sam finally dragged his gaze back up to Gwenyth’s face long enough to answer her. “That would be nice, Gwen.” He swallowed again, shaking off the weird dazed look she’d seen in his eyes in the process. “I’m sorry, Cupcake.” He grinned. “I’ve had a hell of bad trip and I’m very tired.”
Gwenyth felt immediately contrite. She reached out and rubbed Sam’s arm up and down. If she wasn’t already positive that her imagination was running on overdrive today, she would have sworn she’d heard him suck in his breath. “I wasn’t thinking. Let me show you upstairs.” She smiled up to him, her dimples popping back out. “You look like you could use a rest.”
* * * * *
Sam took in a series of deep, heaving breaths as he recovered from the best orgasm he’d had in a long, long time. That he’d had it in the shower—alone—was beside the point. He’d been left with no other viable option. Ahh well, at least Junior was now squeaky clean.
Sam wrapped a cotton towel around his hips and padded his way from the bathroom over toward the bed. He stretched out his heavily muscled shoulders and yawned sleepily, realizing that he truly was tired now. After a quick glance at the mounted wall clock to assure himself that his presence wouldn’t be expected downstairs until dinner time—which wouldn’t be served for another few hours—he drew in a deep breath, flung the towel into the nearest chair, and dropped onto the guestroom bed with a thud.
Sam reclined on his back and drew his hands behind his neck for support. Gazing up at the ceiling, he smiled dreamily at the purdy picture Cupcake had turned into. Lord have mercy, he couldn’t believe how hard he’d got after just a glimpse of her! It was all he could do to contain himself long enough to make it into the shower with his trusty bar of soap in hand.
Gwen had always been fine to his way of thinking, but he hadn’t anticipated her getting even finer. He’d expected to come down here and meet up with his purdy little pudgy princess…not a twenty-pound trimmer but still ample and curvy goddess.
And those nipples. Mmm-mmm. Had they always stuck out, long and hard like that? Her breasts had been big since fourteen, but he’d never noticed the nipples before.
Sam smiled his cat-that-ate-a-particularly-tasty-canary smile when he recalled the fact that Cupcake had been wearing his high school jersey. She’d kept it. After all these years, Gwen had kept the battered thing. Amazing. No woman had ever gone and done something sentimental over Sam Tremont like that before. Oh sure, they all wanted jerseys as sexual souvenirs from a night or a week in his bed, but none had ever done something so sweet as to keep his jersey “just because.”
And Sam was willing to bet that no one outside the Jones family even realized Gwen owned a genuine Tremont jersey. No sir. Tale tellin’ wasn’t Cupcake’s style. Never had been.
It wasn’t like Gwen didn’t have the dough to buy herself whatever kind of a wardrobe she wanted. Harry had said she was doing real well with her picture taking. So that could only mean that somewhere deep down, Gwen still cared about him enough to have kept his shirt…if even as just a friend. The knowledge of it was making him hard all over again.
Sam sighed as he raked a punishing set of fingers through his short black hair. He needed to get himself under control…now. Gwen had certainly given him no sign that she still carried a torch for him and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable by ogling her generously endowed body like a sex-starved boy of fifteen when he made his way downstairs for dinner in a few short hours. He could only hope Cupcake had donned a bra to cover up those jutting nipples by the time he next saw her.
Hell, he thought dejectedly, the nipples were only one of many erection-inducing things about Gwen. Even if he was lucky enough to find her sporting a bra—and not sporting those Daisy Duke shorts—she’d still have a million curves, cuter than all hell dimples, and strawberry scented hair. Sweet Jesus, even the woman’s dainty little ankles set his blood to racin’. And that tiny little dot of a mole set right above her lip…
Sam blew out a breath and flopped onto his belly to go to sleep. He couldn’t let himself start thinking about Gwen like this. It was too soon and he had no intention of scaring her away from the game before he even made it to first base. She was probably still mad at him over that scene with Stacy eleven years back. He’d definitely have to handle this situation with expert precision.
