Lush Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 8)

by Marysol James

  It was a look that knocked the breath out from her lungs, knocked her knees out from under her, knocked every sane, rational thought out of her head. It knocked her right out, and she was down for the count, flat on her back gasping, clothes disheveled and open, legs wrapped around Sam’s waist as he fucked her harder and deeper and longer than anyone had ever done before. Not Billy, not the two disappointing casual boyfriends that she’d had since him… not anyone.

  Sam’s look across the table was pure, molten, shimmering sex, and it touched her as sure and strong as his hands had done mere moments earlier; his look traveled over her flushed face, down to her nipples pushing hard against her thin sweater, back to her blue eyes. The journey of perusal took all of five seconds, but at its completion, Annie was limp and weak… as if she’d just walked miles and miles in the hot sun, or gone to six step classes in a row.

  Or made love for days, made love until she was a sweaty, shaking pile of sated, satisfied, quenched desire… only to roll over and start all over again for another few days.

  “Tell me something, princess,” he said, and even his voice was different now. It was lower, rougher, darker. “And tell me the truth.”

  “Yes?” she whispered, loving ‘princess’ more than ‘honey’, loving how cherished and special it made her feel. “What is it?”

  “Do you want to believe?”

  “…Believe what?”

  “Believe in the fairy tale.”

  “The – what?” she faltered. “What fairy tale?”

  He smiled at her, and it was an intense, dangerous smile; it had the heat and focus of a laser beam, and it sliced her in two, it burned through her. His smile was a daring offer to change her life, to throw caution to the wind and let her hair down, to just live. This smile made her a dark bargain, it threw down a daunting challenge – and it was also a terrifying, tantalizing promise that if she believed in the fairy tale, then her whole world would change.

  Change completely. Change forever.

  “The fairy tale that you started with the wrong man,” Sam told her now. “You chose the wrong guy, princess. You didn’t wait for the one who’d make you happy for ever after.”

  “Because he doesn’t exist,” she said, her voice raspy with regret. “Guys like that don’t exist. Not for me, anyway.”

  “Wrong, princess.”

  “Wr – wrong?”

  “Wrong. Well, half-wrong.”

  Annie stared at him, wordless. Was he actually saying what she thought might be saying?

  No. No, impossible. No goddamn way that Doctor Sam Frickin’ Innis is my creeping creepy mist at dawn, or whatever the hell the fucking cookie said.

  “Half?” she managed to ask. “How half? Why half? What half?”

  “You’re right that guys like that don’t exist for you.”

  “Oh.” Annie was surprised at how crushingly disappointed she was that he didn’t want her after all, mentally gave herself a serious slap across her stupid face. “Oh, well… I suppose they don’t.”

  “You’re right that guys like that don’t exist for you,” Sam said slowly, enunciating clearly. “Guys, plural.”

  “Uhhhh.” Annie felt her brow wrinkle in confusion. Uh… OK. Right.”

  “But one guy like that exists,” Sam said. “One guy, singular.”

  She opened her mouth to respond, couldn’t think of anything to say, slammed it shut again.

  “You know who that guy is, princess?”

  She shook her head in self-preservation, met his no-bullshit gaze and knew that it was time to drop the pretence, nodded her head.

  “You do, huh?” Sam leaned forward, just a bit, and her whole body responded, helplessly. “And who is he?”

  “He’s here.” The words rolled on off her tongue so easily, without fear or doubt, the words that echoed Sam’s own words from the hospital cafeteria. “He’s right here.” She paused, unable to believe the words that were about to come out of her mouth next, but needing to believe in them, after not having believed in anything for so damn long. “He’s here, and he’s you.”

  “That’s right, princess.” Sam raised her trembling hand to his lips, dropped the softest, sweetest kiss of her life on her knuckles. “That is exactly goddamn right.”

  Chapter Five

  “What do you mean, you didn’t sleep with him?” Talia almost shouted at Annie. “After he said all that? Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Have I taught you nothing?”

  “Shhhhh,” Annie hissed, looking around the diner in a panic. The breakfast rush was mostly over, thank Christ, but an alarming number of customers were staring over at them with far too much curiosity, among them a worrying number of regulars. “Shut up, I swear.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Talia retorted. “Not until you tell me, precisely, why you didn’t jump into bed with the hot young doctor after he told you that he was totally into you.”

  Annie sighed. “Well… I did want to, but…”

  “What?” Talia looked alert; she knew there was far more to this story than a simple ‘Hot young doctor turned Annie down’. Not after his impassioned claiming of her, not after growling that she was his princess, not after declaring that he was the man that she’d been waiting for. No man would throw it all down like that, then run screaming if the object of his passion responded. “But what?”

  “Well… he wants to wait.”

  “He – what? Why would he want that? Why?”

  Annie visibly squirmed, grabbed a towering stack of dirty plates off the closest table, shot off to the kitchen. It was a pathetic and cowardly displacement activity designed to buy her some time – which she knew was ultimately both useless and futile. Talia wasn’t going to let this go, not for anything, and sure enough, Annie heard Talia’s footsteps right behind her.

  Talia’s heart was in the right place, Annie knew, and Talia was concerned, Annie also knew… but despite the kindness and worry, Annie found that she needed a few extra seconds to pull herself together before succumbing to her best friend’s relentless demands for information.

  Not that Sam had said or done anything bad, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact, and it was the fact that he’d been so amazing, so sweet, so sexy, that had floored her. Confused her. Made her go all shy and unsure, made her feel almost virginal… though it had been a laughable number of year since she’d been a shy, blushing virgin.

  Almost thirty years, actually. Just a few years less than Sam has been on earth.

  Jesus Christ. I must be insane to actually think that this can happen between us, that it can be anything.

  But even as she had the thought, Annie remembered what had happened on Friday night… and she felt that traitorous, treacherous hope rise in her chest again.

  Sam had driven her home, and the whole time that they were chatting about nothing very much, she was wondering if he’d kiss her, if she’d kiss him; wondering what the actual hell she’d do if he kissed her, if he liked it if she kissed him.

  She had vaccinated wildly between wanting to throw herself out of the moving vehicle, just to get away from the man and the way that he made her feel, because she hadn’t felt things like this in years and years, and surely at her age, her heart couldn’t take it, literally and figuratively… and then all she had wanted was to throw herself at Sam, full-throttle and full-on, and beg him to fuck her until she couldn’t walk, heart attack be damned.

  He’d pulled up in front of her awful, rundown, tiny house across the street from a vacant lot that was well-known as a drug-dealing locale, and she’d undone her seatbelt before he’d even turned off the engine. Annie had one hand on the door opener, one hand clutching her cheap purse in her lap. She’d stared at the floor, summoning the words to thank him for a lovely evening, and she’d felt Sam looking over at her. Not saying a word, not moving. Just staring at her, making her the focus of his
whole attention, his whole focus, his whole world.

  That was when she’d snapped.

  Annie had turned to face him, seen the hunger in his eyes that she had known was rampant and alive in her own. And she’d thrown herself at him; launched herself across the front seat and into his personal space. No shame, no fear, no second thoughts. She’d just gone for it, because she just didn’t care about tomorrow anymore… all she had wanted was this moment.

  And God help her, but Sam had framed her face between his large, strong hands and he’d kissed her. Kissed her hard, and deep, and long. Kissed her so that she’d lost her breath and bearings – and her goddamned mind.

  “Sam,” she’d whispered against his mouth, her hands holding his coat tightly. “Come inside?”

  As she’d heard those words, she’d blushed deeply. Come inside sounded like cum inside… me. And I mean right now. And it sounded that way because that’s exactly what she’d meant when she’d said it.

  He’d known it, too; he’d heard her real, true meaning. Sam had gazed down at her, silent and serious, those brown eyes seeing things that she’d worked so, so damn hard to hide for so, so damn long. But Annie had never been able to hide anything from Sam – not from the beginning, and sure as hell not with her face in his hands, her heart in his hands.

  And that heart had stopped dead in her chest when he’d slowly shaken his head, his eyes still holding hers, his hands resting lightly on her shoulders.

  “No,” Sam had said quietly. “No, princess… I won’t come inside.”

  “Oh.” Horrified, humiliated, heartbroken, she’d scrambled for the tiniest, slimmest shred of dignity, and she’d failed miserably. “Oh… right. Of course not. Stupid of me.” She’d managed to locate the door handle, almost wrenched the door of its hinges opening it up. “Well – goodnight.”

  She’d tried to extract herself from his personal space, get to the car door and get the fuck into the house, where she’d pour a quadruple whisky and berate her stupidity for… oh… maybe ten years. Probably longer, if she were being honest. She’d maybe never leave the fucking house again, actually. She’d order her groceries online and she’d collect welfare for the first time in her whole damn life and she’d watch TV for ten hours at a stretch. Not such a bad life when she really thought about it, and far better than running the risk of running into Doctor Sam Frickin’ Innis ever ever again.

  But she hadn’t gotten far into this plan to torpedo her life: Sam had followed her across the front seat, grabbed her upper body, spun her around to face him again. She’d dropped her eyes, but not before he’d seen the sparkle of tears in them.

  Right away, his face had softened even more. “Hey…”

  “It’s fine, Sam.” She’d opted for briskness, because it was either that or wail in devastation. “I get it.”

  “No. No, you don’t get it.”

  “You don’t want to have sex with me,” she’d said, deciding to just throw all caution to the wind and humiliate herself all the way, because why the actual hell not? “And I can’t even blame you, ‘cause you’d be fucking crazy to want a woman old enough to have given birth to you. I mean, what’s not to get?”

  “Stop it,” he had commanded, his voice deep and dark again. With a sinking feeling, Annie had realized that she loved this voice, loved this side of him, and she’d slammed down hard on the regret that she’d never see it again after the next twenty seconds. “Stop it, Annie, and I mean right now. Everything that you just said is wrong.”

  “Why stop?” she’d said with false bravado, aching for him to just say it, if it’s how he felt, because God knows, she had needed to hear it and believe it, had needed it like she needed air. “How am I wrong?”

  “Seriously?” he’d grated out. “After everything I told you tonight, you seriously think that I don’t want to come inside?”

  “Uh, well…” She had blushed, hearing the words cum inside me again. “So… if you do, why don’t you?”

  “Because princess,” Sam had said deliberately. “I don’t want to rush anything. I think it’s going to take some time for you to really trust in me and in this. To trust in us, and what we can have. I want you to be sure, and I want that before anything happens between us.”

  “You – you what?”

  “I think that if we were to go inside, and I did all the things to you that I’m dying to do, then you’d wake up in the morning and start to question it all. You’d look for reasons for it not to work, you’d make excuses, you’d just shut down and run… and I don’t want any of that, honey.”

  “You don’t?”

  He had shaken his head in an affectionate gesture, gently traced the curve of her cheekbone. “No, princess. I don’t. I have waited for you to walk back into my life for the past three years. You think I’m going to settle for one night now?”

  “Wait. Three years?”

  “Yes. Three years. Yeah, OK, I’ve had casual girlfriends off-and-on over the years, but you’re the only woman that I’ve wanted that whole time, and now that you’re here with me, you think I’m going to screw this all up? Huh?”

  “Ummmm…” She’d peered up at him, shocked that he’d thought about her at all, let alone wanted her. “Uh, no. I guess not. But –”

  “But what?”

  “But…” Annie had screwed up her courage to just say it, all of it. “But the difference in our ages is huge. Like, Grand Canyon huge. And our jobs are so different – I mean, doctor and diner waitress? Come on. And our educations, by which I mean that I have none and you have enough for seven people. And I have kids almost your age, Sam, and you don’t even have kids. It’s just – oh, God. We’re so… so different. Maybe too different.”

  “And there it is,” he’d said softly. “All those things that you’re worried about and secretly fear, and if I came inside tonight, those worries and fears would just be bigger tomorrow. I don’t want you to be afraid or feel used, princess, and I sure as hell don’t want you to question me or what I’m doing here or how I feel.”

  “But I will,” she’d said in despair. “I will question it. I can’t – I don’t know how to believe in it.”

  “You think I’m lying to you? Leading you on? Playing with you? You really think that I’m the kind of man who does that, Annie?”

  “No… no, I suppose not.”

  “You suppose goddamn right.” He’d tugged on a lock of her hair, a sweetly teasing gesture that was somehow still sexy. “I’m going to give you the space and time you need to believe. It’s no hardship and it’s no chore. I’m going to wait for you to believe, Annie.”

  “How can you say that?” she’d scoffed. “How can you promise to wait for something that might take ages to happen? If it ever does?”

  “Because, princess,” he’d growled, and that tone was back in his voice. “You’re so worth waiting for, so don’t ask me that again, and I mean it. Never again. Oh, and one last thing…”

  “Yes?”

  “When I do finally come inside?” The words had turned the spot between her legs to a steady, throbbing flame. “We’re not going to have sex… we’re going to make love. It’s going to mean something, honey. It’s going to mean a hell of a lot.” Those dark eyes had been burning with passion and lust, and she’d known that they’d look exactly like that as he came deep inside her trembling, sweating, begging body. “To both of us.”

  She’d swallowed, hard: in that moment, she’d believed. Only for a few shining, wild, heart-pounding seconds… but yeah. Yeah, she’d believed.

  “Now.” Sam had released her, and she’d hated the loss of his warmth and closeness. “I’m going to see you tomorrow, honey, and the day after, and the day after that. I’m going to see you as much and as often as I can, and you’re going to trust me, in your own way and your own time. I’m not going to spend the night with you until you can look me in the eye and
tell me that you have faith in yourself, and me, and us.” He’d opened his car door, given her a warning look. “Keep that cute butt right there, Annie. I’m opening the door for you and escorting you to your home like a gentleman. You need to get used to being treated like a princess, and you can damn well start right now.”

  “Oh.” Stunned one more, Annie had just stared at him. “Right.”

  And sure enough, he’d taken her to her front door, kissed her goodnight, made sure she got in and locked herself into the house safely. He’d called the next day, taken her for a coffee that had turned into a late lunch that had turned into a late dinner. Again, he’d brought her home; again, he’d kissed her and seen her to her door. On the Sunday, they’d met for lunch and a movie, and for the first time, Annie had managed to almost ignore the double-takes as people saw her holding hands with a gorgeous young man who could – on both first and second glance – be taken for her son. Except for the fact that Sam was all over her, and sons didn’t look at their Moms the way that Sam was staring at her.

  Annie had spent the weekend floating on a cloudy haze of lust and happiness… which was pierced every once in a while by doubts and thoughts of just how fucking insane am I, anyway? But in those moments, when she’d started to deflate and sink, she’d just looked at Sam, seen the adoration in his eyes, felt his hand holding hers – and she’d roughly shoved the thoughts away.

  It had felt good, all of it. It had felt – right. For all the hundreds of ways that she could argue that it was wrong… deep down inside, she had known that Sam was right about what he’d told her that night in his car. They were right.

  I want to let myself believe. Please God… just a bit of faith, and just this one thing.

  And so now here it was: bright and early Monday morning, and they were both back at work, and now Annie had to figure out how much of all of this to tell her best friend. Not that she thought that Talia would be unsupportive, not at all. In fact, Talia would undoubtedly turn into a Sam/Annie personal cheerleader, complete with uniform and pom poms; she’d probably start calling them Sannie or Annam, or some other ridiculous combined couple name. In short, she’d be thrilled that Annie was seeing someone – beyond delighted that she was being treated well, something that she was way overdue for, in Talia’s view.