“Of course not and that had nothing to do with Dylan.”
“What happened, Sam?”
She shook her head and then finally relented, dropping back down to the couch. “I worked for this family for a year. Their son, Noah, was the best. I still miss him. His father was home a lot. He’s a writer and Margo, the mom, a Broadway actress. With rehearsals and appearances, she was never home. I got close to Neil. He was, I thought, a good guy. He said I gave him the wrong impression. He said I was giving off these vibes.” She dragged a few breaths into her lungs.
He watched as pain and anger crossed her face.
“He kissed me. I pulled away. I think he thought I was reluctant only because he was married, that I would lose my job.”
Lee stopped massaging her legs. He had to loosen his grip, mindful of her delicate skin. He waited, on the cusp of telling her that he couldn’t handle hearing what happened to her.
“When I tried to explain, he pushed me down on the couch. He was on top of me, his hands held my arms down. Their maid walked in while he was kissing my neck.” Her voice drifted off. She closed her eyes, as one small tear slid down the side.
“Why did you ask the police to dismiss the charges?”
“Margo sided with him. She said that I had asked for money and when they wouldn’t give it to me, I made up the story to force the issue. I had bruises on my arms but that’s it. Nothing that was substantial. I just wanted it to go away.”
He reeled at the thought of Sam hurt. He controlled his voice when he asked, “What happened after that?”
“Serena and Dylan stayed close. They made sure I was okay most of the time and then when I needed that kick to get back into life, Dylan was the one dragging me out of the apartment. With their help, eventually I was hired by another agency. I would have been blackballed if it wasn’t for their influence.”
Her hands clenched into fists on her stomach, her breathing shallow. He reached for the left one and rubbed a finger over the spot below her ring finger. The callous he expected to find was there. “My ring wasn’t enough protection.”
“If his marriage didn’t matter to him, I’m sure ours wasn’t going to make a difference.”
“Damn it, Sam. I should have been there.” He couldn’t pull his eyes from hers. It didn’t matter that it all happened a year ago. The pain was fresh and raw for him.
They stayed like that for a while. Sam closed her eyes while he continued to massage her feet and legs. He hadn’t told her everything, hadn’t come close to explaining the kind of influence she’d had on his life. He wanted to know if Dylan was waiting for her to be ready to move on. After half an hour, he slipped out from under her legs and lifted her. He was careful to lead with his strong knee.
She opened her eyes as he walked through the threshold of the bedroom. “I wasn’t sleeping.”
“I know.” He leaned down to place her on the bed.
She frowned as he straightened. “I don’t want you to go.”
“Sam—” He hesitated a moment, his emotions too raw but the need in her eyes nearly broke him.
“Just for a little longer.” She moved to the middle of the bed as he nodded.
He sat down and remembered the nights they had hidden out here, the dreams he weaved as they dozed and made love. He toed his shoes off and laid back. Sam nestled into his chest. Her fingers went to the buttons of his shirt and began undoing them.
“You need to understand something. I slept around a lot.” He felt her stiffen, forcing him to push the words out. “But I haven’t been with anyone since I met you, Sam. There’s been no one else. If we do this, I need you to understand that.”
She rose up on her elbow and looked down at him. “Melissa?”
He pushed back the hair that had fallen across her face. She was so beautiful, it hurt to want something this bad. “No one else. I told you. I was hoping I could win you back. Sleeping around wasn’t going to make that happen, and by the time I realized you weren’t coming back I was too angry to get involved with anyone.”
“We’re quite a pair, aren’t we? If I had come back sooner or if you had chased me down in New York, it wouldn’t have been two years that passed.”
“And you wouldn’t have been hurt.”
“You can’t say that. We don’t know what might have happened, Lee. That wasn’t your fault.” Her green eyes focused on his for a second before she dropped back to the bed. “There are too many regrets between us.”
****
In a sudden move, Lee rolled on top of her. His legs between hers, the rough material of his pants rubbed against her legs. “There’s a lot more than regret between us, Sam.”
She could feel it too. The pull, the almost physical connection they shared.
He dipped down, his lips lightly touching hers. His tongue slipped between her lips and stroked. The fires banked earlier at the country club blazed to life. She lifted her hips and pressed into him. His hardness sending a jolt of need down her spine.
“I’ve missed you. I’ve missed this.” At his urging, she pulled her T-shirt off and pressed her bare breasts against him. It wasn’t enough. She needed the warmth of his skin. She needed all of Lee. “Why is it always like this between us?”
He groaned and then dipped down to lick a path over her collarbones. “I don’t know, but I can’t survive another minute without being inside you.” He rolled off her to finish undressing. The entire time he never stopped looking at her body. Everywhere his eyes landed, her body ached to be touched. Hunger made his eyes a stormy blue. Need made her hands shaky as she removed the last of her clothes. From the corner of her eye, she saw him pull something out of his pocket and place it on the bedside table before dropping back down beside her. It had to be a condom; she couldn’t take another false start.
“I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I’ve wanted you. Years, Sam. Years of imagining what you were doing and who you were doing it with.” His right hand squeezed her breast while he slid the other up her thigh. She widened her hips and wrapped her legs around him as he rolled her to her back. He moaned just before kissing his way down to her ear lobe. He gave it a soft tug with his teeth before resuming the path down her neck. “It doesn’t matter.”
She tried to focus on his words but each press of his finger, each kiss tightened the coil of need inside her. “What doesn’t matter?”
“Where you’ve been. Who you’ve been with. In this moment, it’s just me and you.” He lavished her breasts, nipping and then licking them. The hand at her thigh slid up and his fingers entered her in one smooth move. The pleasure so immense, she wasn’t sure she could handle it. His lips returned to hers, capturing her moan. He pulled back to grab the condom and put it on while she stroked down his muscular back. His weight pressed her down into the mattress a second later as he slid into her. “I promise I’ll go slow. Next time.”
She arched her back, the feel of him inside all that she’d dreamt, all that she remembered. She needed more of him, every inch of her body needed contact with his. Through it all, Lee stayed focused on her face. His eyes never strayed from hers. It was so much more than what she remembered. She felt whole again, unbroken.
He gripped her hip tighter, angling her up harder against him. Every muscle in her body tightened. Attempting to hold back was impossible. She gave in then, while the current swept her under. Lee kept up the tempo, staying with her through the storm until moments later, he called out her name.
He dropped down and rolled to her right side, taking her with him to lie on his shoulder. “It’s not enough.”
“What isn’t?”
He reached back with his hand and grabbed for something on the bedside table. “For the last week, I thought I could get you out of my system. Just one time in bed and I’d finally be able to move on.” He let out a satisfied sigh as he laid back.
A pain started right below her heart at his words. What they had just done was his attempt at getting her out of his system. She’d
finally felt like she was home and he was working on moving on. She shimmied away, putting space between them, and closed her eyes against everything that had just happened. His arm tightened on her, bringing her back to his side.
“Where are you going?” He threw one long leg over her body and grabbed her left hand. She didn’t understand what he was doing, until she felt cool metal slide on to her finger.
She pulled her hand away, her wedding band sat just below her knuckle. “What are you doing?”
“Giving you back your ring.” He looked down at her while pushing her hair off her face. “Do you realize how many times I dreamt of this? Of coming here and finding you waiting for me? I’m not letting you go, Sam.”
“You said you were trying to get me out of your system and now you’re not letting me go. I don’t understand what you want from me.”
“Hasn’t that been clear at all?” This time she let him take her hand when he reached for it. He kissed the knuckle on her ring finger. “I want another chance. I want you to be my wife.”
****
She was gone when he woke up but it didn’t dampen his good mood. Since the accident, he hadn’t slept longer than four hours on any given night, except in Sam’s arms. There was something about finally being with her that gave him the peace to just sleep. It didn’t matter that the mattress was lumpy, the sheets were scratchy or that a gaggle of geese had set up camp outside the bedroom window. The only thing that finally had him up was the lack of Sam’s warm body next to his.
At the bar, he found his sister huffing and puffing her way through unpacking an overstuffed box of produce. She rolled her eyes when he strutted into the kitchen whistling. She barely pointed at the storage closet when he asked where Sam was. When he found her, he was compelled to touch her, and when he touched her, he was compelled to kiss her. He could already see this was going to be an endless loop of more and more touching until he got used to seeing her again.
She was stretching up on her tiptoes to slide a carton of cups onto the highest shelf when he sidled up behind her. His hands landed on her waist and he pulled her back into him. “Why didn’t you wake me? I would have given you a ride.”
When she laughed, he realized the double meaning of his words. “I meant in the car but I wouldn’t have been opposed to any other kind of ride either.”
“You were dead to the world.”
He tightened his grip and continued to kiss the back of her neck. “I think you could have found a way to wake me.”
She looked back at the door and stiffened. “Don’t do that here.” She moaned lightly as he nipped her earlobe.
“Why?” He said the word softly against her ear. He loved the way she shivered against him.
She placed her hands on his and pulled them off her hips. “It’s not right.”
He interlocked his fingers with hers, using the leverage to keep her in place. Something felt wrong about the way her hands felt in his. He had slept more than an hour last night holding her left hand and enjoying the feel of that metal band against his fingers. It wasn’t there now. He lifted her left hand up. “Are you trying to tell me something?”
He turned her around to look into her eyes.
“No. I’m just not ready to answer questions, Lee. What should I say when people ask when it happened?”
“Tell them to mind their own business.”
“That’s ridiculous. Of course, people are going to wonder. My sister, the people we’ve known here forever. Am I supposed to pretend like everything is perfect between us? What about the fact that I’m living in my father’s cottage?”
“That’s easy. We’ll move your stuff into my house tonight.”
Sam stepped out from under his arms and walked over to straighten a box off in the corner. “This is my first time living in my own space. No, Lee, I’m not moving in with you. We have to figure this thing out and I’m not going to be rushed to do that. I still have a lot of questions.”
He pushed back from the shelf he leaned on and again walked toward her. “I thought I told you everything last night. Ask me whatever you want. I’m not hiding anything.”
Sam turned around. She opened her mouth and then shut it abruptly. Finally, she blurted it out. “What about the loans to my Dad?”
He felt her words deep in his gut. She didn’t trust him.
“You still think I conned your father into selling half of the bar?” Again he had to defend himself to her. Even after last night.
She fidgeted under his gaze until he turned around and headed to the office.
He knew she was following him from the squeak of her rubber-soled tennis shoes. Without looking back, he went directly to the metal file cabinet in the corner. Ray’s filing system wasn’t easy to decipher but he knew the man had kept every piece of paper that came across that desk. He opened the top drawer and started pulling out messy folders filled with scraps of different colored and sized paper. He dumped them all on the couch and then sat down to start rummaging through them.
Sam stood over him. “What are you doing? I didn’t mean you needed to give me documentation. I just need to understand what happened while I was gone.”
“Oh, no. I think you want me to prove to you that I never meant to screw you or your father over. I lent your father money because he needed it and I had it.” He looked up at her. “Haven’t you seen for yourself how bad things are here? Your father was doing the best that he could, but the regulars are either dying or moving away. There is no business growth here. The bar hasn’t changed in the last twenty years. If we don’t do something about it, we’ll be in the same position your father found himself in, in need of repairs and unable to pay for them.”
He turned his attention back to the files until he found the fluorescent green flyer and handed it to her. His jaw hurt from biting back everything he wanted to say. He stood up from the couch and paced the small room while her eyes scanned her father’s scratching on the back of the lawn care advertisement.
“I don’t understand. What does this mean?”
“In exchange for the money your father used for repairs, I hosted some events here for my other businesses. We had five in total and we were even.”
She shook her head and reread the paper again. “So it wasn’t really a loan. You found a way to give my dad the money without putting his back up.”
“He was too proud to accept it outright. It was a win for me. My employees enjoyed their parties and I got to help your dad.”
She took her time, slipping the paper back into the file and then shoving it into the loaded drawer.
“I’m sorry. I thought…” She touched his arm and implored him with her eyes. “My sister—”
Another gut punch. As much as her sister had done to her, she still trusted her more than him. “Your sister what, Sam? Are you going to stand there and bring her between us again?” He waited for her response but she only stared down at the floor. He pulled his arm away. “I have to go.” He turned on his heel and walked off. He had other businesses and other people to see to. People who didn’t always look for the worst in him.
Chapter Eleven
She came out of the office a step behind him. Lee went directly to Joanna, spoke a few words into her ear and then turned back to the door.
The hurt in his eyes, the way he kept himself so rigid had her stepping toward him. He stopped a foot away from her. “I’ll be back in a few hours. We need to talk then about our plans for this place.” He emphasized our.
She needed him to understand how confused everything was. “I’m sorry. I… I didn’t mean—”
“I know, Sam, but eventually you’ll have to decide if you’re willing to see me for who I really am or who you’re afraid I might be.” He continued out the door while she stood in the middle of the bar, staring at the floor.
She had messed that up. Why was she so afraid of letting things happen between them? Last night had been amazing and there was more than the past between them, Lee was ri
ght about that. She was so damn afraid of losing herself again, of feeling a pain so deep she had to run to stop herself from falling apart.
When she finally looked up, Joanna eyed her over the bar. There was none of the usual joy in her face. She took a deep breath and attempted a smile. She’d ruined everything with Lee this morning but she could at least smooth things over with Jo.
“Don’t mess with him.” Joanna’s voice was unusually low, her eyes narrowed on Sam’s face.
“I’m not.”
“Then why were you with Dylan at the party and my brother after? He’s not the kind of guy you can do that with.” Joanna wiped the taps down while she waited for a response.
“Dylan is a friend. Lee is…” She looked away, attempting to find the right description for their relationship.
“Your husband. I know all about it.”
She dropped her hands and breathed in. “Good. Maybe you can explain it all to me.”
“What’s to explain? As far as I can tell, you married him and then you left him.”
She couldn’t deny that. “It’s more complicated than that.” She took a few steps, intending on ending the conversation there. She really didn’t owe Joanna any explanations.
“He hasn’t been the same since the accident. I thought it was because he felt guilty, but I think it has more to do with you. He hardly ever sleeps. He works constantly, never takes time off.”
She spun around to face Lee’s sister. “That’s not what you implied the other night. What about his engagement to Melissa? That doesn’t sound like the actions of a heartbroken man.”
“I never said he was in love with her. That’s not really a prerequisite for marriages in my family.” There was an aura of sadness surrounding Joanna with her words.
What could she say to that? “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about your family. Lee has never been open about where he came from. I only learned about you when you walked into the bar.”
She narrowed her eyes. “He didn’t tell you about my family?”
“No, nothing. I didn’t even know you lived here in Oldport.”
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