Slow Hands

by Debra Dixon

  Pamela’s grin broadened and she said, “I like this one, Sam.”

  “Of course you do. You think you’ve found a partner in crime,” Sam told her as he pushed Clare through the door.

  “I think you’ve found a partner,” Pamela quietly corrected him, looking from one to the other as they passed her. As she shut the door and followed them into the den, she said, “My God, look at the two of you. If William were beside you, you’d be a movie poster for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!”

  Clare stopped right in the middle of sitting down and stared uncomfortably at Sam, noticing his clothes for the first time. The thin, braided leather belt through the loops of his jeans added the only bit of color to his clothes—jeans so faded they could be called white, an immaculate white rugby shirt with the sleeves pushed up, and his favorite white leather tennis shoes. Unintentionally, Clare had chosen black—black jeans, black loafers, black shirt, black onyx earrings, even the postage-stamp-sized purse she had with her was black.

  “Well, I guess we know who’s ‘the good’ and who’s ‘the bad,’ ” Sam said with a grin as he fell back into the overstuffed pillows of the couch. “I’m not sure William is going to appreciate being cast as ‘the ugly’ though.”

  “Then don’t tell him,” Pamela advised loudly over the sound of cowboys and Indians coming down the hall.

  “Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!” Two small blond bodies screamed as they sprinted into the room and leapt into his lap. At the words, Clare’s mouth fell open and she looked at Pamela. Somehow she’d never connected the fact that Sam had nephews with the fact that they would call him Uncle Sam.

  “Isn’t it a hoot?” Pamela grinned happily. “One of the main reasons I had children was to hear those two words. You know, since the boys were born, I have never seen Sammy wear red, white, and blue.”

  Sam glared at her over the boys’ heads while trying to answer the questions that were being thrown at him. When they settled enough to notice a stranger in the room, Sam made the introductions and was surprised to find that Clare charmed the boots and moccasins off the boys by being properly frightened of the green garden snake that was shoved in her face. Winking at Pamela, she told them their snake was about the scariest example of a garden snake she’d ever seen, and Sam realized his nephews were completely under her spell.

  “Oops,” Pamela said. “I should have warned you. They found him this morning. And he goes back right now,” she said sternly to the boys. “We agreed.”

  “Ah, Mom, do we have to?” asked the younger one.

  “That’s where we were going when we saw Uncle Sam’s car,” the older one explained very primly, as though he were disappointed that his mother hadn’t realized this fact.

  “Come on, men,” Sam said, pushing up off the sofa. “I’ll go with you, and you can show me the new tree house.”

  “Yeah, we’ll show you the tree house and the new tent” was echoed excitedly by both boys as they rushed out of the room with Sam in tow. They took the chaos with them, leaving quiet behind with Clare and Pamela.

  “Sam didn’t tell me you liked children,” Pamela said, and appropriated Sam’s vacated spot on the sofa.

  “What’s not to like?” Clare asked.

  “Let’s see,” Pamela teased as she made a pretense of patting her pockets as though she were looking for something. “Where did I put that list?”

  “Careful. You’ll have me believing everything Sam says about the boys if you keep that up.”

  “Believe him. They’re little heathens. We’re hoping for a girl this time.”

  Startled, Clare shifted her gaze to her hostess’s trim waistline. “You’re pregnant?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “Sam never said a word.”

  “That’s because he doesn’t know. We haven’t told him or the boys yet.”

  Clare smiled; she didn’t know what else to do. She’d never been the recipient of family confidences before, and she wasn’t quite sure what was expected of her. Each day sank her a little deeper into the fabric of Sam’s life. Everyone around him seemed to accept that she belonged. Everyone but Clare herself.

  “I’m the world’s worst hostess,” Pamela said suddenly. “Here I am boring you to death with my news, and I haven’t even offered you something to drink or eat.”

  “You’re not boring me, and to be perfectly truthful, I couldn’t eat a bite if you paid me.”

  “Has William been force-feeding you?” asked Pamela.

  “Every chance he gets,” groaned Clare. “Living in Sam’s house is hard on the nerves and worse on the waistline.”

  Pamela smiled and pulled an imaginary piece of lint from the sofa back. “You know I’m very happy about you and Sam.”

  Stunned, Clare looked away briefly and then back at warm, tobacco-brown eyes that were obviously a Tucker family characteristic. The resemblance between the siblings was more than physical, Pamela had that shoot-from-the-hip attitude. She even had the same tendency to jump to the wrong conclusions. Clare met her gaze squarely and said, “I don’t know what Sam’s told you—”

  “Not nearly enough,” Pamela assured her. “But I’m not deaf or blind. I’ve wanted to thank you for a while now.”

  “For what?” Shifting uncomfortably, Clare shook her head. “I haven’t done anything.”

  Pamela leaned over and briefly squeezed Clare’s wrist. “Oh, but you have. You’ve given me Sam back. When Pop died, so did a part of Sam. Of course, he’d never admit it. He’s much too strong for that. But inside he was missing a little spark he used to have. And now he has that again. Thanks to you.”

  A frown drew Clare’s eyebrows together. “I didn’t—”

  An unladylike snort cut her off. “You did. Good God, Clare, can’t you see the difference in him? When Pop killed himself, all Sammy could think about was how he’d failed, about how he’d made all the wrong choices with his life. It’s very difficult for a man who’s made a great deal of money to admit that he’s been a failure at life.”

  Clare held herself very still, as if by moving she might scare away the answers she’d been looking for. “I didn’t do anything. He’d already changed his life before he met me.

  “Even when he turned his life around, he was still only going through the motions. He wanted a generic two point five kids, a comfortable wife, and a dog.” Pamela grinned a cat-lapping-cream grin. “Now he wants you. And there’s not a thing generic about you, my dear. You’re so wrong for him that you’re perfect.”

  Before Clare could frame an answer, chaos erupted in the household again as Tim, the younger boy, skidded into the room. “Mama! Aunt Clare! Come quick! The tent sort of fell down, and Uncle Sam’s inside it.”

  Sam checked his watch as he unlocked the front door. “Eleven fifty-five.”

  “Let’s just hope your watch isn’t slow.” Hiding a grin, Clare followed him inside. One of the high points of her evening had been watching Sam struggle out of the heavy canvas tent while trying to explain how it had fallen. “The last thing you need after tonight is William’s wrath or anything else coming down on your head.”

  He shot her an unappreciative look as he crossed the threshold. “That’s about enough out of you.”

  “Don’t be so touchy,” she advised. “Can I help it if my aunt liked to send me to camp to get rid of me? So, I’m a better Boy Scout than you are. The world has not stopped revolving.”

  “I didn’t need your help. I would have gotten the tent up eventually.”

  Clare tossed her purse on the entryway table and mumbled, “Maybe when the boys were old and gray.”

  Turning back from his purposeful march toward the kitchen, Sam asked, “What?”

  “I said—maybe we can take the boys to a movie another day.”

  Sam didn’t look completely convinced, but after what looked like a momentous struggle with himself, he simply said, “Good night, Clare.”

  “Good night, Sam,” she called softly, and bounded up the steps two
at a time.

  As she showered, Clare wondered how a simple outing to the movies could have gone so far astray of the original plan. While they’d fussed with the tent, the night had slipped away from them, and it had been after eleven o’clock before the boys remembered the movie. If Clare regretted anything about the evening, it was that she wouldn’t be around to give the boys a rain check on the movie. Being with Pamela and her kids had been so easy, so natural.

  Sighing and telling herself not to romanticize family life, Clare reached for the faded black shirt hanging on the back of the bathroom door. No matter how often she put Sam’s shirt in the hamper, it reappeared on the peg, freshly laundered. What Clare couldn’t figure out was exactly who kept putting the shirt back—William or Sam?

  Last night she’d given up and slept in it. The soft cotton hugged her body and made her feel less lonely. Wearing the shirt was her reward to herself for resisting Sam and temptation. Kind of like having a bowl of ice cream as a reward for refusing cake.

  Clare fastened the last button and reached for her purse to get her mother’s wedding ring, which she’d taken off when she and the boys decided to dig a rain run-off trench around the tent. “Damn,” she muttered. The purse was downstairs on the table.

  If she left it there, she’d get an earful from William when she went down for breakfast the next morning. He’d hold up the purse by its thin strap, look at her, and inform her that he had a great many more important things to do than pick up after her all day. Groaning, she left her room and hurried down the stairs.

  As she scooped the purse up from the hall table, she heard a thump from the kitchen and Slick’s soft meow. “Double damn,” she whispered. William liked the cat, but he absolutely drew the line at animals on the kitchen counter. Sighing, she decided she’d better go and check for footprints.

  Quickly, she padded toward the kitchen, slowing when she saw the glow that illuminated the darkness. Reaching the doorway, she found Sam, still dressed in jeans and rugby shirt, holding open the refrigerator door, and bent double—his head stuck inside. Slick wove a lazy figure eight around Sam’s ankles. Obviously the two were partners in this midnight raid on the kitchen. Discreetly, she cleared her throat. “Ahem.”

  Sam’s body jerked backward. He straightened like a cat burglar with his hand caught in a jewelry case, and whirled around. Relief flooded his face when he saw her. “Don’t scare me like that. I thought you were William.”

  “Stealing anything good?” she asked playfully as she crossed the cool linoleum to peer into the refrigerator. She found she had to maneuver around him.

  Sam let her wander between the open refrigerator and his body as she inspected the contents. He noted her silk gown had been replaced by his shirt, and at the moment he was irrationally jealous of his own shirt. When he had her right where he wanted her, he leaned one hand casually on the door and the other on the side, neatly boxing her in as she turned to face him. “The only thing I have any intention of stealing at the moment is a kiss.”

  Suiting action to words, Sam closed the distance between them and dragged his bottom lip against the bow of her mouth. At the first touch of his lips to hers, the hunger that had driven him back to the kitchen changed. He suddenly wanted more than food for the body; he wanted food for the soul. He pulled at her lips again and willed her to respond.

  Clare’s eyelids dipped beneath an unexplainable weight that pushed them relentlessly toward her cheeks. Without a word Sam asked her to surrender, to throw in the towel, just like in her dreams. When he pulled back, taking his mouth from hers, Clare kept her eyes closed and ran her tongue across her top lip, tasting his kiss again, tasting her own surrender.

  She no longer cared about winning the war between them. All she could think about was losing the battle. Cold air teased her bare legs but couldn’t cool the fire ignited by Sam’s gentle kiss. She burned like an ember given a breath of oxygen, and the flames licked greedily at her self-control, begging for more.

  TEN

  When Clare opened her eyes, Sam saw the tug-of-war going on inside her. She was struggling with the feelings of contentment and passion, afraid she’d have to sacrifice one for the other. He’d always known she was intelligent, independent, and sexy. But tonight he’d seen the other qualities she kept hidden beneath her protective armor: a caring nature and a love of children.

  “I made a promise, and I don’t go back on my promises lightly,” he told her softly as he hooked two fingers in the unbuttoned V of the black shirt she wore. Slowly, he pulled her away from the open refrigerator. When he shut the door, he added, “You’re going to have to ask me this time.”

  Softly, in a whisper, Clare asked, “How can I ask you for anything when I don’t even know what I want?”

  “Ah, Clare,” he chastised her gently, aching to squeeze her against his chest so tightly that she’d become a part of him. “You know what you want. Give yourself permission to feel passion. Ask, for God’s sake! If you don’t trust me, then trust yourself.”

  “I never trust myself when you’re in the room,” Clare admitted, allowing Sam to pull her along as he backed out of the kitchen and down the hall toward the staircase. “Right now all I can think about is the bed upstairs. And that you’ve never made love in it.”

  A stab of triumph shot through Sam and faded to a pulse of urgency. “And all I can think about is you in that bathtub, your skin soft and slick with bath oil. Do you have any idea how badly I wanted to smooth my hands over you? Do you? Ask me to put my hands on you, Clare.”

  She gasped, her eyes locked on his hands as he slid them to her wrists and pulled her up the stairs. Hands that were so big, so rough, so seductive, so gentle. The sight of his hands painted a vivid image of his fingers gliding up over her collarbones and down the center of her throat to outline her nipples before he swirled his palms over the sides of her breasts and lower. Suddenly she realized that as long as Sam used touch as a way of communication, she would be fascinated by and drawn to his hands. The idea hypnotized her almost as much as the imagery of his eyes in her fantasy, when he asked her to give in, to throw in the towel.

  Gathering all her courage together, Clare paused at the top of the staircase, resisting the overpowering urge to tell Sam about her dream. Instead, she lifted one of his hands to her lips and slowly, deliberately, wrapped her mouth around his index finger. She had an idea what the sucking motion would do to Sam’s composure, but she was startled to feel the tightening of her own belly at the erotic action. She never dropped her eyes from his as her tongue laved and sucked his finger.

  “Close enough,” Sam whispered hoarsely, and pulled his hand back long enough to scoop her up in his arms, striding down the hall to his room. “I always preferred show over tell.”

  This time he didn’t seduce her with anticipation, nor did she want him to tease her with promises of more. She wanted it all, and she wanted it all now. Sam had already kicked off his shoes before he laid her on the bed. His shirt and jeans followed, leaving his body naked except for a pair of his infamous boxers.

  Clare smiled at the flamingo motif and began unbuttoning her shirt.

  “Recent purchase,” Sam said as the boxers joined the cast-off clothing on the floor. “They reminded me of you.” He stripped his shirt from Clare’s body and tossed it behind him. “Not that I need reminders. I remember this.” Sam pulled her into his arms. “And this.” He kissed her long and hard.

  As he pushed her back onto the bed and joined her, Clare was already lost in sensation, lost in the need to end the tension of the last week. Sam pressed feather kisses down her body and stripped off her black lace panties. He seemed fascinated with the shape of her legs and the sensitive skin behind her knees. His fingers brushed along her legs, against her tender inner thighs as he separated them, and when his tongue touched her sensitive core, Clare thought she might come apart.

  “Sam,” she warned as she tried to move away from his intimate touch.

  “Clare, yes.�
�� His words whispered against the triangle of curls, and his strong hands reached to span her waist, holding her. “Tonight we do this my way.”

  Unable to fight the desire to feel completion spill through her, Clare opened herself to his touch. Suddenly her body was no longer hers. Instinct had replaced rational thought, and she wanted Sam to finish what he’d started. When unfamiliar feelings began to coil tightly inside her, she drew a ragged breath and tensed. It was as if the world narrowed to Sam’s touch and the promise of pleasure that hovered at the edge of her awareness.

  “Sam!”

  Her quietly desperate cry caused Sam’s manhood to jerk in response. This was the Clare he wanted, reaching for him, warm with passion and uncontrolled, but he reluctantly pulled away before he pushed her over the edge. He wanted Clare to fall off the world, but he wanted to be inside her when she did.

  Shifting his position, Sam sat up, reached for the bedside table, and allowed himself a small smile for William’s foresight. When Clare took the foil packet out of his hand, Sam closed his eyes, afraid that the sight of her hands on him might undo what little command he had over his passion.

  As she tore open the foil, Clare’s body hummed with the promises made by Sam’s mouth and hands. Her fingers tingled from the contact with his hard shaft as it pulsed in her hand. When she finished, she twined her fingers in his hair and pulled his lips to hers, catching and sucking on his tongue as he explored her mouth.

  When Sam shifted to separate her legs, Clare felt the roughness of his thigh against her smooth-shaven one. Once again she opened to him, welcoming him, wanting him. Clare tried not to break the kiss, but a sigh escaped her as Sam entered her. She could feel the shudder in his arm muscles as he tried to hold himself completely still. He couldn’t. Nor did she want him to.

  Groaning, Sam rose, still kneeling on the bed, and lifted Clare’s hips to meet his thrusts. Each time he filled her, he let his thumb brush against the sensitive nub hidden in the valley beneath her springy feminine curls.

  “Look at me, Clare. I want you to watch,” he commanded softly, his voice ragged as he held back his climax.