by Jaid Black
But what exactly was she trying to run from? Here Sam was back in Tampa—and he wanted her. It was exactly what Gwen had wanted all of her life. Wasn’t it?
She shook her head morosely. No, not like this. Not just for sex. She’d always wanted more. She had prayed for so much more. Gwenyth wanted Sam to love her, to be in love with her.
Oh God! If she wasn’t so upset, she’d laugh at her own childish, naïve thoughts. Yeah right! Like that would happen in this lifetime! Like Sam didn’t have a million other women all vying for the same elusive thing from him.
Gwenyth sighed in frustration as she raked her fingers through her mane of tawny hair. Dealing with her dreams of what could be back when she didn’t stand a chance with Sam was a hell of a lot less complicated than it was now when she did have an opportunity to make them real. Should she seize the moment and enjoy what time they’d have together? Or should she back out totally, knowing full well that if she slept with Sam she’d be in love with him all over again?
A loud shattering sound followed by a fast-moving object hurling through the front window broke Gwenyth out of her quiet contemplation. She yelped and jumped to her feet. Her heart pounding wildly, she moved toward the shards of broken glass until she visually located the offending object.
It was only a baseball.
Gwenyth’s cathartic sigh could be heard from across the room. No doubt little Billy Banes next door was practicing his hitting—badly—yet again. Shaking her head, Gwenyth strolled over to where the ball lay and carefully removed it from its nest of broken glass. She picked it up as she envisioned lecturing Billy on his tendency to wreak havoc on her property, then turned the ball over and read the message that had been scrawled in bold letters for her to see:
NAM.
Just three letters. Three small letters that started her pulse racing and caused her breathing to hitch. It wasn’t Billy Banes after all.
The front door crashed in a moment later and Gwenyth screamed for real. She whirled around, preparing to do God only knows what to her would-be attacker, and found instead—to her wide-eyed relief—a fuming, angry, royally pissed off Sam Tremont glowering down at her.
Thank God.
Sam stomped through the doorway and slammed the door shut behind him. His nostrils were flaring, the muscles in his neck and arms were corded, and his blue eyes were staring daggers at her. Gwenyth had never been so happy to see a disgruntled male before in her life. “Gwenyth Marie Jones! You and I have got to talk!”
Gwenyth bit her lip and nodded. She couldn’t agree more. The fact that she probably wanted to talk about something vastly different than Sam did didn’t register in her brain as she ran toward him and threw herself into his arms.
Sam grunted, whether from the impact of her barreling into him or from male satisfaction she didn’t know. “Now this is more like it, Cupcake. This is how you should have greeted me days ago.”
Sam plowed determinedly onward, apparently not taking notice of the broken glass in the living room or of the fact that Gwenyth was shaking like a frayed leaf caught in a storm. “A man expects to have his phone calls returned after sharin’ an experience like you and I had the other day, Cupcake.” He stroked her affectionately on the back, his hand occasionally drifting down to her derriere as he continued his lecture. “A man expects a hell of a lot more than bein’ avoided by the woman he’s crazy about, that I can tell you.”
The shaking finally started to register a little bit. “Cupcake?” Sam pulled back slightly and used his hand to notch Gwenyth’s chin up toward him. “Cupcake?”
He saw the terror plain in her eyes and realized then and there that the reason Gwen had run to him had been out of fear. That fact should have annoyed him, but it didn’t. It brought out all of his protective instincts and caused his heart rate to accelerate even though he had no idea what had spooked her. “Cupcake?”
“I’m so glad you’re here, Sam,” she breathed out.
Sam could feel the hard something that Gwenyth was clutching in her hand. He looked down at it and, realizing it was a baseball, he gently pried it out of her grasp to find out why she was all fired up and wild eyed over a little ole ball. And then he knew.
NAM.
The words were written as plain as day. Sam glanced toward the living room for some unknown reason and immediately noticed the broken window. Those damned bastards.
Sam forgot all about his reason for being here, the reason he’d walked around throwing tantrums and being generally disagreeable for the past three days, and pulled Gwenyth back into his arms. He hugged her tightly against him and placed kisses on top of her head. “It’s okay, baby. You’re okay.”
“Yes.”
But was he? The fear that had gone through Sam when he’d realized what the scene around him meant told him he’d emotionally gone beyond the point of no return with one Gwenyth Marie Jones. Hell, he’d probably been at that point years ago unknowingly and just needed a nudge in the direction of the obvious. Well he knew now, damn it. And as soon as this nasty business with NAM was taken care of, Sam would make certain Ms. Jones had no viable alternative but to accept him wholeheartedly into her life.
But first, there was this to deal with. Sam balled his hands into fists behind Gwenyth’s back as he struggled to calm down. He would find out who had done this terrible thing if it was the last act he ever accomplished on planet earth. Nobody but nobody threatened his woman and got away with it.
And she was his. Whether or not Gwenyth Marie Jones realized it, her fate had just been sealed.
Chapter 7
“It ain’t happenin’. Nuh uh. No way. Ferget it.” Granddad Willy slashed his hand tersely through the air then planted his fists on either bony hip. He waggled his eyebrows at Gwenyth in a manner that suggested she could broach no argument.
Sam glanced at Willy’s newest t-shirt, a neon pink cotton with a slogan that read: Straight But Not Narrow. Verlene stood beside her husband, elegantly decked out as usual in a corn blue silk shirt and shorts set. In this argument, an argument that had been raging in the Jones’ Hyde Park home for over two hours, the family matriarch was unequivocally taking Willy’s side. “I agree with the men this time, sugar. It’s best if you stay here with us. You’ll be going to California in two days anyway, so I fail to see why you’re making such an issue of this.”
Sam threw Gwenyth a smug look, all but daring her to tell her grandparents why she was avoiding staying under the same roof as him at all costs. After the police had left and the furor and shock of the window smashing had died down, she had gone right back from throwing herself into his arms to hightailing it in the other direction.
Gwenyth ground her teeth together and shot a desperate glance toward Harry. “You heard what the police said. They think it was just a silly prank perpetrated by a bored neighborhood kid!”
Harry sighed as he ran his fingers through his short, tawny hair. “Sis, I know you dislike feeling as though you’re being held prisoner here, but it’s only for a couple of nights.” His gaze was innocent and fairly pleading. “Can you please put your safety first and let my contacts in the police department look into the situation while you’re in LA? That way we’ll all feel better about letting you go back to your apartment when you return.”
Gwenyth chewed on her lower lip anxiously. She knew her brother was right. Although she wasn’t worried over the possibility that a bunch of whining NAMers might possibly try to do her in, everyone else was. It wouldn’t be fair of her to allow the others to worry—especially her seventy-year-old grandparents—when she could just as easily stay here and put all their fears for her safety to rest.
Gwenyth glanced at Sam, noting that he harbored the look of a man who knew he was about to get his way. She could only pray she had the fortitude to not give him his way in one very important respect. Two nights. She only had to last two more nights. Then she could spend her time in LA sorting out her rather complex feelings concerning one overly virile baseball player.
“Okay. You win.” She splayed her hands at her sides and sighed. “I’ll stay here.”
Granddad Willy harrumphed. “’Bout time you used the brain the good lord gave you, Gwenyth Marie.” He motioned for Sam, indicating that he was supposed to carry Gwenyth’s suitcases upstairs. “Now, unless there are any other family crises I need to straighten out, your Grandmama and I have a date with a bucket of popcorn and that new docu-drama on TV, Alien Playboys.”
Sam raised a brow. His amused Southern lilt was questioning. “Isn’t that the show where women tell stories of how they were abducted by aliens, forced into sexual servitude, then brought back to earth after they were impregnated by them?”
“Yes sir, it is.” Willy nodded regally…or as regally as a man could nod while sporting a hot pink t-shirt. “I believe Jackie Stallone will be on tonight.” He leaned in closer to Sam and whispered in a conspiratorial manner. “Apparently ole Sylvester is the love child of a little gray guy on Planet Drago.”
“That certainly explains a lot.”
Harry rolled his eyes to the ceiling and groaned. “Please never let on to any reporters that you actually watch such ridiculous programs, let alone believe what you see on them.” He visibly shuddered. “I can see my gained percentage points flushing down the toilet if that ever got out.”
Verlene laughed gracefully. “Sugar, don’t be silly. You know Granddad and I would never do anything to embarrass you publicly.”
Willy harrumphed. “That’s right. I’m even wearin’ a genuine tux for your little dinner at the University of Tampa tomorrow night.”
Harry crossed his arms over his chest and glowered at his grandfather. “If it looks anything like that fashion monstrosity you wore to my college graduation, I’ll save my thanks until later.”
“Now see here Mr. High and Mighty, there wasn’t a blessed thing wrong with that tux!”
“It. Was. Polyester.” Harry bit each word out through clenched teeth.
“And damned fine polyester it was too, son.”
Chuckling, Sam clapped Harry on the back. “Not to worry, buddy. Willy and I went shoppin’ together two days ago. He’ll look like Dapper Don at your dinner.”
Harry released a worried breath. “Thank God for that,” he muttered.
Sam hoisted up Gwenyth’s suitcases into either hand, then waited for her to make eye contact. When she did, his possessive gaze inspected her thoroughly. “Your room here is the one next to mine, right Gwen?”
Gwenyth swallowed somewhat roughly, but managed to keep a serene look about her. His question couldn’t have been more loaded. “Yes, I believe it is.”
Sam smiled. It was a smile Gwenyth found very unnerving and far too calculating. “Then I’ll just take your bags up there now, Cupcake. See you upstairs.” He nodded to the elder Jones’s before taking his leave. “Willy. Verlene.” He turned to Harry and grinned. “See you tomorrow, Bro.”
Harry returned his smile. “Goodnight, Sam.”
After Sam disappeared up the winding front staircase, Harry turned to Gwenyth and affectionately ruffled her hair. “I’ll see you at UT tomorrow evening. Try to stay out of trouble until then, hm?”
Gwenyth stood up on tiptoe and kissed Harry’s jaw. “I’ll try.”
Willy sensed that all was once again as it should be in his lair so he turned his attention to more pressing matters. He cocked a silvery brow and regarded his wife. “You ready for Alien Playboys, puddin?”
Verlene chuckled. She reached up and twined her arms around the neck of the man she’d been in love with for over fifty years. “If it means spending time with my favorite hunk, then lead on.”
Willy leaned down and kissed the tip of his wife’s elegant nose. He then crooked his neck toward his grandchildren and gave them a look that meant business. “If y’all hear screams coming out of our bedroom”—he waggled his eyebrows belligerently— “don’t call the police.”
“I think I’m going to be sick,” Harry muttered.
Gwenyth laughed. She shook her head at her grandfather’s audacity, but couldn’t stop the grin from forming on her lips any more than her prudish brother could. “Goodnight everyone.”
* * * * *
Gregory’s smoldering gaze burned hotly as he peered down at his quarry. He would have her. He would bide his time no more.
Lucy gulped. She could see Gregory’s erection clearly outlined through his fashionably tailored jeans. She realized with all certainty that her time was running out. Gregory would listen to no more of her arguments. He would accept nothing less than her total surrender.
Gwenyth bit on her lower lip as she read from Candy’s latest published novel, The English Duke and the American Convenience Store Clerk. Finally, after two hundred and some odd pages, the hero and the heroine were preparing to get down and do the dirty deed. Gwenyth’s belly clenched in anticipation.
“What do you want from me, Gregory?” Lucy closed her eyes against the pain of her confused emotions, clenching the pricing gun in her hand as if it were her only lifeline to sanity. She turned her back on him and continued working. There was a big sale at the Pit-n-Git convenience store tomorrow and Lucy needed to concentrate all her energies on preparing for it. Otherwise, she would be overlooked for the big promotion yet again and Billy John Davis would become the next Assistant Night Manager instead of her.
Gregory removed the pricing gun from Lucy’s grasp and spun her around to face him. His nostrils flared at the very scent of her. She smelled of beer and gasoline, of two-for-one cigarette packs and day old bread. Gregory had never wanted a woman more. “I want everything, Lucy. Everything.” He gazed into her eyes and pleaded for their future together. “I want to make love to you every night for the rest of my life. I want to put my babies inside of your belly and watch them grow. I want to make you my Duchess.”
Lucy gasped at the hunger his words caused. She clutched her throat and whimpered. She loved him, but how could she turn her back on Pit-n-Git? How could she let Billy John Davis win? “Gregory, you know how important my career is to me. I’ve worked so long and hard to get where I am now. If I run off to England with you, what will become of me? What would I do there?” she pleaded.
Gregory gripped her shoulders and pulled her body against his. “I burn for you, Lucy, don’t you see that? Do you not realize that I would build a thousand Pit-n-Gits in Dorchester if only you will marry me?” He ground his erection against Lucy’s belly until she whimpered with need. “Marry me, Lucy. Say you will!”
Lucy closed her eyes and moaned. She knew her will was dissolving. Still, she tried one last time to stop the inevitable. “I…I…I can’t, Gregory.”
Gregory raised a lordly brow. His smile was that of a hunter closing in on its prey. He realized Lucy was caving. It was time to stop playing the gentleman and seduce her like the notorious rake that he was. "I see you are in need of a little persuasion, my dear…”
A knock at the door snapped Gwenyth’s head up to attention. “Damn,” she muttered, “I was just getting to the good part. Yes?” she called out absently, “come in.”
The door opened a moment later and Sam’s imposing figure stalked inside of the room. He closed the door quietly behind him and twisted the lock ominously. Gwenyth braved a glance in his direction when she heard the click of the lock—then gulped in dismay.
Good grief. As if she hadn’t been primed enough for lovemaking by Candy’s book, now here Sam was, looming over her bed wearing nothing but a towel and a hell of a sexy scowl. The man could give Lord Gregory a run for his money any day. “H-hi.” She closed Candy’s book and clutched it to her breast. When it dawned on her that Lucy had done the same thing with her pricing gun while in Gregory’s unnerving presence, she knew she was a goner. “What are you doing in here?” she asked more breathlessly than she’d meant to.
Sam said nothing, making Gwenyth’s tension that much worse. He gently removed the book from her grasp, eyed the title for an exaggerated second, then set it aside. Turnin
g back to face Gwenyth, he cocked an arrogant brow at her. “Every damn day since I’ve been here, I’ve found myself in need of a shower after leavin’ your presence, Cupcake. Well not tonight, damn it. You’re here, I’m here, and I’m takin’ what’s mine.” He crossed his arms over his chest and glowered down at her. “You got something to say about that, baby?”
Gwenyth’s throat felt unbearably tight. Her eyes raked over Sam’s impressively muscled form—over his hard torso, his washboard belly, and the black line of hair that trailed from his navel and disappeared into the towel. Between the book and reality, she was as primed as primed could get. “I, uh…that is to say, uh…”
“Spit it out, Cupcake.”
Gwenyth’s head shot up. She realized that Sam was giving her an out. She could take it. She could tell him to get out of her bedroom and he would. But she also realized that he’d laid his ego on the line tonight. Sam knew from the very way she’d been avoiding him for the past three days that she wanted him as passionately as he wanted her. But how many refusals for attention could a man take? Perhaps he’d walk away and never look back. That thought was depressing in the extreme.
On the other hand, Sam was a gentleman. If Gwenyth asked for time to sort out her feelings, he’d give it to her. She didn’t want him to think she flat out had no interest in pursuing whatever it was that was burgeoning between them, but neither did she think she was anywhere near ready to be intimate with him. She decided to be honest. “I’ve wanted this since I was old enough to fantasize, Sam…”
He sighed. “But?”
Gwenyth blew out a breath. “But I…” She shrugged her shoulders as she sat up on her knees. “I just need some time to figure out my feelings. Can you give me that, Sam?”
“Sure, Cupcake.” He smiled disarmingly and a little too sweetly. Gwenyth sensed that he hadn’t given up. “You can think about anything you want for as long as you want”—his smile turned feral—“so long as I’m buried ten inches deep inside of you while you’re doin’ it.” A muscle in his jaw ticked as the towel around his hips was thrown to the floor.
