She was laughing at Sam yet again. It maddened him.
He forced the horse around and advanced on her.
He boiled. He fumed.
He took action.
Chapter Eight
Vy’s laughter faltered.
Sam had heard her. Fury crossed his features.
He rode toward the porch.
Her stupid unruly laughter, self-defense against her attraction to this man, had gotten her into trouble again. He forced the horse close to the porch.
Vy shrieked and stepped back, but with nowhere to go because Rachel stood behind her.
“Rachel, move,” she said.
“I don’t think I will.” What was that smugness in Rachel’s voice about? “I want to see what Sam has in mind. You shouldn’t have laughed.”
“You’re supposed to be my friend.”
“I am, but I asked you to straighten all of this out yesterday. Somehow you didn’t. Today you’re laughing at him again. You need to take resp—”
Vy never heard the end of Rachel’s comment. Sam grasped her around her waist and hauled her up onto the horse without breaking a sweat.
Outraged, she shouted, “What do you think you’re doing?”
He didn’t answer, features hard as he rode across the yard and away out into a field...and kept going.
She grasped his jacket, her position precarious. She started to slip and wrapped her arms around him.
He held her against him securely, not a cowboy and not a rancher, yet he as strong as one. Still he rode, until they were well out of sight of the house.
Why did this look so romantic in movies? Her butt hurt. The ride jarred. Her teeth knocked together.
He stopped beside a tree and wrapped the reins around one gloved hand. With his teeth, he tore off the other glove and clasped his long fingers across the back of her neck.
His kiss—oh, my Lord—it smoldered and burned and singed. If yesterday’s had been electrifying, today’s was even more potent. Again with the giving and taking and taking and giving nonstop for minutes on end, stupefying and intoxicating.
More. More.
Her head spun. He stepped down from the horse and took her with him.
He whirled around, setting her back against a tree.
The kiss held. She tasted him, welcomed his tongue and gave her own to his mouth.
She plundered and plundered.
His hands pushed up her skirt, pulled aside her panties and grasped her behind, his touch on her skin thrilling. More! Running on instinct, she wrapped her legs around his waist, still kissing him, drinking equal parts anger, determination and passion.
She didn’t want this. She craved it. She held his head so she could feast.
No other man had...
“Do you want me, Vy?”
“Yes. Now!”
He entered her.
Fulfillment spread from her core to the tips of her fingers and toes.
Yes. This.
There were moments in life, pivotal moments, when everything changed. Like right here. Right now.
No. She couldn’t accept that. Couldn’t—
Sam moved inside her, giving her life, brightening dark corners, loosing inhibitions.
She’d been cold for so long.
Still that kiss went on and on.
She wasn’t a taker, though.
Vy Summer gave as good as she got.
Infusing every caress of her fingers on his body with fire, she set to turning Sam’s insides to jelly to match hers.
He moved with intensity. She met every stroke.
Two hard bands of muscles, his arms across her back, protected her from the rough bark of the tree. Dappled sunlight played across her closed eyelids. An elusive, fresh scent teased her. Sam’s soap.
Intensity built. She clung to his shoulders. Desire crumbled Vy’s last remaining defenses and she fell into a chasm of delight.
Sam followed.
For long moments, Vy reveled in the aftershocks, holding him against her as hard as her arms could.
Don’t leave. Don’t be over. Not yet.
Let me float here in this oasis of delight for just a few more minutes.
Sunlight still played hide-and-seek with her eyelids, warm one moment, cool the next.
Sam held their bodies locked together, not one fraction of space between them. She couldn’t remember ever being with a man and feeling this close after sex.
But then, that hadn’t been just sex. It had been...
She didn’t have words for it. Stumped, she leaned her head forward and placed the sweetest of kisses on his neck.
Most times, she didn’t have the patience for cuddling after sex. She liked to get it done and leave, but right now she could drift in this spectacular state of joy for ages.
Sam pulled back. She opened her eyes. He studied her with affection, his gray eyes dark in the shade of the tree.
At some point, he’d lost his hat. Vy rested a tender hand on his hair.
She wasn’t prone to tenderness, but Sam’s childlike delight in corny jokes and his acute love for his daughter and his... She didn’t exactly know what it was about this man...
But he made love superbly.
When she was with him, so did she.
An unsteady grin spread across his handsome face. “I’m glad we got that out of the way. Now, Miss Retro Diner Owner, are you going to laugh at my riding skills again?”
Mercurial man, trying to make light of a situation that had taken them both by surprise. Vy had just made love against a tree in the middle of the day on her friend’s land...with a relative stranger. And she didn’t want it to end.
And Sam seemed as shaken as she felt, even though he tried to joke.
She kept her affairs discreet, an expression of normal physical needs and nothing more.
That, what she and Sam had just done, had definitely been something more. So much more.
The more worried her. Sex was fine and dandy. More was not.
Fear arose in her. Panic. No. She didn’t want more. She wanted safe platonic affairs with a little physical loving on the side. That was it. Pain, so much pain, threatened in the more.
Only at this moment did she realize Sam had controlled his troublesome horse and had ridden with skill across the field to the edge of the stream, all while Vy had had no doubt that he wouldn’t let her fall.
She could no longer laugh. She could no longer use his clumsiness to keep her distance.
Angered by his skill, the very skill she’d moments before thought nonexistent, she pushed against his chest. More sturdy muscle there, like on his arms.
“What do you do?” she asked, annoyed that he was more than he seemed.
“About what?”
“How do you keep in shape?”
One corner of his mouth tipped up. He knew that it bothered her when he broke through her negative assumptions about him. “I box almost every night. Back home.”
“And where is back home?”
The other corner of his mouth quirked up. “I’ve told you, that’s private.”
He lifted her from his body and set her down gently, holding her hand to make sure she landed on her feet.
His consideration, second nature to him, puzzled her and robbed her of fodder for her anger.
Okay, he seemed to be a good guy in certain ways.
And she had wanted him. Had craved his touch.
She stalked to the edge of the stream and struggled to push through her bewilderment to find her equilibrium. Her sense of normalcy.
Like a person who’d received a shock, she couldn’t find her feet.
“What are we going to do about our attraction
to each other?”
“No!”
“What?” he asked.
“I won’t be attracted to you.”
“Too late, Violet.”
“I refuse to be attracted to you. I can control myself. Can you?”
“Usually.” He smiled ruefully.
Neither of them had been controlled.
What a ridiculously messy situation.
“I live in this town.” To her horror, tears trembled in her voice. What on earth? What did this man bring out that she didn’t want to show? “You’re passing through. I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why you’re pretending to be something you aren’t, but any havoc you wreak in town will mean nothing to you because you can walk away. I can’t. I love this place. I want to live my whole life here. After you leave, I’ll be left behind to pick up the pieces. Understand?”
“Yes. I do.” He sounded reasonable, and maybe sad. She turned to look at him. His expression open and honest, he said, “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“Neither did I. Now that it has, let’s put it behind us. It won’t happen again.”
Now for sure, he looked sad. “It was amazing,” he said.
“It was okay.”
Seeing through her, he laughed, but she couldn’t give their lovemaking credence. She couldn’t let him know how much he’d just shattered her world.
She tried to mount the horse, who, surprisingly, hadn’t run away.
Storm sidled in the opposite direction.
Sam grasped his reins. Storm tried to resist. Sam said, “Settle down!”
The horse behaved like the most docile pony in the barn. Wonder of wonders. Sam had won the fight.
He mounted the horse, then reached down for her.
Again they rode across the fields, but slowly this time.
“I need to get home.” The same thing she’d said yesterday after he’d kissed her, as though all of her problems would be solved if she could just get to her small apartment, crawl into her bed and cover her head with her blankets.
When she’d come here today, she couldn’t have known she’d be having sex with Sam.
She’d wanted it, and had dreaded losing herself to him, and had thought it would never happen. But losing herself had been magnificent.
It had been great, amazing, disturbing. And tender. And affectionate.
When they returned to the house, Vy left without a word or backward glance.
Sam Michaels might be an enigma, but she liked him, and that made him more dangerous than ever.
* * *
SAM WATCHED VIOLET walk away, taking a piece of him with her. Their lovemaking had been nothing short of dazzling.
For a man his age, he hadn’t had many lovers. He’d lost his virginity in high school, had fun in college with a handful of partners and then had gotten married soon after graduating and getting his first job.
For the fifteen years his marriage had lasted, he’d been faithful. Then about eighteen months ago, Tiffany had told him it was over and that she was marrying her new partner the second the divorce papers were signed.
There’d been no one since then, no matter how great the temptation. They’d all looked like rebound love, and he hadn’t wanted that.
But today’s lovemaking with Violet had taken him to unprecedented heights.
For that brief period, he’d been lost to himself and everything around him, as though transcending time and place. He’d been at peace for the first time in a long time.
He wanted more of that bliss. That ecstasy.
Which was why, he thought as he put Storm away and trudged to the house to wash up, he would stay away from Violet.
He should never, ever depend on a woman to complete himself. He had to be on his guard. Tiffany had taught him that. It would probably be years before he would trust a woman again.
Violet, powerful, beautiful and funny, had too much sway over him. If he gave her power and she betrayed him, the effect would be even worse than it had been with Tiff. Ironic, given that he’d known the woman only four days.
Only four days and already she had him riding off into the sunset with her and making blissful love to her up against a tree.
And in the afterglow of that amazing experience, he realized his only course of action, to protect himself, was to stay far away from Violet.
After washing up in the downstairs washroom, he entered the kitchen.
Rachel stood at the counter, chopping vegetables. He should offer to help her but needed to be alone, to still the tremors of shock running through him and to regain his equilibrium.
She glanced at him over her shoulder and must have seen something on his face, even though he’d thought he looked neutral.
“Vy just hightailed it out of here without saying goodbye. You look like you’ve just survived an earthquake.”
Earthquake. Good word for it.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
Sam shook his head. He really couldn’t talk about it. He’d never been the type to kiss and tell, especially not with something too huge, too important to sully with gossip.
He turned to leave the kitchen, but Rachel stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Just don’t hurt her. She’s been through a lot in her life and she’s a good friend. I won’t see her toyed with.”
Sam covered her hand with his briefly, and then lifted it from his arm. “Rachel, I’m very much afraid all of the hurting is going to go the other way.”
As he stepped out of the kitchen, he knew Violet could damage him in ways he never could have expected.
He hadn’t imagined the glory of that kind of lovemaking existed. Oh, yes. She could hurt him. Big-time. Without even trying.
And, as much as he feared for himself, all of his instincts screamed for him to protect Violet.
He’d developed a wellspring of tenderness for prickly Violet Summer.
Sam vowed to stay away from her. He’d find a way to help Gramps while crossing paths with her as little as possible.
* * *
VY AWOKE WITH a start.
Disoriented, she stared around the room. Not her bedroom. Yes, hers. Nothing looked the same.
Everything had changed.
Life felt different.
She felt different.
In a fog, she rolled over. Light had not yet started to creep past the curtains. Still early on Tuesday morning or the middle of the night. She wasn’t late for work. So what was wrong? What had happened?
In a rush, it came roaring back, flooding her with fury and passion.
Sam Michaels had happened.
She sat up and cradled her head in her hands.
No way. One bout of lovemaking with a man didn’t change her. Didn’t make life feel grand and new and...bigger.
How had she allowed Sam to happen? She never lost her restraint. Her sexual experiences with men were mutually satisfying and easily abandoned.
She chose her rare encounters carefully, with those men who wanted nothing more after sex with her than “Thank you, ma’am” and “See you around.” Pleasing but easily forgotten.
Not so Sam. In a few short days, he’d gotten under her skin. Into her blood. Madness. Temporary insanity. Or maybe not temporary. Her body had been branded by his touch. By him having been there. Having touched her.
Having been touched, she couldn’t be untouched by him. She would know him with her eyes closed, with the caress of a single finger.
Crazy.
No one got to her like this.
Tossing back the covers, she surged out of bed for the shower.
She’d taken one the night before but needed another immediately, not because she felt dirtied by what they’d done together but b
ecause she didn’t.
He’d singed her. Had impressed his mark on her.
It had been astounding, the best sex ever in her life...yet only a quick tumble against a tree. How could that be the best ever? Because of Sam, a man she didn’t trust.
She opened the curtains fully. Off in the distance, a vague promise of dawn colored the horizon, too far-off to be a reality for an hour or more.
Even in the darkness, the world sparkled through her new wide-open eyes. Sparkled!
No.
This wasn’t her. Her head couldn’t be turned so easily.
Smart, level-headed, sensible—these were the words that defined Violet Summer, not moony, infatuated and sparkly.
She’d spent years creating a persona, the person she really wanted to be, all the while hoping that nobody would call her out for the imposter she feared she was. Uneducated Vy.
She wanted to be smart Vy.
Sam called her Violet, a name too soft, too vulnerable and too... In her past, all her mother had ever called her.
She showered, dressed and left her apartment to trudge downstairs and open her diner.
Stepping inside, she struggled to become Vy again, bold, clever, successful businesswoman.
She was just full of adjectives for herself today...and all of them that she’d wanted to be ever since leaving home at sixteen. She’d forced herself to become strong, to become a thesaurus of sass.
Blinking in the harsh lights of the kitchen, she gathered ingredients for the pies she made every morning.
From the quiet kitchen, amid the rattle of baking pans and measuring spoons, Vy heard the front door open.
She didn’t panic. It would be Will, and part of a familiar routine. They’d been doing it for years. Maybe all of this would settle her nerves.
She heard Will walk through the dining room to hang his coat in the spare room at the back.
He stepped into the kitchen. “Hey.”
Will wasn’t much of a conversationalist.
“Hey, yourself. I’m making six apples and a couple of cherries.”
“Okay.”
“You can get started on the meat loaf and beef stew.”
“Same as every morning.”
“Get the potatoes on to boil. Put plenty of garlic in the oven to roast. The garlic mashed potatoes have been popular lately. When I’m finished with these pies, I’ll open up.”
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