by Angel Payne
Everything other than what he did observe.
The two women were actually eye rolling at each other. As if the “boys” were preoccupied with their innuendos, and they were sneakin’ in the chance for a shared titter before the Doms got serious again…
Sam almost nudged Dan so the mate could catch his subbie red-handed—red eye-rolled?—but he let the girls have their fun, even enjoyin’ what he witnessed. In many ways, he was reassured. Clearly Jen came from a crowd in which Dominance and submission were approached with respect but not held up as religion. That was good. Really bloody good. But at the same time, kind of bloody bad. Now more than ever, it was so easy for him to envision sweet Jenny surrenderin’ to him. Tied down by him. Cuffed for him. Naked and spread and ready for him. Utterly vulnerable to his every desire and pleasure but knowin’ the power she gave up was his to borrow, not to keep.
And damn, did he have some brilliant ideas about how to return some incredible dividends to her with that loan. Naughty, nasty, filthy things. Decadent, flagrant, wild things that would leave some sweet, sexy marks on her for a few days, remindin’ her of exactly who had conquered her body and then looked into her very soul.
Shit. Shit.
He forced down a deep breath. Directed his imagination to hit the fuckin’ showers—and to crank the knob all the way over to C.
He’d only been in the same room with her again for fifteen minutes, and he was already doin’ it again. Dreamin’ up scenes that weren’t what “friends” did with each other, in any fuckin’ culture across the globe. Worse, he was glommin’ extra details that were five steps past the edge of dangerous. Looked into her soul? What kind of mince was that, and who the hell did he think he could fool with it?
Fuckin’ hard to see into a person’s soul, when a man wasn’t sure if any of his was still left.
Not after what he’d seen.
Not after what he’d done.
So maybe you should stop moonin’ over the woman like you’re on a desert island and she’s the only biscuit left on the beach.
But he looked anyway.
To find her peerin’ back at him. Just as intensely.
Fuck.
But now that they’d started this, no way could he even think of endin’ it.
No. He’d already started it—from the second she’d blurted her first “Yes, sir,” to him, three days ago when they were on the motorway back to the base.
Two small words…but he savored what they did to him. Throughout his body…and yes, deep in his soul.
No. He hadn’t savored them.
He’d treasured them.
And he did again now, in every relevant way, while watching Jen twist a delicate fist against the middle of her stomach. While observing her heartbeat thud at the base of her throat, savoring the telling dilation of her pupils as he kept gazing at her, and securing her a little tighter to his side. While she answered that subtle move with the tiniest jerk of her hips, coupled with the tiniest clench of her jaw…betraying exactly what he’d done to the hottest, tightest grottoes of her body…
“Oh,” she whispered.
“Christ,” he gritted back.
Just before more servers entered, bearing trays of hors d’oeuvres that layered the balmy air with savory, delicious aromas. But as everyone hummed in delight and started moving toward the terrace, Sam let them pass his unmoving form—as Jen took advantage of the moment to extricate herself from him, murmuring about a need to use the ladies’ room.
A need he should let her attend.
A break they both needed.
A space he should recognize, giving them room for rational regard, sober perception, sensible breaths.
But that was what he’d told himself for three damn days. Had assured himself would be a positive for them, lending the distance and clarity they needed about this—whatever the hell this was. Yet with every sway of her escaping backside, those glorious ass cheeks moving so perfectly against her silky dress, the only label he could assign to the last three days was a matching number of words.
Fucking wasted time.
And one of the few important truths he’d learned from years in the world’s finest hellholes? Time liked being wasted the way death liked being disrespected. Both ended up with a guy’s balls strung up in a sling, watching his own hand twisting the counterweight.
He was done with the sling. Same way he was done with figuring out “friendship” with this woman. Same way he was damn sure Jen was done with it too.
He just wished he could still be sure about that once he rounded the corner of the terrace, onto a smaller side patio consumed mostly by a comfortable seating area around a modern fountain. Box hedges framed three sides of the setting, with the fourth bein’ a sheer glass wall overlooking the Vegas Valley all the way out to Red Rock Canyon. In the last glow of the day, the canyon’s edges were majestic silhouettes against a sky as glorious as any back home, autumn colors setting the firmament afire in shades of orange, amber, purple, and red.
The splendor was perfect for Sam’s intentions. He sprinted toward Jen, calculating how many steps it would take to rope an arm around her again and then how many more to carry her to one of the couches and finally kiss every damn thought out of her mind and protest out of her senses, until all she felt was all of his passion and all of her need for it…
Except that Jen wasn’t making a beeline for the bathroom anymore.
Jen wasn’t going anywhere anymore.
She’d stopped so suddenly next to one of the hedges, Sam almost wondered if she’d gotten snagged by the bush, except that the silent panic on her face didn’t match that motivation. Unless there was a serial killer clown or soul-sucking wraith hidden in the bush, he didn’t know what had her looking ready to throw herself off the tower rather than move another muscle…
Until laughter gashed the air.
It was more like caustic giggles, but semantics weren’t his primary concern at this moment—in which the whole, sudden mess of a situation became clear in one blast of a look.
There was Jenny, caught behind the closest hedge. There was the entrance to the privies, located at the other side of the patio.
And there were Mattie and Viv Lesange, lounging on a couple of couches in that patio as if they were going to be there all night…prattlin’ in gossip about Jenny herself.
“Ohhhh, whatever are we going to do with our darling Thorny-boo?” Mattie crooned, suckin’ long on a fag and then blowin’ out the smoke with her head tilted back.
“You’re asking me?” Viv drawled. “Bitch, please.”
“Honestly, if you aren’t laughing at her, you’re crying for her.” Mattie Lesange lived up to her sister’s label by deep-frying her words in a vat of snide.
“Speak for yourself on that one.” Viv rose and turned, but the sole glass of whisky in Sam’s system had barely dulled his reflexes, and he ducked behind a planter of palm trees before she saw him. Not that the woman seemed to care about the world beyond impressin’ her older sister, no matter who she had to throw under the bus to do it. “I’m not going to waste the tears. I mean, that ‘look, I’m so clumsy I’m adorable’ shit was semi-excusable when we were kids. Who does she think she’s fooling anymore?”
“Right?” Mattie took a long swig on her wine before reaching into her bag and popping open a makeup compact. While foofin’ her hair and checking her lipstick, she muttered, “She has to know how to walk a straight line in heels by this point. Isn’t that just a basic thing, like learning to shave your legs or brush your teeth?”
“Well, she does work at the base.” Viv might as well have been disclosing Jen was walkin’ the streets for a living. “She’s in HR, or whatever they call that in the military. Maybe the work keeps her on her feet a lot, and—”
“Heels aren’t outlawed on military bases, V.” A feline sniff from the woman still primpin’ in the compact mirror. “I have seen Top Gun. Whose side are you on?”
“Are you even asking me th
at right now?”
Mattie lifted a gentler stare. Pursed her lips as if an actual apology was about to emerge. Instead, she justified, “I’m just tense. You know that. A little off my game.”
“I know. It’s all right.” Viv’s heels clacked on the tile as she grabbed up her own wine and paced in front of the windows. Sam was about to give the girl credit for at least stopping to admire that eye-poppin’ sunset, until he realized she was using the glass to assess her own reflection. Not that there was much to check out, since it seemed the girl had bought a roll of tinfoil and chosen to call it a dress.
“I just…didn’t expect someone like Sam Mackenna on the guest list. I mean, Dan knows some fine, fine men, but that Scot is in a class all by himself…”
“No shit. And you were definitely letting him know that!”
Sam grimaced into the palms. Was that what Mattie’s glaikit glances were all about? He thought she was just suppressin’ gas or battlin’ female cramps.
“Right?” Mattie returned. “But then Thorny had to pull her little face-plant and get him all worked up over her precious, petite little ankles. And then whisper and giggle at him like some tourist flirt in the Encore pool.”
Sam was damn glad the palms were well planted. Though if much more trash came out of either of those witches, he’d go ahead and uproot a couple anyway—and then replant each of them in the women’s laps. For now, he restrained his rage. The trees provided an equal shield from Jen’s view, and he already knew that she’d be horrified about him witnessing her reactions to the sisters’ exchange. The tears shimmering on her lashes. The stubborn quavering of her chin. Firsthand, he’d seen what the wars of men did to entire countries—but witnessing what women could do to each other was nearly just as harrowing.
“Wait.” Viv spun around so fast, her wine sloshed. “Do you really think she’s making a play for Sam?”
“No. I don’t think it.” Mattie clamped her compact closed and hurled it back into her bag. “I know it.”
Fortunately, Jen gasped at the same time as Viv. Sam clenched his fists, fighting not to rush to her, as she clamped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes, still visible to him, shimmered brighter with moisture. She looked hurt—but something more.
She looked…convicted.
“Oh, come on.” Mattie huffed at her sister. “Nobody’s that much of a train wreck just because.”
“Good point.” Viv hummed. “But you’re not actually worried about this, are you?”
“Bitch, please.” Mattie waved her nearly drained glass in an adamant sweep. “The day I sweat a drop about little Jennifer Thorne is the day I buy a cat and look for assisted living.” She drained the last puddle of wine and then set the glass down with an angry clang. “Let’s get real. Even if I wasn’t in the picture, Captain Mackenna wouldn’t be tapping on that girl’s front door—or anything else of hers. He’s out of her league.”
“True…”
But the catch in Viv’s voice was blatant.
“What?” Mattie charged.
“It’s just…”
“Just what?”
“We said the same thing about Tess and Dan.”
“Which supports my theory further.”
“Oh?”
“Nature’s not going to allow another lightning strike under their geeky little rock so soon.”
Viv’s laughter was so pronounced, the water in the fountain jerked from the vibration on the air. It matched the visible shiver that coursed through Jen as well. She held on to the tension from top to bottom as the girl queried her sister, “So what’s your plan of attack now?” but Mattie took her time about contemplatin’ that answer as she re-shouldered her handbag and started leading the way back to the party.
Because in truth, she didn’t have an answer.
Because deep down, that bitch knew there would be no fucking plan of “attacking” him. An attack implied a territory or victory to be gained—and Mattie Lesange, while cunning and seductive, was nobody’s warmer; she knew damn well there’d be no territory to “win” with him beyond social niceties.
But he wasn’t leaving a shred of that surety to chance.
Or a syllable of his message to nuance.
Or a single more minute to the time he and Jen had already wasted in their senseless dance around the bush with each other.
And fate, finally giving him a break, happened to present the perfect opportunity to accomplish all three.
Despite how much he hated the circumstances in which it was startin’. With Jen’s heartache, evident on every inch of her lovely face as she emerged from behind the hedge, stumblin’ onto the patio and fallin’ into one of the chairs across from where Viv and Mattie had held their court of ruthless judgment. With the blatant shakes of her shoulders once she dropped her face into her hands, unloadin’ a long, hurting groan against her palms. With the transformation of that pain into angry tears, as plain as her sadness had been, as soon as she reared her head back up again.
With her furious surge back to her feet and then her stormin’ retreat from the patio.
But not his direction. Not toward the privies either.
She shoved through another glass door, which Sam hadn’t seen from the alcove of his position. And though he was able to swiftly tail her, his chest fisted when seein’ where she’d ended up.
At the elevator bank.
Callin’ one of the lifts that were rigged like shoebox dungeons.
Which might have been a damn fine thing, if not for how the woman pounded on the call button like Trinity from The Matrix, standing in the phone booth and waiting for Morpheus to pick up.
Goddamnit, how he yearned to be her Morpheus. And her Neo. Her hero but also her ruin. Her pleasure and her pain. Her bad idea but the best brainstorm she’d ever had. The one she’d break the rules for—only to realize that the greatest risks brought the sweetest rewards.
Maybe that was going to be the prize she got out of all this—but again, fate’s higher purpose wasn’t his picture to see here. Not yet, at least. That was the thing about big lessons. They were usually mosaics, not watercolors. And they usually only came one tile at a time.
And right here and now, he could only control how this tile got painted.
And knew it sure as hell wasn’t meant to have her tear-streaked face all over it.
“Jen.”
Which was why he sprinted faster as she started jabbing the button harder.
“Jen!”
Then even faster as the lift on the left slid open.
“Jen!”
And he went completely Neo on her, diving into the lift head first, split seconds before the doors whumped shut.
Chapter Five
“Shit.”
Jen choked it out as soon as the elevator doors opened and she processed enough of Sam’s behavior to arrive at one indelible conclusion.
He’d been spying on the exchange between Mat and Viv too.
Damn it.
All right, hopefully not the entire conversation—though he’d seen enough of things to know she’d opted to come this way instead of the restrooms, which probably meant he’d heard the words that had turned her belly into a swamp of disgust and her heart into a forest of anger.
It hadn’t just been the petty shit they’d accused her of. The way they’d dehumanized Sam, like he was a slab of prize game they could stalk and bag, had had her debating whether to break out of her hiding place and “bumble” her way into tossing their drinks back into their faces. She’d held back out of respect and love for Tess. The woman, who did so much for so many, deserved a night of celebration with her family and friends, not hours of stress filled with her piece-of-work sisters going off about her dorky best friend.
And ergo, her sprint for the elevators instead of the ladies’ room. Along the way, she’d tapped out a fast text to Tess, explaining she was going to her car to change into more reasonable shoes—not a lie, but she also needed the self-imposed time-out simply to get herse
lf under control again. Not just because of the rage ball from Viv and Mat. She’d already been a massive tangle of nerves and emotion, thanks to John Franzen’s “surprise” plus-one to this thing—and oh yeah, the “fun” elevator ride she’d been on right before that…
And now here she was, back at square one for all that.
No. Was there such a thing as negative square one? Whatever the hell that was called.
Worse, because she now realized she’d punched the wrong damn floor number too. And there was no way she could reach around to correct her blunder. Sam made that part clear as soon as the doors closed all the way and crowded in on her, consuming her immediate sights with the raw wolf hunger of his unblinking stare. Then blocking out all her light with the looming cliffs of his shoulders. Then filling up her senses with his intoxicating smell, all forest and cedar and leather. Then paralyzing her with the wavelengths of his energy, volatile and virile and focused. Completely on her.
“S-Sam.” And her inner Sofía was still on an extended break, leaving her to scrape together a coherent voice from the awkward, exposed tatters of her self-composure. Five minutes ago, she’d been shaking in protective rage for him. Now, she was trembling in giddy, smitten awareness because of him. And it felt completely ridiculous. And utterly miraculous. This was the part where her corset was supposed to feel too tight, only in no world was a silk wrap dress from the last Nordstrom Rack sale even close to a corset. This was also the part where he was supposed to lean in tighter, letting his hooded stare drop to her gasping lips, but then pull back, bussing her knuckles instead before softly growling if he was intruding in on her tender sensibilities…
Sam definitely had the lean-in nailed.
And the smoldering viscount fixation on her mouth, from which she was frantically inhaling and exhaling as he got closer. Then closer…
But no way was there going to be a dignified retreat. Not by an inch. Not by a breath. As her breaths came with more merciless force, the huge Scot scooped up her wrists beneath his hands, pinned them against the leather wall, and then used his thigh to secure her from the waist down—by pushing it directly between her own.
