Hot Mess

by Lynn Raye Harris

  Georgeanne bit her lip. God what a fool she’d been. But they’d been arguing so much then and she’d really preferred the quiet time alone when he was supposedly working. When weeks passed without sex, she’d felt relief rather than worry. Just when she started to believe something was wrong, Tim would make love to her and they’d have a blissful few days before everything went sideways again.

  She looked at Sam where he still worked out, his muscles bunching and flexing and glowing with sweat. Her core clenched tight. How could she want to leap into a relationship with a man who would give her even less stability than Tim had?

  Because she was crazy, that was why. She shook her head and tried to concentrate on her computer. When she read the same sentence for the twentieth time, she snapped the computer shut and propped her chin in her hands so she could watch Sam.

  Eventually, he came inside and she pretended to be busy while he went and took a shower. They didn’t speak much for the rest of the afternoon. Georgeanne didn’t know what to say to him, so she said nothing. Sam spent time cleaning his weapon and reporting in to his super-secret military organization every hour.

  When dinnertime rolled around, they ate leftover pasta with wine. Sam even baked a chocolate cake in the microwave, which she found super impressive. She told him so and he grinned.

  “Even I can read a cookbook, G.”

  She took another bite of the cake. It wasn’t beautiful, but it sure was good. “Yeah, but you don’t have a cookbook here. You’ve memorized this, and I’m impressed. I wouldn’t begin to know how to do it.”

  He shrugged. “You’d learn if you wanted. I like chocolate cake. And it’s easier to learn how to do it yourself than buy a slice in a coffee shop.”

  “I don’t know. I’d think the coffee shop was easier.”

  The look he gave her was full of meaning. “When there is a coffee shop. Sometimes there isn’t.”

  He meant when he was deployed somewhere. She finished the last bite of cake and sighed. “Well, good news for your team members then.”

  His grin was genuine. “Yeah, I get stuck cooking when we have facilities.”

  She blinked. “And what do you do when you don’t?” She didn’t imagine they had takeout in some of the places he went to.

  “MREs.”

  “Oh yes, how could I forget those?” Meals Ready to Eat came in sealed pouches, packed about a million calories per meal, and had been known to cause some pretty desperate trips to the restroom when you weren’t accustomed to eating them. Or so she’d been told.

  “No one ever forgets MREs, believe me.”

  “So I’ve heard.” She got up and collected his plate and took everything over to the sink. She washed the dishes quickly, then set them in the strainer to dry. When she turned around, Sam was watching her, his expression intense and heated. Her heart skipped a beat.

  “If I could be with anyone, I’d pick you,” he said.

  She licked suddenly dry lips. “You can. All we have to do is try.”

  He shook his head and her heart fell. “I already know how it’ll go. Tried it once before and it didn’t work out.”

  She didn’t know why it pierced her to think of Sam having a relationship with another woman. She’d been married, for goodness sake. But it did kick her right in the chest to think of him with anyone else. Geez.

  “I’m sorry it didn’t work out, Sam.”

  He shrugged. “It’s fine. It happens.”

  “What if I wanted to try anyway?”

  She could tell he’d stiffened where he sat. “Best not to go down that road, Georgie. I’d rather have this—these few memories of you—than know I wasn’t what you wanted me to be.”

  She wanted to go over and shake him. “You keep saying that. But how do you know what I want you to be? What if I just want you to be yourself?”

  He got to his feet and stretched and she knew he was through with this conversation. “I better check in with HQ now.”

  He turned to walk away, but she couldn’t let him go so easily. “You know,” she called, “I had the right man with the right connections—and a fat lot of good it did me. The only person who cares that you aren’t part of the country club set is you, Sam.”

  He turned back to her, his eyes glittering. “Maybe so. But that still doesn’t change the fact that what I do isn’t normal. Or stable. Are you ready for that, Georgie? Can you honestly say you are?”

  Her throat was tight. “I don’t know. But I’d like the chance to figure it out.”

  He looked cool and remote, and she knew he wasn’t even considering it. Then he shook his head. “I’m right, Georgie. About everything. You’ll realize it eventually. And you’ll be thankful you had a near miss.”

  She wanted to growl. “Don’t tell me what I’m supposed to be feeling. I’ll work that out for myself, thanks.”

  He only arched an eyebrow before he pulled his phone from his pocket and walked outside. She watched him go down into the yard, away from her, and start to talk to someone on the other end. She wanted to scream. Instead, she hugged her arms around herself and wished this nightmare would soon be over. If she were in her home, her bed, her life—well, maybe she wouldn’t ache so much when Sam McKnight refused to consider any kind of future where she might fit in.

  When it got late, Georgeanne went to get ready for bed. Sam didn’t even look up when she left, and she wondered how this night would go compared to last night. When she finished her nightly routine and went back out to the kitchen to grab some water, Sam was on the cot, eyes closed, arms folded over his impressive chest.

  It was precisely what she expected—and yet she fumed for several minutes before she went and climbed into bed alone. Georgeanne Hayes was not begging. She’d come perilously close to it earlier, when he’d told her there was no chance for them, but that was a line she wasn’t going to cross—no matter how needy she felt or how much she ached for him.

  But of course sleep wouldn’t come as she lay there alone, knowing Sam was in the next room, knowing what kind of heat they’d already shared. She’d been in bed for an hour, maybe two, lying awake with the covers tossed back and her heart pounding in frustration, when her door opened. Sam came in on silent feet and then stripped before lowering himself onto the mattress.

  She wanted desperately to turn into him, to roll her hips against his body and beg him for fulfillment—but she was angry and she couldn’t do that without being weak. She didn’t like being weak.

  “What are you doing, Sam?” she demanded. “I thought we were finished.”

  He rolled her beneath him in a single smooth move and she realized he was hard. Her core flooded with heat. She barely suppressed a whimper. She should tell him to go away, but there was no way in hell she was going to do it.

  No way.

  “We should be, but God knows I can’t get a moment’s rest with you in the next room. Not when I want you so bad.” He flexed his hips and her body arched up off the bed, though she willed it not to.

  “Sam. My God…” Her voice was choked with need.

  “This is what life with me is like, Georgie. Nothing for days on end—and then there I am, in your bed, in your life, wanting you to drop everything and be with me. Because I’ve been out in the field and now I’m back and I need you.”

  Her breath was coming faster now. She could tell it tortured him to say these things, but she wanted to hear it. Wanted to understand. His life terrified her, but she needed him all the same. “I like being needed.”

  “And if I only need you for sex? If all I want is a hot fuck before I’m gone again?”

  “Maybe that’s all I want. Did you ever consider that?”

  He stiffened and she knew that thought had never crossed his mind. Well, hell, it hadn’t crossed hers either, but damn if she’d let him be the one to say those kinds of things, to make assumptions about her feelings—even if they were mostly true.

  She’d always done what she’d been expected to do. She’d marri
ed the proper guy and followed him around while he advanced in his career—and look how that worked out for her. Maybe it was time she did something shocking. Maybe it was time she threw herself into a sexual relationship with a man and worked out the details as they happened.

  Except, God, she really didn’t see herself operating that way. Not when the man was Sam and she’d loved him for half her life.

  His mouth dropped to the column of her throat, and she sighed as his lips and tongue left a trail of flame in their wake. There was nothing better than this feeling she got when he was making love to her. Sam McKnight was her drug of choice, and she needed her fix.

  Regardless that the fall to the bottom of the pit would be damn hard when it came.

  “Georgie, you have to start thinking about this. You can’t want me beyond these few days. I’m good for nothing but this kind of thing. I can’t give you what you deserve.”

  She lifted her head and nipped his earlobe. “I’ll be the judge of what I deserve.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, held on tight. “Go ahead, Sam. Do what you think is your absolute worst. I need it. I need you.”

  He rocked into her body with a single sharp thrust and she gasped with the intensity of the pleasure he gave her. Everything felt so right when she was with Sam. So gloriously good.

  He began to thrust into her hard, deep, and sure, until she was a mass of raw nerve endings, until the explosion took hold of her and magnified her senses to a keen edge. He followed her, her name a broken groan on his lips. And then he gathered her close and she remembered nothing else as she fell into a deep sleep.

  *

  Georgeanne wasn’t quite sure, but she thought that Sam decided to stop fighting with her about the future. Or, at least, that he’d determined not to think about it. Because for the next two days, he was with her every moment. They spent hours in bed together, learning the taste and texture of each other, and they spent hours talking. About anything and everything—except for the specifics of his job in the military. She understood that part was off-limits, and she understood why.

  But they did talk about the things he’d done, the places he’d gone. She learned the number and position of his scars, his callouses, the first time he’d shot a man, and the first time he’d been shot.

  She ached for him, and she wanted to hold him tight and never let him go. Not that he would let her. If he had any idea how protective she felt, how angry she grew when she thought of him wounded and laid up in a hospital with no one to visit except his Army buddies, then perhaps he wouldn’t tell her these things.

  And that she could not bear. So she kept silent and she listened. And then she told him things about herself.

  Sam wanted to know about her relationship with Tim, and she found herself saying things she never had to anyone else. Sam listened attentively, but he frowned a lot.

  “He didn’t deserve you, Georgie,” he finally said.

  Georgeanne felt a flood of warmth deep inside. “I know.” And then she reached for his hand. “I know exactly what I deserve now.”

  He’d stopped protesting when she said things like that, but she didn’t kid herself he’d made his peace with it. He still watched her with those wary eyes when he thought she didn’t know it. She knew he was turning it over in his head, thinking about his job, about Rick and her parents, and about everything he thought he couldn’t give her.

  Of course she knew what her family wanted for her. They’d always wanted her coddled and privileged, wanted her to be with a man who didn’t want her for the money in her trust fund.

  Sam didn’t want her trust fund, but he was certain her family would think he did. And he was too proud to endure that. She knew he didn’t want handouts. From anyone. It tortured him to think her family might think less of him. She understood now that a great part of why he’d worked so hard to make something of himself was to prove that he could. To prove that her parents’ faith in him hadn’t been misplaced.

  It touched her and broke her heart all at once. And she couldn’t convince him it didn’t matter because to him it did.

  His phone rang on the fourth morning of their seclusion and they looked at each other for a long moment. Her heart thudded every time it happened, but so far it hadn’t been the call he’d been waiting for. This time, however, he looked so solemn as he answered that she knew it was time.

  And she knew what she had to say, knew what was expected of her. She was ready for it.

  Sam’s eyebrows climbed his forehead. “Really? Holy fuck… Just like that, huh? … Lucky break… Yeah, yeah… She’s fine… Yeah… Copy.”

  When he ended the call, he just sat there for a second, staring at her. And then he reached over and hauled her into his arms. “It’s over, Georgie. You’re safe.”

  She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight. “How? Are you certain?”

  “Yeah. They were operating out of a house in Greenbelt that the FBI had under surveillance. There’s a witness who saw Hamilton there a couple of times. And we found video of the guy you saw, Abdullah al Fahd, close to the spot where Hamilton’s body was found. The time stamp puts him there around the time of death.”

  Her heart hammered hard. It didn’t seem real after the last few days of isolation and fear and preparation. “Is that enough? Will they be able to keep him over something like that?”

  “There’s more to it than that, but yeah, he’ll go down for Hamilton’s death.”

  “And the other guy? The one who threatened me in the coffee shop?”

  His mouth tightened for a moment. “Gone. He was onboard a United Airlines flight to Cairo two days ago.”

  Georgeanne lay her head against Sam’s shoulder and breathed a shaky sigh. “It didn’t end quite the way I expected it to.”

  He squeezed her. “No, it ended far better. Sometimes it does, when things work the way they’re supposed to. The cell was under surveillance and they made a mistake. Good for us, bad for them.”

  She leaned back and ran her fingers over his jaw. His eyes softened and her heart turned over as tenderness flooded her. She was glad it was over—and sad too, because once they were no longer forced to spend time in a confined little cottage, Sam would probably find it easy to avoid her.

  “I want you,” she said softly. “So much.”

  He turned his head and kissed her palm. “I want you too, Georgeanne. But there’s no time.”

  She blinked. “No time?”

  “Someone’s coming to take you home.” He stood and put her on her feet while she could only gape at him, her world crumpling in on itself in ways she hadn’t expected.

  “Why aren’t you taking me?”

  He looked solemn. “Duty calls, babe. I have a plane to catch and a war to fight. I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

  “Wow.” Hurt swirled inside her, filling her with pain. She wanted more, and he wasn’t going to give it to her. He really wasn’t. And this was it. The end. He was going to use this as a reason to cut himself off from her. She knew it simply by looking at his face. “So this is how it ends, then? So long, thanks for the sex, and maybe I’ll see you?”

  “I told you this would happen. This is my life, Georgie.”

  He had told her, but she hadn’t thought he meant he’d have to leave right fucking now. She hadn’t been prepared for that. In the distance, she could hear a sound she hadn’t heard the whole time they’d been out here in the Maryland backwater. Something large and mechanical was coming toward them—and then she realized what it was. The whop-whop-whop of a helicopter’s rotors beating the air.

  “There’s nowhere for that thing to land,” she said. It was the first thing to pop out of her mouth, and the farthest thing from what she wanted to say.

  Sam, I love you. Come back to me. I need you.

  “Nope,” he told her. He went over and hefted the giant pack he’d left sitting in the corner the entire time they’d been here. And then he walked outside and waited while the helicopter got closer and c
loser.

  “This is it? No goodbye?” Her eyes filled with angry tears and she berated herself for sounding so damn needy and upset. But her world was tipping on its axis and she was losing her footing.

  His dark eyes raked over her. “I’ve been saying goodbye to you for two days, Georgie-girl.”

  She folded her arms over her breasts. “Yeah, but I didn’t know it.”

  He snaked one arm around her and tugged her close. Then he lowered his head and kissed her, his tongue sweeping into her mouth and making her ache with need and want and sadness.

  “Goodbye, Georgeanne. Take care of yourself.”

  “You’ll be back, Sam. It’s not like you’re leaving forever.” She knew it logically, yet it still made her panicky the way he was talking.

  “I’m not leaving forever. And I will see you again. But maybe you’ll have realized by then that it’s never going to work between us.” He grinned at her with that sexy smile of his. “It was fun, G. You’re pretty spectacular—and Tim’s a douche.”

  Her heart hammered as desperation and fear seeped into her. “You better come back and see me. I mean it.”

  He kissed her again, swiftly, then let her go and went out onto the driveway. The helicopter swooped in, the trees and grass blowing and twisting in the wind. Georgeanne put a hand on the railing and held on, though she was in no danger of blowing away. She felt like it though. Felt as light and insignificant as dandelion fluff.

  A line dropped from the craft and a man rappelled down it. Then a ladder appeared and Sam stepped on. The helicopter started to rise even as he climbed. As she watched, a hand came out and tugged him into the open door.

  And then the helicopter banked and zoomed out of sight.

  Her heart hurt. Just hurt. Sam McKnight was gone and she had no idea when she’d see him again. Or even if she would. She had no clue what Sam was thinking. No freaking clue. What if he put in for a transfer or something? Or just never came to see her once he returned?