“Am I slidin’ in bed beside you tonight?” Sam asked and I blinked.
“Uh… I think so.”
Where else would he sleep?
His face dipped closer, “If the answer to that is yes, then yes, I’m okay with half of Heartmeadow coming to check me out.”
There it was again. So damned sweet.
I slid my hand up his chest to curl my fingers around his neck and warned, “You’re also sliding into bed with Memphis and, head’s up, she seems really small but in a bed she expands to five times her size.”
Sam smiled at me. “I think I’ll cope.”
“Good.”
“Your bed is queen-size, Kia, my bed is king. Eventually, Memphis will have plenty of room.”
Sam, me and Memphis in a huge bed where everyone had plenty of room.
That sounded like heaven.
I smiled back.
Mom threw open the door and ordered, “Scooch! It’s parfait time.” Then she hustled Sam and I out of her way, continuing to issue orders, “Kia, sweetie, get the ice cream and nuke it. Thirty seconds, then check. You might need another fifteen. And grab ten bowls, Ozzie is still here.”
“Right, Mom.” I started to move away but Sam caught my hand and I looked back to see his brows raised.
“Nuke it?” he asked quietly.
“Mom doesn’t like hard ice cream so she nukes it soft.”
Sam stared at me.
Then he shook his head.
Then he bent it to touch his mouth to mine.
His mouth barely landed before I heard Teri shout, “Hot!”
He lifted his head and I was relieved to see his eyes smiling.
Then he let me go and walked outside.
I walked to the freezer to get the ice cream.
Chapter Fifteen
Don’t Cross This Line
It was late morning and Memphis and I were in my kitchen with a roll of masking tape and a marker.
Sam was at Vanessa’s.
I was a mess.
My mess was multifaceted.
It was partially because I woke up at two o’clock in the morning, ready to face the day. I tossed, turned, Memphis yapped, I tossed more, turned more and finally decided to go and toss and turn on the couch so I didn’t toss and turn Sam awake. I’d just thrown the covers aside and lifted up when a steel band-like arm hooked around my belly and I found myself on my back in bed with a hot guy mostly on top of me.
“Jetlag?” Sam asked.
“Yep,” I answered.
Sam’s hands started traveling and his mouth went to my neck where he murmured, “Mm.”
Then his hands and mouth started traveling more, mine joined them, I got into it and returned the favor Sam gave me earlier, taking him in my mouth. Then Sam got into it and one-upped my favor by giving it to me in a variety of different but delicious positions. I had an orgasm I was pretty sure the neighbors could hear, Sam’s orgasm shortly followed and fifteen minutes after that, tucked into Sam’s side, Memphis returning and stretching out in the expanse of bed I’d left her, I crashed on the thought that jetlag wasn’t so bad, at least not when Sam shared my condition.
But when I woke up, I was no longer feeling so hot about jetlag. Groggy and out of sorts, I was also in bed alone and, weirdness of weird, I could hear a succession of yaps, they were measured, not random and I’d never heard Memphis yap like that.
I threw the covers back, lurched out of bed, grabbed my robe, shrugged it on and then I lurched down the hall tying the belt. I stopped dead when I saw Sam sweating, in workout clothes, his legs bent at the knees, ankles crossed, fingers curled around the top of the doorjamb. Memphis was on the floor in front of him yapping each time Sam did a pull up like she was counting them down.
“Mornin’, baby,” Sam said as he lowered his body.
Hair probably a rat’s nest, eyes fuzzy, head groggy, dazedly noting that Sam clearly didn’t share these symptoms with me (not that his clipped hair could form a rat’s nest), I stared at him and asked, “What are you doing?”
Sam pulled up then stayed up and grunted, “Pull ups,” over Memphis’s yap then he lowered himself down.
It was then it belatedly hit me that Sampson Cooper, not Sam, Sampson Cooper was in my little, two-bedroom, nondescript house in Heartmeadow, Indiana and I momentarily freaked out wondering what he saw and what he thought of me from what he could see.
Sam pulled up.
Memphis yapped.
Sam lowered down.
Sam pulled up.
Memphis yapped.
Sam lowered down.
I watched.
“You okay?” Sam asked.
“Memphis is yappy,” I answered.
“Noticed, honey,” Sam muttered then pulled up.
Memphis yapped.
Sam lowered down.
Sam pulled up.
Memphis yapped.
On Sam lowering down, I asked, “How many of those do you do?”
“As many as I can,” Sam answered, pulled up and Memphis yapped.
Sam lowered down.
I continued staring.
He was concentrating on what he was doing. He didn’t give one shit about Memphis being yappy. He grew up in a barrio and two times during football games his senior year there were kids murdered, one a stabbing during a drug sale gone bad, one a shooting during a gang war.
Sure, Cooter had had half his head blown off but not in the house and Cooter’s murder was the first Heartmeadow had seen in nearly thirty years.
Sam had lived worse, he didn’t care about my house and didn’t think it said anything about me.
He pulled up, Memphis yapped, I saw his muscles in his arms bunch, exposed by the skintight, sleeveless shirt he was wearing, and I went a different kind of groggy.
He lowered down and asked, “Are you in a standing coma?”
“Your muscles in your arms look really good when you do that.”
Yes, that’s what I said.
Sam grinned.
Then he pulled up and Memphis yapped.
When he was down, I queried, “You keep doing that, won’t you pull the wood off the doorframe?”
“This house sold?” Sam queried back.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“You care if I pull it off?” he went on.
“No,” I replied.
“You got a hammer?” he kept going.
“Yeah,” I told him.
“Then we’re good,” he muttered, pulled up and Memphis yapped.
I turned around and went back to the bedroom to get to the bathroom.
Fifteen minutes later, teeth brushed, hair tamed (ish), face washed, still feeling weird, I wandered out of the bedroom, down the hall and into the kitchen. Sam was no longer doing pull ups so I had an unobstructed trek to the coffee. I made it then wandered to stand in the kitchen doorway to see Sam doing one armed pushups on the living room floor.