Chapter 5
FIVE
Yes!
Sam stood up abruptly, tilting his chair over. He barely heard the clatter as he reached into his pocket and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills. He threw them onto the table—it was more than enough, but even if it wasn’t, Bashir knew he’d be good for it later—and grabbed her hand.
Nicole was looking utterly shocked at what she’d said, big blue eyes wide in dismay, that luscious mouth a shocked O.
Sam couldn’t stop to think about that. He couldn’t think about anything, actually, except getting her into his bed. Or wherever. It didn’t have to be a bed. Against the door or the wall or on the floor or the couch would do just fine. He didn’t give a shit.
The important thing was to get into her as fast as possible and stay there as long as possible. Till next year, if what he was feeling was any indication.
It was as if he’d never had sex before, ever. He was so excited he could barely feel his hands and feet as he walked to his car, moving fast. Luckily, he had his arm around her waist when Nicole stumbled on the gravel.
Sam held her fast. She’d never fall when she was with him, but he was ashamed that he’d been half dragging her along.
“Sorry,” he mumbled and slowed his stride. He was a runner, and he was used to getting from A to B fast. He moved fast on principle and when he was aiming toward something he wanted, he picked up speed.
Had he been running? God only knew. His senses were so blasted he wasn’t getting any input except from his dick, which was communicating what it wanted loud and clear.
He tried to slow down, even out his stride, but damn, it was hard.
Later, he’d reflect on what it meant for him to be out of control of his body. It was unthinkable. He’d learned self-control in the hardest school possible—his early years. And then the Navy and SEAL training had taken those skills and honed them to machine-like perfection.
He was in charge of himself—always. Aware of his surroundings and his place in any given setting. He was rock steady. For a while he’d been a fucking sniper, for God’s sake. Snipers could control their own heartbeats, certainly their breathing. And their hands never trembled.
Right now, he was barely aware of the outside world, only of the beautiful woman by his side. Everything else was fog. He was tunnel visioning, like untrained soldiers in battle, hands trembling.
Ten feet from his car, he took out his key fob and unlocked the doors. It took an effort not to simply throw Nicole into the passenger seat. A couple of seconds later, he was in the driver’s seat, hands curled whitely around the steering wheel. He was so excited, he was almost panting.
Sam looked over at Nicole and winced.
She was pale, eyes wide with what he recognized as dismay and not desire, hands in her lap clutching each other so hard she was white-knuckled. A vein pulsed in her neck.
Fuck.
She was scared of him.
He had an idea of what she was seeing. A large, very strong, very fit man with clenched jaws and narrowed eyes, emanating aggression.
Fighting and fucking are closely related, certainly for a man like him. He was dominant on the battlefield and dominant in the bedroom. That was his nature and he’d long since grown used to it.
But he did not want Nicole Pearce scared of him.
Shit, no. She was the classiest lady he’d ever gone out with, bar none, and the most beautiful, too.
And by some miracle, it turned out she was kindhearted.
Women like that didn’t grow on trees. They were so rare, in fact, that he’d never met anyone even remotely like her.
She needed to be treated gently, like a lady, but goddamned if his blood wasn’t up. He recognized it, oh yeah. Now that he was in the car, ready to make it to his house and to his bed as fast as the law would allow, he realized he’d somehow gone into combat mode.
The slight panting was to pull in oxygen for a major effort. His body was preparing itself for something big—fighting or fucking, it didn’t care. It just knew that it had to be ready and that it was going to be rough.
At every level, Nicole was perceiving this, perceiving that he was a male with a broad streak of violence to him and a major case of almost out-of-control lust focused tightly on her.
She’d have to be crazy to go home with him in this state. But if she said no right now, he’d simply howl at the moon.
Sam knew he had to do something, and fast.
First, relax. He uncurled his hands from the wheel, sat back and consciously unclenched his muscles. Forced himself to breathe slowly. Forced his face muscles to relax. Closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Opened them.
For the brief time he’d been a sniper, he’d learned a lot. He didn’t love the mechanics of sniping like Mike did. Mike loved his guns like children. For Sam they were tools, and not particularly interesting ones at that.
But still, sniper training included big chunks of bodily control.
They’d taught him how to slow his heartbeat.
They’d been taught to let their bodies go into a weird form of hibernation, where they could stay utterly still for days at a time, bodily functions set at minimum, turning over just enough to stay alive.
He reached deep inside and dialed himself down. Way down. Over the next minute, like the ticking of an engine cooling, he slowed his heart rate, his breathing, even stilled his thoughts.
No more fevered images of Nicole Pearce under him, deep blue eyes slitted in ecstasy, long slender legs open for him, soft sex accepting him.
No no. Instead, he filled his head with quiet pools of emptiness and gray nothingness, willing his body to cool.
The first time he’d been told that SEAL training taught you to do that, he’d laughed.
It sounded too much like something beamed in from Woo-Woo Land.
Sam had wanted into the SEALs more than anything else in the world because he wanted to be the hardest man in a world of hard men.
When told part of that included becoming like Yoda, he’d scoffed.
But it had worked then and it was working now.
Nicole’s hands were now still in her lap and a little color had come back to her face. She’d lost that shocked look, as if she’d suddenly found herself face to face with a wolf.
Their eyes met. Christ, her eyes were beautiful. Such a deep, intense blue, framed by ridiculously long lashes. How the hell could she keep her eyes open with lashes like that?
“I want you. A lot,” he blurted out. Oh shit. He’d wanted to say something soothing, maybe even suave, not that he was known for his smoothness. Usually he was pretty blunt with women.
She looked like the kind of woman who’d appreciate a little suavity. It seemed that right now he didn’t have any in him. Desire had fried his circuits. “Sorry.” He winced. “I mean—”
Nicole huffed out a little breath. She wasn’t smiling, but her face had lightened. “That’s okay. I kind of got the message when you dragged me out to your car without stopping to ask for the check.”
His back teeth clenched. “Sorry,” he said again, then stopped. Quit while you’re ahead.
“Yes, I can see that.” Her voice was soft. They looked at each other, gauging each other, the cabin of the car utterly quiet. Sam controlled everything—his breathing, his movements. Stillness would have to be his gift to her, a sign that he could control himself later, in bed.
He hoped.
Nicole lifted her left hand from her lap.
How could absolutely everything about her be so frigging beautiful?
Her hands could figure in one of those soap commercials.
Pale ivory skin, long, slender fingers. Some kind of complicated ring with several kinds of stones on the middle finger, not the ring finger, thank you, God.
Nails manicured but short without that white square-top craziness and not painted black or purple. That and black lipstick were real turnoffs for him, made him think of fucking a zombie. Gah.
There was nothing about Nicole that was a turnoff.
Nicole’s hand was so gorgeous he had to freeze his muscles not to grab it.
Her hand was moving, floating in space. He didn’t take his eyes from her face, though he could easily see her hand in his peripheral vision. Slowly, she placed her hand over his on the wheel. It felt cool, and soft.
The contrast between their two hands was amazingly erotic. His hands were large, tough, scarred. Hers were like some marble statue by the world’s greatest artist.
He became, if possible, even more still for a breath, two. Something must have reassured her because she smiled, faintly. She squeezed his hand, a light caress that shot straight to his dick, then put her hand back in her lap.
“Are we going to do this?” she asked, her voice low.
Fuck yeah! Sam locked the words in his throat instead of yelling them out.
“Yes. I hope.” His voice came out hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in years. He cleared his throat, then locked his mouth shut. Do not jinx this, he told himself. Anything that came out right now would be wrong.
Her eyes dropped to his groin, where a blue steeler was trying to punch its way through the lightweight wool of his expensive suit pants. Unlike the jeans, the suit pants simply outlined him.
“I can see that.”
Blood pulsed in his dick, and it moved in his pants. She couldn’t miss it. It was like his dick was reaching out to her.
There wasn’t anything he could do to hide the hard-on. Sometimes when an erection became inconvenient, he could think it back down, like slowing his heartbeat. Life was full of downer thoughts, images that could dampen desire.
Nothing like that could work now, though. There wasn’t any thought in the world that could make his dick go down with Nicole Pearce a foot away from him, contemplating letting him have her. His dick actually hurt and his balls were curled right up tightly against him, waiting to blow.