Chapter 20- Sam
Hard-headed ass.
After showing up at her house, it took until nearly midnight Sunday for her to text me.
I watched my phone all weekend. Every time it lit up, I thought it was her.
Every time it wasn’t, it made me want to drive back to her husband’s house and make her realize who she belonged to now.
I wasn’t thinking straight. I hadn’t been since the first time she moaned my name with my dick still inside her. But I didn’t care.
When her text finally came, it was short. She asked me for the address to the house we’d be working on, and when I answered, she texted back:
“I’ll meet you at the house tomorrow morning.”
No I miss you.
No explanation as to why she hadn’t called me after I made it very clear she had to.
Now she had me at the house an hour early, waiting for her, wondering if she was pregnant. But I pushed that to the back of my mind.
I stood outside on the front porch, the air thick with heat already, and it wasn’t even eight a.m.—but that was Florida.
The property was a beat-up two-story we were supposed to turn around in ninety days—ugly as hell now, but if she learned how to see past the mess, she could make real money. Build something of her own. Have options again.
I was thinking about that when I heard the crunch of tires on gravel.
Her black G-Wagon pulled up slow, and she climbed out, hair slicked to her head again with waves, black leggings hugging those thick thighs, oversized tee slipping off one shoulder.
I should’ve been pissed at her.
Instead, my first thought was how fast I could get her bent over the hood of her own car.
I smiled—actually fucking smiled—at the woman who was driving me crazy.
She didn’t come close right away. She kept her distance, arms folded tight across her chest.
Oh, she had an attitude.
“Morning,” she said like she wasn’t trying to look too hard at me.
“Morning,”
She shifted from foot to foot, eyes darting to the porch, the peeling paint, the half-demolished walls.
“I meant to text you this weekend,” she mumbled.
“Why didn’t you?”
Silence.
She took a breath, like I was annoying her by asking.
She pouted, and her face turned even prettier.
“Look,” she said finally, “you can’t pull that shit you pulled in my kitchen again.”
I stared at her. Hard.
“You mean when I made you cum on your husband’s marble countertop? And why you cursing at me, pretty?” I asked, cocking my head.
Her cheeks flamed red. Her hands balled into fists at her sides.
“I mean it, Sam. And I’m grown. I can curse.”
I took a slow step toward her. Then another. Until I was standing close enough to kiss her. She craned her neck.
“You liked it.”
She glared at me. “This isn’t about whether I liked it or not. You can’t do it anymore.”
I dropped my eyes—her nipples were poking through the thin fabric. I smiled.
She caught me looking and brought her arms up to cover them.
“I’m not making any promises.”
Her mouth opened like she wanted to argue.
I cut her off.
“Now give me a kiss and hug before we get started.”
She hesitated like she wasn’t going to do it.
I reached out and grabbed her shirt, pulling her into my space.
One hand slid over the dip of her spine, dragging her flush against my body, I got a grip of a hand full of ass, while the other cradled the back of her head.
Her little soft ass gasp wrecked me—like a crack in the drywall that split wide all at once, sudden and without force.
I leaned down and started kissing her lips slow. My lips pressed against hers until our breath were tangled and she was moaning, then I slid my tongue into her mouth, tasting her the way a man feasts after starving.
Let my hands slide down to the swell of her hips, then further until I got a good handful of her ass and pulled her tighter until I could feel the heat between her legs through her thin-ass leggings.
Her hands fisted in my shirt, desperate, clinging like she needed me.
She smelled like berry and sweet grapefruits.
She tasted like honey and heat.
My dick throbbed.
When I finally let her go, she swayed like her body didn’t know how to hold itself up without me.
Eyes glassy, lips swollen and I just knew her pussy was wet.
My heart was throwing itself against my ribs, but I turned like it wasn’t.
Like I didn’t want to drag her back in. I needed her to feel the absence, the hunger I felt.
The way I saw it was she should be just as gone over me as I was over her.
An old woman who hadn’t been there before was standing outside the house next door, frozen at the edge of her driveway with a water hose in her hand.
She was a cute, with light brown skin and long gray hair, wearing a muumuu.I could tell she was probably one of them girls men chased when she was young.
I nodded at her, real polite.
“Morning, ma’am. Beautiful day, ain’t it?”
“It would be if it was my turn next for a kiss like that,” she grinned.
I grinned back at her.
Zane groaned and pushed past me, keys jingling in her hand. “Morning, ma’am,” she called politely without looking at her.
I laughed.
I watched her walk ahead of me into the house—hips swaying, thighs rubbing together—and had to bite back a groan.
I followed her inside.
She was waiting just on the other side of the door.
“You can’t be kissing me like that,” she said.
“Why not?”
She stared at me for a long minute.
“Because you can’t,” she snapped.
I walked up on her again. Until we were touching.
“Are you really trying to find a reason to fight with me right now now? I know you don’t really give a fuck about me doing what I did the other night. What’s wrong?” I gripped her hands and brought them up to my lips, pressing a kiss to her warm hand.
“Nothing really. I just... I don’t know…”
Okay. I let it go. “When you do know, we’ll talk about it.”
I wasn’t going to force her.
She could pretend all she wanted. Put up whatever little walls she thought would save her from what was happening between us. But at the end of the day, it was happening—and her body already knew what her mouth was too scared to say.
I stepped back and tossed her a pair of work gloves from the pile of supplies on the floor.
She caught them awkwardly, almost dropping them.
“Come on,” I said, walking toward the kitchen.
She followed me silently.
I pointed to the cracked kitchen walls, the ugly cabinets hanging off broken hinges.
“We demo first. Knock all this shit out. We open the floor plan up, then we can start on your suggestions and go look for reused cabinets and other stuff we need.”
She nodded slowly, pulling on the gloves, her fingers fumbling a little.
“Don’t look so scared,” I teased.
“I’m not scared,” she snapped.
Her little attitude made my dick hard. Made me want to bend her over one of these raggedy-ass countertops and fuck her full until she got some act right in her.
I handed her a hammer and watched her grip it tight instead.
But then stopped her before she swung.
“Hold on.”
I jogged back out to the truck, grabbed the little surprise I threw together last night when I couldn't sleep.
When I came back in, she was still there, gnawing her plush bottom lip.
I wanted to do that for her.
But I needed to chill. I could tell I was applying too much pressure too soon. Of course she was confused. She needed time.
I tossed her the pink hard hat.
She caught it awkwardly, peeking inside.
“They got hard hats with silk bonnets in them now now?” she asked, one eyebrow cocked.
I smirked. “Nah. I glued one in there for you. I know how Black women are about their pretty hairdos.”
She stared at me, blinking slow, like her brain couldn’t compute my words.
For a second, she didn’t say nothing.
Just turned the hat over in her hands, running her fingers over the inside like it was some kind of treasure.
Then she shook her head. “You’re trying to make me fall in love with you.”
She said it half-joking. But her voice cracked just enough that I knew—knew—I’d hit something deeper than she wanted to admit.
I shrugged, nonchalant-like, rubbing the back of my neck, because the truth was itching under my skin.
“Maybe that’s just what’s happening.” It was at least on my part.
“Sam,” she said. A warning was heavy in the way she said my name.
“I’m just saying.” I held up my hands like I was innocent and not trying to push her in the direction I wanted her to go.
She sighed, slipping the helmet over her hair.
I pulled the second part of her surprise from behind my back and slapped it against her chest.
“Sign these.”
She narrowed her eyes, suspicious. “What is it?”
“Read it,” I said. “Ain’t selling your organs or nothing, so calm down.”
She flipped through the three pages slow. Her lips moving silently while she read.
“It’s a contract,” I said. “Fifty-fifty split on the profits when we flip this house.”
Her head snapped up.
“You told me you needed a job,” I said. “Needed your own money. I doubt you want to end up back at your momma and daddy’s house once everything blows up. I’m making sure you have everything you need.”
Her mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
She dropped the papers on the counter, stepped into my space, and pinched me hard right below the ribs.
“The fuck was that for?” I grunted, grabbing her wrist.
She smiled up at me, sweet and crooked.
“Making sure I’m not dreaming,” she whispered.
Without thinking, I reached out, brushed my thumb across her nipple through the thin T-shirt, and pinched down.
She gasped and slapped my hand away.
I cackled low.
“Nah, baby. You felt that, didn’t you?”
She nodded, absentmindedly.
“See, wide awake.”