Chapter Eight Take Me in The Night
Take Me in The Night
Samantha
ARMS, LEGS, BODIES INTERTWINE. NEEDFUL MOANS, gasps, and cries for more.
“Joseph, you’re mine.” An unfamiliar voice cackles in the air.
A deep, “Baby,” in response scrapes against my skin like sandpaper.
No! I protest, but nothing comes out. I am silent. Mute.
A sultry “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” runs on repeat.
Silence it. I need to silence—her.
“Samantha,” he calls.
It’s not true. He’s mine. Not hers.
More moans. More gripping and pulling. More—
“Baby, wake up!”
I bolt up, nearly tumbling from the bed before a tight embrace stops my downfall. My heart pounds. My throat is dry. I frantically look around the room for something…anything. I lock on him. His familiar green eyes melt my fear. “Joseph.”
“You were dreaming.” He nuzzles into me. His lips caress my face as comforting arms pull me tightly against his strong body. His warmth and smell surround me like a soothing cocoon. “Are you okay, baby?”
Baby?
Visions from my dream flash before my eyes. Arms. Legs. Bodies intertwined. His body. But not with mine.
I pull away on a groan, shaking my head, rolling over to extricate myself from this bed and his arms. “Don’t call me that.” I stumble to my feet, swaying slightly, catching on to the corner post at the end of our bed.
Joseph slowly rises from the bed. “Don’t call you what?” He cautiously moves toward me, his hands flexing at his sides, concern written all over his face.
I step back as he moves forward until I bump into the couch in our sitting area. Joseph quickly steadies me with a hand on my hip, shifting forward, allowing no room between us. His naked body presses against mine. “What don’t you want me to call you, baby?”
My head shoots up to meet his worried gaze. “That. Don’t call me that.” But as soon as I say it, I realize how stupid it is. I slump against him. My forehead hits his chest. What the hell am I doing? “Oh, god, Joseph. I’m letting her in my head.”
His arms wrap around me. “I know it’s hard to read such words and not let them affect you.” His voice is gravely, tired.
I hug him back. My hand captures the back of his neck, trying to get him closer.
He runs kisses along my neck and shoulder. “But that’s my word for you. No one else. I’ve never called anyone else ‘baby.’ Only you. It’s your word.”
A whimper escapes at his claim over that one simple word, making it ours again. I lift my head needing to feel his love. “Kiss me.”
“Baby,” he moans as our lips touch, gently, tenderly at first. His tongue sweeping, prodding, asking for admittance, which I gladly grant on a gasp of air, intensifying our kiss with penetrating need.
His hands sweep down my body, firmly holding me against him, grinding his hard cock between us. Our moans mirror the other’s in need and intensity. Hands grasping and pulling, my pulsing desire demanding more. Demanding everything.
With graceful precision, Joseph lifts me off my feet and onto the back of the couch. My legs wrap around him as he buries himself deep inside me in one long, hot thrust of his hips.
“Christ, Sweets.” He stills. Our eyes lock. “This is always, ever, just you and me.”
He pulls out and pushes in again. “There’s no room for anyone else.”
His hands hook under my knees and pull my legs over his forearms as he locks his hands around my back. With each thrust he goes impossibly deeper, impossibly harder, and impossibly tenderer—all at the same time. His words, his face, his mouth, his hips, his entire body, filling me with his love.
Each thrust is punctuated with “baby,” “oh, god, baby,” “fuck, yes, baby” to take back the word she tried to steal from us.
I hold on. I hold on so damn tightly, I don’t even know if I’m breathing.
If I can breathe. The tingle starts at my toes and slowly glides up my legs.
My nipples harden, my insides contract, and a moan that must have come from the depth of my desire blasts from my lips as that tingle reaches my core.
My head falls back as ecstasy erupts, consuming me in wave after wave of tremors.
He thrusts and thrusts, then grinds out his release as I continue to shake and tremble in his arms.
Over and over again, we make love throughout the night.
One or both of us wakes and reaches for the other, igniting our passion, our need to reconnect.
I feel powerful. I feel loved. I feel solid in our commitment.
By the time the first morning light streams through the bedroom windows, I am sore, spent, languid, and more confident than ever in our future.
Joseph is mine. He’s not going anywhere. I give him what he needs as he so intuitively gives me what I need. We are a team, a unit, a rock-solid force that won’t be put asunder by a few letters and items of clothing that any maid could have picked up.
Dreamily, my head falls to the side, finding Joseph watching me with a mischievous grin. I roll toward him. “What’s that grin for?”
He props up on his elbow, leaning over me. “I was watching you wake up. It’s like I could see the light radiating from you. And when you smiled, I knew in that moment that my girl was going to be okay.”
I run my fingers through his sex-wrecked hair, my smile growing with every second his gaze lingers on me. “I’m going to be okay, because we’re going to be okay.”
“Damn straight.” He kisses me softly, then rolls out of bed, throwing me the TV remote. “Don’t get up. I’m bringing you breakfast in bed. We’re playing hooky today.” He pulls on a pair of pajama bottoms, and with a wink, he disappears down the hall.
I guess I’m playing hooky today.
Surprisingly, it doesn’t stress me out about the schoolwork I’ll be missing. That’s what study partners are for, right?
With a yawn and a noisy stretch of my well-sexed body, I turn on the TV and welcome the day at home with my man.
Joseph
The first time I saw her, I knew she would be mine.
Clichéd? Yes, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
We’ve come so far and only have three more months until that premonition comes to fruition.
Three months, then no one can give me crap about calling Samantha my wife before she actually is—because she will be- my wife—and I will be her husband.
She’ll even be that much closer to coming to work for MCI as a full-fledged employee and not as an intern or as my PA.
I can’t fucking wait.
That is my end game, my ultimate goal, my telos.
But before that happens, I have to figure out who the fuck is messing with us.
It’s not only her they’re targeting. Hurting her may be their end goal, but they’re using me as a means to achieve it.
I can’t help thinking of what Fin told me weeks ago, after my happy hour slip up of letting those drunk tourists get a little too close for comfort.
There are women who will want to get close to me because of my job and may enjoy the added challenge because I’m not interested in anyone except Samantha.
A week has brought little to light on who is trying to get Samantha to leave me.
We haven’t brought anyone else into the fold, besides Michael.
For now, it’s best to play it close to the vest as we don’t know who could be watching, who could inadvertently let information slip in front of the wrong person.
The fewer people who know the better. Besides, someone claiming I’m cheating on Samantha and providing “proof” in the form of soiled underwear is not something I relish sharing with anyone—especially not my family.
My cell phone chimes with a message.
Michael: I’m coming up.
I request Teddy hold my calls as Michael enters my office and takes a seat, letting out a telling sigh.
“I don’t like it when you’re stressed, Michael. It means I should be worried.”
He smirks with a shake of his head. “I think you’d worry no matter how I’m feeling.”
True. But I would feel a little more at ease about it if he wasn’t concerned.
“I heard back from my contact at the forensics lab. He’s emailing me a complete report, but I figured you’d want to know his initial findings.”
I nod, not sure I can speak over my pounding heart.
Leaning forward, his eyes lock on mine. “The first letter has yours, Sam’s, and a third set of fingerprints. There’s no match in the system. I’ll reach out to a different contact who has access to additional databases. If this person is in the system, we’ll find him or her.”
“Okay. And the second letter?”
“The second and third letters only have fingerprints from Sam and the same unknown contributor. So that’s good that they match. Maybe we’re only looking at one person here.”
I sit back waiting for more.
“The tie came back with DNA matching the sample you provided. No other contributors were found. It’s safe to say it’s your tie.”
No surprise. I was fairly certain it would come back with my DNA on it. “And the boxer briefs?”
He shifts in his seat. “There were two individual contributors to the fluids found on the underwear.”
“Two?”
“Yes. Male and female.”
Ah, fuck. My head hits the back of the chair, and my eyes lock on the ceiling. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” That’s as solemn of a yes as I’ve ever heard.
I lift my head. Waiting. Say it’s Samantha’s DNA. Please, God, let it be hers.
“The female contributor is unknown.”
“Fuck!” I lean forward, my head resting on the edge of my desk.
“Have you been with anyone else besides Sam?”
I shoot up out of my chair and round my desk as he stands, rock solid, no give. “What the fuck?” I bite, ready to take his head off.
He glares at me. “I have to ask. It’s my job. I need all the facts to be able to help you, to find out what’s really going on here. I also need to be sure you’re not being a dick to Sam.”
I back down. He’ll protect Sam to his last breath, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. “I haven’t looked at or touched another woman since the day I met Samantha nearly two years ago.” I sigh in resignation. “Except the Tiff thing.”
His brow arches. “Not even before Sam was shot? When you were trying to leave her alone, let her graduate from college?”
Moving to the leather couch, I plop down. “No one. I wasn’t interested.”
Michael sits in the adjacent chair, surprise written all over his face. “What were you going to do all those years before she finished school, become a monk?”
I shrug and hold up my right hand with a smirk.
He relaxes back in his chair. “Jesus, that’s a long time to go without pussy, man.”
“She’s worth it. I’d still be waiting for her, if that’s what she wanted.” And that’s the truth of it. If I can’t have her, I don’t want anyone else.
“Then I guess I’m adding Tiff to the list of suspects. She could have easily snagged your underwear while you were smashed out of your gourd.” Michael stands.
“You think so?”
“I don’t know, man. It’s possible. I’d rather start with her than dig up older partners.” He pauses before he gets to the door. “But you’d better start thinking who else in your past might have a reason to want to hurt you or Sam. The female DNA may have been added later. It could be anyone’s.”
“I assume you mean sexual partners.”
“Start there, but anyone who had access to your house in college could get a pair of underwear—male or female—so, I wouldn’t limit your thinking to only women you had sex with.”
“Jace.” It’s out of my mouth before I even have a chance to think on it.
Michael stops in his tracks and turns. “Really?”
“No, not really. But he, more than anyone else, had the easiest access over the past four years.” I sigh on that thought.
“No matter what’s happened with his family—with me—I don’t think he’d do something like this.
But he had a lot of women coming and going.
I never had a negative run-in with any of them.
” I tug at the seam of my pants. “Except Tiff.”
“Then I say we start with her, but not rule anyone else out just yet.”
With that he exits my office, closing the door behind him.
And opening up a whole other can of worms.