CHAPTER 3
Nina
I can’t believe what just happened. To me. With him. With Sampson Dean.
When he caught me mid-air, I thought I’d go up like a piece of dry paper.
Not only did he slide along the most sensitive part of me, but the way he flipped me over as he caught me told me he was strong.
Really strong. Like… supernaturally strong.
I write dark vampire romance for a questionable living. Of course I’m impressed.
Because his hands are so big and his fingers so long, he hit exactly where I most need to be touched.
I was sure he hadn’t noticed… hoped he hadn’t noticed…
until our gazes clashed like battling armies.
A ring of fire blazed across his dark pupils and into the green of his eyes.
His jaw tightened. Sweat sprang up on his brow.
But he didn’t stop touching me, didn’t remove his fingers or change his hold. All he offered me was a brief apology while he studied me to gauge my reaction.
That was the moment when I should have said, “Get your hand off my pussy, mister!”
But I didn’t.
And damned if that boy doesn’t know his way around a clit. That meaty finger moved with perfect pressure against my sensitive bundle of nerves, almost like he was so practiced in pleasuring women, he could do it blindfolded.
Or, during a rescue, while carrying the damsel in distress to safety.
Fine. I’ve been in the desert too long. It couldn’t have been him and his perfect touch bringing me to the fastest orgasm I’ve ever experienced. It must have been abstinence, right?
Fuck, I came for him. I came for my enemy in broad daylight and in sight of half the town.
Now, what do I do?
“Jelly Bean,” he whispers against the top of my head as I come down from my high.
Can someone please kill me now?
When we hit my sitting room, he deposits me on the couch, finally removing his hand. I ignore the way my core crunches with the loss, and focus instead on how he gently places Mr. Mittens onto the arm of the furniture. The action brings Sampson’s eyes nearly on level with my own.
He remains bent over for three beats too long before he whispers, “You know that was an accident, right?”
I nod quickly, the heat in my face threatening to actually burn me alive. “I don’t—that is, I mean…” I try to stutter out a response that will excuse me from the fool I’ve been. From the horny, single, female who just came for him like a sex-deprived lunatic.
Please, God, I’ve been a terrible person, but if you could let me die now, I’ll be better. Promise.
“Well, maybe not completely an accident. Not toward the end.” Sampson leans to the side so his hot breath whispers into my ear. “Next time, it’ll all be on purpose, Jelly Bean. You just tell me when and where, and I’ve got you.”
And then he’s gone. For a guy who stands over eight feet tall, he moves like a cheetah, even in his heavy fireman uniform, which, can I just say, really fits his broad shoulders, narrow waist, long legs, and giant dick like it was made to make him the object of every woman’s desire.
I mean, I presume he has a giant dick. Not that I care.
Fuck. I so care.
“Are you alright?” Nicholas and Mari stagger in just as Pete settles into a chair across the coffee table from me.
“I’m fine. I was just, um, bruised. And, um, the giant…”
Pete and Mari both frown at me.
Right. Giant is not an inclusive term. It’s like calling Mr. Radler from the bank a goblin just because he’s short.
And ugly. And looks like a goblin from a fairytale, uglier even than those seven short guys who made that girl keep house for them, and a lot like the ones who inhabit that famous wizard world. But whatever.
“Um, well, I’m fine.”
Pete leans forward. He’s pulled a pad from somewhere and a little sliver of pencil. “Want to tell me what happened?” he asks. “I need to fill out the report.”
As I launch into an explanation of how Mr. Mittens escaped through the window and why, without thinking, I dove after him, Mari unfolds a blanket that I keep draped over the back of the other chair and brings it to me.
She carefully removes Pete’s jacket while substituting the spread of pinks that my grandmother knitted for me when I was a girl. My neighbor sends me a knowing look.
“Anyhow, that’s the story,” I say, raising my voice a notch. “Mari, would you mind fetching me a glass of water? I’ve got a pitcher chilling in the fridge. Want a glass, Pete? Nicholas?”
“We’ll be gone just a minute.” Mari grabs her son by the shoulder and turns him towards the kitchen, leaving me alone with the fireman who’s carefully looking anywhere but at me.
Great. Just what I need.
But he keeps things short, and by the time Mari returns with my water, he’s on his feet and shrugging back into his jacket. “Great. I’ll let you know if we need anything else.” He pauses. “Listen, about Sampson, I couldn’t help but notice that there’s some tension between you two.”
Tension? Is that what we’re calling the best orgasm I’ve had in years? Or… ever?
“Um, yeah, maybe a little. So?”
He shrugs. “Look, I don’t know what he said to you to get you so hopping mad that you wouldn’t accept a rescue from him, but whatever it was, you should know that he’s a good guy.
I can’t tell you how many lives he’s saved from incredibly dangerous situations that would make most men take a long think first. Not him.
He leaps into trouble like he’s got no idea that he’s mortal.
That’s courage of a different kind, so I’d be really upset to hear any complaints lodged against him. ”
Seriously? I mean, I might temporarily be harboring less-than-horrible thoughts about my worst enemy thanks to the best orgasm I’ve ever had, but I don’t need to be bullied about the evil giant by a man I’ve come to think of as a friend.
“Peter Nerodu, are you threatening me? You do know Darla’s in my yoga class, right? And we’re going to that art exhibit next weekend together?”
The short, dark-haired man with the big nose waves his hand.
“Jeez, I’m not threatening you, Nina. That’s that writer’s imagination for you.
I’m just saying, it would make me sad to hear that Sampson is catching flak for some odd comment he might or might not have made.
Clearly, there’s bad blood between you. Oh. Hey, that’s an idea.”
Someone needs to save me from helpful men who get bad ideas into their heads and think they’re helping.
“No, Pete, that’s not…”
“No, this is great. Come over for dinner tomorrow night, okay? Darla always makes her famous fish casserole on Fridays. Always room for one or two more at the table.” His eyes take on the special matchmaking gleam.
Shit. He’s setting me up with the giant.
“I don’t think…”
“Perfect. See you at six? We eat early because of the kids.”
And before I can capture my wits, he’s nodded his goodbye to Mari, messed up Nicholas’s hair, and walked out the door, whistling.
I hate whistling.
“Nick, why don’t you go down to the cellar and see if Nina has any more of that orange soda hidden in that small fridge behind the canoe?” Mari plops down beside me and gives me a pointed stare. “You don’t mind, do you?”
What can I say? “Go ahead, sweetie.”
Once he’s scampered off, followed by the black cat with white paws, ergo his name, Mr. Mittens, she wastes no time. “What in the name of everlasting sanity was that?”
“And by that you mean…?”
“What were you doing with your ass hanging out, being groped up the coochie by Sampson Dean? Do you know how jealous the girls at yoga are going to be when I tell them you got fingered by the hottest guy in Mossburg?”
I sit up straighter. “Look, Mari, you can’t say anything, you hear? And he didn’t grope me.” Fingered? Absolutely. Took me to new levels of orgasm as fast as a runaway train? Yup. And okay, a little groping, but that was between enemies, where it should remain, buried under an avalanche of regrets.
But I’ve always had a physical thing for him. No sense trying to hide that now. It’s just him as a person that I hate.
“Sure looked like he was concentrating hard on getting you off. You know that determined, steely-eyed look men get when they’re seeing to a woman’s pleasure?
Well, he sure had it. Focused for a mile, so much so, he stopped walking.
I nearly ran into the back of him. Oof.” She leans back and starts fanning her face. “Just imagine what that boy’s packing.”
I can’t. If I send my thoughts back in that direction, I’ll be reaching for the phone, calling him up, and asking if he can finish what he started, this time upstairs in my pink bedroom. Or his Red Room.
A shiver runs over my body. I try to ignore it. “You know we don’t get on,” I say, making my voice as prim as possible.
“What, that old thing from high school?” She waves her hand through the air.
“Look, that’s nothing. That’s the past. This is the present, and in the present, Sampson Dean is a mighty fine hunk of total hotness.
Perfect body, one of those craggy Scottish faces like that actor with the pecs and blue war paint, and jeez, the size of him.
I mean, even if he’s got a small dick in relation to the rest of him, it’s still got to be well over normal size, don’t you think? Just in comparison?”
Fuck. And there I go, picturing the enormous bulge against my hip again.
And wondering. Is his dick long and shapely, with a perfect mushroom-cloud head?
Or is he one of those tapered monsters, the kind that’s thick and ropey?
Somehow, I’m guessing he’s the latter, and that’s just going to spell trouble for me.