Seventeen #3
I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he pressed against me as he kissed me long and hard. I was getting dizzy, it felt so good.
“Why don’t you go take a shower or a hot bath and relax?”
“The shower I’ll do,” he said, pulling back from me. “But I wanna talk to you, so I’ll make it fast.”
“You can talk to me in the tub,” I assured him, panting, trying to catch my breath. “I’ll run the bath and you can sit in it.”
“No, thanks.” He shook his head before he put his fingers under my chin and tilted my head up. “I just wanna sit and eat with you.”
“Okay.”
“Can we have drinks with dinner?”
“Yessir.” My mouth was dry, and I was barely breathing.
He nodded, leaned in and kissed me again. His tongue tangled with mine as a hand slipped under my shirt to slowly rub my stomach. “I bet you taste better than the food.”
I couldn’t speak. He annihilated me. His fingers stroking, petting me, made my brain shut down.
“I’m gonna take a shower. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay,” I said before he kissed my forehead and rose off me. I sat up and watched him walk out of the room, down the hall to his bedroom.
After I calmed a minute, I got up to get his dinner.
When he came back into the kitchen a little while later, he looked better.
He had on a long-sleeve T-shirt under a short-sleeve one, jeans, and thick socks.
His hair was still wet and sticking up in places.
He could not have been any more adorable.
I fed him lobster bisque, linguine and clams, fresh French bread, spinach salad with vinegar-and-oil dressing, and poured him many glasses of the chardonnay the guy at the wine store had said was good.
I told him all about breakfast with Nick, walking around the bookstore afterward, the Christmas shopping I had started for Dane’s friends, and the million places I had gone to get dinner.
“You had breakfast with the doctor?”
“Yes.”
“And what’d he say when you told him you were gonna stay with me?”
“I just told him I had to see where this thing with you was gonna go.”
He nodded. “You didn’t tell him we were dating?”
“Is that what we’re doing?”
“I dunno.”
“We’re just sort of hanging out, right?”
“We’re doin’ more than that.”
“Are we?”
We shared a long look before I smiled wide.
“J—”
“I packed a bag like you asked. Tomorrow morning I’ll split so you can have some time to yourself, but for now let’s just say we—”
He reached across the table and put a hand over mine. “Stop talking.”
I grinned at him. “Rude, but okay.”
“Thank you for cooking,” he murmured. “This is amazing.”
“Compliments will get you everything,” I said with a sigh.
His smile made his eyes glint.
I very much enjoyed watching him eat and thought, as I sat there across from him, having dinner, how incredible it would be if this was my future.
After a few minutes he said my name, and when I looked up, he was leaning his chin on his hand.
“What?”
“I can’t let you go home.”
I stared into his smoky-blue eyes. “Oh no?”
“No.”
“Eat some of your salad,” I ordered him.
“Yes, baby.”
When I got up to do the dishes, he helped me clear the table.
He dried everything I washed and put the dishes away.
While I was replacing the wildflowers in a vase on his dining table, he walked back in from taking out the garbage.
He was on the phone, and as far as I could tell he was agreeing to something.
“So?” I asked as soon as he hung up.
“I completely forgot that tonight’s Dom’s birthday. Everyone’s at his place already.”
“Oh.” I nodded. “Then you should go.”
“You gotta come with me.”
My stomach rolled over. “No.”
“Yes.”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s really not.”
“J—”
“Sam—”
“Get your coat, J, we’re leaving now.”
“Maybe you should—”
“I can carry you out if you like.”
And from the furrowed brows I got, I realized he was serious. Funny that I had wanted to meet his friends, but now I was terrified. Reality was always different than you imagined.
Forty minutes later, I stood on the sidewalk in front of Dom’s house in Lake Forest looking at the house for a minute before I turned back to Sam.
“What?”
“Are you kidding?”
“What?”
“This is your friend’s house?” I was stunned.
“Yeah, I know. It looks fancy, right?”
Fancy was an understatement.
“Dom’s wife passed, like I told ya, and her folks helped him buy it.
I guess it was something she had asked them to do in the letter she left, take care of him and stuff.
His wife wanted him to have a home. Her folks still help him out from time to time, send him money, gifts, and it makes sense, ya know?
I mean, if you think about it, he’s all they’ve really got left of their daughter. ”
His logic was flawed. “Was she their only child?”
“No.”
Then it really made no sense. “Her parents must be loaded, Sam.”
“Not really, but between what they kicked in and some smart investments Dom made, there was enough for the house.”
I was crazy about the man, without question, but he had no idea what he was talking about.
He didn’t know what houses cost; I did. There was no way any amount of savvy investing and money kicked in from well-meaning in-laws yielded a house like the one I was walking into.
From stairs that led up to a now-dormant garden, to the glass front door, the huge bay window that faced the street, the sunken living room, the enormous rooms, the full bar, the multi-level deck out back…
It was a showpiece, and not one a man on a detective salary could afford.
I had snooped and looked at Sam’s pay stubs, and I knew that he and Dominic Kairov were both detectives at the same grade.
I had to wonder about the ways Dominic was feathering his nest that the others weren’t, but I wasn’t comfortable asking Sam for those answers.
What he wanted to share about his partner I was more than happy to hear, but I got the feeling that probing was out of the question.
Dominic, or Dom, Kairov had been with Sam since their police academy days.
They were assigned to the same precinct after graduation and had been through times good and bad.
Good being when they had both made detective at thirty-one, and bad when Dominic’s wife had committed suicide two years ago.
Her parents, Sam had confided to me, had blamed him not for the act itself, but for the depression that drove her to it.
Between his long absences, infidelity, and emotional distance, he had been the opposite of a model husband, so it was even more surprising to hear that they had sprung for half of easily a four-million-dollar house.
It made no sense, and Sam should have noticed, but no one, including Sam, questioned how Dominic was living because it wasn’t “nice.” His wife was dead, after all.
If he said her family had helped him out, given him gifts, then it must be true.
I knew Sam believed Dominic; the man was, after all, his partner, brother, and friend.
As I followed Sam through the house, he was stopped over and over by people wanting to talk to him.
He did a lot of handshaking, hugging men and kissing women.
I was introduced as simply Jory, but he kept me close, his hand on the back of my neck as he steered me in front of him through the house.
On the back deck, sitting around a firepit, were Sam’s closest friends, the detectives he worked with day in and day out.
Dominic was the first to his feet, pulling Sam close for the guy-clench before shoving him away.
“Oh, you brought the witness.” He smiled at me before turning to Sam. “That’s what the safe house is for, buddy,” he teased his friend. “Did you miss the memo?”
Sam smirked at him as he groaned that he needed a drink.
Dominic nodded, draped an arm around his shoulders, and led him away.
He called back over his shoulder that I could follow them to the bar.
I was not asked if I wanted anything because I was not, relatively speaking, Sam’s date.
I could fend for myself like any of the other guys.
I watched them go before turning around to survey the room.
I knew no one, I hadn’t been invited, and I had just been abandoned. It was shaping up to be a great night.
I wandered around looking at expensive artwork, Baccarat crystal goblets on the set table in the dining room, and other lavish furnishings.
There were rugs that cost more than my rent, and again I wondered how Dominic Kairov managed it.
As I sat down on the stairs beside some women lounging in a small area of the living room, I overheard Sam’s name.
“So who’s that girl with Sam and Dom?” one of them asked.
Another snickered. “That’s the girl Dominic set Sam up with on the double date, remember?”
“Oh, that’s right,” First Girl said. “She was nice. Her name’s Margaret something.”
“Yeah, yeah, but she goes by Maggie, doesn’t she?”
“That’s right. Maggie Dixon.”
“So our Sam’s been on two dates with her?” Second Girl arched one perfectly waxed brow. “Well, that’s one more than usual.”
“She’s cute,” another girl chimed in. “What’s she do?”
“I think she teaches school. Third or fourth grade.”
“Awww, a schoolteacher for Sammy? How cute is that?”
“Look at them, they’re adorable together.”
Margaret Dixon was a curvy, petite brunette with deep dimples and big brown eyes.
She had a great laugh, a warm demeanor, and was, from what was said, very likable.
She was one of those touchy-feely people, so she basically had her hands all over Sam, but it was charming instead of flirty or bold.
Her hair curled down to the middle of her back, she had an olive complexion, and her hourglass figure was being well served by tight jeans and a low-cut wrap shirt.
She was the kind of girl men lined up for.
She was Sam’s type, the girls assured one another, and watching them together it was hard not to agree.