One #4
“No.” I shut Sam down, eyes wide as I waited. “Where’s my automobile?”
“We, um”—the officer coughed as he passed me a business card from his clipboard—“had it towed to a garage downtown and—”
“Just stop,” Sam barked at me, snatching the card away. “Sit here while I go find your doctor and figure out if you have a concussion or—”
“Sam—”
“After I get you home, then we’ll worry about the damn van.”
“I can—”
“Stop,” he ordered again, and because I didn’t want to cause a scene, I went still and quiet and stared at the clock on the wall.
The officer muttered something and left, and Sam told me that he had to go and find out about the other people in the accident and would see about my release at the same time.
I stayed quiet.
“You’re gonna pout now?”
I turned my head and was about to say something when he lifted his hand.
“I don’t wanna fight with you. Just let me do this.”
“I’m not a child, Sam. I can take care of my own car. I can do—”
“So, I shouldn’t be here? I shouldn’t have even come?”
“No, I just … lately, it seems to be The Sam Show and not The Sam and Jory Show. You do everything, and I don’t get why that’s happening.”
His eyes searched mine.
“Sam? Do you think I’m helpless?”
The glare I was getting would have terrified most people. But this was the man who loved me, and as always, when I stopped and actually used my brain, I understood what was really going on.
He was terrified.
I had scared the crap out of him that morning, and because he was waiting for the other shoe to drop anyway … it was almost like he was expecting bad news. And he was—he was expecting the worst.
“You think Kola and Hannah and I could get taken away.”
“What? No,” he said quietly, not a lot of force behind his words. “No,” he finished, as though trying to convince himself.
He was such a liar.
“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, putting my hands on his heavily muscled chest, unable to stop myself from curling my fingers into his shirt, holding on.
Yes, he was being overprotective, but not for the reasons I’d thought. He didn’t think I was stupid; he just didn’t want to let me, or his kids, out of his sight for any reason. Not ever. And because he was trying not to be suffocating, he was managing the exact opposite.
“I wasn’t thinking.”
He took a breath. “What’re you talking about?”
“The more you work, the more you see, the more you realize that this—what we have—is not the norm. Most people don’t get the kind of happiness that we have, the home we have, so you get overprotective and smothering.”
He furrowed his brows, and I smiled up at him as I hooked my legs around the back of his thighs. He leaned closer, hands on either side of me on the narrow hospital bed.
“You think you know me?”
I nodded, my fingers unclenching from his shirt. “Yes, I know you better than anyone.”
He bent toward me, and I twined an arm around his neck to draw him close. His breath fanned softly across my face before his mouth settled over mine.
I loved to kiss him. Whenever, however, for as long as he’d let me or as long as he wanted to. I was his for the taking.
He swept his tongue in, mating it with mine, tangled, rubbed, pushed, and shoved.
Our lips never parted, not once, even for air.
I felt his arms wrap around me, crush me to his chest, and hold tight.
I had a hand knotted in his hair, and the moan I couldn’t stifle was low and aching.
When he suddenly shoved me back, breaking the scorching, devouring contact, my whine of protest was loud.
He was flushed and panting, his lips swollen, his pupils blown as he stared at me.
I was breathing hard, my lungs heaving for air as I smiled at him.
“Crap.” He finally managed to get out a word.
My smile was wicked.
“You’re not supposed to kiss me while I’m on duty,” he muttered.
“You started it,” I reminded him.
“Crap,” he said again and swallowed hard as he straightened up, stepping away from me, obviously fighting to get his body back under control.
“You can nail me in your car.”
His frown came fast, and so did my grin.
“What?” I smiled wide.
“A deputy US marshal does not nail his spouse in the car.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “How about a Supervisory Deputy Marshal?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?”
He pointed at me. “I will take you home to our bed and nail you.”
“Oh, yes, please.” I waggled my eyebrows at him.
“Just sit there,” he growled, “and wait while I get you signed out of here so we can go get the kids.”
“Not today, Marshal,” I told him.
He looked surprised. “You didn’t plan to pick up your children today?”
“No, your mom’s picking them up, and then we’re going there for dinner.”
He squinted at me.
“You know she’s a planner,” I said cheerfully.
“Lemme get this straight,” he sighed. “We’re gonna be with them on a plane tomorrow, with them at a resort from Thursday to Sunday, and then with them again on a plane on Monday, coming home, but we’re still eating with them tonight because why?”
“Your mom likes to coordinate, make sure everyone is on the same page, and you know this, so just let it go.”
“Why?” He was annoyed.
“Why does she like to plan things, or why are we indulging her?”
“The second one,” he grumbled. “Why do we do that?”
“Because we love her,” I said like it was obvious.
“No, screw that. I’m gonna call her and tell her we—”
“Why would you rock the boat and hurt her feelings? Why would you upset the delicate balance of all things Regina?”
I loved his mother, Regina Kage, with absolute abandon, and out of everyone—her own children, their spouses, and all her grandchildren combined—she and I got along best. The reasons for that were twofold: first, because I’d never had a mother and craved one like a drug; second, because I didn’t ever try to change her.
We never fought; I allowed her to rearrange anything in my house she wanted, make suggestions on parenting—because, really, her kids had come out good, so where was the argument?
—and most of all, when she fussed, whenever she fussed, I was at her disposal to lend a hand. We were good.
“Jory—”
“Let it go, Sam.”
He rolled his eyes, but we both knew he wouldn’t say a word. No one said a word to Regina Kage. We all did exactly as she wanted. She was the matriarch after all.
“Seriously though, we should cancel. You’re in no—”