Chapter Six #2
The familiar smile comes back across his face, warm and easy, the one I've watched him give dozens of people at Vibes when he wants them to know he's listening.
Bex touches his arm to pull his attention back to whatever she's saying.
Sam turns toward her.
I take a drink of my wine.
Nobody notices. Summer is still talking beside me. Farther down, Colt has returned and is trying to tell Marisol a story while Dom keeps correcting him.
The night moves right over it.
Lucia appears in front of me before I can spend much time doing the same thing. She plants both hands in mine.
"Dance with me."
I look down at her. "You know, I was just thinking I needed a better offer."
Lucia pulls until my chair shifts. "Come on."
Her offer is considerably more decisive than Sam's.
"Okay."
She drags me onto the floor.
Lucia dances with her entire body and very little regard for the music. She jumps when everyone else steps and keeps trying to spin fast enough to make her skirt flare, which ends with me catching her before she falls and her immediately demanding another turn.
Marisol takes over during the next song, but she catches my hand before I can escape and pulls me farther into the crowd. Summer joins us a few minutes later, then Bex, and somewhere in the middle of all of it I stop thinking about the table.
I'm laughing with Summer when Marisol nearly knocks both of us sideways. Someone grabs my hand and turns me. Lucia barrels past with Bex. The group shifts and reforms around us until I lose track of who started dancing with whom.
For a while, I have the night.
When I finally look back toward the table, Sam is watching me.
Most of the people who had been sitting around him are out here now. Bex is dancing. Marisol is dancing. Dom and Colt have moved toward the bar.
There is nobody left beside Sam.
Nothing keeping him in that chair.
Our eyes meet, and the smile I've been throwing around the room changes.
Smaller.
His.
Sam sees it.
Someone catches my wrist and pulls me around, cutting off my view. When I turn back, two people have crossed between us, and I lose him for a few seconds.
Then the space clears. He hasn't moved. The disappointment settles quietly this time.
I'm done waiting. I turn back toward Summer and let the crowd close behind me.
A song later, her eyes shift past my shoulder. I start to turn, and a hand slides around my waist.
I know it immediately.
Sam steps into the space behind me, his chest brushing my back while the room keeps moving around us.
Neither of us moves at first.
Then I turn inside his arm.
"Hi."
It comes out more breathless than I intended.
Up close, he doesn't look anything like he did sitting at the table. There's tension in his jaw, and his hand tightens slightly at my waist while he looks at me.
Sam brings his other hand to my face.
I think he's going to say something.
He kisses me instead.
The room doesn't stop for us. Summer is a few feet away. Bex and Marisol are somewhere behind me. Teachers, parents and kids move around us while Sam kisses me where every one of them can see.
It's nothing like the kisses he gives me upstairs. His hand stays at my waist and the kiss is brief, careful enough for the room we're in, but there is nothing private about it.
My hands have found the front of his shirt by the time he pulls away.
"Sam."
He stays close enough that his forehead nearly touches mine.
"I tried to stay over there."
I look at him. "What?"
His thumb moves against my cheek.
"I couldn't."
My eyes go past him to the table and the chair where he'd spent most of the night, then back to him.
He could have taken the chair beside me. He didn't. I asked him to dance. He understood and stayed seated.
Now he's here.
Bex's voice cuts in from somewhere behind Sam.
A laugh breaks out near her, but Sam doesn't turn around.
Lucia pushes between us instead.
"Why did you kiss Autumn?"
Sam looks down at her, then at me.
I wait for him to make it easy.
He doesn't.
"Because I wanted to."
Lucia accepts that with a nod and immediately turns back toward Marisol.
I watch her go, then look at Sam.
"That's all she gets?"
"She asked a question."
"And you answer hers?"
His mouth lifts, but his hand stays at my waist.
"Dance with me."
I glance toward the people moving around us. "You dance?"
Instead of answering, Sam takes my hand.
He steps back just enough to pull me with him, then turns me smoothly into his chest before I have time to decide whether I was teasing him.
His hand settles low at my waist while mine lands on his shoulder, and within a few steps he's guiding me through the crowd like he's been doing this all night.
I look up at him.
"What?"
"You could have mentioned this."
"Mentioned what?"
"That you're good at this."
One corner of his mouth lifts. "You didn't ask."
I laugh, but Sam doesn't give me much room to keep talking. He turns me beneath his arm and catches me easily when I come back, his palm sliding into place at my waist without any hesitation.
There's nothing showy about how he moves. That's almost worse. He doesn't look like he's trying to impress anyone. He just knows where his body is, knows where mine is, and seems perfectly comfortable deciding where both of us go next.
"You've been holding out on me."
"Have I?"
"All this time and this never came up?"
His fingers tighten slightly at my waist as he draws me closer.
"We've been busy."
That shuts me up.
Sam's eyes stay on mine while the music moves around us. Summer and Colt pass somewhere behind him. I hear Bex laugh from across the floor and Lucia yell something at Marisol, but for once Sam doesn't turn toward any of it.
He stays with me.
A little while ago, I would have been happy if he'd taken the empty chair beside mine. Then I would have settled for him standing when I asked him to come dance with me.
He did neither.
He stayed on the other side of the room until whatever had been holding him there finally gave way.
Now there isn't any distance left.
I slide my arms around his neck, and Sam pulls me closer without missing a step.
The hard part was never dancing with me.
It was coming over here.
The limo is quieter on the way home.
Lucia is asleep across Marisol's lap before we've gone three blocks. Summer has curled into Colt's side, and Bex sits near the door scrolling through the pictures she took during the fundraiser.
This time Sam sits beside me.
His leg rests against mine while he listens to Dom talk across the car. After a few minutes, his hand comes to rest on the seat between us, close enough that his little finger brushes mine when the limo turns.
Sam glances down and slides his fingers through mine.
Then he goes right back to listening to Dom. No hesitation. No checking the car. No pause while he decides whether this is something he can do where everyone might see. His hand is simply in mine.
Earlier tonight, the distance of four chairs had felt enormous.
Now his thigh is against mine and his thumb moves once across my knuckles.
I squeeze his hand.
Sam squeezes mine back.
By the time the limo stops outside Vibes, Lucia is still asleep across Marisol's lap and the rest of the car has gone soft around the edges. Sam gets out first. His hand appears in the doorway before I have both feet under me, and I take it without thinking.
He doesn't let go once I'm on the sidewalk.
The limo pulls away behind us while Sam unlocks the club, and for a second I stand there looking at our joined hands.
Four chairs felt like an ocean a few hours ago.
Now his hand is in mine, like being seen with me is the easiest thing he's done all night.
The club is dark except for the low lights behind the bar. Sam reaches toward the wall switch, but I catch his wrist before he gets there. He turns, and I use the tie I fixed for him earlier to pull him down to me.
The first kiss is not careful enough for a school gym. Sam's hand lands at my waist and tightens, drawing me into him while I taste wine and the bourbon he had after dinner. I back him against the locked front door, and the sound he makes into my mouth sends a clean line of heat through me.
His fingers slide into my hair. I catch his hand and bring it down between us.
"No." Sam looks at me, breathing harder now.
The loosened tie hangs crooked against his shirt, and the fact that I did that to a man who spent the entire night looking offensively composed is doing excellent things for my mood.
"That's a no?" His voice is rough enough that the question lands somewhere low.
I take another step into him. "Upstairs." His mouth shifts and he reaches for me again, but I move out of range before he can get both hands on my waist. When I start toward the stairs, Sam follows before I reach the first one.
By the time we reach the apartment, his jacket is off and the tie is hanging loose around his neck. Sam closes the door behind us already wearing the look that usually means he has decided exactly what happens next. Tonight I don't give him the chance.
I put one hand flat against his chest and walk him backward until the backs of his knees hit the bed. "Sit." His eyebrows lift, but he does it slowly, the amusement in his face doing nothing to hide what is happening to his cock.
"You seem pleased with yourself," I say as I step between his knees. Sam settles his hands on my hips and tells me he is cooperating. I take both wrists and move his hands to the mattress beside him.
He looks down at where I put them, then back at me. I hold his gaze. "Do you want me to run this?"
Recognition strips the joke out of his expression. Months ago those were his words, his question, the offer that let me put down every decision I was tired of carrying. Sam's eyes move over my face before he answers. "Yeah. I want you to run it."
Heat rolls through me so fast I have to resist the urge to reward him by handing the control right back. I remove his tie from his collar and toss it on the bed. "Then keep your hands there."
His jaw flexes. He leaves them on the bed.