Claiming What's His (21 page)

Sam ran towards the stairs, getting away as quickly as she could, digging for her keys on the way.  She heard a door slam somewhere behind her, hoping that it was one of her neighbor’s car
door. 

But her instincts were often wrong. 

Then she heard the familiar car beeps.

Damn.

She felt him closing in on her as she got to her door.  She jammed the key into the lock, unlocked it and quickly entered.  She was about to shut the door when his foot stopped it, wedged between the door and the frame.

Damn!

Behind her she heard Buttons and Cuddles charging into the room, loudly welcoming her home.  “Not now, babies.  Mommy has to get rid of this jerk outside.  Move your big ass foot out from my door and go away!”  She tried kicking his foot away, pushing the door with everything she had. 

It didn’t work.

Her foot began losing its traction on the wood floors, causing her to slide.

With one strong thrust, the door flew open and she stumbled back, losing her balance.  Even with how fit she was
, she wasn’t able to use all of her strength and shut the door in his face.

Alex caught her waist, twisted
her and threw her over his shoulders, slamming the door shut and locking it.

“Alex, put me down and get the hell out!” she shouted at his back.  She pounded on his back and kicked her legs as he stalked straight to her bedroom.  “Alex put me down and get out!” she repeated.

Silent.

“You and I are done!  I want you to get out!”

The pups continued their barking, following them all the way into the room.  Obviously they weren’t feeling the same way she was.  They were greeting their welcome to Alex, instead of gnawing at his clothes and dragging him away.

“Quiet.”

The pups stopped barking and scrambled away, to their favorite place, her underwear drawer.

So much for loyalty.

“Quiet, my –”

Before she could finish, Alex stopped at the edge of the bed and threw her down.  She bounced and quickly got up to her knees and tried scrambling away as fast as she could.  She got away two inches before he grabbed her ankles and yanked her back.  He covered her body with his then gripped both her wrists, pulling them over her head, his face nose-to-nose with her.  “Where do you think you’re going?”

She wriggled beneath him, hoping to get a fraction away.  “Get
off
me!”

He didn’t budge his heavy weight from her.  She knew she wouldn’t be able to get him off so she quickly gave up, hoping to conserve her energy in case she needed to plot his murder and drag him away.

Sam was so angry and tired that she had no fight in her.  She wanted to be alone and nurse her anger in silent but he wasn’t allowing that. 

Her body went
slack, and she turned her head away, not wanting to look at him any longer.  Then she whispered so low that it was barely audible, “Please get off me.”

He loosened his grip on her wrists, released one, sliding it down, cupping her face and forcing her to look at him.

She closed her eyes.

“Sam, look at me,” he said firmly.

She kept her eyes closed.  “Get off.”

“Baby, I’m sorry.”

Damn.  She wanted to continue to be angry but how could she when he apologized.  She wasn’t really one to hold a long (angry) grudge against anyone. 

She pulled a deep breath through her nose then opened her eyes to see him looking down at her.

He continued, “I don’t like that you’re touching other men, other than your dad and mine, even if you are good friends.  I only want you touching me and me touching you.  I’m a jealous type of guy and I always will be.”

She remained quiet.  This was something new she learned about him.  He was never jealous before back in high school, but she guessed that it was because they were never a couple.  They weren’t even a
hint
of a couple.  Only make-out buddies.

He went on, “This is me.  This is who I am.  If you don’t like it, then tell me now.  I’ll walk away and leave you alone and we’ll keep our relationship completely professional.”

              Sam froze and swallowed the small lump stuck in her throat.  He would actually leave her if she wasn’t happy.  Sam wasn’t sure if she’d like that but she had to make sure.  When Sam found her voice again, she whispered, her voice a little raspy, “You’d do that?”

His eyes flashed and his face drew closer.  “
Fuck no
!  I’m never leaving you.  You’ll just have to put up with me.”

Sam closed her eyes and shook her head, her lips twitching. 
              His lips brushed against hers and she opened her eyes, staring into his deep blue eyes.

His eyes lost most of its anger, but there was still a small hint there.  “I’m really sorry.  I didn’t mean to accuse you like that.  I felt like I’ve waited a long time, and now that you’re finally mine, my jealousy is going to kick into high gear, especially since this is new.  So you’re going to have to be patient with me.  Either put up with me or kick my ass. 
Anything but ending it because that’s never going to happen.”

“Next time I’ll kick your ass,” she offered.

“I’d love to see you try.” He murmured against her lips.  She secretly loved that he did but would never tell him that. 

After all, she couldn’t feed more into his ego.

*******

“Ms. Daniels, how are you?
” Nancy Wright, the realtor, asked as she ran into Sam while she stepped off the elevators, likely coming from one of the other three vacant floors.

Sam had just walked in after their heart-to-heart talk (or more like, Alex telling her about his jealousy issues whether she wanted to hear it or not).  He told her he needed to check on his other cases so she tagged along to work on her stuff.

“Sam, please.  I’m fine, Mrs. Wright.  What’s going on?  Is there something wrong with the office?” 

The pups barked while Sam held them in her arms so she had to shush them.

              She smiled, petting them each on the head.  “Nancy, please.  No nothing is wrong.  The office space has been purchased.”

Sam stiffened.  She had actually hoped that one day she would expand her office and eventually taken over the hold building.  “Someone
bought
the space?”

“Yes.  In fact, they purchased the entire building.  You’ll actually have a new landlord instead your previous one.  The original owner had been looking to sell for a while and they finally had a buyer last week.  I think he said he’s ready to move in real soon.”

Her hope into nabbing the office space officially died. 

Someone took her dream away from her.

Nancy tilted her head and carefully glanced at Sam’s face.  “Sam, are you okay?”

A small smile played on her lips.  “I’m fine.  I was actually hoping to eventually obtain another floor and expand my business.”

“You’d have to take that up with the new owner.  He may have the space available for lease, but he did mention something about moving some equipment into the space.”

This meant that it wouldn’t be available. 

Just then, Alex walked through the front door holding two cups of coffee.

“Nancy, I didn’t expect to see you today,” he bizarrely said as if he had known Nancy for ages.

Nancy?
  Sam looked quizzically between the two of them, wondering how they knew each other.  Didn’t Alex just moved back to town not long ago and how did he manage to be on a first name basis with the realtor?

“I just wanted to pop in and check on things before you moved in.  Everything looks good.  I had the cleaners here earlier to do last minute sweeping.  Here are your keys.  It’s ready anytime you are,” she stated as she gave him a set of keys.

She froze.  Every thought rushed to Sam as she realized what was going on.

Her eyes sliced to his.  “Alex,
you
bought the building?”

His eyes moved to hers. 
“Yup.  I thought it would be a good business investment.  I’ll be setting up office here this week.  Dean and Sean will probably take care of majority of the move and set-up.  A few of my guys are packing up some stuff as we speak and shipping it down.  Corey should be down sometime today work on the wiring.  Then he’ll hook up all the network stuff with some equipment to get started.  Now you and I can be closer together and you wouldn’t have to miss me.”

He wagged his brows at her.

She couldn’t help but feel slightly warmed at what he said.  She wouldn’t admit it to him so she teasingly stated, “You mean it’ll be harder for me to get rid of you.”

             
Alex smiled and leaned into her ear and whispered low enough only they could hear, his breath already sending her shivers, “That’s not what you’ll be saying tonight.” 

Tingle.

*******

             
Sam was on her computer and going over some paperwork.  Char had been doing a stellar job keeping her files organized and calendar up-to-date that she caught up on everything in no time.

             
When she caught a break, she finally asked, “So, now that you’re my landlord, how do you want rent payment?  Online, mail, in person?”

             
Alex was on the floor by the couch rolling around as Buttons and Cuddles tried to attack his shirt.  “I don’t want your money, Sam.”

             
Sam looked down at him and burrowed her brows.  “Why not?  I’m just like any other tenant.  You’re my landlord, I’m the tenant.  Therefore, I pay you.”

             
He simply replied, “But, you’re not like any other tenant.  You’re my girlfriend.”

             
She jerked her head.  “Since when?” she nearly shouted at that outrageous assumption.

             
“Since now,” he fired back.

             
Flabbergasted
, she snapped, “Even if that was the case, that makes me your girlfriend like eight seconds ago,” she pointed out, even if it sounded ridiculous of being someone’s girlfriend for less than a minute.”

             
“Doesn’t matter how long.  You’re still my girlfriend and I take care of you so I don’t want your money.”

             
“I’m paying my rent.  It’s not your job to take care of me.”

             
That may have been the wrong thing to say to him because his eyes glittered with anger and slight irritation.  “Sam, don’t argue with me.  You’re not paying and that’s final.”

             
“You know this barbarian act of yours is getting really old.  It’s the twenty-first century and women have been contributing as part of an equal relationship for years now.  Why don’t you join them?” 

             
“Fine, if you want to pay, then I’ll take a check on your usual date.”

             
Alex got up and walked to the door.

             
Before he walked out, she shouted at his back, “Fine!”

*******

              “Did you know that Alex bought this building?” Sam asked Maggie as ran employee background on her computer.  It had been two hours since he fumed out of the office where she sat there at her desk, fuming her anger in return towards him.

             
Maggie had walked in with her camera bag on her shoulder and twigs and leaves stuck all over in her hair.  She told her that she had been doing a nature shoot for National Geographic and needed a shot of some animals in their natural habitats.

             
Sam helped her de-twig and de-leaf her hair and returned to her desk to dump part of Mother Nature in the trash.

             
Maggie was now on the couch, her shoes off on the floor with her sitting Indian style and her iPad in front of her.  She lowered the tablet with her head tipping up and inquired, “The whole building?”

             
“Yeah.”

             
Maggie set down the tablet, picked up her phone, dialed a number, and held it to her ears.

             
Then she declared, “I’m no longer paying rent.”

             
Sam knew that she had to be on the phone with Alex.  And this was typical Maggie behavior of pulling the little sister card and expecting big brothers to take care of her.

             
Sam rolled her eyes and continued her background search, ignoring the conversation.

             
After a few moments, she heard Maggie shifted then plopping down on the couch.

             
“So what did he say when you said you weren’t paying rent?” Sam asked.

             
“He said he didn’t expect anything less from me and that he was glad we got that cleared up.  He also told me that I’m supposed to talk you out of paying your rent too.  Why on earth do you want to pay rent when the office is literally handed to you on a silver platter?”