For the Love of Sami (3 page)

He ran his eyes over her delicately boned frame. "When is the last time you had a good meal?"

Sami tried to think. She had awakened earlier this afternoon, around her usual time, at one o’clock, and had been so eager to start her newly thought-of cause that she had skipped breakfast. She couldn’t remember whether she had eaten the night before or not, but then, she never could. It wasn’t that she didn’t like to eat. It was just that she kept forgetting to. Answering truthfully, she said, "I’m not sure, but I think it was last night."

Daniel looked profoundly shocked at the thought of someone’s not eating for nearly twenty-four hours, and since Sami wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad, she hurried on, pleading, "Oh, please. You won’t even know I’m there. I can sleep on the floor in a corner somewhere. It’s just that I don’t think I could stand to be alone tonight." Her voice had started to quaver at the thought.

"Sami—"

"Daniel." His name was all she had left in her.

He was silent for several long moments as he studied her pale face and the fear in her golden eyes. He sighed. "I guess I can’t very well have a client of mine waste away with hunger before I can even get her to trial. It wouldn’t be proper."

Daniel’s house, when she first saw it, reminded Sami of her parents’ house in Boston—very grand and supremely formal—and her first thought was that she had gotten herself into another situation that she wouldn’t be able to handle.

On closer inspection, however, she was able to see a difference. Daniel’s house was very much like Daniel himself, Sami decided as she wandered through it at his direction; the decor was sophisticated, refined, and quietly tasteful.

True, most of the rooms were formal. Rich traditional fabrics covered plush oversized custom sofas and Regency wing chairs. Queen Anne furniture was mixed with Chippendale and subtly complemented with Oriental accent pieces. But there wasn’t the touch-me-not quality of her childhood home—or the darkness. Stately windows allowed the last of the afternoon sun to pour in, and sun-touched colors complemented the richness of the various woods.

And maybe the real difference was Daniel himself. Or, to be more accurate, her reaction to Daniel. Now that there was no immediate reason to fear being put in a jail cell, she had begun to notice him as a man, and not just as the lawyer who had rescued her from her nightmare of terror.

Sergeant Johnson had said that Daniel could be a deadly opponent, and, as kind as he had been to her, she could well believe it. His lean face was chiseled into assertive and interesting planes, his glossy hair shone opaque, nearly black, his chin had a determined and an arrogant thrust, his lips were full and firmly sculptured, and his eyes . . . well, his eyes she had already taken note of. They were that intriguing dark blue color, and they were looking at her, evidently expecting some kind of a reaction to the grandeur around her.

Sami gave a halfhearted smile. "Nice." If Daniel thought it was strange that someone who looked like a street urchin and lived at the YWCA did not appear overawed by his home, he didn’t say so. "Do you live here alone?"

"Yes. I have daily help, but they leave at six o’clock every evening."

"Don’t you get lonely?" she asked curiously.

He smiled slowly, causing shivers to run up her spine. "I’m not always alone."

Sami looked at him and thought, I bet that’s the truth. With his looks, money, and self-assurance, the only problem Daniel would have with women would be scheduling the overabundance of them. Despite the hot August evening, he still had his coat and tie on, and he looked as cool and unwrinkled as a well-dressed mannequin in an expensive men’s shop.

Sami had had men after her for as long as she could remember. But none of them had been able to hold her long enough to get underneath her beautiful skin and find out what she was really all about. No man had ever been allowed close to her. No man had ever made love to her.

Yet as inexperienced as she was in sex, she sensed that Daniel could be devastating to a woman. As correctly proper as his behavior had been with her thus far, she somehow knew that he had a sexual expertise that far exceeded anything she had previously been exposed to.

And in spite of this knowledge, she found that she had an unexplainable urge to muss him up a bit, to run her hands through the glossiness of his hair, to take off his coat, tie, and shirt and see if his chest was covered with a mat of dark, curling hair. What a thought! She turned abruptly away.

He led her upstairs to a guest bedroom charmingly furnished with an eighteenth-century four- poster bed and a matching dresser and highboy. Printed curtains covered the two windows, and a satin coverlet was spread over the bed.

"You’ll be staying in here tonight. Perhaps you’d like to freshen up before we dine?"

Food was the last thing on Sami’s mind. First was the feeling of fear she couldn’t seem to shake, and second was Daniel himself. "Actually, I’d like a bath. I feel rather hot and dirty."

"It’s through that door on your right," he directed.

Sami walked in to look around, but she came quickly back out again. "Don’t you have something bigger?"

"That’s not a small bathroom, Sami. What’s wrong?"

He was right. Even though it was about six times smaller than the bathroom in her loft, it wasn’t small by most standards. It was just a smaller area than she wanted to be closed up in at this moment, but that was something she couldn’t explain to him.

Averting her eyes, she carefully avoided his question. "What about your bathroom. Couldn’t I use it?"

"How do you know it’s any bigger?" he asked wryly.

Sami knew intimately the type of house Daniel lived in. After all, she owned the mansion in Boston, plus a summer "cottage" on the fashionable East End of Long Island that could easily house eight families. The fact that she hadn’t been back to either of them since she moved to St. Paul didn’t alter anything.

"Just a guess." She shrugged. "A house of this size is bound to have a huge master suite."

He gave her another one of his slow smiles. "As it happens, you’re absolutely right. Come along. I’ll show you."

They walked down the wide hall until they came to a set of double doors at its end. Throwing them open, Daniel allowed Sami to precede him into a bedroom that reflected the decor of the rest of the house, with perhaps a touch more masculinity apparent in the discriminating selection of the large pieces that appointed the room. Excruciatingly neat, the room had one entire wall of museum-quality paintings.

But it was bigger than the other room, and she felt immediately more comfortable in it. Sami stepped out of her shoes and dropped her carpetbag carelessly on the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she observed Daniel picking them up. Without comment, he lay the purse in a chair and very tidily placed her shoes beneath it.

Sami strolled through another set of double doors and discovered that the bath was indeed more spacious. Burgundy carpet carried through from the bedroom into the bath, and a shining oval tub was sunken into the middle of it. Gold-plated faucets and whirlpool jets equipped it, and dark blue towels, the exact shade of the cover on Daniel’s bed, lay folded and waiting nearby. It struck Sami as being too sterile, too inviolable, and she thought longingly of her own tub—a huge, high-backed red tub that sat on clawed feet in the middle of a screened-off area in her loft.

Nevertheless, Sami turned to Daniel and said gravely, "This will do very nicely."

The corners of his mouth twitched. "Good. I’m glad you found something you approve of."

A surge of guilt assailed Sami, and she tried to reassure him. "Oh, you have an extremely nice home. I’m sorry if I gave you any other impression. After all, I’m very grateful. You practically saved my life. It’s just that it’s . . ."

"Yes?" He raised his dark eyebrows.

"Well, it’s a little stuffy," she mumbled apologetically.

"Stuffy?" His voice sounded louder than it had a minute before.

"Formal," she amended.

"Uh, is there anything else you need or want before I leave you to your bath?"

"You wouldn’t happen to have any bubble bath, would you?" she inquired hopefully.

"I’m afraid not."

Sami nodded forgivingly. "That’s okay. I didn’t think you would." Stripping off her headband, she threw it nonchalantly across the room and ran her hands through her mass of hair.

Daniel cleared his throat. "Well, if that’s all, I’ll leave you now. I’m sure you can find everything you’ll need."

Bells of alarm went off in her head at the thought that Daniel was really leaving her this time. "Wait!"

He paused at the door and looked back at her inquiringly.

Balanced on one leg, with one bare foot on top of the other. Sami began twisting a curl nervously around her finger, thinking fast of some logical reason for her outburst. "Do—do you suppose I could have a cup of tea? I’m quite thirsty."

"Sure." He gave her that smile of his that she was coming to find so attractive. "I’ll have one ready for you by the time you’re finished."

Searching through the cabinets, Sami found some liquid soap. She squirted some of it in the sink and quite a bit more of it in the tub, then turned the water on in both. Stepping out of her camisole, skirt, and panties, she dunked them in the sink. They were all the clothes she had with her, and she wasn’t about to put dirty clothing on in the morning. Once the clothes were washed and rinsed, she draped them artfully over the clear glass shower stall to dry. Then at last, satisfied with her work, she looked around curiously.

Spying another door just outside the bathroom, she opened it and found a large rectangular closet, actually a small room in itself. Ceiling-high shelves held neat rows of shoes, while a wall of drawers revealed stacks of freshly laundered shirts. One long rod held suits hung according to the four seasons, colors and styles. And another rod held sport coats, blazers, and slacks that were perfectly spaced two inches apart. At the back of the closet, well over a hundred ties were arranged by pattern and color.

Feeling more than a little intimidated, Sami grabbed a tie at random and left the closet as quickly as she could. Using the tie, she bound her hair in a halo of golden curls on top of her head, then lowered herself into the tub with a sigh of pure pleasure. After spending half of the afternoon lying on a dirty sidewalk and the other half frightened out of her wits in a police station, the hot, steamy water was truly heaven.

Sami shut her eyes and leaned back, willing the hot water to steam the accumulated terrors of the day out of her bones. She had been lying there for about fifteen minutes when a knock sounded at the door. "I’ve got your tea. Are you decent?"

"Yes. Come on in," Sami called drowsily, not possessing an inhibited bone in her body.

Daniel swung open the door and walked in, carrying a tray, but he came to an abrupt stop at the sight of her in the tub. "For the love of God, Sami! I thought you said you were decent."

"Well, I am," she replied, quite unperturbed. "Everyone says so." She patted the carpet by the side of the tub. "Just put it right here."

Daniel stood silently, staring at Sami. There was only a thin layer of bubbles left on the surface of the still-warm water, and under them, her skin glistened with a shimmering peach luster. Every now and then, a glimpse could be had of her breasts, high and firm, peeking enticingly through the water.

Sami watched as his mouth tightened. "Is there something wrong, Daniel?"

He plopped the tray down beside her, causing most of the tea to slosh out of the cup, and onto the saucer. "Are you always so casual about men watching you bathe?" His tone was almost curt.

And the navy color of his eyes had intensified. Sami felt a warm twisting sensation in the pit of her stomach that she had never felt before. He had taken off his jacket and tie, and several buttons of his shirt had been undone, revealing the thatch of curling hairs on his chest, which she had wondered about just a short time before. "Men don’t usually watch me bathe," she admitted uneasily, all at once doubting the wisdom of her lack of inhibition with this man, "but you’re my lawyer."

Daniel thrust his hands in his pants and turned his back to her. "What in the hell has that got to do with anything?"

Sami blinked at his harsh tone.

He noticed her wet clothes draped over his shower and walked slowly over to where her panties hung. They were lace and very, very brief. He reached out to run his finger over them.

Nervously, she sought action, and began soaping her legs, holding first one out of the water and then the other, running the soap up her calf to her thigh and then out the length of it to the end of her red-tinted toenails. The water beaded on her skin like drops of opalescent crystal. "I—I don’t see what you’re making such a fuss about. You’re my lawyer, I’m your client. We have an objective, professional relationship . . ."

Her voice trailed off as she realized that Daniel had swung back around and his gaze was following the soap’s journey up and down the smooth shapeliness of her leg. Deciding that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to wash them after all, she abruptly stopped, and plunked her legs back into the water with a splash.

This just made him switch his attention to the point on the water where her legs had disappeared. With undivided attention, he tracked the outline of her body beneath the surface until he came to the two rosy tips, which had broken irrepressibly free of the foam. Embarrassed beyond words, Sami sank up to her nose in the water. Unfortunately, this brought his attention to her eyes and her mass of honey-colored hair.

"Is that my tie?" His voice sounded thick with suppressed emotion.

Sami had to sit up a little to answer. "I hope you don’t mind."

As he looked around the bathroom that she seemed to have so effortlessly commandeered, he shook his head as if to clear it. "Think nothing of it. I had already worn it once anyway." He glanced back at her wet clothes draped over the shower stall. "Just out of curiosity, what did you plan to wear to dinner tonight?"