Intimate Desires (The Love and Danger Series) (10 page)

Hannah smiled weakly, trying to stand up but her legs were a bit wobbly.  She sat back down and waved them off.  Why don’t you go take your shower and I’ll just stay here and….recover,” she finally finished.

Sam chuckled and leaned closer, ignoring Hannah when she leaned back in order to avoid his sweaty body.  “I’ll be back in a flash, okay?”

She nodded her head, still flustered by his closeness.  He kissed her quickly,
then sped away.  Hannah couldn’t believe it when he smacked Colt on the back of the head.  Colt, being a similar alpha male, casually elbowed Sam in the ribs…which started up the whole process with the other two as well.

Hannah was relieved when they disappeared behind the locker room doors.  She was just starting to recover when Sam walked out again, looking refreshed and in a great mood with a gym back slung over his shoulder.  His eyes were dark and intense as he approached. She could tell that he’d showered because his hair was wet.  And as he came closer, he smelled…incredible.  She couldn’t really define that scent, but it was clean and spicy and just….yummy! 

“Ready to go?” he asked, taking her hand and helping her step down the bleachers. 

“I’m just glad that the game is over.”  She stopped on the bottom step of the bleachers which put her just slightly taller than he was.  Her fingers reached out, gently touching the bruise on his cheekbone.  “How do you handle all that abuse?”

One blond eyebrow went up with her question.  “What abuse?” he asked, then wrapped an arm around the back of her thighs and lifted her higher. 

Hannah gasped at the sudden, unexpected contact.  Then her whole body started trembling as he loosened his hold and let her slip down against his body. 

“I like it when you touch me,” he told her when her feet were once more touching the ground.  “I like it a lot.”

Hanna wasn’t sure what to say.  She’d really liked touching him, but she had to remind herself that she wasn’t getting involved with Sam, or any man for that matter.  No way, no how was she putting herself through that emotional grinder again.  Horrible Henry had been one time too many.  Once burned, twice – not shy but not going to happen again. 

Thankfully, he didn’t wait for her to respond to his comment but simply took her hand and led her out of the gym. 

“I’m not going to your place tonight,” Hannah stated firmly, stopping in the middle of her apartment and glaring back at him.

She put fresh food in the cat bowls then walked over to where the two felines were stretched out on the heater, almost exactly where they’d been when she’d left them this morning.  She scratched them behind their ears, smiling when they started to purr.  She lifted one of the toy mice she’d gotten for them and Miley batted at it slightly, but she wasn’t about to give up her perch in order to expend energy on the toy. 

Sam thought she was sexy and adorable when she tried to be stubborn.  What she needed to understand was, where her safety was concerned, he was more stubborn.  “You’re not going to win this one, Hannah.  Just go pack a bag with whatever you need and
let’s get out of here.”

She shook her head before he even finished his sentence. 
“Nope.  I’ll be fine right here,” she stated firmly, scratching Macy behind his ears.  She refused to reveal to him how nervous she was about being alone, but being with him was even scarier. She also remembered her nightmares from last night and didn’t want to go through that again.  They’d been terrifying – with strangers falling to her feet, dead, wherever she turned.  She remembered the exact instant where the dreams had stopped being scary, and she suspected that was when Sam had pulled her into his arms, but she wasn’t going to tell him that.  She might sleep better, but there were more important things to remember. Like her self-esteem.  She simply wasn’t ready to have sex again, not after her ex-husband’s mind games.  That meant avoiding Sam’s bed completely.  And keeping him out of hers. 

She saw the stubborn expression in his eyes and knew she’d have to figure out how to ease his concerns. 
“I’ll tell you what,” she offered a compromise.  “I’ll sleep on the couch and you can sleep in my bed.  You’re too big for my couch anyway and I routinely fall asleep on the couch so I know it’s comfortable,” she lied.  The couch was perfectly fine for a cozy movie on Sunday afternoon, but sleeping on it was brutal!  The cushions weren’t even, they slid out and she found herself sleeping on the sofa frame instead of cushions and it just wasn’t long enough, even for her shorter body.  Not even her silly cats deigned to sleep on her couch and they slept everywhere else. 

“No,” he stated firmly, crossing his arms over his massive chest again.  “I have a spare bedroom at my place so there won’t be anyone sleeping on a couch,” he told her.  “Go pack up your stuff or I’ll do it for you.  And believe
me, I will thoroughly enjoy going through your underwear drawer and finding the sexiest stuff for you to wear tomorrow.”  His voice dropped when he said, “And I’ll be picturing you in it with that adorable little butterfly tattoo.”

Hannah’s hand flew to her upper butt where she’d bravely gotten a tiny butterfly after she’d left Horrible
Henry.  “You weren’t supposed to see that!” she gasped, ignoring Macy as he batted a fluffy paw at her hand, his signal that Hannah should continue scratching behind his ears. 

Sam chuckled again, thinking she looked perfect.  “I saw and I liked.  And I’m going to see it again.  Sooner rather than later if you don’t hurry up and pack a bag.”  He stepped closer to her.  “This is non-negotiable, Hannah.  You’re in danger.  I don’t know why or from who
m, but I’m not letting anything happen to you.”

Her shoulders drooped and she looked up at him.  “I don’t want to go to your place, Sam.  I don’t want…I can’t sleep with you.”  She was pleading with him with her eyes, hoping he would understand. 

Sam felt his heart twist for some reason but he wasn’t going to relent.  Stepping closer, he raised his hand to tuck a curl behind her ear.  “Stop worrying, Hannah.  You’re going to be okay.  Just go pack up your clothes for tomorrow and whatever hair dryer and other things you might need.  It’s all going to work out.”

She noticed something missing from his words.  “Promise you won’t touch me tonight.”

His eyes lit up and she swallowed.  “I won’t make promises I can’t keep Hannah.  But I’ll promise that we aren’t going to do anything that you don’t want to happen.”

She took a deep breath and had to accept that his promise was as good as she was going to get.  “I don’t see why another police officer couldn’t watch over me,” she grumbled, but walked into her bedroom, pulling out a small duffel bag. 

He leaned a shoulder against the door frame while he watched her.  “Like there’s any chance I’m going to let another man get close to you,” he said out loud, his eyes following her as she pulled a pair of jeans and another one of those fluffy, short-sleeved sweaters out of her drawers.  He noticed that she packed her clothes, shoes, socks, pajamas, toiletries and a few other small items, but no underwear.  When she turned to glare at him, he stared right back, raising his eyebrows in question. 

“Can you give me a bit of privacy?” she demanded, standing by the open suitcase. 

He almost laughed outright at how prudish she looked.  And sexy as hell too.  “No,” he replied, just to see her face flare up with anger.

She just about stomped over to her dresser and grabbed the first pair of underwear and bra she touched, shoving them into her bag and praying he hadn’t seen them.  She wasn’t sure how since she hadn’t even looked at them! 

“Ready?” he asked, not allowing himself to laugh at how adorable she looked when she was angry with him. 

“I have to call my neighbor to take care of my cats.”  She ignored Sam’s surprise as he looked down at her fat felines who had barely moved.  “Are they alive?”

Hanna couldn’t even snort at his question – her two pets were so intent on sleeping even she wondered sometimes if they were still breathing.  No matter what toy she bought for them, they preferred to languish in the sunshine or on her heater, opening their eyes only when they heard food going into their bowls.  She quickly called her neighbor who agreed to check in on the animals a few times a day. 

He drove through the streets of Chicago and hit the suburbs, doing the whole right and left thing again, looking in his rear view mirror and side view mirrors every few minutes.  Meanwhile, she sat over on the passenger seat, furious with his highhanded nature.  “You know, you’re going to have to fix that before some poor woman agrees to marry you,” she grumbled to him as he made yet another left hand turn.

“Fix what?” he asked, checking his rear view mirror as he turned right again. 

“That arrogance.
  It won’t work in a marriage.”

He smiled, but concentrated on looking behind him.  He wasn’t sure, but he thought he
’d seen the blue car that was behind him about four blocks ago.  The night was getting dark, so it was hard to be sure. 

“What
do you know about marriage?” he asked.

She looked over at him, stunned.  “I’ve been married before,” she said as if that were completely obvious.

That captured his attention.  He glanced over at her, then back to his mirror.  “What happened?” he asked, wondering why any man would be stupid enough to let her go.  He knew once he had her in his house, he was going to do just about everything within his power to keep her there.

“It didn’t work out,” she replied, turning her head so she was looking out the side window.

Sam watched her for a long moment, deciding that there was a whole lot more to that than what she was letting on.  “Tell me,” he commanded, speeding up and running a yellow light.  The car behind him was definitely trying to follow but got caught by the red light and the car he’d let get between them.  Interesting, he thought and made several more turns, determined to lose whoever it was.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get close enough to catch the full license plate, just a partial. 

He then realized there was a long, painful silence and he looked over at her.  “What happened, Hannah?  Did the guy do something to you?”  A thought occurred to him.  “Did he hit you or anything?”

Hannah almost laughed, but her shoulders were tense.  “No.  He never hit me.”  The idea of Henry hitting her was ludicrous.  He’d have to care about her to spend the energy hitting her.  Henry’s feelings hadn’t extended that deep. 

“Talk to me,” he urged, his hand reaching out and touching her shoulder.  “What was his name?”

She sighed and looked down at her lap.  “Henry Wain.  He was a college buddy and,” she hesitated, worried that he might think less of her for being so silly and marrying the wrong guy.  “We just sort of drifted from study mates to friends to getting married.”

“Did you love him?” he asked, feeling his gut clench at the idea of Hannah, his Hannah, loving another man.  Hell, he didn’t even like the idea of another man touching her, but she was twenty-seven years old.  She’d probably been with lots of guys by now. 

“I thought I loved him,” she said after a moment.  Then took a deep breath, letting it out slowly.  “I thought a lot of things back then.”

He waited, but when she didn’t continue, he turned left and right again, finally hitting his neighborhood.  “And now?” he prompted. 

She bit her lower lip.  “Now, I think life is too short to spend worrying about the past,” she said and pretended to smile but the smile didn’t reach her eyes. 

Sam might have only met her a few days ago, but he felt like he already knew her intimately.  And that smile was not genuine.  Whoever she’d married, he’d hurt her deeply.  He pulled into his driveway, pressing the remote to his garage and drove right in.

In the dim light of his garage, he turned off the engine and turned to face her.  “How long were you married?” he asked.

“Three years.”

“How did it end?”

She bit her lip and considered the various ways she could explain to him what an utter failure she’d been as a wife.  In the end, she just blurted it out.  “He left me.”

Sam watched her carefully, instinctively knowing there was more to the story.  “Come on in,” he finally said.  He stepped out of the truck, then came around to her side, lifting her to the ground just as she was about to do it herself. 

“I can do that,” she said, almost in a whisper.  The silence of the garage made every sound seem too loud.  Or maybe it was just the tension that seemed to be growing between the two of them.

His hands remained on her waist, his fingers sliding along the soft sweater.  “I know.  I just like touching you.” 

He took her hand and led her into his house.  “Make
yourself at home,” he told her and pulled out a bottle of wine from a cabinet and a beer from the fridge.  He opened the wine and set it on the counter, then had to pull a box out of a bag.  He looked over at her as he opened the box that contained wine glasses. 

“Did you buy that wine specifically for me?” she asked, touched despite the
growing tension. 

“Yes. 
And the glasses too.”  He ripped the cardboard away, then rinsed out one of the glasses before pouring the rich, dark liquid and handing it to her. 

He took a long drink from his beer and Hannah smiled to herself, watching his strong neck and Adam’s apple, thinking even that looked sexy on him.  “You don’t like wine, do you?” she asked, thinking of the wine she’d given him the other night with Chinese food.

He shrugged and waved his hand, indicating she should sit at the breakfast bar in front of him.  “I don’t mind it.”

“But you prefer beer.”  It wasn’t a question.  She could tell that he preferred beer just by the way he was drinking that versus the one glass he
’d had at her house. 

“It isn’t that I prefer it,” he came back.  “I had to drive home.”

She thought that was possibly the sexiest thing he’d said to her so far.  Horrible Henry had always pushed the limits.  She remembered one night at a friend’s birthday party.  He’d been drinking tequila shots to the point where she wouldn’t even get in the car with him.  He’d been livid, but she’d taken a cab home when he wouldn’t give her the keys to their car.  Turns out, that was also the night he’d been arrested for driving while intoxicated and she’d had to bail him out.  He’d been so angry with her he hadn’t spoken to her for a week.  That had been the beginning of the end.  Or maybe the end had started way before that and his arrest had only caused her to really look at their relationship. 

Or maybe it had had nothing to do with her. 
She walked into his brightly lit family room with the leather couch and strong looking furniture, but not really seeing anything as she thought back to her marriage with Henry.  She’d certainly never wanted to participate in his sexual experimentation and, as she watched Sam pull his top shirt off and store his gun in a locked safe, she wondered if there had been more going on that Henry hadn’t wanted to admit to her.

“He was gay,”
Hannah announced suddenly, standing in the middle of Sam’s den area, watching Sam and wondering if he found her lacking or tainted in some way. 

“Who was gay?” he asked, testing
the lid on the gun safe to make sure it was securely locked. 

She took a deep breath, holding the glass of wine between her fingers tightly. 
“My ex-husband.  He was gay.”  She looked down at the red liquid, trying to sort through the last few months of their marriage.  “He left me because he wanted someone more sexually adventurous.  He wanted to experiment.  He wanted…things…that I couldn’t give him, didn’t want to do.”