The Golden Couple (The Samantha Project Series, # 2) (31 page)

I smiled at him. Truthfully, we needed more than that, but access was the only thing Owens could help with.

“Let me work on that. I’ll figure out a way to get you time alone with it.”

We were back in the ballroom. “Enjoy the party, Samantha.”
 

As Owens left, I tried to contain my excitement from what I’d just heard. Erik’s and my chances for getting the genes had just improved. And it was all because Drew got his ego bruised over a simple question. Owens didn’t even have to try to get Drew to spill the secret. Wolcott did it for him without even knowing.
 

I scanned the room to find Erik. He was talking to Rachel and some other woman on the left side of the dance floor. By the time I reached him, Rachel had taken the woman to meet someone else.
 

“How’d it go?”
Erik thought to me.
 

“I got it! I know where the genes are and I know for sure that we need Drew’s brain waves to access them!”

“So where are the genes?”

“In the globe. That big marble globe in the lobby.”

“They can’t be in there. You can’t open a marble statue.”

“Apparently you can because that’s where they are. You must have to say the phrase and then it opens and you put the password in.”

“So what’s the word or phrase he uses to open it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Sam! We have to know that in order to open it. And you have to hear him say it or think it so you can copy his brain waves.”

“I know. But we’ll have to figure that out later. Hey, this was a real score! Be more excited!”

“Okay, okay. I’m excited.”
He smiled.
 

As we stood there, one of the waiters walked up and offered us some champagne.
 

“Why not?” I said to Erik. “I’ve never had champagne.”

“Me either. We’ll each have a glass.” He took two crystal champagne flutes from the tray and handed me one.
“To getting the genes and getting the hell out of here,”
he thought. We clicked glasses and sipped our champagne.

I immediately felt the effects of the alcohol. “This stuff is really strong. I’ve only had wine before, and that was only when my parents let me, like at holiday meals.”

“I’m more of beer drinker myself.” Erik finished his glass. The waiter came by again and offered him more champagne. “Sure, I’ll have another. Sam?”

“No, I don’t think—”

“She’ll have another one, too.” Erik took two more champagne flutes.

I finished the first glass and set it down on a nearby table. I took a sip of the second glass. “I don’t think I should drink all of this, Erik. I’ll be completely drunk.”

“You won’t get drunk from two glasses of champagne. Look how tiny these are.” He held his glass up. “Besides, this stuff probably costs a fortune. You won’t get good champagne like this again.”

The dance was winding down and people were beginning to leave. A few people remained on the dance floor, but it seemed like they’d had too much to drink. They were laughing loudly as they stumbled around.
 

“I was told to escort you back to your room.” Walter had appeared out of nowhere.

“Um, okay,” I said, feeling a little light-headed.
 

“You need some help there?” Erik asked, noticing my condition. “Here, hold my arm.” He laughed as I reached for his arm and missed. “It was only a couple glasses, Sam. And you didn’t even finish the second one.”

“I just got dizzy for a second,” I said as the feeling passed. On the walk back, I felt some dizziness again, but it ended when I got back to the room and had some water.
 

“Feeling any better?” Erik took off his suit jacket and laid it on the chair.

“Well, I don’t feel sick. But I do feel kind of weird. And completely relaxed.” I rested against the wall of pillows on the bed.

Erik sat down next to me. “I feel a little weird, too. Must be the champagne kicking in.”
 

He took off his bow tie and unbuttoned his shirt a little. “Feels good to finally get that tie off.”
 

My eyes focused on him. I had an overwhelming urge to kiss him. “Erik, come here.”

“I
am
here. Wow, you
must
be drunk. Do you need more water?”

I reached up and unbuttoned more of his shirt. “I mean, come closer.” I smiled at him.

He glanced down at my hand on his shirt and smiled back. “Um, okay.” He leaned over and I grabbed his shirt, pulling him in for a kiss. But unlike our other kisses, this time I didn’t hold back. I kissed him like I’d wanted to for so long.
 

Erik was surprised but quickly got past it. As we kissed, I could feel us connecting, our energy flowing back and forth between each other. I didn’t understand the feeling, but I didn’t want it to stop.

I continued to unbutton his shirt. Before I could finish, Erik tore it off and threw it on the floor. I ran my hands along his ripped abs as he slid the straps of my dress off.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to do this,” I whispered to him.
 

“I’ve wanted to do this since the day I met you,” he whispered back, unzipping the back of my dress.

We got off the bed and my dress fell to the floor. I slid his pants off, taking a moment to notice how perfect he was. His body was almost like a statue. Like he’d been sculpted to look that way.
 

Erik drew me closer to him. As we kissed, his hand moved down my back, stopping at my lace bikinis. “I love these on you. And I’ll like ’em even more when they’re—”
 

I grabbed his hand. “Wait. Maybe we shouldn’t.”

He took his hand back and continued. “We should. We definitely should.”

“I want to, but I think—”
 

“Don’t think, Sam. You think too much. Just go with it,” He lifted me back on the bed, then lightly kissed my chest, weakening me again.
 

I brought his lips up to mine and felt his hand back flirting with my bikinis.
 

“Maybe now . . . isn’t a . . . good time,” I said between kisses.
 

“Now is a very good time, Sam.” He moved his lips softly and slowly down my neck.
 

“No. I can’t.”

Erik stopped and looked up at me. “Are you serious?”

“Yeah.” I slid out from under him.

“Why? What’s wrong?” He paused, giving me a strange look. “Wait, this isn’t the first time you—”

“No. It’s just that this isn’t like me. I don’t know why I’m doing this. Maybe it’s the champagne. It’s making me, well, I just have this intense need to, you know—”

“Exactly. Me, too. So let’s do this.” He continued his kisses, this time faster and more aggressive.

I pushed him away. “It’s not like I don’t want to. I definitely want to. But I know that I shouldn’t.” My mind was thinking of Colin, but there was no need to bring him into the conversation. Erik was well aware of Colin. “You know, I really haven’t even known you for that long.”
 

“So let’s get to know each other better.” He reached for me but I held him back.
 

“Erik, it’s not happening.” I paused, and for a moment I almost changed my mind. He was so incredibly hot and our connection was stronger than ever. Knowing how intense our kiss was, I couldn’t even imagine what going further would be like.
 

He smiled as he moved his hand along the curve of my hip. “Well, if you don’t want to do
that
, we could do plenty of other things.”
 

I smiled back. “Don’t tempt me, Erik. I’m weak.”

“Then let me try harder,” he teased, kissing me again.

“Come on. Let’s just go to bed.”

He looked at me, still smiling, but didn’t move.
 

“I meant go to sleep,” I clarified. “Could you get me something to sleep in?”

“What you’re wearing is fine with me.”

“Erik. Please.”

He got up and brought over one of my silk chemises. “These things are so damn hot. Do you know how hard it is to control myself with you lying next to me wearing this every night?”

I took it from him and slipped it on. “Probably as hard as it is for me to sleep next to
you
every night with that perfect, half-naked body.”

He crawled up next to me. “Then let’s make it easy on ourselves,” he whispered in my ear, “and give in to our urges.”

“Nice try. Goodnight, Erik.”
 

The next morning, I woke up feeling chilled. I pulled the covers up and snuggled next to Erik. I felt my skin next to his and it felt good. And then I realized that there was nothing else between us. Nothing! We were lying there completely naked!

“Erik, wake up!” I moved away from him, yanking the comforter over me.
 

Erik rolled over. “What? Is it morning already?”

“Yes! Wake up!”
 

“Why? I’m tired. What’s wrong?”

“I need to know what happened last night.”

“What are you talking about? At the party?”

“No. Here. Last night. In our room.”

He smiled. “Oh, yeah. That.”

“What do you mean by ‘that’? What did we do?”

“You know what we did. You were here, Sam.”

“I can’t remember. I passed out. Or fell asleep. Last I remember we were almost—”

“Doing it?”

“Yeah. But we didn’t, right?”

“No. You made us stop. And I gotta tell ya, Sam, that was just mean. Go all that way and then—”

“If we didn’t do anything, then where did our clothes go?”

Erik lifted the covers.
 

“Don’t look! I’m naked under here!”
 

“So we’re naked. Big deal. We didn’t do anything.”

“Then how did we get like this? Last night, I asked you to get me something to sleep in. Then I put it on and I don’t remember anything after that. Did you wear anything to bed last night?”

“Yeah. Don’t you remember? You made me. You even told me to wear one of my dress shirts to bed.” He smiled and kissed my cheek. “You said you couldn’t resist me otherwise.”

I pushed him away. “Erik! This is serious. So you’re saying that we were fully clothed when we went to bed?” I crawled over him to see clothes piled on the floor next to his side of the bed. My silk chemise was lying right next to his pajama pants and dress shirt.
 

“Maybe we got hot in the night.” He smiled. “I mean, temperature hot.”

“This room is always freezing at night. That can’t be it. So you don’t remember us going any farther?”

“No. At least not in real life.”

“As opposed to what?”

“Well, I had a dream, but I’ve had those all week so—”

“What dream? A dream of us doing it? Last night? Are you sure it wasn’t real?”

“I think I’d know if it was real, Sam.”

“Maybe not. We were kind of out of it. We drank that champagne. What if it was spiked with something?”

“Like what? It was just champagne, Sam. And everyone was drinking it.”

“This is GlobalLife, remember? They could have spiked it with something that would make us—”

Erik laughed. “Have sex? And why would they do that?”

“I don’t know. But think about it. Why are we stuck in the same room together? They have rooms all down this hallway. And why won’t they give us more clothes to sleep in? And everyone keeps saying we make a great couple. And then Terrance tells us to kiss. Says you’re in love with me.”

“I think you’re reading too much into it, Sam. I don’t think GlobalLife is that interested in us doing it.”

Erik got out of bed, not caring that he was naked, and went into the bathroom.
 

“Wait, I’m not done talking about this,” I called after him.

He came back out with a towel around his waist. “There’s nothing to talk about. Relax. We didn’t do anything. I’m gonna take a shower. Care to join me?”

“Erik!” I protested.

“What? I’ve already seen you naked.”

I shook my head. “Just go.”

As Erik showered, I grabbed his shirt from the floor and put it on. It still smelled like him. I breathed it in, closing my eyes and trying to remember last night. I could replay the entire scene in my head up until the point I fell asleep. I had no memories of me telling Erik to get dressed. Or watching him get dressed. And if I couldn’t remember that, what else was I not remembering? Was I really that drunk last night? From a glass and a half of champagne?

Erik came out of the bathroom still wet and toweling off.

“Could you cover up, please?” I turned the other way to give him privacy. “You can’t just walk around naked.”

He laughed. “Why not? Does it bother you?”
 

“Yeah.” I glanced back to see that he’d wrapped the towel around his waist. “It’s distracting. I can’t think straight.”

I went to the armoire to find him something to wear. Erik came up behind me and began kissing the side of my neck. “Let’s finish what we started last night. Maybe it’ll help with that distraction problem.”

“Here’s some clothes.” As I turned to give them to him, he leaned down and kissed me, taking the clothes and tossing them on the floor. My heart raced as our kiss, once again, sparked that intense connection that I still couldn’t describe or explain.

I felt myself giving in, wanting to be with him even more than last night. I looked up at his piercing blue eyes. Then down at his perfect body. I couldn’t get enough of him. His towel dropped to the floor and before I knew it, we were back on the bed.

Stop fighting it, I told myself. You like him. He’s insanely hot. He’s an awesome kisser. I had nearly convinced myself to give in when I noticed a flicker of light in the corner of the ceiling. I thought it was just my eyes. Then I saw it flicker again, so fast that I wouldn’t have even noticed it if I hadn’t been staring right at it.

“Erik! The cameras! Get off. The cameras are watching us!”
 

Erik didn’t move. “What?” He considered the cameras for a moment, but it didn’t seem to bother him. “Just ignore them. Now where were we?”