The Wedding Affair (The Affair Series Book 2) (29 page)

Sam found her friend’s enthusiasm and joy infectious. As soon as they started talking, she felt some of her anxiety lessen. Andi was back, and maybe now, she could get some perspective.

“Ryan will love it.”

Should she just start babbling? Blurt it all out? It was what she wanted to do but dumping on Andi’s post-honeymoon bliss seemed kind of shitty.

“Have you, um. . .seen Ryan since you got back?”

Andi’s shriek of laughter followed by her yelling, “I win! Less than five minutes,” stunned Sam into silence.

“Am I missing something?” she asked.

“Sorry, sweetie. Had to tell Kyle I won our bet.”

“Bet?”

“Sure. We made a bet on the plane to Florida. How long before Sami asks about Ryan and the same for Ryan asking about you. I won.” She snickered.

“I hate you.” Sam laughed. “Here I am, trying to be considerate of your feelings and acting like I give a shit about croissants along the left bank or how yummy Scottish men in kilts are.”

Andi was giggling. “Poor Kyle. He had a daily bitch-fit about how many pictures I took of hot Scots. Get it? Hot Scots?”

“What the hell did you take pictures for?”

“Well,” she tittered gleefully. “Shits and giggles, for starts. Some will end up on a Pinterest board. But mostly, I took them as leverage.”

“Because it drove your husband crazy?”

“Exactly.”

It was great to have a laugh with her BFF.

“Okay, Mrs. Sommerfield. Enough with the jokes. I asked a question.”

“Have we seen Ryan? That question?”

“Andi,” she growled.

“Cool your jets, Sami. Just having a bit of fun at your expense! Yes, we’ve seen him. He was here when we got back from the airport. And just like you, he gave us a few minutes of fake attention and then swept Kyle away for a private convo. About you.”

The carton in her hand went crashing into the sink, sending milk spewing everywhere.

“Uh, what? About me? What did they talk about?”

“Dunno,” Andi groused. “The hubs won’t say. But I got the impression there might be some groveling involved. By Kyle. Care to explain?”

Sam hit the speakerphone button and balanced her phone atop a container of oatmeal as she wet a cloth and wrung it out.

“I’m going to assume Kyle groveling has something to do with your husband telling Ryan that my L.A. adventure had soured. Ten yards for interference.”

“Did he now?” Andi asked. “I wonder what prompted him to give his cousin insider information. I highly doubt he just blurted it out. Kyle isn’t like that.
Hmph.
He must have been reacting to something.”

She hadn’t considered that angle. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Ryan was sending signals. Ya know what I mean? He wouldn’t ask, but if Kyle felt a bit of a nudge would help, maybe that’s why he told him.”

“Andi,” she murmured. “I lost my job,” she said as the damp cloth made quick work of cleaning up her mess.

Her friend gasped and exclaimed, “No way.”

“Yep. Way,” she responded flatly.

“Does Ryan know this?”

“Yes.”

“I wonder if he told Kyle.”

She wondered the same thing. If the cousins had a serious conversation about her, how much detail did Ryan reveal? For now, she was going to keep her cards close and not give anything away that would only amp up her already universal level of anxiety.

“One more thing,” Sam said. “It’s about Tara.”

“Sami,” Andi started to say, but she cut her off.

“She tried to mess with me, Andi. Deliberately. I’ve put up with her snotty attitude for years because I realize that’s just the way she is. But she made a special trip to my room for the sole purpose of starting shit. The only reason I didn’t incinerate her on the spot was you.”

“Hmm. That explains a lot.”

“If she gets in my face again, I won’t hold back. I don’t care who she is. You know how I am. She stepped over the line.”

“Sweetie, look. She made a play for Ryan. It blew up in her face. We hoped that’d be the end of it, but the whole who’s-the-baby-daddy thing tipped the scale. I’m sorry she tried to tangle with you but don’t worry about a repeat. She knew she went too far and tendered her resignation while we were away. Took a job in Chicago, of all places. And she’s not pregnant. Whether she ever truly was, we’ll never know, but I did track her down, and we talked. She’s sticking to an unfortunate miscarriage scenario and is using it to pump up her reasons for leaving and starting fresh.”

“So she’s gone. On her own accord. Took herself out of the picture?”

“Correct.”

Wondering whether Ryan knew any of this finally broke the crazy spell holding her back. He’d called it correctly when he said this was ridiculous. They shouldn’t be guessing what the other person did or didn’t know. She didn’t want that kind of relationship, and when it came to Mr. Charming, it just didn’t feel right.

“Did you know he’s coming here?”

“Whaaaat?”

“Uh-huh,” she admitted a bit sheepishly. “We were talking, and I sort of had a brain fart and confessed to losing my job. Next thing I knew, he was barking. Or maybe it was growling—hard to tell over the phone.”

“Ah,” Andi chuckled. Playfully teasing her, she said, “The mating call of the American alpha. Get used to it.”

She teased her some more, and they tossed off a series of classic Sam and Andi one-liners before her friend nailed her with a single question.

“What are you not saying, Sami?”

Busted!

She swallowed hard and looked around her apartment as if a lifeline was going to appear out of thin air. This discussion belonged between her and Ryan, so she deftly played it off and crossed her fingers that Andi wouldn’t press.

“Oh, god. It’s nothing. Just that all-too-familiar feeling of having fucked up yet again.”

Andi wasted no time adding her point of view to the bigger discussion silently raging over Sam’s head. “I know of a job opening you’d be perfect for.”

Tears gathered in her eyes as a lump of love wedged in her throat. Was it really this simple? What was so wrong with meeting a fabulous guy, being struck by insta-love, and finding a rainbow waiting at the end of a bumpy detour? They wouldn’t make movies or write stories about this stuff if it never actually happened.

“I’ll submit a resume,” she choked out through the threatening tears.

“Great! And then get your ass here to the sweltering humidity because I have a bitchin’ new project to share with you.”

“I heart you, Andrea Sommerfield.”

“Hey,” her friend squeaked. “It just dawned on me. If you and Ryan get married, we’ll finally be related!”

She chuckled and added for good measure, “The Sommerfield Brides. Sounds like a great title.”

“Okay, sweetie. Gotta run. The hubs is making noises about firing up the grill, and you know what that means.”

Sam laughed. Men needed witnesses and applause whenever they played Grill Master.

“Have at it, bride, and enjoy your evening! Talk soon.”

The call ended, and she tossed the phone aside and took a deep breath. She felt better already. Andi was home safe and sound, Tara was out of the picture, and Ryan was practically on his way here.

Sam glanced out the window into the fading light of a beautiful Southern California afternoon and thought she spied a glimmer of destiny shining at the corners of her vision.

She’d been putting off telling her folks what was going on but knew when she saw those sparkles representing the future that it was time to get her act together.

He looked just as devastatingly handsome strolling through the throng of people at the airport as he had the first time she saw him. Watching him walk was a pleasure by itself. No one around him in that teeming crowd moved with such utter confidence. And that swagger? Holy cannoli. She was getting wet just from noticing.

Not trusting her voice to work without sounding like a giddy twit, she stayed next to her running car with the hazard lights flashing, bit the crap out of her lip, and tried not to start screaming like a groupie spotting the latest hot guy.

She needn’t have worried. He found her right away despite the horns honking, the crowd moving, and the occasional holler.

His gaze did a fast assessment—one of those head-to-toe things—and then he smiled. She saw the happiness in his expression and jumped for joy. The closer he got, the more excited she became.

And then he was on top of her and all Sam was aware of was the look of possessive desire he made no attempt to disguise.

“Hi,” she squeaked.

He dropped his big backpack to the ground and swept her into his arms for a kiss that said ‘Hi, how are you, and where’s the nearest bed?’

“Is this your car?” he asked in a husky voice when they drew apart.

“Uh-huh.” She kept her arms around his waist and gazed into his eyes.

“How long does it take to get to your place?”

“This is L.A.,” she scoffed. “One day half an hour. The next? An hour and a half. Depends on the traffic.”

He hugged her again and then kissed her nose when they separated. Grabbing his bag, he stashed it in the backseat and smirked as he got in the car.

“Try to hurry, okay?”

“Why,” she asked as her seat belt clicked into place.

“Because making love to you is a nine-one-one situation.”

It wasn’t all that easy to Frogger her way in and out of the messy traffic pattern around the arrivals area at LAX. Especially not when she was laughing.

“Is this a booty call?” she teased.

“Fuck, yeah.” Ryan hooted with laughter. “Can’t decide, though,” he quipped.

“On?”

“You on top. Or underneath. Or better yet, ass up and facedown. I recall a certain sarong-wearing goddess getting her freak on by wagging her pretty bottom in my face.”

The explosion of laughter his words spurred felt like a cleansing. A shower of perfection that had been missing ever since they said good-bye at the Kauai airport.

“Sounds like a tough decision. Poor you.”

“Oh, riiight,” he drawled. “I forgot about the smart mouth. Add gagging on my cock to the list of possibilities.”

“Hardly a threat. Or a punishment.” She smirked in return.

“Wait. Are you saying you like gargling with my—”

“Ryan!” she screeched before he could finish the sentence.

“Just checking,” he sneered with a lip curl Elvis never dreamed of.

Damn. Her panties were soaked now. She shifted in her seat, and he laughed like hell at her.

“Fire down below?”

“More like a persistent ache.”

Well, damn. That shut him up quick. For a hot ten seconds.

“I have something that can take care of your ache,” he murmured in that sexy voice she’d been hearing in her dreams.

He took her hand where it rested on the gearshift and placed it in his lap. The full measure of an erection he wasn’t hiding was pretty easy to map with her fingers.

She glanced his way at a traffic light. Something in her expression made his eyes narrow.

“Pull over in that shopping center ahead,” he demanded.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

There it was again. What Andi called the mating call of the American alpha. She shivered and then literally cut across three lanes of traffic to go careening into the parking lot he indicated.

“Over there,” he directed, pointing to the back of the lot. “Under the tree. Park there.”

She maneuvered into the spot he pointed at, slid the car into park, and looked at him.

His seat belt came off first and then hers. Curling a hand around the back of her neck, he pulled her head toward him as he shifted in the seat.

His kiss started at consume and went straight for devour. No warm-up. No teases. Just full-on possessive tongue and lips.

She started whimpering right away. And then she felt his hand slip beneath the hem of her dress and move with unerring accuracy straight to the heart of her. He wasted no time reaching into her panties.

Ryan’s grunt of lusty pleasure at finding her to be embarrassingly wet just made another flood of silken desire rush to cover his fingers. A storm of unparalleled arousal swamped her so fast she could only hold on for dear life.

His kisses fueled a delicious madness that she did nothing to resist. When he slid a finger inside her, Sam opened her legs and shifted on the leather seat giving him easy access.

When he added a second finger and began pumping her with toe-curling precision, she cried out. Ryan’s mouth sought that spot on her neck that made her melt every time and bit the shit out of her.

She came in a rush not long after. Even once the spasms stopped, he continued to gently finger her.

“I love how wet you are, Sam.”

She shivered hearing him moan the shortened version of her name that he only used when they were intimate. His thumb found her clit and took ruthless advantage of the hypersensitive nerve bundle.

Covering her neck and jaw with licks, nips, and kisses, he sent her spiraling out of control in record time.

“So responsive,” he growled against her skin.

Staying in control was no longer an option. Clawing at him, she frantically sought his mouth as she rolled her hips to aid his fingers.