A Little Too Hot (26 page)

I’ve spent a lot of time at the shelter over the last week. Sabrina and I have talked and cried together. If all I can do for her now is to be her friend, I think that’s something, but I want to learn to help women like Sabrina for real. I want my life to mean something. Which means I need to get it straightened out, and the first thing that’s going to entail is getting a real job so I can keep living at Izzy’s and pay for school. The next thing is going to be figuring out how to shake the feeling like I left a huge piece of my heart up on that hill in Berkeley.

I’ve got to let Blake go, but I can’t deny the hole in my chest every time I remember the brush of his lips over mine; the feel of his hands, so gentle on my skin; the press of his body against mine as he loved me.

I miss him.

“Have you heard from him?” Izzy asks just over the music, reading my mind.

“No. Nothing.” I’ve resisted the urge to call him, and after what Cooper said, I’m glad. If he’s trying to get everything straightened out and keep his job, I’m only going to be a problem for him. I have to stop pining for him.

“He’ll call, Sam. When he can. I’m sure of it.”

I just nod, because if I try to say anything, I’m going to start crying again.

“Hey,” someone says from the end of our table.

I look up and see a dark Hispanic guy. He’s totally hot, and Izzy sits up a little straighter when she sees him. “You up for a dance?” he asks, grinning at her.

She looks in my direction with a hopeful expression.

I give her a nod. “Go.”

“I’ll be right back,” she says, giving me a quick hug before sliding out of the booth. I watch as he guides her to the dance floor.

Jonathan is screeching into the microphone as his guys back him up with a breakneck rhythm, and Izzy starts to move. She’s a great dancer, and her guy can’t take his eyes off her. Half a song later they’re pressed together, swaying half-time to the beat.

I slouch into the booth and tip my head into the back of it. I need to forget about Blake and move on. I listen to Jonathan sing and resolve right then that I’m going to dance with the next guy who asks me.

Jonathan and the band wind down their song, and there’s a pause in the music. It’s a few seconds later when he says into the mic, “This next one goes out to my best friend, Red. Things aren’t always going to suck. Starting now.”

I sit up and look toward the stage, where he’s grinning at me as he breaks into the Bruno Mars song that was playing the first time I met Blake. I’ve never heard him do this song before, but as he starts on the first verse, my heart contracts into a hard ball. He doesn’t know what this song means to me. I close my eyes and lower my head, determined not to cry, as the lyrics yank at the deepest part of my soul.

“Dance with me.”

At the slow warm-honey drawl, my breaking heart explodes. I lift my head, and my eyes find the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

B
LAKE IS STANDING
at the end of the table in the same pink button-down he was wearing the night we met, his hand out to me.

In a total daze, I take it and blink away tears as he guides me out of the booth and to the dance floor. His hands on my back are so gentle, but at the same time insistent, as he pulls me tight against him and begins to sway to the song. I don’t know how or why he’s here, but I’m not going to worry about it now.

My heart swells at the feel of his body pressed against mine, the heat of his breath in my hair. I press my face against his chest and hear the beat of his heart over the music. His hands smooth slowly over my back, one of them gliding up to the nape of my neck. He weaves his fingers into my hair as he nuzzles the crown of my head. I can’t stop the tear that escapes over my lashes when I feel him sigh.

People move all around us on the dance floor, but all I know is Blake, and Jonathan’s voice singing our song as we move together in our own universe. His lips brush my forehead and down my temple, and when he starts to sing the chorus in my ear, slow and sure, the floodgates open and I cry into his shoulder. He strokes my hair and pulls me closer, and we dance, blending together into one on the dance floor.

When Jonathan trails off at the end of the song, Blake pulls back and looks down at me, cupping my face in his hands and wiping my tears away gently with his thumbs. “Hi, Sam.”

I press my eyes closed to stop the last of the tears and sniffle. “Hi.” When I open my eyes, he’s still here. Real. For now, anyway. He still has my face in his hands, and he watches me as he leans in slowly. It still surprises me how my body reacts to the feel of his lips brushing across mine. He twists his fingers into my hair and deepens our kiss, and afterward it’s as if I’m finally able to exhale the breath I’ve been holding since the morning he left.

He pulls back a few inches and gazes down at me with hungry eyes. “I need you alone.”

I take his hand and tow him toward Izzy, who’s dancing close with Hot Hispanic Guy.

“Hey, Iz. We’re gonna go. Can you tell Jonathan we’ll talk tomorrow?”

She grins at me, a slash of white in the dark of her face. “Told you.”

Blake takes my hand and wends us through the press of bodies toward the door, and we escape into the cool San Francisco night.

“What now?” I ask, turning to him.

Slowly, he lifts a finger and traces the scar on my cheek. It’s hardly visible through my makeup, but he knows exactly the spot. His touch sends a shudder through me. “I’m going to take you back to my room and love you all night long,” he says, his gaze burning into mine.

“Okay,” I say, totally mesmerized.

He hales a passing cab and we climb in.

“No Escalade?” I say after he gives the driver an address.

He pulls me against him, both arms holding me tight to his side. “No Escalade,” he says into my hair.

I sink into him, savoring the feel of his arms around me, and focus on the steady beat of his heart. I watch the city pass by, not even caring where we’re going if it means we’re going there together. But when the driver turns down Market Street, I sit straighter. “Please tell me we’re not going to the Federal Building.”

He gives me a small shake of his head and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Never again.”

We pass the Civic Center and turn onto Haight, and not long later, the driver pulls to the curb in front of an old Victorian house.

Blake pays the driver and helps me out.

“Where have you been?” I ask as he takes my hand and tows me up a set of stairs to the door of the house.

He slides his key in and opens it. “There were some things I needed to handle.”

“Why didn’t you call?”

He pulls me through as if he’s on a mission. “Because I didn’t know how things were going to turn out, and there was no way I was going to drag you into the middle of anything else.”

There are only wall sconces lit, but in the dim light I see we’re in a foyer, with parlors overflowing with antiques off to either side. Ahead and to the right is a staircase that Blake tows me toward without slowing down. He jogs up the stairs, pulling me behind.

“Cooper told me about Nichols,” I say, a little winded, when we reach the second floor, but he’s already got me pressed between him and the wall.

He crushes me in a kiss, then pulls away and stares fire into my eyes. “Can we talk later?”

His kiss leaves me breathless. And speechless, apparently, because all I can do is nod.

He hikes me off the ground and I wrap my legs around his hips as he carries me up the short hall and unlocks a door. He throws it open, then kicks it shut. Navigating us past an antique chest, he sets me down on a four-poster bed and proceeds to waste no time undressing me. He slows down then. Kneeling between my knees at the side of the bed, I watch his hands flow over every inch of my skin as if worshiping me, pricking goose bumps to life everywhere he touches.

“You promised to love me,” I say, my voice breathy, but thick with need.

His fingertips caress my nipple, feather light, and his gaze lifts from my body to my eyes, burning through them. “I am.”

I let him continue loving me in his way as I work the buttons of his shirt loose, one by one. When I get to his jeans, he stands and lets me slide them down his legs. He moves us into the center of the bed, then continues his soft exploration, this time with his lips and tongue.

He works his way up from my ankle, past my knee, to my inner thigh, and there’s not an inch of me that’s not thoroughly ablaze by the time his mouth finds the sweet spot between my legs. It’s not a minute later that I’m crying out with my climax.

He fixes his condom in place and settles his weight between my legs. He takes a few more minutes with his mouth to make sure my breasts don’t feel neglected before rocking into me.

“I’m going to make this last forever,” he whispers as I moan.

And he does. He takes his time with me, and anytime he gets close, he withdraws and makes another slow exploration with his hands and mouth. If his kiss or caress gets a moan, he stays there awhile. I lose count of how many times he makes me come before he finally gives in to his own release. And after, his kiss is so deep that it turns me inside out. Everything I’m feeling swells and overflows, and I can’t stop the tears that spill over my lashes.

He kisses them away. “I’m sorry,” he whispers over and over as he drops kisses along the line of my jaw and down my neck, and I’m not totally sure what he’s apologizing for until he says, “I’ll never leave you again.”

I cling to him, my whole body shaking and exhausted, as I recover from the emotional high of having him back. When my nerves finally settle to where I feel like I can speak, I pull myself up onto his chest. “What happened with the review board? Did you have to tell them about us?”

“It was none of their business,” he says, propping his head in a hand. He cups my chin in his palm and brushes his thumb over my swollen lips. “And thanks to you putting together the pieces, I didn’t have to.”

“I can’t believe it was Nichols.”

He shakes his head, disgusted with himself. “With everything that happened at the cabin, I’d forgotten I gave her the code that night.”

“It couldn’t have had to do with severe
blood loss
or anything. You were shot, Blake.”

He shrugs it off. “It was my error.”

“But everything’s straightened out now, right? I mean, you’re not in trouble for . . . what we did?”

“I wasn’t willing to tell Navarro and the review board what I was doing when Arroyo’s man gained access at seven-fifteen that morning . . . and when the review board pushed, I told them to take their job and shove it.” He grins. “So, yeah. All straightened out.”

“Oh, no!” I say, sitting and staring down at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Because I was done. I was there for all the wrong reasons.” He props himself on his elbow, gazing at me with a mix of exhilaration and trepidation. “Come with me to Houston.”

My eyes go even wider. “You’re going back to Texas?”

“Back to Johnson. They’ve taken me back into the training program.”

I smile. “You’re going to be an astronaut after all?”

He pulls me down and swirls his tongue in my belly button. “I’m all for exploring the undiscovered,” he says, peeking at me from under his long lashes and trailing his lips lower.

“Don’t let me stop you,” I say, feeling the ache build between my legs again.

“So, you’ll come.”

I shudder with the movement of his hands over my body. “In about five minutes, if you keep that up.”

“And after that, you’ll come with me with me to Houston?” he asks, his hand slipping between my legs.

“I’ve been thinking about going back to school.”

He sits back on his heels and I watch as he changes out his equipment. Smiling so sexily it hurts my heart, he kneels between my legs and scoops me off the mattress so I’m straddling his lap. “I think you should. As a matter of fact, I have a few things I’d like to teach you right now.”

I lift my hips and sink onto him, and I can feel him move through me all the way up to the top of my head and all the way to the soles of me feet as we blend together. I arch into his body and he takes my nipple into his mouth, giving suck and curling my toes. “That’s a good one,” I moan. “I’m taking notes.”

“Mmm,” he hums in agreement. He kisses his way across the valley and up the mound to my other nipple. “There’s some memorization involved too.”

He moves under me, taking me to the moon again, and we finally collapse on the bed as pink rays of sun appear on the horizon out the window.

“That’s a solid B-plus,” he breathes into my hair.

I roll onto my elbows and scowl down at him. “You’re seriously giving me a B?”

“Not you. Us,” he says. “There’s definitely room for improvement. And you know what they say?”

“What do they say?”

“Repetition is the mother of retention. There’s going to be lots of homework.”

I can’t stop the smile as I settle in beside him. “So, how long does this class run?”

He rolls to face me and traces my eyebrow with the tip of his finger. “As long as it takes me to memorize this . . .” His finger comes full circle to the flare of my nose. “. . . and this . . .” Tracing upward, he comes to my other eyebrow. “. . . and this . . .” But then it stalls over the scar on my cheek. “. . . and until I can make up for this.”

“You have nothing to make—”

His fingers drop to my lips and stop my protest. “Making up for almost getting the girl I’m in love with killed could take a while,” he says, tracing the lines of my lips. “Most likely, forever.”

My heart sputters and I stop breathing for a second before it thumps back into rhythm.

“You never agreed to come to Houston with me,” he says, leaning in to kiss my nose. “Say you will.”

I press myself deeper into him, feeling at home for the first time since he left. My head gives me every logical reason to say no, but my heart overrides them all. “I am so in love with you.”

That dazzling smile I’ve missed so much breaks over his face. “Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” It comes out sure and strong, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last few months, it’s that life is too short to waste a minute. And where I want to spend all my minutes is right here, with the only man I know who can take me to the moon, body and soul.