speaking. She didn’t like it. She’d hoped they could be friends. Friends was easier, but maybe no contact with Sam was for the best. Being friends with Sam had led to getting naked. And that was bad. Or rather good. Too good, and she couldn’t be trusted. Although she was in no danger of another Hound Dog wedding and a wrist tattoo, she just might,
It wasn’t until the fourteenth of December that she final y heard from Sam himself. It was Monday, a little before noon, and he cal ed to tel her that he’d been cleared from the injured list and would be leaving for a week. Hearing his voice made her miss him. More than was wise.
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
She’d always known he would head out on the road again. He played hockey. It was his job. Stil , she was a little disappointed. For Conner’s sake, of course. “Oh.”
“So tel Conner that Nat wil pick him up on the,” he paused as if he was looking at a schedule, “the twenty- second after school.”
He was going to hang up. “Sam?”
“Yeah.”
She picked up a pen and clicked it with her thumb. “Why are we back to this place?”
“What place?”
“The place where you have your assistant drop Conner off. I thought we’d become friends.”
“You wanna be friends?”
Click click. Was that so impossible? Was he so mad, suddenly disliked her so much again, that he didn’t want to be in the same building? “Yes.”
“Friends like before or after we had sex on the floor?”
Her thumb stopped. “Before.”
“Not interested.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want to be your friend.”
“Oh.” She swal owed her disappointment. It might be for the best, but she suddenly didn’t want what was for the best. She didn’t want to hate Sam and have Sam hate her. What choice did she have? “Okay.”
“I want to be your lover. I can’t pretend I don’t want more. I want to be with you, Autumn. I want to get you naked and throw your legs over my shoulders.”
She dropped the pen.
“I want to leave a mark on the inside of your thigh.”
She rose and must have had some sort of out-of-body experience. It was the only way she could explain what she heard herself say, “I have two hours before my next client, and I’m not wearing panties.”
She could practical y hear him swal ow just before he asked in a low, raw voice, “Are you at home?”
“My office.” She gave him the address, and he was at the door in twenty minutes. While she waited, she reached beneath her polka-dot dress and took off her underwear. She put them in a desk drawer next to her thumbtacks and paper clips.
“Lock the door behind you,” she told him, when he walked into her office. She picked up the phone and buzzed Shiloh. “I’m with a client,” she said.
“Take messages.”
“Did I just see your baby daddy walk in?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She hung up as Sam flipped the lock and leaned back against the door, waiting. Waiting for her to make the first move.
And she did. She rose and unbuckled the belt around her waist. “You got here in record time.”
He might have waited for her to make the first move, but he didn’t wait for the second. He pul ed his shirt over his head as he moved toward her. “I may have run a light or two.”
The dress slid down her arms and hips into a puddle of blue and white at her feet. She stepped out of it, wearing nothing but her white bra and silky slip. She reached for the buttons on the front of his jeans. He grabbed her hand and stopped her.
“Tel me what you want, Autumn. I’m never quite sure with you.”
“I want you.” She looked up into his hot gaze. The hot gaze that sent warm shivers across her skin. “Just like last time.”
“Two orgasms?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I want to be lovers.”
“For how long?” He dropped her hand. “Until you get mad and kick me out the door again?”
“I don’t want to be mad and kick you anywhere.” Not anymore.
She popped one button at a time then slid her hand into the pouch of his boxer shorts. And in case he worried that they might repeat the past, she added, “You don’t have to worry that I’l fal in love with you again, either.” She wrapped her hand around his erection, and he sucked in a breath. His lids lowered and he brushed her cheek with the tips of his fingers. “What if I fal in love with you?”
She turned her face into his palm. “You won’t.”
Chapter Fifteen
“How was your day at work?”
Autumn took a bite of a Take ’n’ Bake pizza and careful y laid it on the plate. She looked across the table at Sam and Conner by his side. When she’d come home around five thirty, Sam and Conner had been downstairs, playing with Conner’s plastic golf set and watching
“Interesting.” She dabbed at the corner of her mouth with a paper napkin. True to his word, he’d thrown her legs over his shoulders and given her two orgasms. “How was your lunch today?
“So good I’m having the same thing for dessert?”
Conner smiled around his bite. “Ice cream?”
“Yep.”
After dinner, Sam helped Conner with his spel ing at the coffee table while a Chinooks-Bruins game played across the television screen. The two sat on the floor and Autumn lay on the couch behind them. There was work she could be doing, but she much preferred watching Sam deal with the sometimes agonizing task of helping Conner spel .
At one point Sam jumped to his feet and yel ed at the TV, “You’ve got to be f-ing kidding me.”
“Little ears,” she reminded him.
“What?” He glanced across his shoulder at her. “I said f-ing.”
“What’s f-ing mean, Dad?”
Autumn lifted a brow.
He returned his gaze to Conner and sat back down. “Freaking, but you probably shouldn’t say it.”
Several times he touched the back of her leg through her jeans or rubbed her bare ankle.
“When are you leaving, Dad?” Conner asked as he flexed his writing hand.
“In the morning.”
“Oh.” Conner’s brows lowered, and he cracked his knuckles. “When are you coming back?”
“Saturday, but then I’m gone again Tuesday.”
