Slow Heat

then twisted off the top of his beer and tossed it over his shoulder into the sink. “Watch your language in front of the kid,” he said to his father.

Sam moved closer to Wade and put her hand over his on the beer. “Wade, I think alcohol’s a bad idea.”

“Why, because I’m forty percent more likely to be an alcoholic since my father’s one? Well, guess what, Princess? My mother was a drunk, too, so I believe that gives me an eighty-percent chance.” He gestured with his beer. “Bottoms up.”

Sam’s heart constricted at the pain in his voice, the one that matched the pain in his eyes, and she realized there was a whole hell of a lot more going on between father and son here than she could understand. “I only meant it’s a bad idea because of your concussion,” she said quietly.

Obviously not caring, he tipped the bottle up to his lips, then lowered it before taking a sip with a softly uttered, “Goddammit.” He set the bottle on the counter with more force than necessary and drew a deep breath.

“Actually,” John said. “Your mother always was more of a social drinker than an alcoholic.”

Wade narrowed his eyes but didn’t speak. He didn’t have to, his eyes spoke volumes.

John patted his hands down his body as if looking for something. Like a flask.

No one spoke.

“Maybe I’d better go,” Sam said.

Wade turned to her for the first time, his eyes dark and dilated. “I’d like to talk to you first.”

She just bet he did. “Oh. Well, it’s late, and-”

He wrapped his fingers around her arm, his grip inexorable. “Now.”

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Okay.”

He pulled her out into the hall and pressed her back against the wall. His mouth was tight, his body even more so as he held her arms. “How?” he asked in a low, controlled voice. “Why?”

“He called your cell phone.”

“Yeah? So? He always calls my cell phone.”

Their gazes locked for a long moment while she considered how to reply.

“You answered it,” he said.

“It said Dadon the ID, and you’d just been hurt,” she said in her defense.

He blew out a breath. “I’m doubting he knew that.”

She didn’t tell him that was the truth. “I saw his name and I thought… I don’t know. I guess I thought family is family, and-”

“Hell, Sam. You should know better than anyone that blood ties don’t necessarily make a family.”

She stared up at him, knowing he was right, so damn right. “He said he needed a ride,” she whispered. “And I pictured a helpless old man-”

“That man is the opposite of helpless.”

“Well, I’m beginning to see that now.” She winced. “And he thinks he’s staying with you.”

He leaned into her, and over her shoulder thunked his head to the wall, which had to hurt.

“I realize he arrived without your knowledge or permission,” she said softly. “And I’m sorry if you’re upset that I gave him a ride from the bus station, but he would have found one here with or without me.”

“Don’t be so sure. There are plenty of bars between the bus depot and here.”

She’d seen Wade in tense situations before. After a bad loss. Before a big game. Having a disagreement with Gage. When Pace had needed surgery in the middle of last season.

But never once had she seen him be anything but cool and calm and unflappable about all of it.

He wasn’t close to any of those things now, and it was an entirely new side to him. “You’re furious with me because I invaded your privacy. I’m sorry, Wade.”

Still leaning on her, his head against the wall, he craned his neck and met her gaze, his brimming with hostility, and even worse, a vulnerability she knew he hated. It was that, more than anything else, that put her heart in her throat. “I screwed up, and I am sorry. But you can’t just ignore him.”

“Why not? He spent the first eighteen years of my life ignoring me.”

“Was it always just you and him?”

“No, it was him and his booze. I wasn’t really much of a factor. I’ve asked him for years to quit, he was never interested. Now he gets a health scare and is staring his mortality in the face, and suddenly he’s all about quitting. He has it in his head that he needs me in order to do it. He needs a relationship before it’s too late.”

Sympathy filled her, but the look on his face dared her to show a single ounce of pity or he’d toss her out the same way he intended to toss out his father. The way he’d challenged her not to toss out Tag. “He did mention the senior center was for the elderly,” she said. “Which apparently he doesn’t consider himself. I’m not sure I understand a lot about addiction, but I do know that just asking someone to quit is rarely enough motivation. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to. Or that he doesn’t love you.”

He stared at her for a long beat, but whether he was soaking that all in or planning her death, she didn’t know. “He’s timeless, you know,” he finally said. “Probably even immortal due to the fact that he’s spent so many years carefully and purposely pickling himself, preserving his parts for the next millennium.” He sighed and scrubbed a hand over his jaw, which had two days of stubble on it. But it didn’t escape her notice that he was still leaning on her, holding her against the wall, as if he were too tired to hold himself up on his own.

“Maybe if you help him out,” she murmured. “He’ll do this. Really quit.”

He let out a harsh laugh. “I’ve heard it a thousand times, Princess.”

He looked exhausted, his eyes lined with pain, so she was well aware that she was risking her neck by wrapping her arms around him. “You have nothing to feel ashamed of, Wade.”

“I’m not ashamed. I’m pissed off. Did you search him for alcohol?”

At the flicker of guilt she couldn’t hold back, he ground his back teeth together. “What?”

“We stopped at the store.”

“Jesus. Don’t tell me you bought him some.”

“By accident!”

Once again he thunked his head on the wall just over her shoulder.

She slid a hand up between his forehead and the wall. “You’re going to hurt yourself even more.”

“Not possible.”

“Look, I threw the alcohol out, okay? I’m sorry but your dad can be a little slippery.”

He let out a short laugh, his tone saying it wasn’t actually funny, and left his forehead against her hand, rubbing his head back and forth against her palm.

“Wade.” She ran her other hand up his back, aching for him again. Still. She let her fingers brush over his temple as she gently tipped his head up to look at him. “I’m so sorry.”

He caught her wrist so that she couldn’t keep touching him, in spite of the fact that he still had her pinned to the wall with his entire lower body. “Don’t.”

She had no idea what the gruffly uttered word meant. Don’t talk? Don’t care? Far too late for that. His body’s heat radiated through her. She stirred a little, curling into him, careful with his ribs, wanting only to soothe, to offer him some gentleness. “Let me check him into a hotel somewhere nearby, and I’ll come back to take care of you.”

His eyes were dark. “What did you have in mind?”

“You in bed.”

“I like it so far. Keep going.”

“You in bed, asleep,” she corrected.

He sighed.

She stared up into his face, deeply tanned from the long hours out in the sun, though not enough to hide those shadows beneath his eyes or the pain tightening his mouth. His eyes were dilated, but she suspected that was still temper, and yet when she snuggled into him, she could feel his body stirring with a different sort of tension altogether.

He was hard. “You have a concussion,” she marveled. “Bruised ribs. You have to hurt like hell, not to mention you’re mad at me. How can you even think about sex?”

“God-given talent.” He slid a hand down her back and cupped her ass.

And now it was her body stirring. Hell, who was she kidding? Her body was addicted to his. She’d reacted to him the minute he’d walked in the door. “Wade.”