He searched for some sort of hinge, then realized that when that final layer had been set on, the paint had probably still been a little wet, or maybe the icing had turned to concrete. It was hard to say. Either way, the sections were stuck together, as was the lid. He pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket and went to work on the edges, unsealing the paint and chipping away at the icing.
“Try it now,” he said. “It should pop right open, and you’ll be able to make your grand entrance. Want a little stripper music? I think the tape ran out. You probably need to hit Rewind and start over.”
He was pretty sure her reply was anatomically impossible.
Apparently she gave the lid a good hard push, because it toppled off and Samantha stood up looking a lot like a magnificent, harried goddess who’d just tangled with an entire Greek army. She might have emerged a winner, but she definitely wasn’t happy, not even after cheers and masculine catcalls erupted around the deck. As the men stomped and whistled at the sight of her bikini-clad body, Ethan’s mood deteriorated as quickly as hers had.
“Okay, that’s it,” he muttered. “You’ve had your show. Let’s go.”
Samantha merely lifted a brow. “I’m supposed to sing.”
“I think you can be forgiven if you don’t.”
She regarded him stubbornly. “I rehearsed Boone’s favorite song. It’s the only part I was looking forward to.”
“Really? You wanted to stand in the middle of a tacky cake being ogled by a bunch of drunks while you sing?”
“Well, not when you put it that way,” she said, trying to climb out of the cake and nearly tumbling off the trolley and onto the floor. Fortunately she landed directly in his arms.
Ethan looked into her eyes, shook his head and aimed for the door. “I knew the first day I laid eyes on you that you were going to be a handful.”
“According to a few people we both know, that’s just what you need,” she said, as if she’d made it her assigned mission to rectify the situation.
“No, what I need is to get through this wedding without losing the rings, and then go back to my nice, peaceful existence,” he assured her.
She studied him doubtfully. “You were happy being bored?”
“I’m never bored.”
“Lonely?”
Now, that, he thought, was another kettle of fish. “Not lonely, either,” he lied.
She sighed at that. “Lucky you,” she murmured, in a way that took him once again by surprise.
Ethan thought it was probably something they should talk about, this glamorous life he’d envisioned her leading, and what was, perhaps, a very different reality. These admissions of hers that her life wasn’t rosy kept surprising him. Tonight, though, with a nearly naked Samantha snuggled in his arms, talk was pretty much the last thing on his mind.
Only the sheer grit that had gotten him through two wars kept him from giving in to temptation, hauling her into some private corner of Castle’s away from prying eyes and checking out whether she really intended to go through with what she was so blatantly offering.
* * *
Being carried unceremoniously out of Castle’s, Samantha sensed that she’d gotten on Ethan’s last nerve. But underneath his disapproval, she’d seen something else, a man on the edge of giving in to temptation. Wasn’t that interesting?
“You can put me down now. My car’s right over there,” she said, gesturing toward the far side of the parking lot.
“And mine is right here,” he countered, opening the passenger door and depositing her unceremoniously inside.
“You can’t leave your own party,” she said, though her pulse was starting to scramble at the tight line of his jaw.
“I’ll be back soon enough,” he said. “They’ll hardly miss me.”
“Ethan, I’m not drunk,” she said, even though the thought of having a drink or two before climbing into that awful cake had been very appealing. “You don’t have to drive me home.”
“Who says I am?”
“Are we going to your place?” she asked, knowing she probably sounded a little too eager.
Despite his frown, there was no mistaking the quick tug of a smile at the corners of his lips. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say no,” she said agreeably.
He shook his head. “I was afraid of that.”
“The idea of sleeping with me makes you afraid?”
“Not the act of making love,” he assured her. “The implications.” He shook his head. “No, scratch that. The complications.”
“There don’t have to be complications,” she argued. “We’re a couple of consenting adults. We both want this. Why would it be so wrong?”
“Because you deserve forever, Castle women are all about forever, and that’s not on my agenda.”
“Maybe we should test your theory. You could be wrong about what you want.” Even as she spoke, she buried her face in her hands. “God, I sound pathetic. Or desperate. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m pushing so hard when you’re so obviously not into me.”
He regarded her with dismay. “You don’t sound desperate. Don’t you dare think of yourself that way. It’s not what this is about.”
“Oh, please,” she protested. “I’m all but begging you to take me to bed. That sounds pretty desperate to me.”
To her surprise, he pulled off the coastal road and into the parking lot at his clinic, then cut the engine. When he turned to face her, he looked as miserable as she felt.
“I’m trying to do the right thing, Samantha. I’ve been honest about where I stand on relationships. Yet here you are.”
She allowed herself a smile. “Not scared off,” she guessed. “That must be making you crazy.”
“It really is. I’m only human. I’m only so strong. And God knows I want you.”
Her heart leaped at the reluctantly spoken admission. “Thank goodness for that. I was beginning to think I was out on this limb all by myself.”
“Well, you’re not, okay? I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Take me home. Maybe I can remind you.”
“Samantha!” Her name emerged on
