Heaven and Hell (38 page)

I didn’t know what to say.

“Is it expensive?”

His face went guarded and he answered
carefully, “The best is never cheap.”

“I’ll pay you back,” I said instantly and
his fingers flexed in my neck.

“No, sweetheart, you won’t.”

Uh-oh.

He was calling me sweetheart.

“Sam –” I started.

“This isn’t a discussion.”

“Sam!”

His fingers dug deeper, his face suddenly
dipped close and Memphis yapped but we both ignored her.

“Right, you need to get this, it’s
important, so I’ll lay it out as best I can but you don’t cross
this line, Kia. Ever.”

Now I was confused.

“What line?”

“I’m a man.”

Well, I knew that.

“That isn’t news, Sam.”

“And you’re my woman.”

I sucked in breath.

Oh God.

I was thinking this was big.

No, this was
huge.

“She gets me,” he muttered.

“Sam,” I whispered.

“I gotta do this and you gotta let me.”

“But, it’s expensive.”

“I got money.”

“So do I, Sam.”

“Kia,” he said warningly, his face getting
closer. “Don’t cross this line. I protect myself. I protect my
home. I protect my family. And I protect my woman. I do it how I
need to do it. No discussion. Are you with me?”

“Are you saying you’re with me?” I asked
cautiously.

“I’m saying I want you breathing for long
enough to figure that out.”

I wanted that too so that was a good answer…
kind of.

“So you’re not with me?” I whispered.

“Kia –”

“Sam.”

He held my eyes.

Then his other hand came up to my neck and
he stated, “I feel somethin’ for you, it already runs deep. We may
as well get this straight, I don’t know where this is goin’ but I
like where it is, I like how it feels and while we figure it out,
it’s exclusive. That means you’re mine. I protect what’s mine.
That’s where I am, that’s where you are. Now are you with me?”

I wanted to be. Boy did I want to be.

But I wasn’t.

So that was why I said, “If this doesn’t
work, it ends and we’re over, I don’t want you to find another
woman you like being with and me being on the list of how women
have screwed you over. This isn’t your problem, it’s mine. I have
the money and I want to pay.”

His fingers gave me a squeeze and his face
got even closer when he whispered, “That, baby, that right there
says you will
never
be on that list. I can tell you not a
single woman I’ve been with even offered to pay for a drink. You
are not them, I knew it before but I know it even more now.”

I lifted one of my hands to rest on his
chest and whispered back, “Okay, I appreciate that, but I still
want to pay.”

“You’re crossing that line, Kia,” he stated,
his voice getting an edge.

“Sam, I have to,” I pushed.

“No,” he returned, his voice now hard, so
hard I blinked. “Right now, this is what we are. Right now, this is
working. Right now, there’s no chance this is gonna end and we’re
gonna be over. So right now and for the foreseeable future, you…
are…
mine.
”

His hands swayed me (and Memphis) gently
with each of the last three words and my eyes were riveted to the
intensity in his. He could be intense but this was something
different, deeper, starker, profound.

He kept talking.

“And you’re under threat. I lived from the
minute I could make a memory to the minute I tossed that asshole
outta my mother’s house not able to eliminate the threat that was
livin’ in my own goddamned home, my mother in danger, my brother in
danger, my family, including me, ruled by an iron fist, a fist that
lashed out randomly and brutally. That is
not
happening
again, sweetheart. Danger darkens my door and threatens what’s
mine, I’ll handle it. This is me and you gotta know this about me.
If you can’t see it my way, you gotta beat it back, keep your mouth
shut and let me do this because we’re not having this conversation
again, not after this shit is over for you and, if we go the
distance, not in our future. I protect what’s mine how I gotta do
it and with no discussion. Now, Kia, whether you’re with me or
you’re not, right now, you say you’re with me.”

I stared up at him thinking, sometimes, what
Sam said went too.

Therefore I did the only thing I could do, I
whispered, “I’m with you.”

Sam held my eyes, body unmoving, the
intensity didn’t shift from his gaze and I knew something had a
hold on him and I suspected it didn’t all have to do with me.

Then he sucked breath into his nose,
muttered, “Right,” pulled me up to him as his head tipped to me and
he kissed my nose. His hands left my neck, he rubbed Memphis’s head
and continued on another mutter, “Shower then I get this shit
done.”

Then he turned and started down the
hall.

“I’m not your mother.”

Yes. That was me.

I didn’t know where it came from but it came
from somewhere and then it came right out.

Sam’s body locked for a half a second then,
stiffly, he turned and looked at me.

“Come again?” he asked quietly.

I held his eyes then I pulled in a breath,
bent slightly, dropped Memphis to her feet, straightened and looked
at him again.

And when I did, I knew where it came
from.

So I told Sam.

“What just happened there,” I said
carefully, “was not about me. You don’t talk about you very much
but I think you’re reliving what happened to you when you were a
kid. I’m not your mother. I don’t know what happened with that but
what happened to me is my responsibility, not my Dad’s, my Mom’s,
Ozzie’s or anybody’s. And now I’m in this mess and that’s my
responsibility too.” He opened his mouth but I lifted a hand
quickly and whispered, “I said I was with you, I’m with you, I
promise, honey. I’m not crossing that line. It means something to
you so I won’t.”

He closed his mouth.

I kept going.

“But this is still my responsibility. I was
young and stupid but I made the decision I made and it happened.
Now it’s clean up time and this is different. This isn’t your Mom
and your brother. I’m not alone. I never have been. If you’re
sorting through past demons while going through this with me, you
need to face that and I think we both need to know that isn’t
clouding how you feel about what’s happening here.”

“Clouding how I feel about what’s happening
here?” Sam repeated, his brows drawing together a little
scarily.

That was when I gave it all to him.

“I’m not your mother, Sam, and if you’re
attracted to me because you had to live under that threat without
having any power to do anything about it and you want to relive
that and make it come out a different way then… then…” I faltered
and finished, “then we have more to talk about.”

I shut up and when I did I realized my heart
was beating hard.

Sam stared at me.

Memphis yapped.

We both ignored her.

“I…” I began when he said not a word then
ended simply with a prompt of, “Sam?”

“Remember Luci’s party?” he asked.

Like I’d ever forget.

“Yes,” I answered.

“Remember when I told you he took something
precious from you?”

I nodded.

“I know, Kia, and I’ve known since the
beginning, even before I knew he took his hands to you, that he’d
broken something in you that, if I took the shot, I’d have to fix.
And, baby, you sittin’ across from me, shy and cute and open and
funny, I did not give one shit that he’d broken you. I knew the
minute I saw you laugh, no…” he shook his head once, “before, that
I wanted in there and I’d do anything to get what I wanted.”

I felt my lips part but just like Sam, he
was not done but this time he was
far
from done.

“That didn’t have fuck all to do with my
mother, my father and what happened to me as a kid. And you might
not like hearin’ this but what it had to do with was watchin’ you
walk across that dining room in those sexy as hell shoes and that
hot, little dress with your long legs and your great tits and all
that fantastic fuckin’ hair and mostly a face I knew I wanted to
see starin’ up at me when my cock was buried inside you. Straight
up, you are one fine piece of tail but now you’re
my
piece
of tail. When you sat across from me and ignored me and I saw that
shit you carry in your eyes even when your mind is consumed with
something else then you sat with me and I watched you laugh, I knew
that shit would not deter me, no matter how deep it ran. And I can
promise you that has not one thing to do with my mother. The
precious thing he took from you is that you have no fuckin’ clue
that it wasn’t only me in that room who watched you walk across it
wishin’ he was a man who could be buried inside you. And that
precious thing also includes the fact that you think for one second
this bullshit is your responsibility. He saddled you with that too,
Kia. This mess is
his
making, not yours. I don’t know how to
get that outta your head. The only thing I know is it’s gonna be me
who cleans up that mess and, like it or not, it partly has to do
with you turning out in reality to be one
seriously
fine
piece of ass. But also it has to do with you not likin’ euro-trash
cars, not rappin’ with your posse about what I do for you in bed,
you demonstrating you have my back and you bein’ able to make me
laugh when I’m mildly pissed at you.”

He stopped speaking and I stared at him.

He had noticed me walk across that dining
room.

He wanted me when I walked across that
dining room.

Ohmigod!

Sam interrupted my mental freak out with,
“Now, we past this?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He studied me.

Then he stated, “Look of you, honey, you’re
gonna search for some other fucked up reason I’m with you and I
gotta say now, I don’t know how much more straight I can be about
that.”

I didn’t either.

“Uh… yeah. You were pretty straight,” I
agreed quietly.

“Did what I say penetrate?”

“I might, uh… need coffee and to get over
jetlag and then, um… maybe it’ll sink in,” I told him honestly.

His lips twitched.

Then he muttered, “I’ll be here when it
does.”

Then he turned around and disappeared in my
bedroom.

Memphis yapped then bounced down the hall
and disappeared after him.

Sam was going to have company in the
bathroom while he showered. This was Memphis’s way.

I kept still and staring.

I’ll be here when it does
.

Okay. All right.

Wow.

Wow.

I forced myself to turn and lurch to the
coffee discovering Mom or Paula had made sure we had fresh milk for
which I decided to buy them both a yacht that was how grateful I
was.

I was leaning with my hips to the counter
when Sam came in wearing another long-sleeves rolled up near to his
elbow, button up the front shirt (this one chambray), jeans and
boots. He was followed by Memphis who I was getting thought Sam was
the shit even more than she thought everyone was the shit. She
didn’t even follow Cooter around with that kind of devotion. Then
again, Cooter didn’t do pull ups and pushups that she could
misconstrue as playing with her.

He came right to me, touched his mouth to
mine and I smelled his aftershave. Then I decided that he smelled
so good, the second Vanessa smelled him she’d spill all of her
secrets. Then he told me he’d be back as soon as he could and he
left.

The second the door closed behind him, his
words repeated in my brain.

I’ll be here when it does
.

He watched me walk through that dining room
and he wanted me.

Thomas had said,
I’ll remind you of this
moment, when the beautiful Kia doubted her power over a powerful
man…

That intensity Sam had was partly about his
history but it was mostly about me.

Me.

Sam watched me walk through that dining room
and he wanted
me.

Thus began my multifaceted freak out because
firstly, I didn’t know what to do with that intensity directed at
me, my problems and Sam’s clear dedication to eradicating them
which included Sam throwing serious money at accomplishing this
feat. I also didn’t know what to think about the fact that Sam
still
wasn’t sharing. He seemed to, talking about his
childhood not only to me but mentioning it to my Dad. But he didn’t
share much, just nuances then he moved on. It was also dawning on
me that I might be a little bit of all right which was something I
hadn’t considered until Thomas said what he said and now definitely
after Sam said what
he
said.

And lastly I was freaking out because I was
falling in love with him. I knew it. And I knew from his words and
deeds that he was committed to exploring what we had so maybe he
was getting there with me too. But I also knew from his lack of
words that he was holding back and holding back didn’t exactly say
exploring what we had or falling in love because to start falling,
you had to trust the person you were falling for to catch you.

I mean, I didn’t know, I was new to this,
but I suspected I was right that everyone needed to trust the
person they loved to catch them, even ex-commandos.

So, as I went about my morning, showering,
doing the getting ready gig, unpacking, starting laundry and
dealing with putting an ad in the
Boothe County Gazette
for
my yard sale. Then I sat down and made a list of things to do. Then
I unearthed some of the boxes I’d collected prior to going on
vacation from the garage. Then I commenced in going through my
kitchen and stuffing boxes full of all my crap, marking the box
with bargain basement prices as well as tacking a piece of masking
tape on furniture and repeat with the marking it gig.