For the Love of Sami (7 page)

"Your hair is messed up," Sami commented in surprise.

He laughed softly. "Is it? If you want to know the truth, I hadn’t noticed. I’ve been half out of my mind wondering where you were. I should never have let you go this morning without finding out where you would be."

"You didn’t have a choice."

Releasing her hands, Daniel removed his glasses, placing them carefully on a side table. Then he gripped the soft flesh of her upper arms, and his eyes seemed to burn through her. "I don’t understand you, Sami," he said very quietly, while at the same time his mouth was slowly lowering to hers, "but I will. I will." His words were a promise, and his kiss was meltingly sweet. Sami couldn’t help but respond, yet he ended the kiss before she was ready. "Are you hungry?" he questioned.

She shook her head.

"No? But I bet you haven’t eaten, have you?"

Again she shook her head, too bemused by the tender expression in his navy-colored eyes to answer.

"Will you eat something for me anyway?" He waited for a response, but when he didn’t get one, he tilted her chin up with his fingers. "Sami?"

"Yes?" Her mouth parted tremulously on the word. His touch was producing a delicious weakness in her.

A fire smoldered in the darkness of his eyes, which lowered to look at her lips. For a split second, Sami thought he was going to kiss her again. His fingers tightened on her skin and his head dipped fractionally, but then he seemed to pull himself back.

"Come on," he directed thickly. "Let’s go in the kitchen, and I’ll make you an omelet. And I’ve got some news for you."

Daniel might have pulled back from the kiss, but he kept his arm around her shoulder, his hand hugging her to his side, as they walked into the kitchen, and he sat her at a table where he could observe her while he gathered the ingredients and mixed them together.

"I never imagined that you might be able to cook," Sami remarked. "But now that I think about it, I’m sure you do it as well as you do everything else."

Daniel gave her a faintly rueful smile. "Not really. I can make a few things, including omelets, but in general I stay out of the kitchen. That’s what I have Mrs. Abbott for." He tilted his head to one side and regarded her with amusement. "What about you? For some reason, I can’t see you as a cook."

"You’re wrong. I’m a very good cook. It’s just that I don’t do it very often."

"Then, you’ll have to cook dinner for me sometime," he said, intent on pouring the egg mixture into a pan. He looked up when she didn’t answer. "Okay?"

"Maybe."

A few minutes later, he was placing a plate containing a light, fluffy omelet in front of her. "I know you don’t want any wine with this. How about coffee?"

"Do you have any milk?"

His face went blank for a second. "I don’t know. Let me check." He was soon back with the requested milk. "Here you are."

Instead of sitting across from her, Daniel chose to sit beside her and at an angle. He couldn’t have gotten any closer, Sami thought dizzily, unless he was actually touching her. She wasn’t at all sure she would be able to eat under his intense regard, but she forced herself to take the first bite, and that seemed to satisfy him.

"I had a little chat with Mr. Strucely’s lawyer today."

"Oh?"

"Yes. His name is Jack Reynolds. It turns out we went to school together."

"Harvard?" Sami guessed.

"Yes, Harvard." Daniel smiled at her and pointed, "You’re not eating."

"Sorry," she murmured, taking another small bite and thinking that it figured that Daniel would go to an Ivy League school like Harvard. There was a building there named after her grandfather.

"Anyway, he’s a good friend, plus an excellent attorney. He had a talk with his client, and guess what? Strucely has decided not to press charges against you."

Sami’s fork clattered to the plate. "Really?"

He brushed the tip of her nose with his finger. "Yes, really."

She eyed him narrowly. "Is that ethical?"

"I assure you, it is. My friend just pointed out to Strucely the time and expense involved in bringing you up on charges, not to mention the publicity. He was made to see the light. And, well, I gather the wound you inflicted on him wasn’t exactly mortal."

Sami closed her eyes in relief. "Thank you."

"You’re welcome."

Her lashes swept up at a new thought. "So you’re no longer my lawyer."

"That’s right." His eyes caressed her, and his slow smile caused strange things to happen in her stomach. "Now, finish eating. Please?"

She did, and when she was finished, he cleared the table, stacking the dishes neatly in the sink. "Let’s go into the den." He held out his hand to her and she took it.

The room he led her to was one she hadn’t been in before, but one in which she felt instantly at home. It was so essentially Daniel, and smelled headily of old leather and tangy male cologne. Fine old paintings, plump, comfortable sofas and chairs, and ceiling-high bookcases containing an extensive collection of rare books made for an intimacy that the rest of the house didn’t have.

Drawing a deep breath of the room’s fragrance, Sami whirled around. "Let’s build a fire."

"Now? In the summertime?"

"Why not? You have the air-conditioning on."

Daniel stared at her for a moment with a peculiar light in his eyes. "You’re right. Why not?"

Sami sank onto the thick fur rug in front of the hearth, unlacing her sandals and tossing them over her shoulder. "This isn’t the fur of an endangered animal, is it?"

"Absolutely not," he stated, setting a match to the already laid fire. "Why? Were you thinking of picketing me?"

"No. But I was thinking about getting up and leaving."

She had been teasing him, but he took her seriously. Turning from his squatting position, Daniel came down beside her. "Please don’t."

The soft request nearly stopped her heart. "All—all right."

His hands reached slowly toward the two combs holding back her hair and pulled them out, one at a time. The heavy weight of her hair came cascading down, and he threaded his hands through it, cradling her head between them.

"You are so beautiful . . . by firelight . . . by any kind of light." His eyes devoured her for a long moment, and then he said, "Come here." He pulled her across his lap, resting her against his upraised knee, his back supported by the couch.

Combing her hair with his fingers so that it fell in deep, shimmering waves over his knee, he began talking again, using that compelling tone of his that was so mesmerizing, so spellbinding. And it was working. Sami felt no urge to escape from the lyrical potency of the spell he was weaving around her. His words flowed over her, creating a deep and languorous warmth.

"Sometimes when I look at you . . . listen to you . . . touch you . . . I think there’s no way you can be of this world." His fingers trailed down her cheek to the corner of her mouth, where they stopped. "You’re such a fragile creature, Sami Adkins, so ethereal. I’m afraid if I don’t keep my hands on you, you’ll disappear."

Tracing across the fullness of her bottom lip, he tugged on it, and his head descended with tantalizing gradualness until their lips met and his tongue slipped inside, running along the delicate tissue with a touch of velvet. Sami gasped, overcome by the incredible sensation. Daniel groaned at the soft sound coming from her lips and hungrily took possession of her mouth, curving her urgently against him.

Sami twined her arms around his neck, running her fingers up into the dark thickness of his hair. The fire in the fireplace had caught and was flaming brightly. But that wasn’t the warmth she was feeling. There was a burning fire inside her, a fire so powerful that it was threatening to consume her entire being.

Daniel’s lips moved over her face to her ear, nipping at the lobe. "I knew I had to have you from the first minute I saw you—a honey-haired woman-child with wild golden eyes," he muttered hoarsely. "There was no way I was going to leave you in that place."

Lowering her onto the rug, he positioned himself beside her, shifting one hard-muscled leg between her own. She was throbbingly aware of the way his long, sensitive fingers had started a slow, sensual excursion down the scented skin of her throat, and farther down to the neckline of her top. He paused, and Sami took a deep breath of expectation, her breast beginning to rise and fall rapidly.

Leisurely, he began fingering the ruffles, the heel of his hand rubbing, almost accidentally, on her. His touch went deep into her, and there was a sort of agony to the restraint he was using. She wanted more. "Daniel!"

Immediately, his hand slipped beneath the top, freeing her breasts to his full view for the first time. "God! I want you so."

The firelight cast its incandescent glow over them, entrapping them both in the shadows of its blazing light. With exquisite gentleness, Daniel touched his lips to her achingly rigid nipple, stroking around it with his tongue and then taking it fully into his mouth, gently suckling.

Tears came into Sami’s eyes at the overpowering surge of emotions that knifed straight through her. Giving a helpless little cry, she arched into his mouth and had the satisfaction of feeling him increase the pressure. The knee that lay between her own raised under her skirt, until it was pressing up into her through her panties.

It was all so new to her. Her insides were hurting with a strange pleasure . . . and she didn’t want it to stop. She moved restlessly against his knee, trying to ease the terrible aching, and his knee began an erotic, rhythmic massage against her.

Daniel’s mouth released her nipple and burned its way over to the other one, branding her with the searing warmth of his lips and the magic kneading of his hands on her breast. A tremulous weakness melted through her, and she grasped his head, urging him back up to her with the murmured words, "Daniel . . . kiss me again."

Willingly and obediently, his lips returned to her mouth, where they encountered traces of her tears. "Sami?" His voice was low and husky. "Sami, what’s wrong?"

She shut her eyes against the sudden concern in his expression and shook her head back and forth. More tears appeared from under her lashes, and her body began trembling in reaction to an elusive need.

Daniel muttered raggedly, "Dear God, why didn’t I see it?" Raising her top back over her breasts, he sat up and pulled her into his arms. "Oh, Sami"—he breathed the words against her temple— "you’ve never been with a man before, have you?"

"It—it doesn’t matter," she managed to whisper.

"Yes, sweetheart, it does." He smoothed her hair away from her face. "I’ve taken a lot of women in my life, but none of them have been virgins."

"Daniel, I—"

"Sssh, let me finish. You’re an entirely different matter. I don’t know what you did or where you were before you came into my life, but in a lot of ways, it’s like you’re brand-new." Cupping her face, he kissed her forehead. "You’re very special. I’ve rushed you, and I shouldn’t have. I want you to take your time. I want you to be sure."

"Oh, why do you always have to be so damned proper, Daniel?" Sami sniffled.

A smile played around his lips, and he wiped away her remaining tears with the tips of his fingers. "If you only knew what it was costing me." For a long time afterward, Daniel held her in his arms, his gentle touch, his soft words, and the heat of the fire slowly soothing the tension out of her body.

Quietly he asked, "Did you get any sleep today?"

"No."

"You must be exhausted. My guest room is still vacant. Will you stay here tonight?"

"I never sleep at night. I can’t."

"Since you’ve been without sleep for so long, you might tonight. At any rate, I think you should try."

She regarded him from beneath her lashes. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

He was silent for an endless length of time, taking in the luxuriant cloud of honey-colored hair falling across his arm and the luminous golden eyes looking at him so solemnly. "If I told you, it would scare you to death."

Despite her assertion that she never slept at night, Sami fell into a restless, troubled sleep. It had been over thirty hours since she had last slept, and they had been thirty of the most traumatic hours she had had to live through in recent years.

The dream came, as it always did when she had been disturbed in some way, a combination of old terrors and ever-present fears. She was a small child again, so helpless against the cruel giants who ruled her life. The governess, Miss Simon, her face distorted by rage, was yelling at her, pushing her toward the closet. "Please, oh, please, I didn’t mean to do it," Sami whimpered. "Please, I didn’t mean to spill my milk. I’m sorry."

Miss Simon slapped her face hard, making her fall backward into the closet, and darkness closed in around her as the door was slammed shut and locked. Sami began clawing at the door. "Let me out, let me out!" Hysterical sobs wracked her body as she thrashed violently. She was so scared. Dear God, would the terror never end?

From a distance, she heard a voice. "Sami, Sami, you’re having a nightmare. Open your eyes."

She couldn’t. She knew what she would see if she did—an awful infinite darkness, a terrible, suffocating blackness. Barely conscious of hands on her arms, which lifted her, she hit out at the solidness of the door. "I’ve got to get out. I can’t breathe!"

"Yes, you can." The voice was soothing, concerned, and somehow familiar. "Listen to me, Sami. Open your eyes. Look at me."

She tried, but everything was a blur. Shivers of pain shook her body, and she felt herself gathered into an enveloping warmth.

"Wake up, honey. You’re okay. You’re safe. You’re with me."

"Daniel?"

"Yes, baby." His body was absorbing the tortured heaves that shuddered through her body, rocking her back and forth. "It was just a dream. Nothing and no one is going to hurt you. Believe me."

Sami nodded, her cheek rubbing against the bareness of his chest. He lifted her in his arms, turned around, and sat down on the bed again. Arranging the sheet around her nakedness, he rested against the headboard, cradling her in his arms.