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“I entered on my eighteenth birthday,” he said, without missing a beat, as if it was exactly what he’d expected her to ask, when they both knew it absolutely was not.
“Why?”
“It’s what I was born to do, what I wanted to do.
What my father, my brother and my uncles, all did.”
“And you weren’t scared? I mean you were a kid, Sam.”
“I wasn’t scared but my mother was. My brother was in Iraq at the time and my father was on active duty. She, like most spouses, found a place to tuck away the fear of losing her husband to combat. But her son, or sons, rather, were another story. She struggled to deal with the potential loss of her boys.”
“I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for her.”
“My father saw her distress and tried to talk me into waiting a few years to enter the army,” he said. “He figured that would give my mother time to get used to my brother serving. I didn’t think that was the answer. I thought my mother needed to go ahead and get past her fear because the army was going to be my future. Eventually, she and I talked about it, and she gave me her blessing.”
“So you went ahead and enlisted.”
He nodded. “And then ended up in a fluffy desk job I didn’t want. I’m pretty sure my father pulled a lot of rank to make it happen, too, though he never admitted it. Able-bodied young men do not end up at desk jobs in the army.”
“I’m surprised,” she said. “With him serving himself, I’d have thought he would have supported you.”
“He was trying to protect my mother and he really wanted me to finish college to be eligible for officer training, which my brother rejected.”
“From what I know of you, a desk job must have been hard for you to deal with.”
“Oh yeah. It drove me crazy. I felt guilty for sitting at a desk while my own father and brother, and plenty of others with them, were fighting to protect our country.
I would have gotten out of that desk job if I could have and I tried. It worked out though in the end. By twenty-one I’d completed my degree and I entered the officers’ program, then Special Forces.”
“Why Special Forces?”
“I was in for life,” he said. “I wanted to be challenged and contribute everything I could, on every level possible.”
Meagan absorbed those words thoughtfully, captured by him in ways she didn’t want to be, didn’t expect to be when she’d first met him. He was just so much more than she’d expected he’d be. This man had seen war, he’d fought to survive, and fought for the lives of others. “But you weren’t in for life,” she finally commented, hoping he’d explain why, nervous she might be in choppy waters he didn’t want to enter.
“No,” he said a bit too softly. “I wasn’t in for life.” He inhaled and let it out. “A few bullets in my leg took care of that.”
“Oh, God, Sam,” she said and added, “I’m sorry.” She wanted to pull back these last words, knowing from her own injury how much she didn’t like hearing them.
“Yeah, me too, because even if I could have gotten a doctor’s release, which was doubtful, I knew I wasn’t one hundred percent. And I wasn’t willing to risk other people’s lives by ignoring the reality of what I had to face.”
Suddenly, her lost dream, her knee injury, felt tiny, inconsequential. “That was brave, Sam. It was very brave.”
He glanced at her, surprise etched on his handsome face. “No. Those men and women out there on the front lines are the brave ones. I refused to let my ego put them at risk.”
“Yes,” she conceded. “They are.” And he’d been one of them, he still wanted to be one of them, and couldn’t. She knew how that felt, as well. How it hurt to want things you could no longer have. “Where are your parents? Are they here? Is that how you ended up in L.A.?”
“No,” he said. “This is technically my home, but as a military brat, I traveled all over the place. My parents spent a good number of the last ten years in Germany, but managed to end up back in Japan just in time for the recent tsunami. Both me and my brother got a good dose of the kind of worry my mother has for her sons and her husband. We couldn’t reach my parents for days. Jake—that’s my brother—was on a mission overseas, and he was in rare completely freaked-out mode.”
“But they’re okay, right?”
He gave a quick nod of his head. “Yes. They’re fine. My mother’s a nurse. She was working at a Red Cross shelter at the time and refused to leave when the military families were evacuated. My father’s still on active duty, and as a high-ranking officer, he had his hands full.”
“I think I mentioned that my father’s a preacher in a small Texas town and my mother helps with the church’s volunteer efforts. We aren’t really close, but I am their only child and they love me, just like I love them.” She cringed at her confession, one she normally wouldn’t have given, not sure why she had, and quickly moved on, “I would have gone crazy, too, not knowing if they were all right during the tsunami, or hurricane or whatever.”
He glanced at her. His gaze too knowing, too aware of what she’d shared. She expected him to push her for more detail, but surprisingly, he seemed to sense she was uncomfortable, and let it pass, saying only, “Maybe you’ll tell me more about them one day.”
His sensitivity really floored her. “Maybe I will,” she said, surprised at how much she meant it. “Tell me more about Japan and your parents.”
“There’s not a lot more to tell,” he said. “They’re fine and involved in clean-up efforts that will take years and years to complete. I went to see them right after I left the army and spent a few months helping.”
There were tiny telling cracks in his voice at several places during his story. Sam wasn’t at all what she’d assumed. “How’d you get hired at the studio?”
“My uncle, a retired SEAL, works for the studio. He hounded me for months to take the security job. I didn’t want it. I wanted back in the army.” He rubbed his right leg a bit too deeply, and she wondered just how bad his injury was, both physically and emotionally.
She opened her mouth to tell him how much she understood, and quickly snapped it shut. She didn’t talk about the past. She focused on the future, like what he seemed to be doing. And my gosh, how shallow would she sound anyway? He was talking about war and sacrifice and she was upset she wasn’t able to perform anymore.
“We’re here,” he announced, turning into a long driveway, but trees blocked her view of the house.
The ride was over and she didn’t want it to be. She had enjoyed learning about Sam, which defied the idea of sex being a path to getting him out of her system. Suddenly, she felt confused. She knew Sam was a distraction she didn’t need, knew he was the kind of man that took you by storm and took over your life. Yet, on some level he was exactly what she needed. And that absolutely terrified her. She couldn’t lose herself again. She couldn’t. Been there, done that, didn’t like it.
As soon as the truck stopped in the driveway of the two-story, towering mansion of a house, she lunged for the door handle, intending to get out as quickly as possible. She needed some distance from Sam to process her feelings.
Sam gently shackled her arm, the touch of his hand searing her skin, melting her resolve to escape him. “Hey,” he said softly. “What just happened?”
He read her too easily, which only rattled her more. “Nothing. Nothing, I just—”
“Got spooked.”
She hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes. I did.” Somehow, her ability to be honest about her feelings made him more appealing. “I got spooked.” And by the time the words were out, he was closer, still holding her arm. Still the powerful, controlling, sexy Sam, who she couldn’t seem to resist.
She could smell the spicy maleness of him, warm and taunting, calling her, warming her, burning her inside out. Thank goodness for the shadowy darkness broken only by moonlight splintering through the tree limbs above them, casting their faces in shadows, hiding the damning desire surely in her eyes.
She inhaled, trying to think straight, before she did something like kiss him, instead of getting out of the vehicle. Instead, she filled her nostrils with more of that sultry male scent that made her want to stay right where she was. “Sam, I don’t know what—”
“Me, either,” he said, and kissed her, oh God, he kissed her, and it was wonderful. She didn’t even remember him moving or how he’d become close enough to have his thigh pressed to hers. All that she knew was that his fingers were laced through her hair, his lips pressed to hers, warm and remarkably gentle—a teasing touch, following by a sweeping wash of his tongue against hers.
“Meg—”
“Don’t talk,” she said, her fingers curled around his neck to pull him back to her, desperate to keep this just sex, knowing deep down it might be too late. “Kiss me again.”
And he did. He kissed her. No talking. No demanding things go his way, like she’d expected from him. His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue pressing past her teeth, stroking seductively against her tongue.
She moaned and arched into him, seeking more of the warmth and hardness that was so very Sam, so very right. Yet she’d have sworn he was wrong. And he was wrong for her. He was, in fact. He would be trouble but he didn’t feel like trouble. Not now. Not in this moment. Okay, maybe in this very moment, she did, because she needed him. Her hands traced the rippling muscle of his shoulders.
A low growl escaped his lips, and he pulled her closer, one hand sliding up her back, molding her against his chest. His hand caressed her thigh, under her skirt. His tongue delved deeply, caressing hers in another long, lavish tasting that had her feeling it in all the places he wasn’t touching, but she wanted him to be.
“You smell good,” he murmured, kissing her jaw, and along to her neck. “Like vanilla and flowers. It’s driving me crazy. I know we need to go see that house, and this is not the place for this, but I’m struggling to let you go.”
The words, the gruff aroused tone of his voice, overtook her. She didn’t want to let him go, either. She didn’t want to think about why they shouldn’t do this. “Then don’t,” she whispered, and barely had the words out before they were kissing again. A blur of passion followed, his hands all over her. Hers all over him. She was on her back, her blouse open, with him on top of her, and she barely remembered how it had happened.
Sam’s phone started to ring and he tore away from her. He cursed softly, echoing the frustration she felt at the interruption. “I have to answer that.”
“I know,” she said, her voice breathless even to her own ears. “Especially since I don’t have my phone.”
“Right,” he agreed, but he didn’t move. “I need to get it.”
She didn’t want him to move. She wasn’t ready to let go of this time they were sharing.
The phone stopped ringing, still he didn’t move. He brushed his lips over hers. “I didn’t mean for this to get so out of control. One minute we were—”
“And the next,” she finished.
He smiled and pulled back to look at her, and the mood shifted, the air thickened. They stared at one another, and Meagan felt their connection in every part of herself. There was something happening between them, something that she’d never felt before, and didn’t understand.
The phone started to ring again and he sighed with the inevitable demand to get up, and then, he did the most unexpected thing. Sam kissed her nose before bringing her with him to sit up.
He reached for his phone on the dash and checked the missed numbers. “It was Josh both times,” Sam said. “He left a voice mail.”
Meagan nodded, but she was still thinking about Sam kissing her nose. It was silly, but there was something about that small act that had her stomach fluttering.
Light flickered behind them, snapping her out of her reverie. Meagan shifted around to see a car pulling into the driveway. “Someone’s here.”
Sam set his phone down. “Per Josh’s voice mail, Kiki insisted that he drive her out here so—”
Meagan didn’t hear the rest. She shoved open the door, desperate to escape their close proximity before Kiki arrived. She tripped, and went tumbling out of the truck.
Sam was there in an instant, but she was already getting up. “Are you okay?”
“No, I am not okay! I’m embarrassed, Sam. I don’t want them to know what just happened. I don’t want them to think badly of either of us.”
“They won’t know.” His gaze slid top to bottom. “Not if you button your shirt.”
Her jaw dropped at the realization. Meagan rushed to fix her gaping shirt, but her fingers were shaking. “I don’t do things like this. I know better. I know they backfire. Sam—”
“Easy, sweetheart,” he said, wrapping her in his arms. “Take a deep breath and we’ll get through this. What happens between us, is between us. No one will know.”
Sweetheart. Why did that endearment sound good now, when it had bothered her before? And why did his vow that everything was going to be okay, calm her? For the first time in years, she’d felt she had her life in the palm of her hand. Neither her parents, nor her ex-boyfriends, who’d tried to control everything from her career to her politics, had control. She had control. Only tonight, she’d let this thing, whatever “it” was, with Sam, take it away from her.
“Stop calling me sweetheart, Sam.”
He held her tighter and kissed her. “Whatever you say. Meg.”
And despite being a nervous wreck over Kiki and Josh’s arrival, the familiar banter with Sam made her laugh, and that laugh had a remarkable impact. Meagan felt just a bit more in control.
She was clearly very confused.
8
“WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING your phone?” Kiki demanded the minute she stepped from Josh’s black SUV. “We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. When you didn’t answer, I decided to come on out here. Besides, I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to be in on this very important decision.”
There was accusation in everything Kiki said to Meagan, and she didn’t understand it. She’d tried to break through it, to bond with the other woman over the show and it just didn’t seem to be happening.
“She dropped her phone in the hotel parking lot,” Sam explained before Meagan could answer. “Someone ran over it before we could get to it. The driver came damn close to running over Meagan, too.”
“My God,” Kiki said, her tone dripping disdain. “How in the world did you manage that?”
Sam glanced at Josh. “I left you a message to be sure everyone knew to call me if they needed Meagan.”
“Sorry, boss,” Josh said. The honest guilt on his face meant that either he really hadn’t checked his messages, or he was a darn good actor. He inclined his head at Meagan. “My apologies for not listening to my voice mail.”
“I’m sure you both had your hands full,” Meagan said, repeating her earlier comment, immensely appreciative to both Sam and Josh for covering for her, but angry at herself for needing to be covered. Then to both Josh and Kiki, she asked, “Why aren’t you two at the hospital?”
“I left one of the production assistants to supervise Tabitha’s medical treatment,” Kiki replied.
“Which P.A.?”
“I don’t know.” Kiki sounded snippy and impositioned. “Debbie, I think.”
“Darla?” Meagan asked, hopeful.
“Yes. Darla.” Kiki waved a hand. “But it doesn’t matter now. I just hung up with Darla. She called me because she couldn’t reach you. Tabitha is fine. All is well in tooth-fairy land.”
Over and over Meagan had asked Kiki to start remembering everyone’s names. She treated the cast horribly and tension jumped every time she was around. If Kiki wasn’t related to one of the executives that had approved her show, she’d already have talked to Sabrina about firing her.
“What exactly does that mean?” Sam asked.
She shrugged. “You’d have to ask the P.A. What’s going on here?”
“I called Darla myself,” Josh said. “After the hospital checked her out, a dentist fitted Tabitha for some sort of temporary tooth held in with a mouthpiece, and she’s now in her room resting.” He glanced at Meagan. “Sam likes answers. I try to have them.”
“Thank you,” Meagan said, but she felt that announcement like a blow. She couldn’t get answers, but Sam could?
“Why don’t we head down to the property?” Sam suggested. “Then everyone can get some rest back at the hotel.”
“Yes,” agreed Meagan, her gaze touching his. “That sounds like a good idea.”
Sam motioned her forward, falling into step beside her, while Josh and Kiki followed them. Sam glanced behind them, apparently making sure they had some distance away from the others, before softly saying, “You’ll have to tell me who you ticked off to get saddled with Kiki.”
It helped to hear she wasn’t being overly sensitive about Kiki, and that Sam read Kiki the same way she did. “I didn’t make anyone mad, except for you, that I know of. I’m pretty good at that.” If there was a God of dance, she’d have said that was who she’d angered. In that case though, she would have thought her knee would have been the ultimate sacrifice, but apparently not.
“I think it’s the other way around,” he commented. “I’m good at making you mad.”
“You are a master of that craft.”
He laughed and darn it, she felt the sultry male baritone of it in every nerve ending of her body. There was so much about the man that appealed to her, and so many reasons not to act on what she felt for him. Yet he’d been there for her tonight in so many ways.
They cleared the trees, bringing a large shadowy property into view and Meagan paused, drinking in the cool, clean ocean air as it washed over her, calming her, if only slightly. “I already love it here. I love the ocean.”
“I sure hope there are lights,” Kiki said, stopping next to Meagan.
“There are,” Sam answered, motioning Meagan onward, and she had the distinct impression that no matter how attractive Kiki might be, Sam wasn’t impressed. The idea pleased her a little more than it should have. Another reaction she wasn’t going to try to analyze at present.
Sam ran down the basics of the property as they walked.
“The house is 5,000 square feet with a 2,000-square-foot mother-in-law house in the back of the main property.”
“That does sound perfect,” Meagan replied.
Motion detectors flickered to life, illuminating an impressive contemporary stucco house, with a balcony that wrapped around most of the second floor.
“The water is so close,” Kiki exclaimed, rushing forward and calling over her shoulder. “It’s amazing.”
Sam sighed as Kiki expanded the distance between her and them. “I better catch up with her before she gets hurt and calls it the curse.” He headed after her.
Josh fell into step with Meagan. “Kiki seems to like this place so far. Surely that’s all you need to know.” He grinned to let her know he was teasing her.
Meagan snorted. “That’s about as true as me dropping my cell phone. I used horrible judgment by not going back to my room for my phone. It’s just that if I’d gone back, I knew I’d get cornered by someone wanting to talk, and it would be even later by the time we made it out here. Still, I should have known better. Thank you for being loyal to your boss and covering for me.”
“I spent the entire drive listening to Kiki talk trash about you.” They started up the porch stairs, where Sam waited, having already let Kiki inside the house. “She gloated on the drive over here about how she’d saved the studio millions, insisting you’d be a failure. The worst is that she had to have known I might tell you. It’s like she wanted you on edge by announcing her intent. I hate saying this because it feeds into her strategy, but Meagan, she’s a cobra. Watch for the next strike, because it’s coming.”
Meagan crossed her arms in front of her chest, tension curling in her stomach. She had confirmation of what she’d hoped wasn’t true. Not only was Kiki a true enemy, she wasn’t even trying to hide her agenda.
They joined Sam at the door.
Josh glanced at Sam. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll go in first, and strategically engage the enemy.”
“Good luck with that one,” Sam said dryly, stepping aside to let Josh enter, and then moving again to block the entrance. The porch light played on his chiseled features and full, sensual mouth—the mouth she shouldn’t be looking at, but couldn’t seem to resist.
“Everything okay?” he asked, towering above her, and she was struck again by the way he used his broad shoulders to shield her, this time from Kiki’s potentially, most likely, prying eyes. Protective. That was the word that came to mind, rather than dominant and bossy.
“Everything is just peachy,” she assured him. “In fact, tonight is just one big bucket of peachy.”
Kiki peeked around Sam. “Are you coming in or what?” She disappeared.
“See,” Meagan said. “Peachy.”
He didn’t move, his eyes narrowing a barely perceivable amount. “What’s wrong?”
She lowered her voice. “You were right about watching my back with Kiki. Josh said that she bragged about saving the studio millions by getting rid of people like me. It sounds like she doesn’t want the show to succeed. But—”
“Now isn’t the time to talk about this, but I have your back, Meagan, and I mean that. You do what feels right and you make this as good a show as you can make it. Don’t let her get to you.”
Her chest tightened at the unexpectedly supportive, and yes, protective words. Right then, she realized that Sam had snuck through her defenses, into her life, and for the first time in a very long time, if only for tonight, it was a relief to not feel alone. She nodded. “I know. You’re right.”
“I don’t think you do.” There was nothing accusing in his tone, no taunt, none of their normal word play.
“I do. I know.” Her lips lifted ever so slightly. “But it helps to be reminded. Thank you.”
He studied her and then gave a small incline of his head, flattening himself against the door to let her pass.
As Meagan moved by Sam, her shoulder brushed his chest. She froze with the impact, her gaze momentarily meeting his, heat glimmering in the depths of his stare. And she didn’t look away, or hide from him, or herself. She wanted Sam. She was so very tired of denying herself this man.
But their window to be alone was now gone. Meagan had no doubt that Kiki would notice if they disappeared after this and didn’t show up back at the hotel, which was all but a film set, with cameras and people everywhere.
Kiki might not be able to steal her show, but she’d definitely stolen her one night with Sam. While it was probably for Meagan’s own good, it didn’t feel that way right now. Meagan believed she would regret this lost chance for a very long time.
9
SAM TRAILED MEAGAN INTO the house, more than a little concerned about Kiki. He saw her actions, her using Josh to taunt Meagan, as confirmation that she felt invincible. Sabrina was right, Kiki was dangerous.
In the kitchen, Sam’s gaze drifted over Meagan’s skirt and the way it hugged her cute, tight backside. He liked that backside, but more so, he liked Meagan. This woman was under his skin and going nowhere but deeper fast. When he’d watched her fight through her worries over Kiki, when he’d seen the determination to succeed reignite in her eyes, he’d been blown away. Meagan was sexy, feisty, and passionate about what she believed in. And that made him passionate about her. He wasn’t going to let anyone, especially Kiki, tear her down.
“The setup is perfect,” Meagan said, descending a few steps to a sunken living room, and turning to face him. She pointed toward the open kitchen, where Kiki leaned on the island counter, and Josh stood stoically next to her.
“The way the kitchen overlooks the main area is terrific for panned shots,” Kiki agreed, actually sounding as if she really cared about the show.