Authors: Kaylea Cross
Hold on. Just a little longer.
Holding Sam around the waist, Ben kept her tight beside him and checked inside the hotel room before ushering her across the threshold. She was in shock, her eyes blank, face white as paper, but at least the shaking seemed to have stopped. She followed him like a sleepwalker to the bathroom, stood there while he ripped back the curtain on the tub and fired up the shower.
When it began steaming he faced her, hesitating. “You okay for me to leave? Or do you need me to get your clothes off and lift you in?”
Sam blinked at him like an owl, almost catatonic.
Ben let out a breath. He had no problem getting her undressed, but once she regained her senses, she might be embarrassed about it. And with how jacked up he was right now, having his hands anywhere near her naked skin wasn't a good idea. Facing and conquering death had the very human reaction of making you realize how fragile life was, which made you want to... Well, it made him want something he shouldn't, plain and simple.
“Sam,” he tried one last time, “can you get into the shower by yourself or not?”
Her glassy eyes focused on him, her throat undulating as she swallowed. “Yes.” The word came out a scratchy whisper.
He was doubtful, but giving her some privacy was the best thing for both of them under the circumstances. “I'll be right outside the door if you need me.”
She nodded once.
Closing the door behind him, Ben leaned his head against it and closed his eyes, taking slow, deep breaths. Christ, it had been so close tonight. For a minute he hadn't been sure he was capable of sticking it out with her. But he had, and he was glad. And once she was calm enough, she had some questions to answer. Like what the hell had happened to the transmitter she'd made. It'd been working fine in the first meeting. They'd heard everything with crystal clarity. Then in the second meeting, all of a sudden, nothing. Just dead air. He'd ask her what had happened and report it to Luke.
A low sound came from the bathroom. A hiccupping moan, followed by a sharper sound. Then a burst of sobs.
Sam was crying her heart out in the shower.
For a moment he debated going in after her, but decided to grant her the privacy she needed to get it all out of her system and hope it would give her some level of relief from the fear and realization of how close she'd come to dying. He almost envied her the release. He never cried, and the only form of release his body wanted involved her naked under or over him, with his cock shoved as deep in her as it could get for as long as she could take it.
He'd learned long ago to let the adrenaline run its course, so he dropped down onto the carpet, put his head in his hands for a few minutes and let it do its thing. His racing heart gradually slowed and his stomach unclenched, but then the awful burn started up again under his breastbone, worse than it had ever been. When the sweat popped out on his brow, he focused on deep breathing to push the pain away. Once his respiration rate normalized he sat up, but he couldn't get the image of Sam wearing that vest out of his head. It made him want to take the men responsible to pieces with his bare hands.
Scrubbing a hand over his face, he pushed to his feet. He grabbed a couple of Tums and crunched them down, then took his pack of Big Red off the table to give him something to chew on while he paced around. When Sam came out of the bathroom, he needed to be one hundred percent in control of himself so he could do whatever it was she needed of him to make her feel safe. This went beyond the urge to shelter and protect her. What he felt was way deeper than that, something primal and territorial, and it wasn't something he was prepared to deal with right now.
He glanced around, looking for options to distract them both, and his gaze fell on the laptop sitting on the coffee table. It was late September, and the Red Sox were about to clinch a spot in the playoffs. Sam was a card carrying member of the Red Sox Nation, just like him. Resolved to finding a game online, or even highlights, he booted the thing up and surfed around the net. Perfect. Third inning of a live game back at Fenway. They'd have at least a couple hours of baseball to watch and help settle them.
A live feed of the game came on the screen, and the moment the Green Monster appeared in the picture, a sense of nostalgia hit him. His adopted dad had taken him and Rhys to lots of games over the years. Ben made a promise to himself that when he got home he was going to take them all there.
The bathroom door opened a minute later and Sam poked her head out with her hair wrapped up in a towel, the rest of her concealed behind the faded wood. Her eyes were swollen and red. “I don't have any clothes.”
His heart swelled, but sent most of his blood rushing to his groin. “Hang on.” He got up and rummaged through his duffel, pulled out a black Sox hoodie and a pair of boxers and brought them to her. She took them without meeting his eyes.
“Thanks,” she murmured, and shut the door. A minute later she came out running her fingers through her damp black hair and stopped when she saw he'd put the game on the laptop.
The plan was to act normally, and not even bring up what had happened. If she wanted to talk about it, that was fine, but he wanted to make sure she was okay first. He'd get to the questions later. “Haven't seen a game in a while, so I thought we could watch it together.”
“I'd love that.”
Some of the tension in his muscles dissipated. He held out an arm. “C'mere.”
She padded over and slid onto the couch beside him, his hoodie hitting her at mid-thigh, and scooted under his arm so that she was snuggled up against him. Ben felt every inch of her delectable curves imprinted on his body. More blood went south. He did his best to ignore it, but the fact that he'd cheated death and she was naked beneath his clothes and pressed up against him were damned big distractions from the ballgame. The clean scent of shampoo and soap rose up from her skin and hair. She felt so good resting against him, all soft and warm. It made him feel that much bigger and masculine, which strengthened the instinctive urge to comfort her.
And get inside her as fast as he could.
He steeled himself as she burrowed closer, tucking her hands between her up-drawn knees, and allowed himself to lean down and kiss the top of her head. The moment he did, she sighed and turned into his body. Her face pressed into the hollow of his throat and her breath feathered over his suddenly violently sensitive skin. A tremor rippled through her.
His body leapt with urgency, but he held himself in check. “Okay?”
Sam nodded, rubbing her cheek against his shoulder.
Before he could stop himself, he brought his other arm around her and stroked his palm over her damp hair. She'd been so goddamn brave out there— had even hid behind that car to shield him and anyone else in case the explosives detonated, and begged him to leave her so he wouldn't be killed. How the hell could he not admire her? Coupled with her sweet personality and brains, that kind of courage completely melted him. He only wished he knew if he could trust her with all that had happened. He needed to hear her side of the story, but couldn't bring himself to dredge it all up when she seemed an inch away from going to pieces.
He fumbled for something to say to fill the void. “Been a long time since I was at a Sox game.”
“I've never been,” she said quietly, though her voice was rough. “My dad loves the BoSox. Guess that's why I do, too.”
“Mine used to take us to Fenway a few times a year when we were growing up.”
“You grew up in Boston.”
“Yeah.” In the roughest section of south Boston.
Keep talking. Give her something to occupy her mind so she doesn't think about what almost happened out there.
“In Southie.”
He hid a smile. “Oh, you know it?”
“I went to MIT,” she reminded him. “Was it hard for you?”
Their neighborhood had been full of pimps and gangs and drug dealers. “You sure you want to hear this?”
“Yes.”
Not a topic he would have chosen under the circumstances, but at least Sam was interacting with him, focusing on him instead of tonight. “Well, let's see. By age eight, I could hot wire a car and drive it around until I got bored and decided to ditch it. Probably had a bad case of ADD going back then. Cops caught me a couple of times, but nothing ever came of it.” He toyed with the damp ends of her hair. “Then Rhys and I started earning extra money by delivering drugs for a local dealer to help supplement the family income.” Their mother had sold her body to put food on the table, such as it was, but after a while most of the meager funds she brought in went to sustain her drug habit to allow her an escape from her life. Them included. “Our mom was a crack addict, so she wasn't around much.”
Sam gave a sympathetic murmur. “Is that why you ended up in foster care?”
“Yeah.” He hated talking about it because it made him remember how alone and scared he'd been. Plus, it was no one else's biz. But he somehow didn't mind telling Sam. “At one point she had us living in a beat-up 1984 Pontiac when we were ten.” The only regular meals they'd gotten were at school. They'd spent many a hungry night on the floor in front of the TV, salivating at the scents of cooking coming from the Italian neighbor's apartment next door.
“Our teacher finally found out what was going on and reported us to social services. They took us away that night.” He swore there'd been relief in his mother's drug-dulled eyes. Not because her boys had been saved, but because she didn't have to look after them anymore. “They dumped us into the system, and we stuck together through foster home after foster home, while adding a new list of credits to our juvie records.”
“How come you turned out so well, growing up like that?”
“My parents.”
“The Sinclairs?”
“Yeah. If they hadn't taken a big chance and adopted us both as teenagers, for sure I would have either been in jail or dead by eighteen.”
Sam nuzzled his chest with her cheek. “They turned you around.”
“Them and my martial arts instructor.” Master Joe had taught him the value of hard work and discipline, but he'd struggled with his emotions the whole way through, envious even then of Rhys’ self-control. “Then when we were old enough, we enlisted in the army.” Sounded so simple laid out like that, but it was for the best. He didn't want her knowing how bad it had been for him, and didn't want to dwell on it anymore. He was Ben Sinclair now, a completely different person from that scared, angry little kid.
“Your birth mother— she lied to you, didn't she?”
His hand froze on her back. “Why do you say that?”
“I know you hate liars. From what you just said, I guessed it must have been because of her.”
Yeah, mostly it was. But until the Sinclairs had taken them in, life had taught both him and Rhys not to trust people. That way you didn't wind up disappointed, and it hurt less when you realized words and promises didn't mean anything. “It wasn't so bad.”
“Makes my life look like a Disney movie.”
Her hair slid through his fingers in soft waves. “Where'd you grow up?”
“Ohio. My mom died when I was little, so my dad raised me.”
“And he named you Samarra after his first dig.”
“Yep. Taught me Arabic, too. When he was away I stayed with his sister. That's why Nev and I are so close.”
“Because you were practically raised together.”
She nodded and grew quiet. With the thread of conversation used up, the silence expanded and filled the whole room, save the audio from the game. Ben resumed stroking her hair. He really should ask her about the transmitter. Instead, he searched for something else to say that might distract her a little longer. “Want me to turn the game up?”
“No.” Her hand crept up to grip the front of his t-shirt. “I've got exactly what I need right here.”
His heart squeezed. She needed comforting, but given what they'd just gone through and the fact they were alone, he should put some distance between them now, before the temptation to go further overwhelmed his good intentions. But when she wrapped both arms around his neck and trembled, he didn't have the heart to push her away. Instead, he returned the embrace, locking his arms around her back to let her take whatever solace she could from him. God knew, he needed it as much as she did.
“Tighter,” she croaked.
Ah, sweetheart
. Upping the pressure, he closed his eyes. As he held her, what started out as an attempt to comfort her began to soothe him as well. She did that to him. With her warm weight settled in his lap and her heart beating against his, some of the tension melted out of his muscles.
Sam burrowed in even closer with a shuddering sigh and laid her cheek on his chest, her arms straining to hold him tight. Ben turned them, shifting on the couch so he was stretched out the length of it and she followed him down to lie grafted to his side, her face turned toward the laptop. His body reacted instantly to the feel of her thigh draped across his groin. He did his best not to react any more than that, focusing hard on the batter taking a ball inside to make it full count in the bottom of the fourth. If Sam noticed his erection, she didn't show it. She pulled in a few deep, slow breaths and released them, growing pliant in his arms as he continued the gentle caresses over her hair and back. Damn, she felt good.
Way too good.
As though reading his thoughts, she lifted her head and looked at him.
Busted.
He strove for something light to say, anything to maintain a sense of normalcy. “Better?”
Her thigh came up to tuck between his, pressing against the aching length of him. He sucked back a moan. Her red-rimmed eyes darkened with longing before dropping to his mouth, inches beneath hers.
Shit. He wanted her so badly he didn't know if he could say no if she started anything, and knew for sure he wouldn't be able to stop once it did.
She met his gaze again, and surprised him by asking, “Why did you stay, Ben?”
His hand ceased its rhythmic motion on her back. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean. Before.” She settled more fully atop him, making his hands bite into her waist to hold her still. “You would have died with me if Luke hadn't disabled the bomb.”