Space in His Heart (37 page)

A Prequel to EDGE OF SIGHT

by

Roxanne St. Claire

The last thing Samantha Fairchild wanted to
do on a Friday night after a week like she’d had was head
downstairs to a party. But Vivi wasn’t accepting excuses.

“I know you had a shitty day in the
advertising cubes, Sam.” Party noise in the background almost
obliterated Vivi’s voice over the phone, but her exasperation came
through. “I
know
all you want to do is have a B&B.”

“You have no idea how good a beer ‘n’ bath
sounds right now,” Sam said. “I wore those damn Michael Kors
platforms, which only added to my misery. And trust me, the client
never noticed my feet while he was tearing the proposed campaign to
shreds and making the entire Millennium Marketing creative
department look like whipped dogs.”

“But you’re a junior account manager, Sam.
The creative issue isn’t your fault.”

“Trust me, I could feel that promotion to
senior
junior account manager slip away the moment the
client uttered the words ‘agency review’ during his tirade.” Sam
sighed. “I’m just not up for a party, Viv.”

“It’s casual,” Vivi insisted. “Family,
neighbors, a few people from the
Bullet
. Please, Sam. I
promised… them you’d be here.”

“
Them
?” Like Sam didn’t know who
“them” was. “Who do you think you’re kidding?”

Vivi just laughed, not even trying to deny
the truth. “He’s only here for three weeks, Sam,” she said in a
whisper. “Then it’s wheels up and back to Iraq. Can I help it if I
want you to meet Zach? I know you two would hit it off.”

How did she know that? Nothing Vivi had said
about her twin brother had appealed to Sam. An Army Ranger,
reported to have a sizeable ego and a penchant for getting in
trouble, Zach Angelino didn’t sound like Sam’s kind of guy.
Although since she’d started working at the ad agency a few years
ago, Sam didn’t really have a guy of
any
kind, just a job
that chewed her up and spit her out in small pieces.

Plus, she couldn’t help imagining
spiky-haired, nose-studded Vivi in a male form when she pictured
Zach. Deliciously funky on Vivi, but on a guy? No, thanks.

“I’ll meet him some other time, Viv. I really
have—”

A burst of laughter in the background cut Sam
off. “I gotta go, Sam. Just, please. For me? Half an hour? I’ll
cook you dinner every night next week. Uncle Nino’s meatballs in
red sauce,” she added in a temptress’s voice.

“Listen, let me take a shower and then—”

“Cool. See you soon.” Vivi clicked off before
Sam could finish her sentence.

“—I’ll decide if I want to come,” she said
into thin air, closing the cell phone. “Why do I even bother to
fight that woman?”

One hot shower and an ice-cold Sam Adams
later and she actually braved high heels again, the only feasible
choice with straight-legged jeans and a low-cut black halter
top.

Giving her hair a final fluff, she snagged
her purse and considered lip gloss. No, sorry, Army guy. The
cleavage would have to be femme fatale enough to convince Vivi that
Sam had given this her best shot.

Grabbing a bottle of pinot grigio from the
fridge to add to Vivi’s festivities, she slipped into the hall and
down the stairs to apartment 414. Just as she raised her hand to
knock, the din of a party in full swing and 80’s classic rock
rolled out as the door opened.

A man looked down at her: tall, broad, dark,
and… imposing. He stood stone-still and completely silent, filling
the doorway, not even a hint of a smile pulling at his generous
lips. Lips, Sam noticed, that were surrounded by the shadow of a
day or two’s worth of whiskers. His hair wasn’t much longer than
his beard growth, but it was so thick and so dark it almost rivaled
his eyes.

Those were fringed with an unfair amount of
lashes, topped with thick brows, and glinting with… interest.

“Well, if it isn’t the elusive upstairs
neighbor, come to do some damage.” His gaze meandered just slowly
enough to leave a trail of warmth, one corner of his mouth quirking
up. “Hello, Sammi.”

She didn’t know where to start with a
comeback. Elusive? Damage?
Sammi
? But no retort formed in
her head because every single cell in her body that called itself
female woke up, shook itself off, and came out to play.

“You must be Zach.”

For a moment, neither one spoke, or moved.
They didn’t even breathe.

He couldn’t have looked less like his twin
sister, and right that minute, Sam couldn’t have been happier
not
to be in the bath with a beer. Unless, of course, he
climbed in with her. That would be just fine.

# # #

The moment Samantha Fairchild hit his scope,
Zach had one simple thought.

Sex
.

There were more responses battling for brain
time, but that one took precedence over everything. He wanted her.
As soon as humanly possible.

He blocked her with two arms on the door
jamb, a move that made her almost take a step backwards. But she
held her own and met his gaze.

“Vivi lied to me,” he said, already
imprinting the image of finger-tickling blond hair and
soul-searching blue eyes onto his memory, to be called up at will
some night in a filthy Baghdad bunker.

“She told you I wasn’t going to show?”

“She told me you were pretty.”

One lovely brow arched north, her kissable
lips opening to a little “o.” “Sorry to disa—”

“She didn’t tell me you were gorgeous.”

“—point… for you. Nice opening line,
Sergeant, is it?”

“Just Zach for tonight.”

“And for tomorrow?”

He leaned closer, got a whiff of something
that smelled like lemon and heaven and
girl
. “By then you
should call me…”
Sex
. It really was his only intelligible
thought. “Lover.”

Her hand landed right on his chest. “Right
now I’d call you optimistic. Can you move so I can come in?”

“I don’t think so.”

She laughed, just enough to make her deep
blue eyes dance and reveal perfect teeth as she held up a bottle of
white wine. “I bring gifts.”

Once more he let his gaze fall from her
face—where it would be perfectly happy spending a few hours—to the
hollow of her throat, to an inviting, soft, feminine valley of
breasts. Jesus, where would his mouth begin? “You have plenty of
gifts, Sammi. Nicely displayed, too. So, sorry, I can’t let you
in.”

She obviously didn’t know whether to laugh or
argue, and that made every feature even more alive, and hotter.
“Why not?”

He glanced over his shoulder, down the hall
to where two of Vivi’s journalist-type buddies were deep in
conversation, one a player who’d been flirting with someone not
even close to this girl’s league.

“Because there are at least three other guys
in here who are going to zero in on you, try to lure you into a
corner, and talk you into bed. And I really don’t want to kill
anyone tonight.”

She leaned a little closer, torturing him
with her scent and proximity. “I promise I will not be lured,
cornered, or talked into bed,” she whispered. Just as he came an
inch closer, she jabbed her elbow into his solar plexus. “By
anybody
. Move it, soldier.”

She ducked under his arm, quick as liquid
mercury, then strode right down the hallway behind him. His head
swiveled like she had him on a short leash.

Heels clicked. Hips swayed. Hair
flounced.

And his boner sprang to life.

He waited until she reached the clowns from
Vivi’s office, who, predictably, stopped talking and opened ranks
to let her sail through, their gazes locked on her ass.

They didn’t even notice Zach until he was
right between them. “Put your tongues away. She’s taken.”

In the doorway of the kitchen, blond silk
swung over bare shoulders as she sliced him with a look. “Excuse
me?”

“You heard me.” Very slowly, he smiled and
watched the color rise in her cheeks as she tried not to react. But
he knew by the little tremble in her lip, she was his.

It was like they were screaming the word at
each other, so loud everything else in the room silenced while they
connected with one simple thought.

Sex
.

# # #

“You made it!” Vivi launched her butt off the
counter, bouncing on her checkered Vans sneakers, shooting her
hands out to reach for Sam. “I knew you’d rally.”

They hugged for a second, then Vivi pulled
back, taking the bottle Sam offered. “Thanks. Did you meet—”

A warm, large hand landed on Sam’s bare
shoulder, no words to accompany the claim. He didn’t need any,
unless he wanted to howl “
Mine
!” at the moon.

Why, for the first time in her life, did such
possessiveness turn Sam into a pool of lust from the waist down?
This was
crazy
.

“We’ve met,” she said, stealing a look at him
and getting flattened by the intensity of his gaze. “You failed to
mention your brother is a…”

“Smart ass?” Vivi gave her brother a sly
smile, reaching up to squeeze his jaw. “I knew you two had a lot in
common.”

Zach raised his free hand, a brown beer
bottle nestled in his palm, the label familiar. “Want one?” he
asked Sam. “Or are you a wine drinker?”

“I prefer beer,” Sam admitted, reaching for
the bottle. “And Sam’s my favorite.”

“Mine, too,” he said, the comment loaded with
double entendre.

The glass rim was warm, like his mouth had
just been there. She slugged the foamy, bitter liquid to cool the
blast of heat that thought generated.

“And now we’ve just shared our first Sam
Adams,” he said softly, way too close to her ear. “Here’s to it
being the first of many.”

She had to work to swallow the gulp. She did,
though, and lowered the bottle slowly, vaguely aware that Vivi was
taking in the exchange with a wicked gleam in her dark eyes, black
brows raised to her tousled short hair.

“What’s so amusing, Viv?” Sam asked.

“Just how things somehow have a way of
working out.” Vivi winked, matchmaker all over her smug little
face. Subtle, she wasn’t.

“Vivi! Someone’s at the door!”

She held up a finger and waggled her
eyebrows. “Can I leave you two alone for a few minutes?”

“For a few hours,” Zach said, making Vivi
laugh as she headed to the door. Instantly, he was closer, the
pressure of his hand imperceptibly stronger. “She thinks I’m
kidding,”

Sam looked up, challenging herself to remain
perfectly steady under the weight of his attention. “She’s told me
a lot about you.”

“Like what?” He took a sip of the beer, then
held it to her mouth, the move as intimate as a kiss.

Still holding his gaze, she just ran her
finger over the round top of the beer, liking that she was touching
the spot where his lips had just pressed. For the life of her, Sam
couldn’t remember what Vivi had said about her brother, but it sure
as hell hadn’t been that he was drop-dead gorgeous. Or was built
like a Roman god. And she’d definitely neglected to mention his
stunning smile and his beautiful, black bedroom eyes. And, Lord
above, what a mouth. Made for—

“Waiting,” he prompted.

“Thinking,” she shot back.

“About?”

Kissing you
. “How much she’d want me
to tell you.”

“Vivi and I shared a womb,” he said, managing
somehow to get even closer. Sam’s back hit the wall. “And a crazy
childhood. We have no secrets. What’s the matter, Sam?”

“You’re cornering me,” she said.

“You like it.”

“Flirt much?”

“I’m not flirting.” One more inch. “But I am
cornering.”

There were three of four other people in the
kitchen, more in the hall, and a burst of laughter, all competing
with Led Zeppelin blaring from the living room. Somehow, nothing
mattered outside of this one-foot imaginary circle Zach Angelino
had managed to trap her in.

She took the beer back for another drink. She
had to change the tide here or she’d be attached to that mouth in
about five minutes.

“So, do you like the Army?”

His eyes flickered at the shift in topic,
then he shrugged while she sipped.

“Usually,” he said, his attention dropping to
the corner of her mouth where she felt a drop of beer, zeroing in
like he might… lick it off. “Except for three weeks from now, when
I fly to Kuwait.” He waited a beat, still scrutinizing her face
like it was a work of art up for auction and he was making the next
bid. “Do you like advertising?”

“Usually,” she echoed. “Except for today,
when I got annihilated by a client and felt the corporate ladder
sway under me.”

“You climbing that ladder, Sam?”

“’Fraid so.”

He smiled, another slow one, with a twinkle
in his eye. “Bet the view’s nice for the poor schmuck right below
you.”

She shrugged, digging for a comeback, which
was no mean feat in the face of this relentless assault. “I’m too
busy stepping on his hands. Is this your second tour of duty?”

“Third. But I do have nineteen more days in
the States.” He leaned down an inch, a half smile pulling at his
lips. “How do you want to spend them, Sammi?”

Her knees actually weakened. Like someone had
kicked them from behind and threatened her stability. “I’ll be
working. That’s what I do.”

“Twenty-four seven?”

“Feels like it sometimes.”

He shook his head. “You gotta sleep. Or at
least go to bed.”

Good God, he had a gift. “I suppose you plan
on joining me there?” Why dance around this?

“Vivi’s right,” he said, reaching over her
head to bracket her with muscular arms again. “You’re a smart
girl.”

“No, Zach, she said smart
ass
. Big
difference.”