But
he wouldn't take her—couldn't take her—not here, not like this. Sam released
his hold on Gwenyth's breasts and kissed her softly on the lips. "Get rid
of Trevor," he quietly demanded. Sam swept his tongue inside of her mouth
one last time, then pulled away. "Get rid of him, baby."
And
with that, he walked away.
Gwenyth
closed her eyes and practiced a little deep breathing. She stumbled toward the
kitchen table and fell into the closest chair.
Good
grief, that was better than in her fantasies.
With
the new day dawned sanity. And a hell of a lot of confusion. Gwenyth still had
a hard time believing that Sam had kissed her and felt her up the way he had
last night after dinner. And worse yet, she had reacted to him like some wanton
woman, no doubt making her seem as easy as the gaggle of other groupies who
were always throwing their sorry selves at the great Sam Trevianni.
Well
none of that for Gwenyth Marie Jones. No sir. Not when she had dreamed and
hoped and wished on every shooting star she could find since childhood that she
would one day mean a hell of a lot more to Sam than a little sister, or an easy
lay.
If
Grandmama Verlene had found out about last night's insane moment of passion,
she would have inclined her elegant head and said, "make a man work for
it, sugar. The harder he has to work to lay claim to you, the more he'll want
you in the end."
Granddad
Willy would harrumph and disagree. He'd insist that the best way to be claimed
by a man like Sam was to do the claiming yourself. "When I was a young
gun, your Grandmama came at me like gangbusters," he would insist,
"made me flee in terror from the fear of impending matrimony 'til I was too
tuckered out to run anymore."
Harry
would smile and say simply, "it's your life, Sis. I'm behind you no matter
what."
Candy
would say, "no shit? Jesus, Gwen! Why didn't you fuck him?"
Gwenyth
wasn't at all certain she wanted to listen to anyone's sage advice, or even her
big brother's lack thereof. So for the next few days, she closeted herself away
from family and friends, trying her hardest to figure out what she was going to
do.
She
spent her days in the park, taking pictures of children playing and ducks
squawking. She watched idly as lovers jogged side by side around the grassy
slopes, seeing to it that their amour remained trendily in shape. This was Hyde
Park after all. Fitness and superficial looks were all that mattered in this
tiny, prosperous section of Tampa. Growing up, she herself was the only pudgy
female in a hundred yards radius she could ever remember encountering.
While
Gwenyth was busy getting her thoughts and feelings in check, Sam was busy
fuming. He had called her apartment four times and left four messages on her
answering service. The first message had been sweet, with his insisting that he
couldn't wait to see her again and would she please call him back when she got
home.
The
second message was less sweet, more preemptory than anything, but it was still
Sam at his—almost—nicest. The third and fourth messages were downright
belligerent. "Where the hell are you, Gwenyth Marie! Call me, damn
it!" Click. And then, "I'm gettin' seriously pissed off, Gwen. I'm
going to come over there if I don't hear from you in the next ten
minutes!" Click.
So
now Gwenyth sat in a reclining chair near the telephone, biting her lip and
wavering back and forth on whether or not she should call Sam back.
Verlene
would say that Sam's attitude was a good sign. Gwenyth, on the other hand,
wasn't at all positive she had what it took to stand her ground with an angry,
virile man like Sam Trevianni. Nope. Playing the coward and leaving town was
more in tune with her state of mind.
But
what exactly was she trying to run from? Here Sam was back in Tampa—and he
wanted her. It was exactly what Gwen had wanted all of her life. Wasn't it?
She
shook her head morosely. No, not like this. Not just for sex. She'd always
wanted more. She had prayed for so much more. Gwenyth wanted Sam to love her,
to bein
love
with her.
Oh
God!
If
she wasn't so upset, she'd laugh at her own childish, naive thoughts. Yeah
right! Like
that
would happen in this lifetime! Like Sam didn't have a
million other women all vying for the same elusive thing from him.
Gwenyth
sighed in frustration as she raked her fingers through her mane of tawny hair.
Dealing with her dreams of what
could
be
back when she didn't
stand a chance with Sam was a hell of a lot less complicated than it was now
when she did have an opportunity to make them real.
Should
she seize the moment and enjoy what time they'd have together? Or should she
back out totally, knowing full well that if she slept with Sam she'd be in love
with him all over again?
A
loud shattering sound followed by a fast-moving object hurling through the
front window, broke Gwenyth out of her quiet contemplation. She yelped and
jumped to her feet. Her heart pounding wildly, she moved toward the shards of
broken glass until she visually located the offending object.
It
was only a baseball.
Gwenyth's
cathartic sigh could be heard from across the room. No doubt little Billy Banes
next door was practicing his hitting—badly—yet again. Shaking her head in
mirth, and at herself for damn near screaming over a freaking baseball, Gwenyth
strolled over to where the ball lay and carefully removed it from its nest of
broken glass. She picked it up as she envisioned lecturing Billy on his
tendency to wreak havoc on her property, then turned the ball over and read the
message that had been scrawled in bold letters for her to see:
NAM
.
Just
three letters. Three small letters that started her pulse racing and caused her
breathing to hitch. It wasn't Billy Banes after all.
The
front door crashed in a moment later and Gwenyth screamed for real. She whirled
around, preparing to do god only knows what to her would-be attacker, and found
instead—to her wide-eyed relief—a fuming, angry, royally pissed off Sam
Trevianni glowering down at her.
Thank
god.
Sam
stomped through the doorway and slammed the door shut behind him. His nostrils
were flaring, the muscles in his neck and arms were corded, and his blue eyes
were staring daggers at her. Gwenyth had never been so happy to see a
disgruntled male before in her life.
"Gwenyth Marie Jones! You and I
have got to talk!"
Gwenyth
bit her lip and nodded. She couldn't agree more. The fact that she probably
wanted to talk about something vastly different than Sam did didn't register in
her brain as she ran toward him and threw herself into his arms.
Sam
grunted, whether from the impact of her barreling into him or from male
satisfaction she didn't know. "Now this is more like it, Cupcake. This is
how you should have greeted me days ago."
Sam
plowed determinedly onward, apparently not taking notice of the broken glass in
the living room or of the fact that Gwenyth was shaking like a frayed leaf
caught in a storm. "A man expects to have his phone calls returned after
sharin' an experience like you and I had the other day, Cupcake." He
stroked her affectionately on the back, his hand occasionally drifting down to
her derriere as he continued his lecture. "A man expects a hell of a lot
more than bein' avoided by the woman he's crazy about, that I can tell
you."
The
shaking finally started to register a little bit. "Cupcake?" Sam
pulled back slightly and used his hand to notch Gwenyth's chin up toward him.
"Cupcake?"
He
saw the terror plain in her eyes and realized then and there that the reason
Gwen had run to him had been out of fear. That fact should have annoyed him,
but it didn't. It brought out all of his protective instincts and caused his
heart rate to accelerate even though he had no idea what had spooked her.
"Cupcake?"
"I'm
so glad you're here, Sam," she breathed out.
Sam
could feel the hard something that Gwenyth was clutching in her hand. He looked
down at it and, realizing it was a baseball, he gently pried it out of her
grasp to find out why she was all fired up and wild eyed over a little ole
ball.
And
then he knew.
NAM
.
The
words were written as plain as day. Sam glanced toward the living room for some
unknown reason and immediately noticed the broken window.
Those damn
bastards
.
Sam
forgot all about his reason for being here, the reason he'd walked around
throwing tantrums and being generally disagreeable for the past three days, and
pulled Gwenyth back into his arms. He hugged her tightly against him and placed
kisses on top of her head. "It's okay, baby. You're okay."
"Yes."
But
was he? The fear that had gone through Sam when he'd realized what the scene
around him meant told him he'd emotionally gone beyond the point of no return
with one Gwenyth Marie Jones. Hell, he'd probably been at that point years ago
unknowingly and just needed a nudge in the direction of the obvious. Well he
knew now, damn it. And as soon as this nasty business with NAM
was taken
care of, Sam would make certain Ms. Jones had no viable alternative but to
accept him wholeheartedly into her life.
But
first, there was
this
to deal with. Sam balled his hands into fists behind
Gwenyth's back as he struggled to calm down. He would find out who had done
this terrible thing if it was the last act he ever accomplished on planet
earth. Nobody but nobody threatened his woman and expected to get away with it.
And
she was
his
. Whether or not Gwenyth Marie Jones realized it, her fate
had just been sealed.
"It
ain't happenin'. Nuh uh. No way.
Fer-get it
." Granddad Willy
slashed his hand tersely through the air then planted his fists on either bony
hip. He waggled his eyebrows at Gwenyth in a manner that suggested she could
broach no arguments.
Sam
glanced at Willy's newest tee shirt, a neon pink cotton with a slogan that
read:
Straight But Not Narrow
. Verlene stood beside her husband,
elegantly decked out as usual in a corn blue silk shirt and shorts set. In this
argument, an argument that had been raging in the Jones' Hyde Park home for
over two hours, the family matriarch was unequivocally taking Willy's side.
"I agree with the men this time, sugar. It's best if you stay here with
us. You'll be going to California in two days anyway, so I fail to see why
you're making such an issue of this."
Sam
threw Gwenyth a smug look, all but daring her to tell her grandparents why she
was avoiding staying under the same roof as him at all costs. After the police
had left and the furor and shock of the window smashing had died down, she had
gone right back from throwing herself into his arms to hightailing it in the
other direction.
Gwenyth
ground her teeth together and shot a desperate glance toward Harry. "You
heard what the police said. They think it was just a silly prank perpetrated by
a bored neighborhood kid!"
Harry
sighed as he ran his fingers through his short tawny hair. "Sis, I know
you dislike feeling as though you're being held prisoner here, but it's only
for a couple of nights." His gaze was innocent and fairly pleading.
"Can you please put your safety first and let my contacts in the police
department look into the situation while you're in LA? That way we'll all feel
better about letting you go back to your apartment when you return."
Gwenyth
chewed on her lower lip anxiously. She knew her brother was right. Although
she
wasn't worried over the possibility that a bunch of whining NAMers might
possibly try to do her in, everyone else was. It wouldn't be fair of her to
allow the others to worry—especially her seventy- year-old grandparents—when
she could just as easily stay here and put all their fears for her safety to
rest.
Gwenyth
glanced at Sam, noting that he harbored the look of a man who knew he was about
to get his way. She could only pray she had the fortitude to
not
give
him his way in one very important respect. Two nights. She only had to last two
more nights. Then she could spend her time in LA sorting out her rather complex
feelings concerning one overly virile baseball player. "Okay. You
win." She splayed her hands at her sides and sighed. "I'll stay
here."
Granddad
Willy harrumphed. "'Bout time you used the brain the good lord gave you,
Gwenyth Marie."
He
motioned for Sam, indicating that he was supposed to carry Gwenyth's suitcases
upstairs. "Now, unless there are any other family crises I need to
straighten out, your Grandmama and I have a date with a bucket of popcorn and
that new docu-drama on the Sci-Fi channel,
Alien
Playboys
."
Sam
raised a brow. His amused Southern lilt was questioning. "Isn't that the
show where women tell stories of how they were abducted by aliens, forced into
sexual servitude, then brought back to earth after they were impregnated by
them?"