“Your mouth quivers.”
He kissed my quivering mouth.
“Your cheeks flush.”
He brushed his lips across my burning cheeks.
“And these…” He ran a finger over the straining point of one nipple. “They get so hard I want to strip you naked so I can suck on them.”
“Dinner?” My squeaky plea didn’t stop his slow caress of my skin. And if he didn’t stop, I had the sinking feeling I’d wind up on the ten o’clock news in handcuffs for having sex in the back seat of his sister’s sedan.
“Damn, baby girl.” He stroked my knee through the fabric of my dress. “Your sexy factor just went up another notch.”
I snorted in my distress. “Yeah, I’m so sexy I’m about to pass out.”
He bit his lip, only marginally concealing his amusement. “We can’t have that.”
I shook my head, agreeing with him.
Throwing me a wink, he released my safety belt. “At least not yet.”
Dinner was both delicious and pure torture. We had sauteed mushrooms as an appetizer. I had asparagus salad and broiled salmon for my meal. Sam had a whole damn cow. Well, almost. He had a twenty-two ounce Kansas City strip steak with the bone in. A little too red for my comfort zone, but the lights at the steakhouse were low enough I didn’t have to look at it.
I wasn’t the only one using the dim lighting to my advantage. Ten minutes after being seated at a circular booth Sam had reserved, I realized why he had requested I wear a dress or skirt.
All the better to tease me with!
Sam could teach a master class in seduction. His hand kept taking discreet trips underneath my skirt. He never ventured higher than halfway up my thigh, but it was more than enough to have me panting and squirming, all the little muscles he was ignoring flexing in their desire to be noticed.
Trying to distract him, I traded questions about his family and ambiguously answered a few about my own. I didn’t dare ask him the question burning a hole in the tip of my tongue, but, by the time dessert rolled around, he broached the subject on his own.
Capturing my chin with a gentle pinch, he stared into my eyes. “You know I’ve only done that once before.”
I chewed at my bottom lip before responding. “You seemed much more experienced.”
I was only half teasing. Certainly I realized he wasn’t talking about the act he had performed, but the surroundings and situation. I just didn’t know if I could believe him.
Sam clarified with a rueful smile. “With a patient, Hollywood. And today is the only time I’ve been glad she couldn’t keep quiet.”
His gaze darkened and he let go of my chin to push the edge of a napkin around. “She was suicidal. Had cancer and a cheating husband divorcing her and trying to take everything.”
“Did you really turn Portia Philips down?”
Another rueful smile flickered across his face. “From the tips of her extensions all the way down to her thousand-dollar pedicure.”
He gave a small shudder as if he’d just thrown back the sheet on a corpse. “I’m surprise she told anyone.”
I returned to chewing at my lip. Portia was two years older than me. She’d been cast in Most Eligible Dallas, but the rumor was her daddy threatened to disinherit her if she went on the show. Before today, I hadn’t encountered a single male that wasn’t related to me who would turn Portia down. But Sam had and, even harder to figure out, acted like he was attracted to me.
He studied me, his brows pinching as he saw me shredding my lower lip. “You don’t believe me?”
“I want to, but I’ve been accused of being a little naive.”
He gave a little nod, either accepting my reply or agreeing that I was foolishly trusting. He brushed a curl from my cheek, his fingers lingering to stroke my skin. “For the rest of the night, listen to that little voice telling you to trust me.”
“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “It’s the little voice saying not to…everything else…”
Feeling my cheeks start to glow, I snapped my mouth shut and cast my gaze to the side. In over my head already, I didn’t need to wear my heart on my sleeve.
Sam leaned in and nuzzled my ear. “Even better.”
Thirty seconds later, he snagged the waiter for the check. Two minutes after that, we were in the sedan and heading for my house.
The drive home offered a brief respite. The streets were bright and half the vehicles sharing the road were SUVs or full-sized trucks, their drivers and passengers able to peek down at us at will. His hand only rested on my covered thigh, chaste but for the occasional squeeze.
His display of propriety ended the second he parked beneath my carport and killed the engine. A quick flick of his hand and his seat belt was off. I had the feeling he didn’t intend to just walk me to my door.
His palm against my cheek, Sam kissed me. He took his time, teasing the corner of my mouth. He coaxed my lips into parting with a slow slide of his tongue across their seam. His hand moved down my throat, the fingers dipping into the bodice of my dress and tracing the edge of my bustier.
“Invite me in, Amber.”
I answered with a whimper.
His lips found my throat. He sucked at the hollow harboring my pulse then licked a short line up to the lobe of my ear. “You can be more decisive than that, baby.”
Decisive was other people’s forte, not mine. My parents, Beau, Melinda…
His hand delved deeper into my bodice, parting the fabric of my bustier from my skin. Finding the nipple, he gave it a soft pinch as he bit lightly at my jaw. “Invite me in.”
“Would you like some tea?” My lips kept quivering even after I finished the query. My hips had started to move, my round bottom shifting against the seat cushion. Muscles pulled tighter, squeezing my labia together as his mouth moved back down my neck.
“Tea?” Amusement rippled through his voice.
“I don’t have any coffee…we could go get-”
“No,” he laughed and released my seat belt. “I can work with tea.”
Sam came around and opened my door for me, holding my hand for balance as I stepped from the car. He helped me open my front door, too, when my hands proved too shaky to thread the key into the lock.
I have a simple little house, mostly paid for. No garage, just a carport. A single bathroom and two bedrooms, one of which serves as my home office. The kitchen and living room are divided by a breakfast bar and overhead cabinet instead of a wall. No one walking inside would think I come from money. Same goes for Beau’s house. Our father doesn’t tolerate any slackers. We draw regular salaries, same as anyone else doing our job at the company, and most of our shares are held in trust until the day we take more senior positions.
Since there was no grand tour to give, I headed into the kitchen and started filling the kettle. I couldn’t stop my hands from trembling and the water splashed against the side of the sink. Sam came up behind me, put one arm around my waist and took the kettle away.
“Baby, I don’t think you’re safe in the kitchen right now.” He nuzzled my neck and then twirled me until I was pointed in the direction of the breakfast counter. “You park that sweet bottom on one of those stools and let me do this.”
Blushing madly, I obeyed. I directed him to the cupboard where the tea was at, then the one that held my grandmother’s serving set. In between his preparations, he watched me. Not quite a leer, his gaze was suggestive. Sexually Machiavellian if there is such a thing. He had me squirming in under a minute the way he used his eyes to caress my breasts, hips and legs.