A Favor (2 page)

So what if Sam had taken an interest in my picture, once he met me he’d get over it pretty quickly. While I am good at doing the charming Taylor wanted and sometimes needed of me, that was in public. It wasn’t a big deal and easier than people made it out to be. All that was required was to let the other person do the talking with well placed questions and a nod or two of encouragement or apparent interest, keeping the questions and the focus on the other person. It was easy and that’s how I like it, with attention on the other person, that’s how I felt safest.

The real me wouldn’t be considered charming, I would be considered boring. I actually take pride in being boring. I don’t watch much television and spend my free time painting or reading the day away. Due to work, I keep up on world news and can discuss foreign current events easily and with confidence but that was satisfied easily by hitting news websites for a few minutes every day. That’s the extent of my internet activities, I’m so boring. No social websites or anything like that, unlike many of the people of my generation, I have no desire to put my private life on blast.

I’m a loner and I’m content with that. My one best friend is Christine and through Christine, Taylor and I have a stronger friendship than just boss and employee but that’s about it. I get along with most of my coworkers but I’m not one for gossip in the hallways and haven’t been to a happy hour in years and have no desire to attend one in the near future. Just before Christine married Taylor, she had warned me that all I needed was a couple of cats to complete the lonely spinster look. While my life wasn’t what I had thought it would be when I left Chicago. The dreams I once shared with Christine, fading with each mistake and year that passed, it didn’t bother me. The words had stung a little, I am only twenty nine, but they were true and I have no plans to change who I am and the way I live my life. Then again, the more I thought about it, the more a cat sounds nice. It’s too bad I’m allergic to cats.

A little over three hours later and I am finally pulling into a long dusty drive almost twenty miles outside of Sweeney. It feels like the middle of nowhere and the place looks deserted. There isn’t a car or truck in front of the house and although there are several large low structures that look like a barn on steroids there is a thick layer of dirt and dust on everything. Even the house looks tired and dirty. Once, long ago, it had been white but now it’s a mottled gray and the roof appears to sag in places. Checking the navigation system, to make sure, it tells me I’m in the right place. Opening the door, the heat and humidity of a March day smacks me in the face, with a grimace I slide out of the large and comfortable truck and cross my fingers for central air.

Thankfully, my clothes are light enough the heat isn’t unbearable, even though it hadn’t been this bad in Austin. A black skirt grazes my knees, and goes with my button down blouse in a pale pink. Taylor likes me to look professional but isn’t rigid about wearing a suit or heels. Which was good for both of us because I needed flats in order to keep up with Taylor’s long legs that ate up the ground. Even though I’m petite it had never bothered me enough to master heels. I prefer the comfort of flats, or if I absolutely have to, a stacked heel of no more than two inches.

Not long after I started the drive I had pulled my hair out of the bun I’d worn to work. Now it flows freely and I wonder if I should put it up to look more professional. My hair is my one piece of vanity, it’s long, a few inches past my shoulders. I freely spend the extra money for the nice shampoos, conditioners and hair cuts. When women compliment me, it’s my hair they mention, and I’ve received several compliments. The only problem is it gets heavy, so even though it’s hot, I leave the covered elastic around my wrist and leave it free. Maybe if it gets really hard to convince Sam, I would have to do the flirty hair flip, one of the few girly moves I have down pat.

Taking the small three set of stairs up the wide porch, I’m surprised by the lack of movement from inside the home to find out who was here. Taylor’s truck is new but it has a powerful engine that idles loudly even as it purrs when it accelerates. I knock twice and wait but there’s no answer. Maybe no truck or car meant he isn’t home? Then Taylor’s words about Sam not leaving except to get a six pack comes back to me, I highly doubt I’ve missed him. More than likely he wasn’t laying out a welcome mat. Taylor had just been here yesterday and if you knew Taylor, you would know he didn’t take no lightly.

Biting the inside of my lip, I sigh, and knock again. It’s ignored and I eye the bright white truck with longing but remember what’s at stake. A home, all my own, no one could take it away from me. For that I’m willing to try, there’s no surprise when the doorknob turns and the door moves easily when I push inside. This is Texas in the middle of no where, the town probably took pride in not locking its doors.

Pushing open the door I take in a small, surprisingly clean, foyer. The front room that looks out onto the porch is an old fashioned sitting room, used for guests. It was also clean, with just the slightest layer of dust. The door across from the sitting room is an office, maybe a better word is was. It’s been trashed, violently. Closing my eyes against the violence, I breathe deep. The room tells me that Sam needs this job as badly as we need him. I find him in the den, sprawled out on a large and long leather couch. He’s asleep on his back and I have my answer to the ignored knocks. This room is his cave, the windows are closed, there’s delivery from a local pizza place and cans and bottles of beer of varying brands are littered everywhere.

Taking in the room I’m sad but then I step further in and look down at him. Fuck, he’s beautiful, yes the scars aren’t pretty but they did nothing to obscure a face so beautiful I couldn’t have drawn it so appealingly if I tried. His body, even foully treated is still muscular and well defined, he looks a little thinner than what seems healthy.  His hair is a thick inky black and long, to the nape of his neck, most former soldiers continued with the close clipped cuts of their time in service. He has a strong face that’s surprisingly Roman in its classical features. A long straight nose is prominent below a wide brow, his jaw is heavy but his chin is clipped. He has sharp cheekbones and then he opens his eyes and I stop breathing. Eyes a deep and dark sapphire blue meet mine, so blue, so intense I feel like I’m drowning in them. Then he smiles, his mouth simply tips up and a kick of instant longing shakes me, his lips are perfectly molded not too thin not too thick. I would love to draw him but I wouldn’t do him justice.

“Hey, there beautiful.” His voice is husky from sleep and the dark, smoky timbre slides right down my spine.

Forcing air into my starving lungs takes a moment and words fail me, all I can do is smile back, dazed, “Hi.”

A dark eyebrow goes up and he moves fluidly, I’ve seen the movements before, the muscles controlled and flexing with movement isn’t new to me being around so many former soldiers, what’s new is that I can’t take my eyes off of him. Standing he’s bigger than he looked lying down, while at likely an even six foot, he’s wide and broad and everything about him conjures up the word thick, his thighs ripple below the tight jeans. He’s in a skin tight white undershirt tank and all I can think is the better to see him in.  He stops only a few feet away and it takes a moment to realize his eyes have been roaming over me and I’m breathless when they finally come back to my face.

“You’re Zoe, Taylor’s secretary or assistant, right?”

Damn it, Taylor’s name pulls me back to reality. I nod, “I’m Zoe Lawrence and I’m here to take you back to Austin with me.”

At my words, his face shutters and his eyes darken. Without a word he turns and flings himself back on the couch. He’s sitting up, his head back, staring sightlessly at the ceiling and his voice is dull, “No, you aren’t.”

His reaction and words sting, no, no, this isn’t happening. Lust, that’s all I’m feeling and it’s only because it has been a long since I’ve been so close to a living breathing man as beautiful as he is. I’m cold and empty and I don’t deserve love when I can’t give it back. Those were words all three of my past lovers had shouted at me. Once might have been bad luck, twice could maybe be I was picking the wrong person but three times and I’m out of the game. Because they were right, I don’t want to be empty and cold but if I was then I have no business going into a relationship knowing I can’t give back what I’m given. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right, so for three long years I’ve buried my needs and simply bought a very good vibrator. It doesn’t matter if he’s gorgeous, he’s off limits. Sam has been through enough pain in his life, I have no business adding to that. Just because I can have him, doesn’t mean I should.

Swallowing down the soft words I want to say, is hard but necessary, Sam doesn’t need or want platitudes and murmured words of consolation. If I’m going to get a reaction, I would have to poke the bear and hope to hell he doesn’t poke back. Forcing ice into my voice, I poke. “Why the fuck not?”

Shock has his eyes back on me, “Excuse me?”

“I said, why the fuck not? Give me one good reason why you want to stay here in this festering wound you have going on. Why the hell won’t you come to Austin? This is a great job, work you could do in your sleep, that’s important and means something and you’ll be well paid for it. Austin is a great place to live over this humid desolate place. Why do you want to stay here?”

Shaking his head, he runs a over his face, over his scarred left cheek and over the ear that was now barely a shell. No, is all I can think. He couldn’t possibly be hiding because of those scars, but it was clear in all the things he didn’t say.

“I don’t have to explain myself to you. I don’t need the money and Austin is full of hippies and pretty damn humid most days too.” He’s talking to the ceiling again.

I poke harder, “That’s a bunch of bullshit. You hiding because of your scars is also bullshit, without them yes you would be so gorgeous it would have been unfair to the competition but even with them you aren’t unattractive. You’re still very appealing.” Fuck, I sound breathless. It was his fault, he’d gone still at my words, then his eyes found mine. Trapped in his heavy gaze, my whole body is tight with need. Fear of him seeing it has me breaking contact and my eyes are down, focused on a beer bottle. I shoot for boredom and I hit it, maybe too well. “Besides, you’ll be working with a bunch of men who won’t give a damn about that.”

I look up and his eyes are back on the ceiling, I want to yell at him, he doesn’t believe me.

“I’m not going, take your sweet little ass back to Austin and tell Taylor you tried.”

If I had taken the time to think about what came next, I would never have done it but the ability to think around Sam seems to have left me the moment his eyes met mine.

Six steps are all it takes to get to him and I come down on him, straddling him. My right hand steadies me high on his chest and my left hand is caressing his scarred cheek. My lips move lightly over the tight, smooth skin. “This isn’t a good enough reason, not when even with your scars you are still beautiful.”

He’s frozen beneath me and then he breathes again and his hot breath is against my ear. The feel of him against me, below me, is almost overwhelmingly drugging. I melt into him and then his hands are at my hips. His hands are large and burn where they touch, it’s a shock and then I feel him harden at the heart of me. My body isn’t my own, a rush of heat floods my pussy, preparing for him and desperate to have him inside me. Only the pain of my nipples so hard they ache against the wall of muscle that is his chest pulls me back into myself. Oh my fucking god runs through my frozen mind again and again and I try to pull away. Sam’s grip tightens on me and pulls me tighter, my only warning is a rush of breath against my lips and in the next instant his mouth is on mine.

His lips are silky and soft as they flutter over mine in light, delicate touches. I open for him, without hesitation, wanting more, needing more. It isn’t enough for him and a gentle sweep of his tongue comes over my parted lips. I gasp as the touch tugs at somewhere deep inside me and open wider for him. His tongue sweeps inside me with cautious strokes of tasting and learning. He tastes sweet and shockingly minty, it’s only then that I realize he smells clean too as if he’d showered recently. My hands move into his hair, reveling in the feel of the thick, silky strands and my fingers tangle, unable to let go of him. I moan with the need for more, his kiss to be deeper. Beneath me, he grows harder and I can’t fight the need to rock against him. Sam growls into my mouth and I swear I can feel the vibration of it to where he is pressing his hard cock into me. His kiss becomes hunger and fire and with greedy need I respond with the same hunger and scorching fire.

Vaguely, the sound of my ringing phone battles past the haze of desire, it stops and I sink back into Sam, until it starts again. Damn it, the only person who did that is Taylor, sanity rears its ugly head. Taylor, fuck. Tearing my mouth from Sam’s, I roll off and away from him. Fighting my body and attempting to take in air I reach for my purse. I had dropped it onto the end of the couch, before I’d taken leave of my senses and thrown myself at Sam. Fighting to even out my breathing I refuse to look at Sam, my focus on Taylor, on the job I was sent for.

“Zoe, what the hell? Why did it take so long to answer your phone? Five times, I was about to call the damn local sheriff.”

He’d called five times? Shame and a blush flare over me. “I’m sorry, I left my purse in your truck. When I pulled up I thought he wasn’t home and I didn’t think it would take long.”

The lie doesn’t roll off of my tongue and Taylor sounds hesitant, “So what’s going on? Are you on your way back with him or not?”

“I’m working on that. Can I call you back?” It’s not a question and Taylor doesn’t take it as one. Running a hand through my hair I look up to find Sam in front of me. Shit, his eyes are everywhere taking in everything and I have the sinking feeling that I’ve awakened a dormant volcano. Damn it, I have well and truly poked the bear and now I have to pay for it.