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  So why was she still considering it?

  7

  MEAGAN STARED AHEAD as the truck exited the garage, resisting the magnetic pull of Sam next to her, of the desire to turn to him, to study him—to slide up next to him and finally, finally, just be with him. The moon dangled low in the sky, like a lamp on an invisible chain, like her unyielding need for this man.

  “Rest if you want,” he said. “I’ll wake you up when we get close.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured, and sank down low in the seat and closed her eyes. She needed to think, she needed to...she didn’t know. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t know what she needed to do. Her mind raced to the point that she wanted to sit up, wanted to do something, anything. Instead, she pretended to sleep, sensing the shift in shadows as they maneuvered the streets of L.A., her mind playing with images. Sam looking hot. Sam looking hot while he stood in the basement dripping wet.

  She forced herself to remember why she needed to concentrate. Sam might misread her, might think he had more claim to power on the set, if they slept together. They’d argue. Everyone would be affected. But then she thought of Sam’s eyes when he’d walked right into the chaos earlier, when his eyes had met hers, when he’d silently asked if he could intervene.

  They must have been a good thirty minutes into the ride when Sam said, “I can hear you thinking, Meagan.”

  She didn’t pretend she wasn’t awake; in fact, not pretending was a relief. She turned to face Sam. “Did you hear anything that made any sense to you, because I sure didn’t.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “As in—to you?”

  He chuckled. It was a low, sexy sound, becoming both familiar and unnervingly likable. “I would be the only person here,” he reminded her.

  “Yeah, but I can’t talk to you. Not about...you.”

  He laughed louder and cut her a look. “I can assure you with one hundred percent certainty that I know more about me than anyone else on this earth.”

  Fine, she’d ask him questions, but not the one really on her mind, which would be, should she sleep with him? “How old were you when you went into the army?”

  “I entered on my eighteenth birthday,” he said, without missing a beat, as if it was exactly what he’d expected her to ask, when they both knew it absolutely was not.

  “Why?”

  “It’s what I was born to do, what I wanted to do. What my father, my brother and my uncles, all did.”

  “And you weren’t scared? I mean you were a kid, Sam.”

  “I wasn’t scared but my mother was. My brother was in Iraq at the time and my father was on active duty. She, like most spouses, found a place to tuck away the fear of losing her husband to combat. But her son, or sons, rather, were another story. She struggled to deal with the potential loss of her boys.”

  “I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for her.”

  “My father saw her distress and tried to talk me into waiting a few years to enter the army,” he said. “He figured that would give my mother time to get used to my brother serving. I didn’t think that was the answer. I thought my mother needed to go ahead and get past her fear because the army was going to be my future. Eventually, she and I talked about it, and she gave me her blessing.”

  “So you went ahead and enlisted.”

  He nodded. “And then ended up in a fluffy desk job I didn’t want. I’m pretty sure my father pulled a lot of rank to make it happen, too, though he never admitted it. Able-bodied young men do not end up at desk jobs in the army.”

  “I’m surprised,” she said. “With him serving himself, I’d have thought he would have supported you.”

  “He was trying to protect my mother and he really wanted me to finish college to be eligible for officer training, which my brother rejected.”

  “From what I know of you, a desk job must have been hard for you to deal with.”

  “Oh yeah. It drove me crazy. I felt guilty for sitting at a desk while my own father and brother, and plenty of others with them, were fighting to protect our country. I would have gotten out of that desk job if I could have and I tried. It worked out though in the end. By twenty-one I’d completed my degree and I entered the officers’ program, then Special Forces.”

  “Why Special Forces?”

  “I was in for life,” he said. “I wanted to be challenged and contribute everything I could, on every level possible.”

  Meagan absorbed those words thoughtfully, captured by him in ways she didn’t want to be, didn’t expect to be when she’d first met him. He was just so much more than she’d expected he’d be. This man had seen war, he’d fought to survive, and fought for the lives of others. “But you weren’t in for life,” she finally commented, hoping he’d explain why, nervous she might be in choppy waters he didn’t want to enter.

  “No,” he said a bit too softly. “I wasn’t in for life.” He inhaled and let it out. “A few bullets in my leg took care of that.”

  “Oh, God, Sam,” she said and added, “I’m sorry.” She wanted to pull back these last words, knowing from her own injury how much she didn’t like hearing them.

  “Yeah, me too, because even if I could have gotten a doctor’s release, which was doubtful, I knew I wasn’t one hundred percent. And I wasn’t willing to risk other people’s lives by ignoring the reality of what I had to face.”

  Suddenly, her lost dream, her knee injury, felt tiny, inconsequential. “That was brave, Sam. It was very brave.”

  He glanced at her, surprise etched on his handsome face. “No. Those men and women out there on the front lines are the brave ones. I refused to let my ego put them at risk.”

  “Yes,” she conceded. “They are.” And he’d been one of them, he still wanted to be one of them, and couldn’t. She knew how that felt, as well. How it hurt to want things you could no longer have. “Where are your parents? Are they here? Is that how you ended up in L.A.?”

  “No,” he said. “This is technically my home, but as a military brat, I traveled all over the place. My parents spent a good number of the last ten years in Germany, but managed to end up back in Japan just in time for the recent tsunami. Both me and my brother got a good dose of the kind of worry my mother has for her sons and her husband. We couldn’t reach my parents for days. Jake—that’s my brother—was on a mission overseas, and he was in rare completely freaked-out mode.”

  “But they’re okay, right?”

  He gave a quick nod of his head. “Yes. They’re fine. My mother’s a nurse. She was working at a Red Cross shelter at the time and refused to leave when the military families were evacuated. My father’s still on active duty, and as a high-ranking officer, he had his hands full.”

  “I think I mentioned that my father’s a preacher in a small Texas town and my mother helps with the church’s volunteer efforts. We aren’t really close, but I am their only child and they love me, just like I love them.” She cringed at her confession, one she normally wouldn’t have given, not sure why she had, and quickly moved on, “I would have gone crazy, too, not knowing if they were all right during the tsunami, or hurricane or whatever.”

  He glanced at her. His gaze too knowing, too aware of what she’d shared. She expected him to push her for more detail, but surprisingly, he seemed to sense she was uncomfortable, and let it pass, saying only, “Maybe you’ll tell me more about them one day.”

  His sensitivity really floored her. “Maybe I will,” she said, surprised at how much she meant it. “Tell me more about Japan and your parents.”

  “There’s not a lot more to tell,” he said. “They’re fine and involved in clean-up efforts that will take years and years to complete. I went to see them right after I left the army and spent a few months helping.”

  There were tiny telling cracks in his voice at several places during his story. Sam wasn’t at all what she’d assumed. “How’d you get hired at the studio?”

  “My uncle, a retired SEAL, works for
the studio. He hounded me for months to take the security job. I didn’t want it. I wanted back in the army.” He rubbed his right leg a bit too deeply, and she wondered just how bad his injury was, both physically and emotionally.

  She opened her mouth to tell him how much she understood, and quickly snapped it shut. She didn’t talk about the past. She focused on the future, like what he seemed to be doing. And my gosh, how shallow would she sound anyway? He was talking about war and sacrifice and she was upset she wasn’t able to perform anymore.

  “We’re here,” he announced, turning into a long driveway, but trees blocked her view of the house.

  The ride was over and she didn’t want it to be. She had enjoyed learning about Sam, which defied the idea of sex being a path to getting him out of her system. Suddenly, she felt confused. She knew Sam was a distraction she didn’t need, knew he was the kind of man that took you by storm and took over your life. Yet, on some level he was exactly what she needed. And that absolutely terrified her. She couldn’t lose herself again. She couldn’t. Been there, done that, didn’t like it.

  As soon as the truck stopped in the driveway of the two-story, towering mansion of a house, she lunged for the door handle, intending to get out as quickly as possible. She needed some distance from Sam to process her feelings.

  Sam gently shackled her arm, the touch of his hand searing her skin, melting her resolve to escape him. “Hey,” he said softly. “What just happened?”

  He read her too easily, which only rattled her more. “Nothing. Nothing, I just—”

  “Got spooked.”

  She hesitated, and then nodded. “Yes. I did.” Somehow, her ability to be honest about her feelings made him more appealing. “I got spooked.” And by the time the words were out, he was closer, still holding her arm. Still the powerful, controlling, sexy Sam, who she couldn’t seem to resist.

  She could smell the spicy maleness of him, warm and taunting, calling her, warming her, burning her inside out. Thank goodness for the shadowy darkness broken only by moonlight splintering through the tree limbs above them, casting their faces in shadows, hiding the damning desire surely in her eyes.

  She inhaled, trying to think straight, before she did something like kiss him, instead of getting out of the vehicle. Instead, she filled her nostrils with more of that sultry male scent that made her want to stay right where she was. “Sam, I don’t know what—”

  “Me, either,” he said, and kissed her, oh God, he kissed her, and it was wonderful. She didn’t even remember him moving or how he’d become close enough to have his thigh pressed to hers. All that she knew was that his fingers were laced through her hair, his lips pressed to hers, warm and remarkably gentle—a teasing touch, following by a sweeping wash of his tongue against hers.

  “Meg—”

  “Don’t talk,” she said, her fingers curled around his neck to pull him back to her, desperate to keep this just sex, knowing deep down it might be too late. “Kiss me again.”

  And he did. He kissed her. No talking. No demanding things go his way, like she’d expected from him. His mouth slanted over hers, his tongue pressing past her teeth, stroking seductively against her tongue.

  She moaned and arched into him, seeking more of the warmth and hardness that was so very Sam, so very right. Yet she’d have sworn he was wrong. And he was wrong for her. He was, in fact. He would be trouble but he didn’t feel like trouble. Not now. Not in this moment. Okay, maybe in this very moment, she did, because she needed him. Her hands traced the rippling muscle of his shoulders.

  A low growl escaped his lips, and he pulled her closer, one hand sliding up her back, molding her against his chest. His hand caressed her thigh, under her skirt. His tongue delved deeply, caressing hers in another long, lavish tasting that had her feeling it in all the places he wasn’t touching, but she wanted him to be.

  “You smell good,” he murmured, kissing her jaw, and along to her neck. “Like vanilla and flowers. It’s driving me crazy. I know we need to go see that house, and this is not the place for this, but I’m struggling to let you go.”

  The words, the gruff aroused tone of his voice, overtook her. She didn’t want to let him go, either. She didn’t want to think about why they shouldn’t do this. “Then don’t,” she whispered, and barely had the words out before they were kissing again. A blur of passion followed, his hands all over her. Hers all over him. She was on her back, her blouse open, with him on top of her, and she barely remembered how it had happened.

  Sam’s phone started to ring and he tore away from her. He cursed softly, echoing the frustration she felt at the interruption. “I have to answer that.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice breathless even to her own ears. “Especially since I don’t have my phone.”

  “Right,” he agreed, but he didn’t move. “I need to get it.”

  She didn’t want him to move. She wasn’t ready to let go of this time they were sharing.

  The phone stopped ringing, still he didn’t move. He brushed his lips over hers. “I didn’t mean for this to get so out of control. One minute we were—”

  “And the next,” she finished.

  He smiled and pulled back to look at her, and the mood shifted, the air thickened. They stared at one another, and Meagan felt their connection in every part of herself. There was something happening between them, something that she’d never felt before, and didn’t understand.

  The phone started to ring again and he sighed with the inevitable demand to get up, and then, he did the most unexpected thing. Sam kissed her nose before bringing her with him to sit up.

  He reached for his phone on the dash and checked the missed numbers. “It was Josh both times,” Sam said. “He left a voice mail.”

  Meagan nodded, but she was still thinking about Sam kissing her nose. It was silly, but there was something about that small act that had her stomach fluttering.

  Light flickered behind them, snapping her out of her reverie. Meagan shifted around to see a car pulling into the driveway. “Someone’s here.”

  Sam set his phone down. “Per Josh’s voice mail, Kiki insisted that he drive her out here so—”

  Meagan didn’t hear the rest. She shoved open the door, desperate to escape their close proximity before Kiki arrived. She tripped, and went tumbling out of the truck.

  Sam was there in an instant, but she was already getting up. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I am not okay! I’m embarrassed, Sam. I don’t want them to know what just happened. I don’t want them to think badly of either of us.”

  “They won’t know.” His gaze slid top to bottom. “Not if you button your shirt.”

  Her jaw dropped at the realization. Meagan rushed to fix her gaping shirt, but her fingers were shaking. “I don’t do things like this. I know better. I know they backfire. Sam—”

  “Easy, sweetheart,” he said, wrapping her in his arms. “Take a deep breath and we’ll get through this. What happens between us, is between us. No one will know.”

  Sweetheart. Why did that endearment sound good now, when it had bothered her before? And why did his vow that everything was going to be okay, calm her? For the first time in years, she’d felt she had her life in the palm of her hand. Neither her parents, nor her ex-boyfriends, who’d tried to control everything from her career to her politics, had control. She had control. Only tonight, she’d let this thing, whatever “it” was, with Sam, take it away from her.

  “Stop calling me sweetheart, Sam.”

  He held her tighter and kissed her. “Whatever you say. Meg.”

  And despite being a nervous wreck over Kiki and Josh’s arrival, the familiar banter with Sam made her laugh, and that laugh had a remarkable impact. Meagan felt just a bit more in control.

  She was clearly very confused.

  8

  “WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING your phone?” Kiki demanded the minute she stepped from Josh’s black SUV. “We’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. Wh
en you didn’t answer, I decided to come on out here. Besides, I didn’t want to miss out on the chance to be in on this very important decision.”

  There was accusation in everything Kiki said to Meagan, and she didn’t understand it. She’d tried to break through it, to bond with the other woman over the show and it just didn’t seem to be happening.

  “She dropped her phone in the hotel parking lot,” Sam explained before Meagan could answer. “Someone ran over it before we could get to it. The driver came damn close to running over Meagan, too.”

  “My God,” Kiki said, her tone dripping disdain. “How in the world did you manage that?”

  Sam glanced at Josh. “I left you a message to be sure everyone knew to call me if they needed Meagan.”

  “Sorry, boss,” Josh said. The honest guilt on his face meant that either he really hadn’t checked his messages, or he was a darn good actor. He inclined his head at Meagan. “My apologies for not listening to my voice mail.”

  “I’m sure you both had your hands full,” Meagan said, repeating her earlier comment, immensely appreciative to both Sam and Josh for covering for her, but angry at herself for needing to be covered. Then to both Josh and Kiki, she asked, “Why aren’t you two at the hospital?”

  “I left one of the production assistants to supervise Tabitha’s medical treatment,” Kiki replied.

  “Which P.A.?”

  “I don’t know.” Kiki sounded snippy and impositioned. “Debbie, I think.”

  “Darla?” Meagan asked, hopeful.

  “Yes. Darla.” Kiki waved a hand. “But it doesn’t matter now. I just hung up with Darla. She called me because she couldn’t reach you. Tabitha is fine. All is well in tooth-fairy land.”

  Over and over Meagan had asked Kiki to start remembering everyone’s names. She treated the cast horribly and tension jumped every time she was around. If Kiki wasn’t related to one of the executives that had approved her show, she’d already have talked to Sabrina about firing her.