Just One Night(17)

Riley saw the pain in his eyes and was desperate to hug him, but she knew better.

He wouldn’t push her away, but the emotional wall he had around himself would

grow even thicker.

Instead she forced a smile and returned them to safer territory. “Aren’t you going

to ask?”

His brow furrowed, his expression still wary. “Ask what?”

“About the spanking. If it’s based on personal experience.”

To her surprise and dismay, he laughed. “God no. I don’t need to ask.”

It was her turn to frown. “Because you don’t care one way or another?”

His gaze flickered and his smile faded. “Well, for starters, your brother would kill

me if he knew I even so much as glanced at one of your articles. But mostly I

don’t need to ask because I already know the answer.”

He edged by her, heading through the hall toward the kitchen.

“You do not!” she called after him.

Sam turned around, walking backward with a little smirk. “Ri, most of the city

knows you have more bedroom experience than the average Las Vegas showgirl.

But don’t worry. I won’t tell your brothers. Or your dad.”

He turned back around, disappearing into the kitchen, and thank God for that,

because letting Sam Compton see her tears was one path she was never going

down.

But beneath the tears threatening to overflow was something else. Something

deeper and darker.

It was the desire to tell Sam just how wrong about her he was.





Chapter Five


Sam Compton already knew what would kill him one day: Riley McKenna.

Or more precisely, it was keeping his hands off Riley McKenna that would kill him.

Because a heterosexual man didn’t spend a decade in the company of a woman

who looked like Riley without touching her.

Not unless he wanted to die a slow, torturous death by sexual frustration.

Riley, on the other hand, was blissfully unaware of Sam’s plight and was quite

likely to die as the hottest old lady on the block, completely blind to the fact that

she’d killed ol’ Sam Compton simply by being the most gorgeous woman alive.

But it wasn’t just her killer body that would do him in. Oh no. It was the entire

package. Because Riley was a serious pain in the ass. His ass.

Also?

He was a jerk. A first-rate shit.

Just days after telling off his mom for calling Riley a whore, he’d all but done the

same thing.

He hadn’t meant that crack about her job like that. At all.

But still …

He was an ass. The biggest.

And now, ever since they’d fetched the margarita fixings from the truck, she’d

been avoiding him. That wasn’t normal.

He didn’t like it.

“Hey, does Riley seem weird to you tonight?” Sam quietly asked Liam as the two

of them tag-teamed dish duty.

Liam gave him a look. “You’re asking me if I think my little sister is weird. That’s

like asking the pope if he goes to mass on Easter.”

“Kate and Megan aren’t weird.”

“Sure they are. Did you not hear Kate go on for twenty minutes on Nietzsche’s

perspective on dichotomy? I couldn’t keep up with that shit even without the

margaritas.”

Sam took the wet dinner plate Liam held out and dried it, his eyes never leaving

the kitchen table, where Riley sat reading a story about a friendly blue ferret to

her niece.

The effect of them together, the gorgeous woman with the little girl … unsettling.

Five-year-old Lily was the spitting image of her aunt. There was no sign of her

mother’s dark red hair, nor her father’s dirty blond. With the little girl’s tilted blue

eyes and long, shiny black curls, he could have been looking at Riley twenty years

earlier.

And the sight of the mini Riley on the real Riley’s lap looking very mother-daughter

did something treacherous in the vicinity of his chest.

Do not go there, Compton.

The self–pep talks sometimes worked. Most of the time they didn’t.

“Kate has a philosophy exam on Friday. She’s entitled to be preoccupied,” Sam

replied, jerking his attention back to the conversation with his best friend.

Liam shook his head. “My point is, all my sisters are weirdos. I mean, look at

Megan. She’s currently raiding my mother’s baking supplies for a dolphin-shaped

cookie cutter. Hardly normal.”

“It’s normal for moms,” Sam said easily.

At least it was for the good moms. His own mom’s idea of making cookies was a

package of Oreos, which would inevitably be stale because neither she nor her

boyfriend of the week had bothered to seal the package back up.

“I’m just saying, Ri just seems edgier than usual,” Sam said as he added the dry