Private Paradise(35)

Carla's hand froze momentarily as she reached for her baguette. She tried to ignore the squeezing sensation in her chest, telling herself that like her stupid peanut allergy, Sam remembering her favorite sandwich combo was of no significance whatsoever. Especially since he'd heard her order it dozens of times.

Yeah, but not in the past week...

She put the baguette on a plate, grabbed a spoon and slathered some mustard on both sides. She considered forgoing the pickles, just to send a signal that he didn't know her as well as he liked to think he did. But he'd gone through all the effort to bring her the food, she didn't have it in her to be bitchy and passive aggressive about it.

Besides, how much would her turkey and Swiss suck without pickles? Especially when she already had to forgo the honey mustard. She finished making her sandwich and grabbed some chips from the bag he'd opened to accompany it.

“I brought dessert too,” he said, and indicated with his chin a plastic tub perched next to the sink.

“Ice cream?” Carla asked, her mouth already starting to water. For the most part, she tried to eat pretty healthfully, but ice cream had always been her weakness. Leave it to Sam to remember that.

“There wasn't any strawberry,” Sam said as he piled his own baguette with meat, cheese, and tomatoes, “so I grabbed the mango kind. We should probably get it into the fridge.”

Carla nodded and set down her plate. Even with the electricity out, the fridge was still cold and the insulation would help keep the ice cream from turning to soup in the still, hot air. When she picked up the ice cream she noticed there was something else behind the plastic tub.

She recognized the contents and nearly dropped the ice cream. Condoms. An entire bulk size box of them. “Wow, someone's optimistic,” Carla said, heat scorching her cheeks as she bent to put the ice cream in the mini fridge.

As she stood she met Sam's gaze. “We only have two left to get us through the storm. I didn't want us to run out.”

Even in the lantern light there was no mistaking the heat in his gaze. Carla felt it rush straight to her core, the look in his eyes enough to make her clench with need. She picked up her plate in two hands, marveling at her own ability to make it to the couch and set it on the low coffee table without dropping and breaking it.

She picked up half of her sandwich and sat back as Sam placed a bottle of beer in front of her, then settled into one of the padded teak armchairs positioned at either end of the table. She couldn't decide if she was relieved or miffed that he hadn't chosen to sit next to her. Then she took the first bite of her sandwich and didn't care as the first bite of solid food in over eightee hours made her mouth and stomach sing with joy.

She polished off the first half and sat back and sipped at her beer, a little embarrassed at how she'd scarfed down her food like a trucker in front of Sam.

Not that he was showing any more restraint. He ate like a man who'd spent several months in a POW camp, polishing off at least three times as much food as she did in the same amount of time. Soon, he too sat back, beer in hand, resting his big hand on his lean stomach.

She would have been a little bitter, she thought as she contemplated the ripped―no shredded―ab muscles rippling under his tight skin, had she not witnessed for herself exactly how hard Sam worked out to look like that.

The memory of him, droplets of sweat beading on his skin as though daring her to chase them with her tongue, flooded her senses. Between her legs her sex throbbed almost painfully and her nipples pulled tight under her thick robe.

“Chris seems really happy.”

Carla jerked her eyes up to Sam's face, embarrassed, yet again, to be caught blatantly ogling his buff body. But instead of the sly, knowing look she expected to see, Sam's expression was pensive as he stared sightlessly at the flame of the hurricane lamp perched on his end of the table.

Carla couldn't help but give a wistful smile at the mention of her cousin and Julie, his wife of four years. “It's kind of disgusting how happy they are.”

“I remember how he used to talk about Julie when he'd come back to Vegas,” Sam said, his teeth white as he flashed a wry grin. “It was so obvious he had a huge thing for her, but whenever I asked him why he never made a move, he kept saying she was too good for him. Deserved better than a player like him,” he paused and took a sip of his beer. “I know how that goes.”

“He's not a player anymore,” Carla said, instinctively defending the cousin who was as close to her as her own brother. “And besides, it wasn't all a cakewalk.”

“I know,” Sam said, shaking his head. “He told me all about it, how he very nearly fucked it all up. Lucky for him she gave him another chance.”