Indecision skittered across Sam’s classic cheekbones and down his strong jaw. The desire to see this thing through warred with his knee-jerk response to stealing, the entire thought process laid bare in his too-honest eyes. An arrest could damage his career, his only way to make back what my father had taken, and that thought had to weigh heavy on him, too.
I was counting on it. I wanted him out of my hair, and this new and uncomfortable conflict out of my gut.
Instead, he folded his six-foot-three frame into the tiny car and buckled his seat belt. “Let’s go.”
“You sure?”
“Yes. Can you drive this thing?”
“I can do lots of things.”
He didn’t respond to my teasing statement, telling me that I’d been closer to making him fold his cards than I’d suspected. Dammit. Where would he draw the line? Every man had a breaking point, an invisible line in the sand his code of morals wouldn’t let him cross. I needed to find Sam’s so I could get on with my life.
The car rumbled to life and slid into gear under my guidance, and we rolled down the street and around the corner. I thought about what my dad had said about using all of the tools available to me, feeling sick to my stomach again, and not because I didn’t want to sleep with Sam. Reconnecting with him had made our spark impossible to ignore, and the constant heat under my skin was only going to get harder to dismiss as harmless.
But that was my line in the sand. My body had always been mine—the one thing safe from my dad and his life, because no matter how many times he suggested such a thing, he’d never forced me and I’d always figured out another way to make it work. As much as I lusted after the lanky, too-confident, handsome guy in the passenger seat, I would have to do it again.
“Can you check and see if there’s a map in the glove box? My phone battery is shot.”
He complied without argument, finding a map of Austria and the surrounding region, then directed me toward the best route to Slovenia in a quiet voice. A few hundred yards farther he reached over and put his hand over mine.
Tingles soaked into my skin, raising hairs and goose bumps up my arm and neck that only had a little to do with his cold fingers. I jerked free. “What?”
“You’re exhausted, Blair. Pull over and I’ll drive.”
“No. If we get caught this way you can say I kidnapped you.” Despite my protest, the heaviness of my eyelids moved my foot from the gas to the brakes.
Sam chuckled, the sound warm behind the chill of his touch. “Come on, gorgeous. No one’s going to believe you wrestled me into a stolen car, and you don’t have a weapon . . . do you?”
“Not on me,” I said with a quick smile.
“Good to know.”
I pulled up the parking brake, leaving the car in neutral and reaching for the door handle. Sam headed for the front of the car, so I crossed at the rear. My fatigue and guilt were making my body respond despite all of my self-righteous internal lectures about steering clear. Avoiding close proximity wasn’t an option, so my self-control needed to buck up.
We settled back into the car and it felt good to let Sam take charge. The whir of the wheels against the pavement, the wind outside, and the sun climbing over the horizon tugged me toward sleep faster than I would have thought possible.
It crossed my mind that Sam might drive us to the closest police station, but even that worry couldn’t keep me awake. He might not agree with my methods, but he wanted his money, and he was smart enough to know that I was the only way he’d ever see it again.
He would keep driving. I could sleep the sleep of a girl who knew exactly what waited at our destination—an empty house on the side of a mountain.
*
“Hey, gorgeous. Time to wake up.”
I left my eyes closed for a few seconds after my brain registered Sam’s request, until the situation in which I’d fallen asleep came back. It felt nice to wake up to a voice that sounded sorry to disturb me. Much better than the alarm clock on my phone that roused me for 8 a.m. classes. Not to mention what the huskiness and close proximity did to my heart.
Sam Bradford possessed many, many assets that made girls around the world swoon in their tennis skirts—and climb out of them—but the rich quality of his voice, the way it gave me the ability to picture the look on his face, the expression in his eyes, ranked highest on my list.
Of course, I hadn’t seen all of his assets.
In that moment, in between the blessed nothingness of sleep and waking to the reality of this debacle, avoiding the inevitable seemed silly. The reaction between my legs at the mere thought of going to bed with him suggested that it wouldn’t be a disappointment.