“Besides, I prefer you without it,” he whispered, lying back and tugging me toward him. His hands ran up my thighs and over my ass, giving it a light smack.
“Okay, that’s enough touching,” I said, hoping my words distracted him from noticing my involuntary shiver.
He didn’t protest at the distance I put between us, the smile on his face palpable in the dark room.
“I don’t want anything from you other than sex,” I clarified after several moments of silence. Guilt burned in my blood, insisting that he hear those words, that he understood. That when this was over he couldn’t accuse me of promising things I couldn’t deliver?
Even if it wasn’t true. It was the only way to prove to myself that the two things—the money and the pleasure—were not connected.
“I don’t even like you, devil girl. Remember?” His voice was quiet, blurred around the edges as though he was nearly asleep, or maybe he didn’t quite know what to make of this situation. This conversation. “Maybe I have a hankering for some good hate sex.”
It killed me that I couldn’t sniff out the reason behind his tone. Reading people came naturally, but Sam turned the tables. He sensed things about me, but I was in the dark about how to win more than his attraction.
“You promise?” I rolled over to face him, wondering if his expression would help. “Not even a little?”
“Hell, no. You’re a pain in the ass.”
I didn’t learn anything from his face, because the words trailed off as he fell asleep, his pinky finger twitching against mine. But that didn’t stop me from watching him for a long, long time.
*
I woke up when the first light of dawn peered between the wooden-slat blinds. Sam’s deep, steady breathing almost lulled me back to sleep, but the idea of living a half-naked, awkward morning-after-not-sex scene didn’t appeal to me.
The memory of last night in the bathroom embarrassed me more than it probably should, more than it would embarrass girls such as Audra or Ruby, girls who had a healthy worldview about sex. Then again, they hadn’t spent their lives developing the inability to trust other people, and that couldn’t be fixed today. Avoidance it was.
I inched my way out of bed, lifting Sam’s heavy arm, which had somehow found its way across my belly in the middle of the night. He sighed and shifted, then rolled over and settled back into a light snore.
The empty space of my room both welcomed and mocked me. It couldn’t be normal, to feel better able to breathe here than in bed with a super-sexy, smart, flirty millionaire.
Sam might be the most normal person I’d ever met, but nothing in my nineteen years had been average. That fact used to give me perverse pleasure, but not anymore. Normal had started to intrigue me. Maybe because it would always elude me.
I stripped off Sam’s shirt and tossed it on the floor, then threw my own dirty clothes on top of the pile. In spite of not wanting to wake him, it didn’t seem nice to go find a washing machine without taking his things along.
He didn’t move a muscle while I grabbed the handful of clothes from his backpack and the pair of discarded underwear in front of the closet. Marija would have to deal with me in a sheet, because there wasn’t anything to put on in the meantime except my last pair of clean underwear.
The floor in the hallway and on the stairs chilled the soles of my feet. The first thing I saw at the bottom was Marija, sitting on her beige love seat with a newspaper and a cup of coffee.
I cleared my throat and she looked up, prettier than anyone had a right to be at sunrise. A stab of jealousy went through me, hot and unexpected, and totally stupid since all she’d done was be beautiful—not her fault.
“Good morning, Blair.” Her sharp gaze dropped to the clothes in my arms. “Laundry?”
“If you don’t mind.”
She set her steaming coffee on the end table and unfolded her long legs, getting gracefully to her feet. “I can take them.”
I hugged the stinky garments to my chest without thinking. “No, I’ll do it. Just show me where. Or tell me. You don’t have to get up.”
“I’m already up,” she said with a bemused smile. “And I really don’t mind.”
“Okay. Fine.”
Marija led the way through the kitchen and into a mudroom, where a sleek, modern set of appliances waited with open lids.
“Thanks.”
I expected her to leave when I set about the business of adding soap and setting the machine, but she leaned against the door frame and watched me. And blocked my only exit.
“You don’t like to let people help you, do you?”
“It’s not that.” Marija didn’t respond to my obvious lie, but her continued stare drove an uncomfortable knot between my shoulders. “I’m used to taking care of myself, that’s all.”