Page 6 of Conquer

I didn’t turn at the sound of Gordon’s voice and barely stifled a groan of annoyance. He’d called me Sammy, something only my friends and family, of which he was neither, I allowed to do. He’d also confirmed my identity once again, though I was sure the man had no question as to whether I was Samara Branch.

I looked at the man, saw that he seemed to be making no move to leave, and then looked at Gordon over my shoulder and shook my head. “I’m fine.”

When I looked at the man again, he stood in the same place, nothing about his demeanor having changed. I tried to gauge his reaction anyway and came up with nothing.

He was good, I would give him that. I, on the other hand, needed to take a page from his book and pull my shit together.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Gordon said. He looked at the man and then went inside, though I suspected he still watched.

But I pushed Gordon out of my head and squared my body in front of the man. “What you want?” I asked.

Instead of answering, he extended his hand, and I did the same, moving on autopilot.

A huge mistake on my part.

The first brush of his fingers against mine was electric, and when I looked at him I thought he felt it too.

I drop my hand quickly, squeezed it tight into a fist, not sure what else to do after that kind of reaction.

“I’m Adrian Hunter. We’ll talk later,” he said.

Then he turned and walked away as silently as he had come. Even if he’d made more noise, I wouldn’t have heard it. My own heart was pounding wildly, my fingers still tingling where he had touched me.

Adrian

As I walked away, I noticed that the world seemed exactly as it had five minutes ago, but knew that I was entirely different.

For two years now, I’d held onto the hope that if and when I finally saw Sam up close, got to look into her eyes, whatever I thought I felt for her would dissipate. I’d convinced myself that I’d simply built up an image in my mind, one that had nothing to do with the woman herself, and that if I were confronted with her in the flesh, that image would disappear.

It was part of the reason I hadn’t made contact with her before. There’d been no purpose then, and I’d wanted to hold to the fantasy, find my escape in the Sam I had built in my mind.

The fantasy was a pale shadow in the face of the real-live woman.

I’d known she was beautiful. I had looked at her picture enough to have no doubt about that. So, while her beauty hadn’t been unexpected, the physical experience of it was.

Her dark eyes had little streaks of honey brown that had never shown over the camera. Nor had pictures or video fully conveyed her physical presence. She was short in stature, no more than five feet tall, her body soft-looking and beautifully curved, her brown skin looking as smooth as satin.

My reaction to her had been instantaneous, nearly overwhelming in its power.

When she had first looked at me, I felt like lightning had struck me, and I had finally recovered for the rest of the conversation.

Coming here, talking to her had been a gamble, but one I’d been compelled to take.

Maxim was asking questions, and I needed to get ahead of this, finally figure out what she knew and keep her from getting into trouble. Not my usual preference, but taking this head-on, and talking to her, had been the best and fastest option, one that came with the added benefit of speaking to her in person, perhaps touching her.

Senna often teased me for being so stoic, but if she could have seen and felt how I had reacted to Sam, she wouldn’t have believed it.

I didn’t believe it.

Yet here I was, still reeling from the reaction to touching her, desperate to do so again.

That scared me.

The feeling was unfamiliar.

My work with the Syndicate brought me into contact with some of the worst, most dangerous people in the world. I’d never given any of them a second thought.

But Sam…

---