Page 28 of Blue Moon Love

“How are you feeling?” she asked in her most sympathetic voice.

“I’m good, Ma.” Even though Sam wasn’t one of my mother’s children, he’d always called her ‘Ma’ even before he lost his own mother. “Kenna’s taking good care of me.”

“Good, good, good. Okay, okay, okay. Now you eat and rest.”

That was my mother’s answer to anything. Eat and rest. Oh, and Vicks VapoRub. There was nothing that—food, sleep, and Vicks VapoRub—couldn’t cure. Not even a torn ACL.

“Bye, Ma. Love you!” I reached down to disconnect the call.

“Love you, love you, love you.” She made kissy noises as I hung up the phone.

I took a deep breath and continued to stir the sauce, and Sam didn’t move. I could still feel him behind me. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood as the heat of his breath fanned across my sensitive skin.

“Smells good.” The gravel in Sam’s tone rippled through me.

“It’s your favorite,” I whispered. I hadn’t meant for the words to come out so breathy, but it seemed my vocal cords were temporarily paralyzed by lust.

I froze when his left then right hand rested on either side of the counter, his arms caging me inside of his frame as he leaned down. I could swear he sniffed my hair before placing a kiss on the top of my head. “Yes, it is.”

I closed my eyes as goosebumps rose on the bare skin of my arms and legs and tingles swirled low in my belly. Unable to resist his magnetic forcefield, I felt myself leaning back against his upper body when the alarm on the stove went off indicating the garlic bread was done.

The sound startled me, and I jumped in the air. My feet left the ground and my head hit his jaw.

“Ahh,” he groaned before hissing between clenched teeth.

I looked over my shoulder and saw there was blood coming from his mouth. More specifically, his bottom lip.

“Oh shit! Sorry.”

He stepped back and I rushed and grabbed a piece of ice from the freezer.

“Sorry,” I apologized again as I lifted the ice to his mouth.

“You’re not gonna kiss it and make it better?” His eyes twinkled as he took the ice from me.

I pretended that his suggestion didn’t act as an accelerant to the flames of arousal that were always burning whenever he was within a hundred yards of me, making them roar to five-alarm fire status.

When he didn’t get a response from me, Sam hobbled over to the kitchen table as I filled our plates and ignored his comment. Just like I had every other innuendo or flirty remark he’d made in the ten days. He was a flirt. And I was the only woman he was seeing. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it.

As we sat down to eat, he swirled the noodles on his fork and then took a large bite. I watched in awe as he finished off every morsel of food that had been piled up in under five minutes. He and the twins had always talked about entering eating contests because all three men were basically human vacuums when you put a plate of food in front of them, especially my mom’s cooking. Although, mine was a close second.

Once his plate was clean, he grabbed the pills I’d set out beside his water and downed them, then wiped his mouth.

“Did you even taste it?” I asked, looking down at my own plate which barely had a dent in it.

His head tilted to the side, and his eyes narrowed.

“What?” I asked as I took a sip of my Dr. Pepper.

“Did I tell you that I wanted to taste your bodily fluids?”

I gasped at his question, which wasn’t great because I had liquid in my throat and I began to choke. Sam rose from his chair and patted my back.

“I’m okay,” I managed to get out as I waved him off. “It just went down the wrong pipe.”

I hoped my choking episode would have distracted him from his question, but it hadn’t.

“Did I say that?”

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