Page 41 of Sapphire Nights
“One night is all I need,” she taunted, tugging his shirt from his pants as he laid her across the largest bed she’d ever seen. “Drive my family out of myhead.”
Walker was all gorgeous male. The purple tattoo emphasized his admirable pecs. Another cryptic tattoo circled his muscled biceps and stretched when he leaned over her. He was tougher than her grad student boyfriends,a man who had lived a real life, not the sheltered one ofacademia.
A man who knew luxury suites supplied condoms and had the sense to grabone.
She needed to absorb some of his toughness and experience if she was to survive this next phase. She needed to know she could withstand thattoughness.
But the kisses he used to arouse her were tender, so tender she nearly cried atthe need welling up inside her. And the need was more than physical. Alone and adrift, she clung to him as a sturdy mast in the storm. And when they joined, he set herfree.
“Fruit is not breakfast,”Walker scolded as his tousled bedmate placed her order with room service the next day. “Fruit isdessert.”
“Fresh fruit is nirvana,” shecountered, almost drooling over the picture on the desk menu. “Fresh fruit is nectar of the gods. Manly men can crunch baby chickens and three kinds of grease on an empty stomach. This goddesscan’t.”
Shelookedlike a veritable goddess with all that moonlight hair tumbling into her sunlit face and down her robe. Last night, she’d awakened him in ways that must have been magic. He’d beendead inside for too long. He wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to return to the living, but her delight was not only irresistible but ego-inflating.
“Goddess, huh?” He lifted her against him. “Mystical, mythical, or comicbook?”
“Tarot card.” She wrapped her fine legs around his hips and kissed his neck. “Does thatcount?”
“Works for me.” And he carried her back to bed tofill in time before room service arrived. A year was a damned long time to go without sex. He had a lot to catch up on, and Sam was no shy virgin. She was a natural earth goddess. He didn’t need to worry she would take their encounter seriously. Maybe sex without considering commitment and babies could keep him going. He blessed the hotel’s box ofcondoms.
They’d showered and dressed bythe time breakfast arrived. Walker had sent yesterday’s clothes to be express laundered. That had earned him extra hugs and kisses. At least Sam knew how to do appreciation. Must have been that small-townupbringing.
Watching her salivate over berries, yogurt, and honey tickled him more than anything in his life lately. He’d have to watch himself once they returned to the real world, butfor now, maybe his weary soul needed a freshperspective.
After he finished his three kinds of grease, and she’d practically licked her bowl, they used hotel toothbrushes and checked out. Walker grabbed the champagne bottle on the way. It might not be bubbly, but it was his, and a good memory for the lonely nightsahead.
“So first thing we do after we pick up my backpack is ask Casswho lived in Hillvale twenty years ago?” Sam asked as they drove back to the restaurant where she had first met Cass. “She may still not be strong, so let’s line up the important thingsfirst.”
“I want to know how in hell she put a hex on you for days while she lay in a coma,” he grumbled, pulling into the storage facility next door to therestaurant.
A cloud crossed Sam’s usuallysunny face, but she held back her feelings and shrugged. “She’ll just say drugs. Focus. Have you ever asked her if she knew yourfather?”
She punched her birthday into the keyboard, and the gates opened. She produced the key on her key chain with the locker number on it, and he drove down the aisle until he foundit.
“I didn’t know he was here for sure until this past week, so no.I’ve kept his name on the down low while Isnooped.”
“Snooping while learning about everyone, letting them trust you—you’re sneaky but good.” She climbed out, distancing herself literally as well asverbally.
Walker thought he should be good with that. He kept an eye on their surroundings as Sam applied the key to the designated box lock and twisted. They both sighed in relief whenit opened, revealing a backpack. She rummaged around inside the pack until she found a small leather cash purse and opened it. Smiling triumphantly, she climbed back in with her treasures and waved her driver’s license and credit card at him. “I’m realagain.”
“That relieves you of cartoon goddess status then. You’ll have to be normal like the rest of us.” Forcing her back into his mentalclosed case file, he drove out of the storage unit and headed for thehospital.
Cass had planned this whole damned expedition, right down to a restaurant and hotel near storage lockers and ahospital. He ought to strangle the oldlady.
As they circled the hospital parking lot looking for a space, Sam stiffened. Walker hit the brake and followed her gaze. “Effingshit.”
Heeased the car down the next aisle and over to a construction dumpster where a tall, slender, gray-haired female wrapped in shawls waited. Cass let herself in the back door of the SUV before he could even turn off the engine. “Home, Jeeves,” sheordered.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Sam asked with what sounded like horror. “Did the doctors say you couldgo?”
“They want to runa battery of tests and bill Medicare a fortune. I’m fine. Let’s go. We have work todo.”
Walker didn’t let up on the brake. He glanced at Sam. Her fingers were balled in fists. Remembering how she’d nearly broken his finger in her fury, he waited to see if he needed tointervene.
“That’s all you have to say to me?” Sam demanded, still sounding horrified. “You medicate me, send meinto the void, leave me helpless—and all you can do is order us to take you home? Do I get an apology? An explanation? Or do we need to haul you back into the hospital and tell them you’reinsane?”
Walker winced. But he stayed out of it. It wasn’t his head the old witch had played with. In his rearview mirror, he saw Cass lift her bony chin and glare out thewindow.
