Page 110 of Wicked Me
Bacon scratch-n-sniff bookmarks. I sank to my knees and touched them, not quite sure if I’d accidentally laced my spaghetti leftovers with a hallucinogen. Was Sam...here? I hated to think it in case it wasn’t true.
Something had been written on the backs of the bookmarks. On all of them.
I love fishing.
I was once sprayed by a skunk and thought it was a declaration of war against me.
I hate running, so if there is a zombie apocalypse, I’m screwed.
My high school’s boiler room was kept locked because of me. Draw your own conclusions.
My middle name is Rambo. I wish I was kidding.
They went on and on, and I clutched them in a pile to my chest as a flood of warmth pushed my back against the shelves with a strangled sigh. The lights on the ceiling burned the backs of my eyes until the room turned watery, so I closed them, breathing in a lungful of calming truth.
Hewashere. My sweet Sam.
“Paige.” The soft voice, deep and rich with a musical lilt, came from my right.
I snapped my eyes open and stared. A muscular body leaned against the bookshelf at the end of the aisle, and I swept my gaze across tendons, up the curve of a well-defined bicep under a black T-shirt, along the perfectly sculpted, stubbled jawline to a pair of shocking blue eyes that searched my own with profound intensity.
It was Sam, of course it was Sam, but it took a beat longer to process this because of all the differences I noted compared to the last time I’d seen him. He’d cut his hair so it spiked up every which way, giving his face a leaner, harder edge, and he seemed bulkier in the shoulders and arms. It made me wonder if the months in jail had forced the change or if survival had. Maybe a little of both. God, I hated to think of him there.
I stood quickly and cleared my throat to find my voice, but I didn’t know what to say because he was here. With me.
“It’s Sam Cleary,” he said. “You remember me from when we were kids?”
Uh, yeah? “What are you doing here? Did Kay have something to do with this?”
“Kay wanted to help.” He lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I’m introducing myself like I should’ve when I first saw you in D.C. again. Just play along.”
I shook my head, not at his request, but at this whole situation. He must have seen something on my face because he winced and dropped his gaze to the empty space between us. We stood there, quiet, and the unnaturalness of it all stomped on my insides with spiked heels. I shoved my feet forward, my hand outstretched, an invitation to hold me and never let me go or for a simple handshake. Whatever worked.
He glanced at it, then returned his eyes to me, a question in their depths he already knew the answer to. Slowly, he reached out and grazed his fingertips over my palm. The slide of his rough skin on mine powered a current right between my thighs.
“Of course I remember you,” I said, grasping his hand tight. “Samuel Rambo Cleary.”
A grin bloomed across his mouth while he studied our clasped hands. God, how I’d missed that dangerous, knee-buckling grin that made me want to be wicked with him.
“No more secrets,” he said, his gaze returning to mine.
“No more secrets,” I agreed. I stared at him, memorizing his new, sharper edges, and committing them to memory while I stepped closer. His masculine, leather and musk scent plumed outward, and I breathed all of him in. At least that part of him hadn’t changed. “Do you forgive me?”
His gaze settled on my mouth before he dragged it down my buttoned shirt to our clasped hands. Perv. Me, not him, because that familiar jolt pulsed through my blood whenever he looked at me like that, and to be honest, I’d missed that, too.
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” he asked. “There’s nothing to forgive you for.”
“I let myself believe you were the bad guy. I allowed my trust in you to just fly out the window the second the police showed up and read you your rights. I gave up on you within seconds...” My voice broke, and I looked away from him. “Even though I know you.”
“I should have told you everything from the beginning.”
The books on both sides of us blurred into a kaleidoscope of colors behind fresh tears. “You didn’t even let me talk to you,” I said. “To let you know I loved you,stilllove you, and was thinking about you every second of the day.”
“I was trying to push you away from me and my fucked-up family,” he said softly. “It wasn’t what I wanted, though. The past six months have been hell only because I didn’t spend them with you.”
When I didn’t,couldn’tsay anything to that, he tucked a gentle finger under my chin and lifted so I would meet his gaze.
“When I first saw you reading on our front porch all those years ago in D.C...” he started. “You did something to my eight-year-old heart that day, blinded it, maybe. You were the girl I’d love forever. Always have been. Nothing you or me could do would ever change that.”
