Page 36 of Up In Flames

“Is what serious with whom?” I spring from the bed and land right in front of her. And damned if my dick doesn’t spring right up with me. Too tall for where she’s kneeling. Being tall has its disadvantages.

I turn away and grab my jeans, shrugging into them so I can have a reasonable conversation without begging for a blow job.

Great. Now I’m thinking about her lips wrapped around my dick.

I sink onto the bed and run my hands through my hair. “Okay. Slowly. From the top. Until yesterday, I’ve dated. A lot, but that’s all it’s ever been. Dates and fucking. I’m always honest right up front about what I want and don’t want out of each relationship I jump into, and by relationship, I mean anything from a shared meal, miniature golf game—at which I look ridiculous, by the way, in case you were wondering—movie, or even just a casual fuck. Friendship to… well, to whatever we mutually agree it’s going to be, which hasn’t ever been that serious before, if I’m honest. There have been a few women I thought of as potentially something more, but not in the last year or so. So, if you’re thinking I’ve got a romantic entanglement with someone right now, you’re wrong. There’s no woman in my life at the moment except you.” I pause, but what the heck? She already knows I adore her. I told her so. “And I’m hoping you’ll stay in my life for a while.”

A while. I’m hedging. And here I thought I was brave.

She shakes her head. “Nope. Not buying it, Sampson. You have flower arrangements, and fancy flatware, and this.” She holds up her hand, from which dangles a silver bell on a fine silver chain. “Doesn’t look like your kind of accessory.”

She reaches out her hand. I hold out my palm to accept the necklace before I string it back over the switch on the lamp that sits on the bedside table.

“It was my mother’s,” I say softly. “She always wore it. When I was little, she told me that the sound of chimes wards off evil. Even though it clearly didn’t work in her case, since she was killed in an accident, I keep it on the lamp next to my bed. I don’t know how it slipped to the floor, but thank you. I’d hate to have vacuumed it up and lost it.”

“Oh.” Nina’s mouth rounds. “I’m so sorry.”

I nod. “As for the flower arrangements, it’s a hobby of mine. Working with flowers relaxes me.”

“Wait, you arrange flowers?”

I shrug. “Everyone needs to create something beautiful, whether it’s affection or flowers or paintings or pancakes. What’s your outlet?”

For a moment, she just kneels there looking at me like I’ve grown an extra three heads, and not the good kind, before she rises to her feet, and then sinks down beside me in one fluid motion. Her mouth opens, but instead of saying anything, she begins to cry.

And I’m undone. I lift her onto my lap, her legs spread to wrap around my waist, and I hug her close against me, whispering meaningless sounds. “Hey, it’s okay, whatever it is, I’ll help. I’ll fix it. It’s okay, Jelly Bean. I’ve got you. I’ve always got you.”

There’s a promise in those words that I hear. I don’t know if she does. All I know is that it feels right, holding her, keeping her safe.

Five minutes or fifty minutes later, she squirms on my lap, and reaches for the tissue box. I grab a few for her, and she blows her nose like a stevedore, not that I’ve ever heard a stevedore blow, but still. It’s a loud sound for such a little person.

“I’m sorry, Sampson. You must think I’m completely unhinged. What do men usually say about women who end up crying at the end of sex?”

I push her hair back behind her ear and stroke the tear streaks from her cheeks. Holding her steady so she has to meet my gaze, I say, “I don’t know about men in general, but this man, with this woman, says he hopes the sex and the relationship aren’t at an end. This man says to this woman that he very much hopes she’ll stick around to find out what they maybe can be together. Tears included.”

And she starts crying again, but this time she’s also kissing me, everywhere she can reach. When she tries to throw me back on the bed, she fails, so I lie down for her, and let her squiggle all over me, sobbing and kissing and licking and petting.

I still don’t know why she’s crying, but the knowing can wait.

The restaurant can wait.

Everything can wait. Everything but her.

CHAPTER 13

Nina

I can’t believe I cried all over Sampson, but I couldn’t help it. He’s such a beautiful soul, so perfect, that I couldn’t keep the emotions in. Everything he said, everything he did, made me want to jump into his skin and live there forever.

And then my outburst led to more fucking, equally as explosive and soul-devouring as before. I forgot being hungry. I only saw him. Until his stomach growled as I lay exhausted upon him.

By the time we hit Restaurant, the French restaurant that’s cleverly or not-so-cleverly named for exactly what it is, the chairs are already on the tables, and the floor is being mopped.

“Monsieur Dean, we did not expect you. I’ve sent all the staff home except for my useless son.” The gray-haired man gestures to the boy pretending to swish the dirty mop strings along the wood. “And you with such a lovely guest.”

“We’re starved, Robert,” Sampson says, pronouncing the name “Ro-bear” in the French way, “but one thing led to another tonight and, well, we missed dining hours. Anything left in the kitchen you could throw together for two starving waifs?”

“Mais oui, bien sûr. Attendez-vous une minute.” And he disappears back through the swinging door.