Randy was clearly a bouncer, and he walked with heavy feet. He looked like he was all muscle, no technique.

I decided to make for Mark first, before I separated Sam from her people. Mark was the guy in charge, at least based on his clothes—black shirt button down shirt, black slacks, and dress shoes. Sam and the other woman wore shorts and Randy had on jeans and a T-shirt. "Hey, Mark, Gray Phillips. Friend of Adam's. We sat at the table to the left of the stage."

Mark nodded and held out his hand. He had a good handshake. I was tempted to squeeze it too hard but managed to suppress my stupid caveman instincts. I was trying to make nice here. I gave him my best politician's smile, which I learned from watching my dad for the last eight years—he’d worn it out until it was his default expression.

"I need to have a few minutes with Ms. Anderson here, if I can. I promise to return her in just a few." I gave his hand another squeeze and another smarmy "I'm a people person" smile. It worked for my dad, and I hoped it would work for me here.

Mark nodded. "Sure." He even gave Sam a little push toward me. She glared at Mark but no one made a move to stop me from moving her down the sidewalk into the darker edges of the boulevard.

She was resistant and I felt like I was dragging her. “Look, I’m sorry I said that stuff inside. I was worked up and caught off guard.” I gave her a sheepish grin. “I’m pretty big on not cheating.”

“I got that.” She sighed. “I think it was just a mistake all around. I get why you were angry. I’m sure if I was kissing someone I thought was married, I’d have freaked out too.”

I wanted to object to the freaking out thing. “Can we rewind and go back to the place we were before I insulted you thoroughly?”

Sam bit the side of her lip and glanced back at her tall friend. The tall friend smiled and waved, a get-going gesture. I waved back because Sam needed more encouragement from the look of indecision on her face.

"Did you really wait all night to tell me that you’re sorry?"

No, I realized with sudden clarity, I waited all night to see if I could convince you to pick up where we left off. Then I laughed at myself for being a dick. So much for not liking bar hook ups. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Where's your crew? Did they abandon you?"

"I told them to go on ahead."

"You have a car? The Woodlands is a ways out."

"Nope, but I'm fine."

She tapped the front of her neck and frowned at me. No one else was around now, just her, me, and the three waiting for her.

"How're you getting home?" she asked finally.

I rolled my shoulders to appear as relaxed and non-confrontational as possible. "I'm just going to call a taxi."

"Taxi service is terrible here." Her frown was getting deeper which was the wrong reaction.

“I really am sorry, you know.” I ran my fingers over the side of her mouth, trying to coax a smile out of her.

“Me too.” She tucked her face into my hand, almost like one of those kittens a few of us had found near a forward operating base in a ditch, abandoned by their mother. Those tiny things had been hesitant at first, but with a little milk and a tender touch had tottered on their little legs after us, always seeking one last pet. We’d given those kittens away to local kids.

“You going to drive me home, or am I going to have to hoof it?” We’d been beating around that bush, and I figured I should just come out and ask.

“I actually live near here.” She gestured to the west of us but I didn’t care where she lived, only that I was hearing her right. “Would you like some coffee?”

Coffee. Shit yeah, I did. “Ordinarily I don’t go home for coffee after a night at the bar but yeah, with you, I’d like that.”

“I’ve never had anyone home for coffee except, well, Will.”

Will, her dead husband and fallen soldier. I pushed that image out of my mind. She was here with me and I still remembered the feeling of her shuddering in my arms. This time I wanted the trembling to happen when I was inside of her. I wanted to feel the shake of her body when I licked her pussy and the clench of her tight channel when I thrust into her. No one else would be there but her and me. “Lead the way,” I said. “I’m thirsty.”

She flushed slightly, waved to her friends and boldly took my hand, leading me down the dark alley with piss poor lighting behind the bar. I took a mental note to mention to Adam tomorrow that his old man needed better, safer lighting for the staff. Sam hit her key fob and the lights to an expensive European SUV blinked on and off.

"Nice wheels,” I said. "You take this off-roading?” This vehicle was more my style than Bo’s tiny sports car would ever be.

“Never," she said. "It was my mom's. I got it when I graduated from high school. It's actually pretty old."

"Still nice."

We chitchatted about cars and she knew surprisingly quite a bit about her own vehicle.

“I can even change my own tires,” she said proudly after I’d teased her about knowing how much horsepower her Rover had.

“That’s impossible,” I mocked. “No girl knows how to do that.”

“Whatever,” she flicked her palm toward me. “My dad taught me because…” She trailed off.

“Because?”

“I’ve been alone for a long time.”

The specter of why she’d been alone formed between us but if she was going to ignore it, then I was too, because I wanted this girl. We’d started something in that hallway and I was too stubborn to give up on whatever she had in mind for me. Plus, I had stuff to show her too. I’d made her those promises and I always, always delivered on my promises.

The trip to Sam’s place took only a few minutes. She wasn’t kidding when she said she lived close. It was one of those old brick factory buildings revitalized into lofts. The lighting here was shit too. I shook my head. Placing my hand at the small of her back, I watched the shadows so she didn’t have to. She might be able to change her tire and recite the horsepower on her Rover, but she didn’t watch out for herself like she should.

“Have you lived here long?” I asked as I followed her up the stairs to the second floor of the building.

“Three years,” she replied. “It’s small but mine.”

I may have preferred taller girls, but there was no denying the shapeliness of Sam’s ass as it moved underneath the cotton of her shorts. I remembered what it felt like in my palm—firm but pliable. I clenched my fingers unconsciously at the memory. I couldn’t wait to take a bite out of it. The upside down heart shape was practically taunting me.

Surreptitiously, I reached inside my own shorts and made a small adjustment so my burgeoning wood wouldn’t scare her or cause me unnecessary pain.

“Here we are,” she murmured, throwing open the door to her apartment. I took a quick look around. There was a lamp lit on the far side of the room and a kitchen to my immediate left. I noted the table and the sofa as the only real furniture in the room. Her bedroom was either somewhere else or she slept on the sofa. “Do you, um, want coffee? I mean a real cup?”

I suppressed a smile at her artlessness. This girl was the farthest thing from a cheating, dishonest base wife. The same protective instincts I’d experienced before when she seemed under verbal assault by the blonde came roaring back. Reaching out, I tucked a few of the loose strands of honey blonde hair behind her ear. “No, what’s right in front of me is more than enough.” I rubbed the pad of my thumb across her lush lower lip.

She closed her eyes and raised her face to mine, and I took the invitation that she offered. Lifting her against me so I wouldn’t have to stoop down, I molded her body against mine. My first kisses were light, to make sure she had time to change her mind, but when she licked her little tongue along my lips, my fire was lit. I’d had aged whisky with my dad that didn’t taste as rich or as heady as she did. When her mouth closed over my tongue and sucked, my eyes rolled back into my head. There were other hot, wet areas of her body, and I ached to put my fingers there, and then my tongue, and then finally my rock hard dick.

“Ahhh,” I moaned against her lips. She released my tongue but fixed her mouth against mine again. The flicks of her tongue against mine had me wondering what that fluttering motion would feel like against my cock. All the blood pooled in my waist as I envisioned her on her knees between my thighs, repeating those same butterfly touches and the same hard suck.

This time when I pulled up her shirt, I grabbed both the T-shirt and her tank underneath. She moaned when my hand made contact with her breast. It wasn’t very big, but the nipple felt like the size of an eraser and saliva pooled in my mouth as I imagined sucking it into my mouth. I shoved up the material and pulled down on her bra in quick jerky movements until I had her plump little breast in my hand. Kneading it, I heard her moan and felt her clutch at my head. I got the hint. Pulling away from her mouth, I lifted her higher with one hand until I could place my mouth around her breast. Through her shorts, I swear I felt the wetness of her arousal. I sucked and she moaned harder, her legs nearly squeezing the breath out of me.

The sofa, I thought, I need to get to the sofa. I stumbled forward, my mouth still latched onto her breast, rolling her stiff nub around my tongue and enjoying the trembling that my ministrations were causing. Holding her, I used the mental map I’d created when I first walked in. The sofa was at ten o’clock. I headed to my left and then cursed when I tripped on something.