But Tom was not easily distracted. “I still can’t believe someone like you is here with me.”
Sameera snorted. “Okay, this is starting to feel like an act. You’re hot, Tom, and you know it.”
His lips widened in a slow smile. “You think I’m hot?”
“You are objectively attractive. If you like that sort of thing,” she grumbled.
An expression of delight suffused his face. “You like that sort of thing,” he said.
“‘Like’ is a strong word,” she started, and then he kissed her.
It was a good kiss. Aside from Hunter, there had been her few boyfriends in high school and college, and the most she could say about them was that whatever their technique lacked in finesse, it more than made up for in enthusiasm. Hunter’s kisses had been better in comparison, but now she realized they had merely been adequate, always a prequel to the main event, not something to be enjoyed and savored on their own.
Tom’s kiss wasn’t like that. His kiss made it clear he had nowhere to go, and nothing in the world that he would rather be doing than to cradle her jaw in his large, rough hands and devour her. When a whimper escaped her mouth, he pulled back to look into her eyes. She pulled him closer, giving him permission to continue, and the kiss became less and so much more—his tongue a little less gentle against hers, his grip on her waist firmer, and then it was messy, their teeth clashing, breathing erratic. When he lifted her onto his lap in one fluid motion, she could feel how badly he wanted her. She made a sound low in her throat that made Tom pull her harder against him, and she nearly cried out from the pure, frustrating bliss of pleasure left unsatisfied.
Her parents and brother were asleep not thirty feet away, and there might be bears in the woods behind them, but none of that mattered because this was the greatest kiss in the history of kisses, and she was pretty sure she would die if he stopped now.
Except he did, pulling back and resting his forehead against hers, his breathing rasping and erratic. His arms were tense around her body.She readjusted on his lap, and a spasm of pain and pleasure crossed Tom’s face.
“What if you regret this? I couldn’t stand it.” His words were an ice bath dousing the raging fire within, and she took a deep, shaky breath, grateful for the pause, for the chance to think. Because, of course, he was right.
She carefully disentangled their limbs and climbed off his lap, her legs jelly. As soon as she put distance between them, her anxieties, temporarily muted by his touch, by his presence, roared back to life. She had ventured into the yard to clear her head and stop thinking about Tom and how much she wanted him. Instead, she had nearly ravished him on the bench by the heat lamp. She couldn’t afford this added complication to her life—no matter how badly her body wanted it. She tried to steady her breathing.
Beside her, Tom leaned forward and put his head in his hands, breath rasping in the cold. “I’m going to regret this in the morning,” he said, voice muffled.
Instantly, her heart bottomed. He didn’t really want her; he had simply been carried away. “I’m sorry. I know kissing me was a mistake—” she started.
He turned to her, and the expression on his face held such longing and hunger, it shut her up immediately. “Not that,” he growled. “Kissing you wasn’t the mistake, Sameera. I’m going to regret stopping.” His look was hot on her face now, lingering on her lips, her throat, before dragging up to her eyes, and she felt heat flood her body, pooling low in her belly. He made a slight, almost involuntary motion toward her, and then stood up abruptly.
“It’s cold,” she said, eyes helplessly drawn to his body and lingering on a few choice parts. The cold was clearly not affecting all of him.
“I feel like I’m on fire,” he said, not looking at her. “Can we talk about something else?”
Sameera’s mind blanked, fixated on his chest, his arms, and how it felt to have his strong hands around her waist, inching higher ... “Tellme how you met Andy,” she blurted. It was the first thing she could think of, and the words had the required effect. He stilled, not quite looking at her.
“Andy. Right. Of course you’re curious about him. Everyone always is,” Tom said, and there was something in his voice, a kernel of resentment, that made Sameera pause. “I already told you Andy was my roommate in college. It was chance and luck that brought us together, though we couldn’t be more different. I went to Georgia to escape my family. He was there to prove something, to himself and to everyone else. While I went to parties and skipped class, he was busy charming profs, making connections, and kicking everyone’s ass in class.”
“It’s so strange that you’re friends,” Sameera said.
“Because he’s so successful, and I’m just the caterer?” Tom asked, and now she could see it—a thread of vulnerability in the question. She should rush to reassure him, to tell him the truth—that what she felt for him now wasn’t because of his proximity to Andy, or because her job was on the line, but because she was falling for him.
But the words wouldn’t come. She was too damaged, and things were too complicated, and the longer she stayed here with her family without the daily grind to distract her, the more she realized that Hunter had messed her up in a fundamental way. She wasn’t sure she would ever recover from those wounds, and it wouldn’t be fair to Tom to deny those hurts existed. She felt cold and shivered, rubbing her arms to stimulate some warmth.
After a loaded pause, Tom continued, though his tone had shifted. “It was weird—my father ran a bunch of businesses in Wolf Run, but Andy’s the one who was born to lead a boardroom. Maybe it’s because he has more to prove. His dad was a high school science teacher, his mom a homemaker, and he was there on scholarship. He wanted to be taken seriously so badly. Actually, I think he just wanted it more than anyone else in our program.”
“Wanted what?” she asked. She felt a bit unsteady. If she tried to stand now, she was sure to stumble. Her mind was a tumble of thoughts,fears, worries, and most of all,hunger.She wanted Tom, desperately. She couldn’t trust it, or herself, especially not right now.
“Everything,” he said, and risked meeting her gaze. They stared at each other for a single, breathless moment before he looked away again, swallowing hard, and continued with some effort. “I don’t think you can achieve the kind of success he has, at the speed he did, without an insatiable appetite. Plus, he has more luck in his pinkie finger than our entire class put together. Everything he touched made money. Including my catering business. I started off just cooking for me and him, and then a few of our friends, and pretty soon our dorm. I was good at it. The kitchen was where I felt like I belonged. He was my first investor.”
“He has great taste,” she said, and he groaned at the pun. She wanted more than his appreciation of her humor, though, and had to wrap her arms more firmly around herself to keep from dragging him back down on the bench. Or climbing him like a tree.Stop,she told herself. This feeling for Tom was nothing but lust, multiplied by time and circumstance. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. There was too much at stake.
“Andy said I was his good luck charm. He had started a few businesses before, but none as popular as mine. I made snacks and meals for busy undergrad and graduate students. I grew so busy, I had to rent out a commercial kitchen a few times a week.” He frowned, remembering a less happy memory. “When I tried to tell my dad about what I had done, he asked me why I was wasting my time cooking when I should be concentrating on my program. As if starting a successful business wasn’t the entire point of going to business school.”
“I’m sorry Rob couldn’t see what you were building. That has more to do with him than you. He probably worried that once you were gone, you wouldn’t come back,” Sameera said softly. “Anything that took you away was a betrayal.”
Tom jerked his head in an affirmative. “Andy lent me my first ten thousand dollars at the end of our sophomore year. He had saved it over the summer, working three jobs and living on ramen. He said it wouldbe better used on my culinary talents than on paying back his student loan.” Tom’s smile was grim. “I doubled the money by the end of the year. I dropped out of school six months later. Dad demanded I return home. I chose door number two instead. I slept on Andy’s couch and grew my business. So, you see, we’re more than roommates or friends. Andy is my brother.”
Tom took a seat beside her, and even now, the chemistry between them pulsed like a live current. The confidences they shared in the dark felt just as delicious.
