A Kiss in the Dark (Sam and Rick #2)

Chapter 3

3

Tuesday, 7:35 p.m.

“U ncle Rick, when is Sam coming back?” Olivia Donner asked, bouncing out the front door of Tom’s house to greet him. “She said she would show me how to booby trap my room so Michael can’t come in.”

“No booby traps in the house,” Tom countered as he traipsed by, barefoot, to toss a plastic bag into a trash can. “Has she landed yet?”

“Yes. She’s on her way to the hotel.” A few years ago, Richard would have swung Olivia up in his arms, but she was ten now, and so he offered her a hand. Her small fingers closed around his, and he allowed her to tow him into the house.

“I still need to know when she’s coming back,” Olivia insisted, her voice now a conspiratorial whisper.

Clearly the “no boobytrap” rule was going to be broken, regardless of what Tom ordered. “A day or two. If it’s longer than that, I’ll make sure she calls you.”

“Yes, do that, please, because Michael is not respecting my space.”

Michael was her fifteen-year-old brother, and while Rick doubted the lad would find much of what filled his sister’s room worthy of his attention, the kids did tend to prank each other—more so since Samantha had come into their lives. “You have my word.”

“Thank you. And mom said not to say anything, but just between us, do you think Sam needs any more bridesmaids?”

“I am not qualified or authorized to answer that question, Olivia.” Especially when, as far as he knew, Samantha had yet to ask anyone to be in the wedding. He imagined Katie Donner would be her maid of honor, because Samantha had never mentioned a long-term female friend. That actually troubled him a little; she did have friends, but they were mostly male, and most of those were from her tricky, troublesome past.

“I told you not to ask,” Katie said, handing him a bowl of sliced watermelon and angling her head toward the back yard. “Sam and Rick may decide not to have a ceremony at all. We don’t know, and it’s none of our business, is it, Livi?”

“No, it’s none of our business. But I still want to know. I’ve been a flower girl before, when I was younger, but I’ve never been a bridesmaid.”

“Livi. Enough.”

The ten-year-old sucked in her breath. “Fine. Can we at least do s’mores later?”

“Yes.”

“Only in ten-year-old world is being a bridesmaid equal in importance to a s’more,” Katie commented, following Rick outside as Olivia ran off to find marshmallows.

“It might be similar in Samantha world, actually,” Rick returned with a grin. “I’m not certain.”

“Speaking of which, New York? Are you going to sell Solano Dorado?”

They’d set the large table on the upper deck with paper plates and plastic forks. Clearly, she’d been preparing for the dinner tonight for days, and then he and Samantha had messed it all up. Yes, he’d come, but these days Uncle Rick wasn’t the big draw for the Donner family. No, that honor fell to Aunt Samantha. It was good for her, and she’d already admitted that the Donners were the nearest to normal she’d ever strayed, but both of them needed to remember that not everyone else’s lives were as changeable as theirs.

“We’re just considering some ideas right now,” he said aloud. “Logistics and opinions and options and such.”

“Well, in my opinion, the school year just started.”

“Is that your only objection? Waiting until summer is rather…doable.”

“That’s just the first thing that came to mind. Give me time.”

“That’s the idea.” He set the watermelon in the center of the table, beside the hamburger buns and the potato salad. “I’m sorry again that Samantha had to change her plans. She wants to make it up to you.”

“She already called me. I’m considering making the two of you take Olivia and Michael to Disneyworld as compensation. For a weekend.”

“Ah.”

Tom patted him on the shoulder. “That’d be a good test, to see if you and Jellicoe want to reproduce.”

For the first time since she’d called him at Tom’s office, Rick was glad Samantha wasn’t there. As skittish as she was about the wedding, he couldn’t imagine how she would react to the idea of children. Babies. Hell, he wasn’t sure how he would react. “One thing at a time,” he commented, since Tom no doubt expected a response. Or for him to flee in terror.

Katie laughed. “I doubt teenagers could induce anyone to want to have children. They’re barely human. I just want a weekend off.”

“Done,” Rick said. Even if he had to buy Disneyworld.

“And our friends!” Michael added from over by the barbecue. “Dad, should I flip ‘em?”

“Let me take a look.” Tom handed Rick a bottle of beer and strolled over to the smoking barbecue.

“Don’t let him scare you,” Katie said. “Having babies is much easier than having teenagers.”

“I’m not scared.” For God’s sake, he negotiated deals worth millions for breakfast. “I just haven’t spent a great deal of time thinking about it. The last year has been rather…eventful.”

“You can say that again. And from what Tom told me about Scotland, your getaway there wasn’t precisely peaceful, either.”

“True, but it wasn’t boring, either.”

She tilted her head, her straight blond hair cut like a heart around her face. “Can I say something to you without you getting overly British about it?”

Rick smiled. “You can try.”

“I’ve known you what, twelve years now? Through buying businesses and bachelorhood and Patricia and divorce and now Sam. Your life has been…busy, and successful, but, well, this is the happiest I’ve seen you. Honestly, it is.”

“I feel happier,” he admitted. “And I think we both know who I can thank for it. She’s a whirlwind, a tornado, and my serenity, all at the same time. I’ve never…” Rick cleared his throat. He wasn’t one for waxing poetic, and other than a quiet moment or two with Samantha, Katie was the only other human in the world with whom he would share those sentiments. “When I met and married Patricia, I was fond of her, and we had—for the moment—a mutually beneficial relationship. I discounted ever feeling head over heels about anything, and yet here I am. Giddy.”

She grinned. “Giddy suits you.”

He wasn’t entirely certain about that. Giddy meant gale-force winds whipping him about, and he’d built his business empire based on logical, solid, reliable footing. Having his personal life be the exact opposite was terrifying, but he couldn’t deny that it was also damned thrilling. Perhaps he was becoming an adrenaline junkie just like Samantha.

His phone rang in its one generic tone, and he pulled it from his pocket. Samantha had different ringtones and text tones for everyone who knew her number, but he wasn’t going to have “Lady” or “I Will Always Love You” or “When a Man Loves a Woman” sounding from his pocket while he was in the middle of tearing some company into pieces and selling off the remains. Aside from potentially weakening his position, he had no idea which love song would be…hip enough for him to use, anyway.

All he needed was to see “Samantha” pop up on the screen, anyway. “Hi,” he said, standing to walk to the far corner of the large yard. “Are you at the hotel?”

“I am,” her voice came back. “In room 212 of the Manhattan, despite the front desk woman trying to wrangle me into the top floor suite. Something about me knowing the owner of the place.”

“The suite has the nicest view,” Richard grumbled.

“Mm-hmm. Then they made me wait for twenty minutes while my new digs were being cleaned, or so they said, you sly guy.” She cleared her throat. “Or at least I assume you’re the one who called ahead to ask them to fill the mini fridge with Diet Cokes and Hershey Bars?”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh, and the fifty thousand roses covering every shelf and table. That’s totes romantic, but you’ve already got me, Brit. You don’t have to work that hard.”

Rick grinned. “While I might agree that the fifty roses—not fifty thousand—might have been excessive, not even you can stop me from making the gesture.”

“Was Katie upset that we had to reschedule the barbecue?”

For a half second or so Rick considered lying to her. Samantha didn’t like upsetting the “normals”—as she termed those who’d never lived a life of crime and mayhem. On the other hand, without honesty between the two of them, by the time he realized how far off-kilter they were, one of them could be in prison. “I was about to cancel,” he said, lowering his voice a little, “but then Tom started talking about how long it takes to make a potato salad and how Michael had asked to be the one to grill the burgers, so…”

“OMG, you’re there now, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Keep your voice down, then. I do not want to be blamed for trying to prevent grilling and potato salad.”

“Never fear. I made certain they knew how cranky you were at having to miss this. We’ve been tasked with taking Michael and Olivia and their friends to Disneyworld as compensation.”

“Ooh, we could fly there in the helicopter. They would get so many fire points.”

“‘Fire’ points?”

“Didn’t you know? Good things are fire, now. But don’t worry about trying to figure out how to use it. It’ll probably be as uncool as ‘groovy’ by the time I get back home.”

“Noted. And yes, your apology has been accepted by all.”

The responding silence on her end abruptly had him worried, and he reviewed their conversation in his head. Rick didn’t think he’d said anything to set her Spidey sense—as she called it—tingling, but her mind bore a striking resemblance to quicksilver and he frequently found himself trying to catch up to her thought process.

“Samantha?”

“I do miss it. I miss the barbecue. And the potato salad. And the Donners. Which is weird. We see them all the time. Am I domestic, now?”

Thank God . “Perhaps. My opinion depends on whether you miss me or not.”

“Ask me how many days you and I haven’t slept in the same bed over the past year.”

Just the question had him thinking about sweaty, naked nights and the taste of her skin. He took a breath, reminding himself that he was at a family barbecue and wearing a rather snug pair of jeans. “How many?”

“Five. This makes six. So yeah, I miss you.”

“Burgers are ready!” Michael yelled, clanging the metal tongs against the grill lid.

“I heard that,” Samantha said. “Go eat. Tell Michael how yummy his burgers are. And compliment Katie on the potato salad.”

“Will do. And I’ll tell them again that you wish you were here. I love you.”

“Love you back. Bye.”

“Bye.”

He clicked the phone off. Before and after his ex-wife Patricia, he’d played about, dating an actress here and a model there, but none of them, including Patricia, had ever grabbed hold of him the way Samantha Jellicoe had. And did, every bloody day.

“Uncle Rick, your burger’s getting well done,” Michael called, the boy and the barbecue surrounded by swirling, meat-scented smoke.

“Thanks,” he said, scooping up a plate and bun. With his free hand he texted Jack Abernathy, letting his pilot know that he wanted to be in the air by midnight.

“Whatcha doin’?” Tom drawled, lifting an eyebrow as he passed over the mustard. “Did Jellicoe get arrested or something?”

“Why would Aunt Sam get arrested?” Olivia demanded, her eyes widening. “Did you rat her out, Dad?”

Tom scowled, obviously not liking being turned into the bad guy in this scenario. “No, I didn’t rat her out. I was just joking, Livi.”

“Well, I don’t like it. I think that a long time ago Aunt Sam might have done some things that…” She leaned forward. “That the po-po might not like,” Olivia continued in a whisper.

“‘Po-po?’ Where the—where did that come from?”

“From Ant-Man and the Wasp , Dad. That’s what Peanut—her real name is Cassie—says.”

“Her real name isn’t Cassie,” Michael cut in. “She’s an actress.”

“I know that, Michael. I meant her real name in the movie. But that reminds me, Uncle Rick. Do you think I should be Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel or Scarlet Witch or Black Panther for Halloween?”

Richard glanced at Olivia’s parents, but one was avoiding his gaze and the other one seemed to find the whole conversation hilarious. “Which one do you like the best?” he asked, checking as his phone vibrated. Good. With any luck he should be in New York by three in the morning.

“Probably either Wonder Woman or Captain Marvel. I mean, I like Wonder Woman because she’s one of the warriors of Themyscira, and they’re the Amazons. But I like Captain Marvel because she’s a good pilot and she helps the whole universe.”

“And she knows Spider-Man, and Livi has a crush on Tom Holland.”

“Michael! Shut up! You have a crush on the Hulk!”

“I do not! I like Harley Quinn.”

Using every ounce of his straight-faced negotiating skills, Rick put up a hand. “Wonder Woman is a goddess, right? I think maybe the woman who wasn’t born special but accidentally absorbed the power of one of the Infinity Stones might be more heroic.”

“Well, look at you.” Katie didn’t bother hiding her grin. “Sam really has gotten to you, hasn’t she?”

He shrugged. “She likes the Marvel movies. Nearly as much as she likes Godzilla.” The things she liked, he learned about. It was as simple as that.

“Are you sure she isn’t arrested?” Olivia pressed. “I could help bail her out.”

“You know far too much about the legal system for a ten-year-old,” Tom commented with a mock frown. “Since Jellicoe isn’t arrested, how’s she doing in New York?”

“Fine. Her meeting’s in the morning. And I’ll need you to shift the meeting with Rohrbach to next week.”

The lawyer thudded his fist on the picnic table. “I knew it. You’re flying to New York. Is she in trouble?”

“No. Sotheby’s is preparing an exhibition and auction. I’m an art and antique collector. If I have someone on the inside who can get me a preview of items, I’m going to make use of it.” There. That explanation didn’t make him sound like a lovesick puppy.

“Mm-hmm. Do you have time for dessert? Sour cream blueberry pie.”

“I do. I may even have time for a round of Pictionary.”

“Uncle Rick’s on my team!” Olivia bellowed, holding out a fist for him to bump. “We’re the Avengers. Earth’s mightiest heroes. You’re Iron Man, because you have lots of money and fire cars.”

“Fire” was still in for the moment, then. Yes, normal was important, for both him and Samantha. Without the Donners, his most frequent human contact would be with high-powered businessmen and investors and attorneys. For Samantha it would be her fence and surrogate father Walter Barstone, the almost-magically helpful Aubrey Pendleton, and God knew how many underworld figures of infamy and renown. And so he played Pictionary and got lambasted for drawing a dinosaur with X’s in its eyes to represent the word “extinct.” It made a great damned deal of sense, in his opinion.

And then he went home, packed an overnight case, and had Reinaldo drive him to the airport. Because while they’d spent nights—five of them, evidently—separately before now, and while Samantha certainly could manage on her own, he missed her. And he didn’t like the feeling.

* * *

Samantha crouched, using the massive air conditioning unit on the roof to keep her in shadow. New York City could be tricky, with nearly every square inch lit up twenty-four seven and covered by somebody’s camera. Roofs with lots of machinery were good, because other than the occasional piece of copper there wasn’t much to be stolen, and the machinery and pipes and conduits created heat to fuck up infrared drone scanners and at the same time made for lots of hiding places.

The police helicopter crossing overhead continued on its way, and she leaned forward onto her fingertips again. The building across the street was half the size of the one on which she perched, so she had a pretty good view of the roof and the west and south sides. Lots of windows with cute mini sills breaking the flat surface of the walls, a Juliet balcony about three stories up on the back center, and a peaked, Victorian-style roof with a wrought-iron widows walk.

She’d driven by the front side already, twice, and it looked a lot like an oversize Victorian house set in the middle of some expensive apartment buildings, a museum, and a couple of fairly exclusive office buildings. Extra wide, heavy-duty doors marked the rear entrance, and the front had both steps and a wheelchair ramp. A covered front porch boasted a couple of chairs, but anyone sitting there wouldn’t have had much of a view.

Nope, it wasn’t anybody’s house. Not any longer, anyway. Now it made for three stories of prime exhibit space, a perfect place for paintings and jewelry and small sculptures meant for a select number of viewers in a place that could encourage them to imagine the items displayed in their own home. And it happened to be only four blocks from Sotheby’s, which made it pretty convenient, too.

She used to love places like this. Tons of windows, security put in well after the building itself had been built, valuables out in plain view on pedestals not meant for a domestic setting, rooms not wired for anything but motion, paintings set on hooks and not bolted to the walls—it was like a cat burglar buffet.

Her pocket vibrated. “Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked, as Rick’s name popped up on her phone’s display. “It’s late.”

“Why aren’t you in your hotel room?” he returned crisply.

Samantha straightened, stomping her feet to get the blood flowing back into her legs. “Why are you calling the room instead of my phone?” she countered, pulling the ski cap she wore down over her face, stepping through the roof door, and picking up the four-foot length of pipe she’d used to prop it open.

“I didn’t.”

“Then how do you know I’m not in the room? I know the Manhattan is your hotel, but if you have people spying on me, we’re going to have to have a chat.” As she descended to the fourth floor she left the stairwell, turning off the lights behind her and relocking the door.

“Don’t turn this on me. Where are you?”

“I’m looking at the building where the exhibit’s being set up. I have a meeting about it tomorrow.” In the small corner office, she locked herself in, walked over to the open window, and ducked out onto the fire escape. Shutting the window again, Samantha removed the flattened sheet of foil she’d used to bypass the alarm and pocketed it, then hiked down the steep stairs, climbed down the escape ladder, and shoved it back up into place with the pipe before she tossed that into the alleyway dumpster.

“Alone? At night. In the middle of the city.”

She pocketed the ski mask and replaced it with her black baseball cap. “I wore my big girl panties. Why are you spying on me? I thought we had this trust thing figured out.”

“I’m not spying on you. I’m…here.”

Samantha nearly tripped over a crack in the sidewalk, which would have gotten her double bad luck points. “What?”

“I just figured…Well, it doesn’t matter now. Where are you? I’ll send a car.”

Accelerating into a trot, Samantha turned the corner and headed up toward Lexington. “I’m hailing a cab now,” she said, lifting a hand as one turned the corner ahead of her. “I’ll be back in ten. And you’d better be ready to explain what’s going on, because eight hours ago we had an agreement and you were being supportive in Florida, Brit.” Before he could respond to that in his low, sexy voice with his suave, sexy accent, she clicked off the call and pocketed her phone again.

Dammit, dammit, dammit . Whatever this was, it had better be good. Because leaving in the first place had been way harder than it should have been. Rick Addison tailing her to all of her meetings would not only be too distracting for everyone concerned, but it would totally knock her own legitimacy on its ass in favor of his. And she didn’t want to use his.

“Where to?” the cabby asked, glancing at her in the rearview mirror.

“The Manhattan Hotel.”

“Okay.”

Settling her baseball cap lower over her eyes, she sat back. The news droned quietly from the seat-back TV, but she ignored it in favor of the city lights. This wasn’t the first time Rick had tried to manage her, if that was what this was. His psyche tended toward macho, so he might have flown up from Palm Beach to protect her from big bad New York—and that wouldn’t work, either. For fuck’s sake, she knew how to be on her own, and for her that hadn’t meant making her own dinner. It had meant climbing up the outside of buildings and breaking in to steal things.

She paid off the cabbie in cash, because she still disliked leaving a trail even if she did have a credit card with no spending limit. After she sent a wave to the concierge, she headed for the elevator, tapped her card at the reader and hit the second floor button.

When the doors opened, she stepped into a short hallway and headed left. Five doors down Samantha stopped, sliding the card again and pushing open the door.

She stopped just inside the room. Barry White purred through the speakers in all three rooms, while the lingering scent of the roses mixed with the softer, cookie-dough scent of vanilla candles. Abrupt amusement pushed at her, and she shoved it away as best she could. This was serious. Damn serious. “Barry White? Really?”

Rick stepped into the bedroom doorway. He’d put on one of the hotel’s plush white robes, and even with it belted around his waist she was fairly certain he didn’t have anything else on under it. Twiddling a rose in his fingers, he leaned sideways against the doorframe. “Hey.”

God, he was gorgeous. “Hey.”

“This is not a checking-up-on-Samantha visit, Samantha. This, quite simply, is a booty call.”

Determined to keep her gaze from wandering down his hard, toned, terry cloth clad body, she planted her hands on her hips. “Seriously.”

“I played Pictionary. On Olivia’s team.”

“And that made you horny enough to fly a thousand miles in the middle of the night?”

The slight smile on his face remained, though she would have been willing to bet that he wasn’t amused. Rick wasn’t used to being questioned, and even if he’d probably come to expect it from her, he couldn’t possibly like it. “I’m wealthy,” he said in his cultured British prep-school drawl. “I can work from practically anywhere in the world that has internet. And when I spoke to you on the phone, I realized I missed you. It’s as simple as that.”

She weighed that for a minute, along with the fact that when she’d heard him talking about being at the Donners’ and eating burgers, she’d felt…what, homesick? Her ? It didn’t make much sense, but she didn’t know how else to explain it. “You’re not worried I’m planning some Italian Job heist or something, then.”

“No, I am not. Or I wasn’t, until you said that.”

Trust. She was learning—slowly—to trust. And while Rick had several times neglected to tell her something, he hadn’t lied to her yet. Samantha tossed her black gloves onto the chair by the window. “Whatcha got on under that robe?”

“Not a bloody thing.”

“So what was the original plan?” Sitting beside the gloves on the edge of the chair, she untied her shoes and kicked them off. Planning a job, even if it was just to figure out how to prevent someone else from breaking in somewhere, generally got her adrenaline going. Tonight, she’d figured to call down for a big tub of strawberry ice cream and watch Marvel movies until she passed out. Rick sex was a much better idea. “You sneak in here, undress, and just slide into bed with me?”

Rick walked toward her, unknotting the ties of the belt as he approached. “Given that I have yet to sneak up on you, I took the room directly across from this one, changed into this, and then planned to stroll in here with a rose between my teeth.”

A grin pulled at her mouth. “You are a damned magnificent bastard.”

“Hm. I’ll ignore the fact that you just disparaged my ancestry.”

He cupped her face in his hands, leaning down to kiss her. God, she loved him. Every so often when she considered her odds of successfully avoiding arrest until after all the statutes of limitation had run out, when she thought about spending the next twenty years in prison because she’d relocated a Monet or two—or eight—back in the day, it wasn’t about missing her freedom any longer. It was about not having the man standing in front of her, in her life.

Samantha slid her hands up his bare, muscular chest, shoving the robe off as she went. When she stood up, he immediately went to work unfastening her jeans, while she kissed his jaw and throat, inhaling that very expensive aftershave of his that somehow conjured images of green fields and horseback riding and nights by a cozy fire. She’d have to ask what it was called. “Virile English Lord” or something, probably.

As he lifted the front of her black T-shirt, he ran his palms up her bare skin to cup his hands over her breasts. She didn’t need to look down to know that he wasn’t faking wanting her, or that sex had been the most convenient excuse for him showing up to check on what she was doing.

Quickly she reached around to unfasten her cute purple bra and shrugged out of it and her shirt at the same time. “Okay, maybe I missed you,” she murmured, sliding her arms around his neck, skin to skin.

“Good.” Rick kissed her again, hot and open-mouthed, before he squatted down, yanked down her pants and purple underwear, and straightened again to scoop her up into his arms.

As accustomed as she was to standing on her own two feet, there was something totally arousing about this guy, who could lift her off hers. With a laugh she wrapped her hands around his shoulders, dragging him down onto the bed when he dropped her there.

Samantha wrapped her legs around his hips as he pushed into her, her throaty sigh mixing with his groan of satisfaction. He might have still been a little miffed with her for not being where he expected, but as he pumped into her again and again, she was okay with that. God, yeah, she was okay with that. The bed rocked, picking up a high-pitched, rhythmic squeak in time with their motion. The muscles across her abdomen tightened, and she leaned up to kiss him as she came in a delicious spasm.

With a grunt Rick shoved into her, lowering his head to suck on her tits as he climaxed, too. Samantha lay back again, breathing hard and tangling her fingers into his dark hair. “Now that is how I like to end a day,” she panted.

“You and me both.” Rick twisted them so that they lay side by side, facing each other. “So, you were casing the exhibit space?”

“I looked at it on Google, but I wanted to scope it out before my meeting tomorrow.”

“And how secure is it?”

Samantha squinted one eye. “As it is right now? I could have gotten in with a screwdriver and made it out with as much as I could carry.”

He brushed his fingers through her hair, making her shiver. “That’s not good.”

“Nope. Hence Anne Hughes needing me. I think I can lock it down, for a couple of weeks, anyway. If it was permanent that would be a whole different and way more expensive conversation, but it’s not permanent.”

“Even given your expertise, I still wish you would take someone with you when you go about climbing tall buildings in the middle of the night. You aren’t bulletproof.”

“Neither are you,” she retorted. “And if you’re insinuating that you’re the one who should be going with me, you getting killed would wreck the stock market and a bunch of peoples’ incomes. Plus, I’d feel bad. So, nope.” She smiled a little, trying to keep from enraging his masculine sense of whatever it was that made him think he had to be the one in charge of protecting everyone else. “You have better things to do than climb rusty ladders with me, anyway.”

“More useful, yes. Better, not necessarily. And you’re avoiding my point. You shouldn’t go alone. You aren’t a solo enterprise any longer, my dear.”

Well, that was true. In the old days, after she’d decided her dad was getting too reckless and taking too many risks and she’d ended their partnership, it had been just her. Stoney getting her jobs to liberate items, and her going out and doing it. She’d been so under the radar that if she fell off a building nobody but Stoney would probably even have known that the splat on the sidewalk had once been a world-class cat burglar. “I’m still not taking my boyfriend out scoping buildings with me.”

“Your fiancé, Samantha. Soon-to-be husband.” He eyed her. “I suppose the alternative would be that you go in the daytime and have one of your employees join you.”

At least he hadn’t said that the alternative was that she not go at all. That would have ticked her off. “If it didn’t make you think I would use the opportunity to be training some padawan to join the Dark Side, I can work with taking one of my guys along. Mostly. I think a couple of them might actually be reformed.”

“Safety can be very tempting, I imagine.”

“Kymo told me this morning that thanks to Jellicoe Security, he’s never going to have to explain to his daughters why daddy’s in prison. I like that.” She stretched. “It feels good.”

Rick kissed her. “You’re being very amenable tonight.”

“Well, you gave me the good sex.”

Putting his arms around her, he pulled her up against him. “I always give you the good sex.”

Samantha laughed. “Just keep that up, then.”