"I heard everybody comes to Rick's, sweetheart. Is that why you left the door open for me?"
"Maybe I'm just a sucker for a man who gets all wild and furry at the right times."
"Sounds promising. Does this mean you're speaking to me again?"
Instead of answering, she whistled.
Nic laughed. Bending over, he unlaced his boots. He now realized Sam loved him, and that he'd been a fool not to see it sooner. She was a one-man woman, and wolves mated for life. Sam was his, would always be his, and he couldn't think of anything better than to go to bed and wake each morning beside her. They had decades to make love with their whole hearts, bodies and souls. They would share the moonlight, shadows and laughter, and spend many nights chasing ghosts together. He would always delight in this tough-talking, hard-driven woman, with her heart of pure gold and a passion to match his own insatiable hunger.
"I'm looking for a certain dame who drives me crazy. She's been on the lam, but I got her cornered in the Casablanca Bar."
Sam arched a brow. He sounded just like Uncle Myles. "Jeez, Nic—either you've been watching a Bogart movie marathon, or the Hammett craziness is infectious. But then, you did compare me to a disease once."
"One I've caught for life."
Plopping a statue of a black bird down beside her on the piano bench, he grinned. Forcing his lust to take a backseat, he tried not to breathe in the scent of her, since he wanted to go slow. It wasn't everyday a werewolf got to propose to his true love. She deserved flowers and candy; she was getting a black bird for her uncle—and of course a naked werewolf to love her for eternity.
He drew in a deep breath, trying to gain control of his raging hormones. The deep breath made it worse as the scent of her drove him wild.
"For your Uncle Myles," he said, his voice raspy. Before he jumped her bones he was going to make his marriage proposal, his declaration of love. He would hear Sam's own avowal that she was his for forever and a day.
Cocking her head, Sam studied the black bird. "He looks like a crow rather than a Maltese Falcon. But a gift's a gift, and my uncle's never one to look a gift in the mouth, or a wolf, either."
"Smart man. Too bad his niece isn't as smart," Nic replied.
Staring up at him from her piano bench, Sam devoured Nic with her eyes, "How do you mean?" He was dressed in jeans and a green flannel shirt. His eyes were glowing gray, and his expression was smug.
"Because she didn't answer my calls, and she's been gone three days, sixteen hours and twenty-two minutes. And I missed her like hell," he replied. He began to unbutton his shirt, slipping out of his unlaced boots at the same time. Sam watched with interest as his muscular chest came into view.
"Three days, sixteen hours and thirty-three minutes buster," she said at last, her blue eyes alight with love and humor. "I'm counting too."
He slung his shirt over the back of a bar chair. "I'm glad. Maybe you aren't just another pretty broad."
As he unsnapped his Levi's, he stepped closer, taking her breath. "At first I didn't get why you pulled away in New York, then I finally got it through my thick skull that I hadn't said the thing that women love to hear. A certain phrase that I have never said to any female besides my immediate family."
"Oh, and what's that?" Sam already knew, but she'd been waiting for weeks to hear these words.
She would play her cards close to her chest for a few minutes longer, then she'd kiss silly the half-naked man standing before her.
"I love you, Sam Hammett," he said. He delivered the statement without fireworks, without a marching band or Ravel's Bolero. He stated it as if it were a simple fact of life, and she loved him for that absolute certainty.
"I want you to be my mate for life. I want you to bear my children—our cubs."
"Far be it from me to spoil your breeding plans, but is this a marriage proposal?" Sam asked.
"Only if you love me back." Nic dropped his jeans next to his discarded shirt, standing clad only in his underwear.
Sam tried to keep her drooling to a minimum. "Yes, I love you—warts, fangs, fur and all. I love you with everything I am and everything I can be." She'd got a taste of the brass ring, won her American dream and her Russian werewolf. They now had a lifetime together, and the feeling was so remarkable that her eyes began to water with unbound bliss. A single tear slid down her check.
Noting it, Nic was deeply touched. "I thought you said crying was for wimps?" he teased her gently.
Sam shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for a romantic ending."
Throwing his boxer shorts aside, Nic leapt onto the piano, settling his bare butt against the smooth grain, his legs on either side of Sam's shoulders. "Pete's missed you something fierce," he said.
"I can see that," she managed to say, her mouth dry as her eyes widened in stunned fascination. Passion rushed through her in crashing waves as she sat eye to eye with her good friend Pete, who was up and rearing to go. He looked more than a little happy to see her, flush as he was with pleasure.
"My, my, Mr. Strakhov, I never thought to see you sitting naked as a jaybird on a piano top. I thought that would be beneath your dignity, the dignity of Monsters-R-Us." Sam tore her eyes away from Nic's powerful erection and finished her sentence staring into his beautiful gray eyes, which were filled with love, lust and amusement.
"The only thing beneath me is you," he said, giving her a wicked grin. "Got it, my competitor, my love?"
Sam didn't need any help to get Nic's thrust, which was generally in the direction of her heart—or soon would be. But she was happy to help him drive the point home.
"Oh yeah," she said, her mouth going dry, her thighs humming with anticipation. Her heart ached with a love that was gloriously, finally returned. "This chess match is over." She leaned over and took him in her mouth.
"Then let's play it again, Sam," Nic rasped. "Forever."