He felt her small palms on his perspiring flesh as he drew deep, calming breaths and he pulled her into the curve of his body, burying his face against her fragrant hair. “That was amazing,” he rasped against her damp hair.
He could get too damn used to this really fast, if he wasn’t very careful.
They lay in a sated heap of tangled arms and legs, with her body lying half across his chest. He lay against the pile of pillows in the center of the bed, grinning wickedly as she ran one slim hand over his chest to toy with his nipple. “You trying to get me hot again?”
“Not necessarily. I’m just enjoying touching you.” Liar. Make love to me again.
“Touching me like that will get you another hour of hot and heavy fooling around, so watch your step,” he growled against her copper hair.
“I like hot and heavy.” She snuggled down against his side and ran her fingertips slowly over his chest and the livid bruise left by the sumo’s elbow. “But I don’t like seeing this, and this.” Her fingers trailed over the puffy swelling on his face, below the butterfly bandage on his eyebrow ridge.
“Hazards of the job.” He shifted his body to a more comfortable position and pulled her tighter against him.
His calm statement made her rise up and point to the black and blue marks on her own ribs, below her breasts, and she frowned. “Well, I’m not in the business, so I don’t enjoy these. And there are lots more than just these.”
David gently pushed her down against the pillows and bent to caress the bruises on her ribs with his mouth and tongue, causing her to bite her lip and close her eyes. “That’s much better.”
His mouth moved over the bruise on her shoulder and brushed the one on her hip. “I gave you this one,” he breathed as he kissed a livid bruise on her side, under the swell of her right breast. “I caught you off balance. Your side hit my shoulder.”
“Serves me right for overreacting. I forgot that it was just a show when that behemoth was about to launch himself onto you from the ropes. I didn’t relish the idea of having to scrape you up with a sponge.”
“You were worried about me?” he asked, grinning down into her flushed face.
“Yeah. Why else would I have attacked a seven-foot, three-hundred-pound monster and knocked his ass off the ropes and into the announcers’ table?” She frowned up at him irritably. “You sure missed a lot of the action while you were down there rolling around the mat with sumo-boy.”
“You knocked him off the ropes? What do you weigh? A hundred five?” His eyes were alight with laughter.
She shoved him back and sat up. “I weigh a hundred and fifteen. And if you wanna know what happened, just watch the tapes. I’m sure you’ll be royally entertained.”
“You sure have one nasty temper.” His grin was enough to start her breathing heavily again. “But I would have loved seeing you dump that fathead on his ass. Unfortunately, I was trying to keep Kuruko from grinding me through the mat at that moment. Now I can see why ’Ruko was trying to throw you over the ropes. When I saw him pick you up, I figured you were toast. He loses his mind when he gets mad.”
“What made him turn around and throw me at you?” she frowned.
“I shouted at him and told him if he hurt you, he was a dead man.” He shrugged.
“Well, then, I have you to thank for my continued existence. I suppose that will cost me a few thousand extra when you get finished taking me to the cleaners.” She bit the corner of her lip at the change in his expression when those words left her mouth and she winced inside.
David tilted his head slightly and breathed, “You think all I want is money?”
She flushed. No. But she couldn’t find any way to back down now. “You threatened to sue Phyllis.”
“So you only flew here to save your friend’s ass from financial ruin?” His eyes were quietly thoughtful. There was no amusement in his expression.
Oops. She was treading on thin ice here. Keep your mouth shut, why dontcha?
“Partly.” She shrugged, hoping he would just forget her thoughtless statement. He didn’t.
“And what part of you, if any, wanted to come to be with me again?” His voice was dangerously soft. She noted the tenseness in those broad shoulders.
Sam pulled the sheet up around her body, suddenly feeling embarrassed. “I wouldn’t have come at all if it hadn’t been for your threat.” It was getting so easy to lie. Every damn part of her had screamed to see him again!
He drew a deep breath and nodded. “So, you falling into the sack with me tonight is just to help out your business manager?”
She was getting in deeper with every word. Her defense mechanisms kicked in, hard. “David, you’re being ridiculous. I didn’t come here to fall into the sack with anyone. I came expecting to negotiate some sort of financial agreement.” Anyway, that’s what she’d told herself.
“So what you’re basically telling me is if I’m willing to let you pay me off with great sex, you’d be willing to stick around for a while?”
She frowned in frustration and shook her head, then started to scoot off the bed but he dragged her backward and she found herself flat on her back again, staring up at him as he easily pinned her to the mattress. Her mouth went dry at the look in his eyes. “You aren’t gonna go all crazy on me, are you?”
“No. I’m gonna make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
“What offer?” Her breath was ragged as his powerful body gently pressed hers into the mattress.
“If money is all that concerns you, let’s get a deal on the table, shall we?”
“Deal?” Her eyes widened in worry. This was deteriorating fast.
“I will agree not to sue you and your good friend, on one condition.”
Sam bit her lower lip, feeling breathless and hot. “And what is that?”
“I own you for the next six months.”
Chapter Seven
Sam stared up into his face, waiting for him to grin and tell her he was just joking. He did neither. She swallowed hard but the knot in her throat didn’t budge. “What exactly do you mean, you’ll ‘own’ me?” She held her breath.
“I mean that you’ll be completely mine for the next six months. You travel with me. You keep me company. You do anything I want you to do, no questions asked. And your pal gets off scot-free.” He didn’t move or blink. A small tic in his jaw was the only sign that he was alive and not some stone statue.
“You expect me to be your…plaything…for six months?” she squeaked.
“If that’s what you want to call yourself, that’s okay by me. I would prefer to call you a close, intimate companion.”
Sam felt dizzy and faint from the inability to draw a good breath of air. “That’s friggin’ extortion!”
“Yep. You might even call it blackmail. But that’s what it’s gonna cost you to keep both you and your pal out of court and off the soup line. Unless you didn’t really mean what you said about paying off whatever I thought you owed me.”
Her heart was pounding. Had the man actually just dropped a six-month offer on the table without even blinking? Six months of hot, lusty, mouth-watering sex? Oh. My. God. And if he had, was she up to it?
Oh yeah. She was so up to it, it scared her. She drew a deep breath and frowned at him thoughtfully.
“And if I agree, what assurance do I have that you will keep your end of the bargain?”
David drew a slow breath. “Are you agreeing?”
Sam closed her eyes and savored the way his hard body molded hers to the mattress. Staying with this man would be no hardship at all. Leaving him afterward would be the real problem. She wriggled to get some blood into her legs and felt the instant reaction in his body.