LITMIR.BIZ

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of ham-and-cheese sandwich, her favorite. Everyday American cheese, the sort that comes individually wrapped, and sliced boiled ham from a local butcher shop on white bread. He doubted she’d had either while in California. “Oh, this is so good. This ham is from Harry’s, isn’t it? His special wedding ham? It has to be. And we can’t do that, Sam. Make not talking about Teddy a deal breaker and it assures us that someone will bring it all up. Hell, they’ll make a story about how I don’t want to make Teddy a story.”

      “Is this where I ask Why don’t you just tell them all to go screw themselves and walk away? and you say What, and give up showbiz?”

      She smiled around another bite of her sandwich. “I really have missed you, Sam. Even with all this—” she indicated the room, the house, Sam’s whole world, he imagined, with one graceful sweep of her arm “—you’re still the most sane and normal person I’ve ever known. Well, normal multimillionaire anyway, I guess. I, uh, I’m sorry I sort of pushed myself at you there a minute ago. It wasn’t fair of me.”

      “Good. Now do something about that gaping neckline or I might forget how normal and sane I am,” he told her, and she quickly pulled the lapels of the robe together across her magnificent breasts. He got to his feet. “Did you find the clothing I told you about?”

      “I did, yes, and I can take a hint. I’ll finish my sandwich, get dressed and meet you downstairs, all right? Better yet,” she added, putting down the sandwich and getting to her feet, “I’ll go get my clothes and get dressed in another bedroom, because you probably came up here to shower and change into something more—Sam?”

      He’d closed the gap between them before he could think of any good reason not to, and cupped his hands on her shoulders. He began to knead at the hollows beneath her shoulder blades with his thumbs, vaguely aware that the terry cloth was damp, that she must have used the robe in lieu of a towel. More than vaguely aware that the robe was all she wore.

      “Sam…?”

      There had been other women since Jolie. He wasn’t a saint, and she’d been gone for five long years. But none of them had ever been allowed here, in his house, in his bedroom, naked beneath his robe. He’d reconfigured the master bathroom with her in mind, knowing that was insane. But a man without hope might as well just pack it in and start collecting stamps or something.

      “You were wrong a while ago, Jolie. I did miss you enough. For the first year I believed every day that you’d be home again. For the second, I told myself you were just trying to build up the courage to admit you’d been wrong, that Hollywood wasn’t the place for you. And then…and then the movie came out and I knew.You had only a couple dozen lines of pretty lousy dialogue and appeared in only three scenes—I counted. But when you were up there on the screen, nobody else was there, nobody else mattered. You were magnificent. That’s when I knew, Jolie. That’s when I knew you weren’t ever coming home.”

      She lowered her gaze. “I got lucky. I was ready to come home by the end of that second year, my tail between my legs, when that horrible movie came out. Walter put me in his next movie, and I’ve been working steadily ever since. Things…things happen the way they’re supposed to happen. If I’d come home a failure I wouldn’t have been worth anything to anybody, Sam, not to you, not even to myself.”

      As she spoke, he was using his massaging thumbs to slowly push aside the lapels of the robe. “And you did it your way.”

      “Meaning not your way?” She put her palms against his chest and slowly eased them lower until they rested at his waist. “But that’s all over now, Sam. I didn’t take your money, I didn’t take your help. I could sing fairly well, I knew I could dance. I had to know if I could act. I had to, Sam, and I had to do it myself. So I waited tables, I sold shoes, I bagged groceries, asked if people wanted fries with their order. I did it on my own. I somehow finally nabbed that one role in the worst slasher movie ever made and I got lucky. I can’t believe you even saw it. The studio pretty well buried it once they wanted me for the new girl next door.”

      Now it was his turn to avert his eyes. “Somebody mentioned seeing you in the movie. I’ll admit I had to hunt for it.”

      “It nearly went straight to the video stores,” Jolie said, and now her fingers were busy, working at loosening his belt even as he was backing up, backing the both of them toward the bed. “Sam? Are we going to keep talking or is this going anywhere?”

      Sam knew their conversation wasn’t going anywhere near the truth, that was for certain. Not if he could help it. So why didn’t he just let it go where they both wanted it to go?

      His thumbs had done their job, and now his fingers were touching smooth bare skin, even as he felt the back of his thighs touching the heavy footboard of the bed. “Is that your way of saying you’re hungry and you want to finish your sandwich?”

      She looked up at him from beneath her remarkably long lashes. “I am feeling…hungry.”

      He skimmed his fingertips down the front of the robe and found one end of the sash, pulled it. The robe fell open.

      “God,” he whispered, drinking in the sight of her long, achingly perfect body.

      She shrugged her shoulders and the robe dropped to the floor, pooling at her feet, so that she stood there completely nude, completely unashamed, diligently working to open his belt, his button…his zipper. Then, with one swift movement, he was naked from the waist down, his slacks and boxers tangled around his ankles.

      He knew Jolie. He knew her moods, her signals.

      There wasn’t going to be anything gentle about what happened next.

      Sam closed his eyes for a moment, then looked past her, to the expanse of mirrored doors that concealed a small wet bar and entertainment center. He watched, bemused, as he saw his hands go around her back, cup her firm, high buttocks. Watched himself pull her closer, watched as her hands came up to balance herself against his shoulders.

      Watched as, lithe, limber dancer that she was, she bent one leg, gracefully hooked it up and around his waist.

      “Hold me, Sam,” she whispered, nipping at his earlobe as he braced himself against the bed. “Help me.”

      Did he have any choice? His hands still cupping her buttocks, he spread his legs as best he could to support her as she lifted her other leg, wrapped it around his back.

      He couldn’t stop watching the two of them in the mirrors. Even as he licked at the side of her neck, pushed his tongue into the curve behind her ear. Even as she slipped a hand between them. Found him. Helped him. Settled herself around him, over him. Drawing him in. Deeper. Deeper.

      “Yes…yes…Sam, yes.”

      This was need, simple and basic. Animal instinct.

      She wanted to forget. He longed to remember.

      He realized that at this moment in time he had all the control of a teenager unable to master his own raging hormones. He moved into her as she dug her long fingernails into his back. Once, twice, pulling her against him as he thrust, before something inside of him snapped, broke free, and he was convulsing inside of her, spilling himself inside her, giving himself over to her completely, absolutely.

      He selfishly took.

      She selfishly took.

      And then they were on the floor, Sam on his knees, still inside her, still with her wrapped around him like the dancer she was, the two of them breathing fast, saying nothing, for there was nothing to say.

      But there should be something to say, shouldn’t there?

      What in hell had happened? They hadn’t even kissed.

      “Jolie…sweetheart…”

      “No, Sam, don’t. Please don’t. A mistake…this was a mistake. I’m sorry,” she said quickly, just as gracefully disentangling herself as she had wrapped herself around him. She reached for the robe and held it in front of her, searching

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