Scarlet’s breath was labored, erratic. Sam pushed deep into her, aggressively, the way Michael tended to do. It was exhilarating. His pumps were filled with angst and lust. An erotic, powerful combination. One that heightened her arousal.
From the opposite side of the desk, Michael watched. He was hard and wanting her, too. But Sam had his frustration, his irritation, his passion, to take out on her first.
His cock stroked feverishly and he kept his hand at her back, kept her in place so that she couldn’t move. Just had to take what he gave her.
And that was a sensational feeling. Succumbing to him. Absorbing his emotions, his dark need.
“Yes,” she whispered as he pushed her higher. “Fuck me. Come inside me.”
His rugged features were stormy. But as furious as he was, his desire for her seemed to be overriding everything else. Because he could have simply taken what he’d wanted from her and been done with her. He wasn’t just reaching for his own release, though. He clearly needed to spark hers as well.
He thrust wildly, stroking wickedly until Scarlet’s raspy moans echoed around them.
“Make her come,” Michael insisted, his tone tight as he watched his stepbrother thrust into her.
“Yes,” Scarlet pleaded.
Sam’s pumps were short and rapid. Two fingers massaged her clit. Scarlet continued to gaze at him over her shoulder, caught in the hunger, the urgency, exuding from him. He could be mad as hell at her, but she could see he easily got fully, completely caught up in her.
“Scarlet,” he murmured. His expression softened. He removed his hand from her back and instead leaned over her. He kissed her. Sweetly, yet fiercely. And she fell apart for him, the climax flowing through her, making her shudder.
Sam broke the kiss and pressed his forehead to her temple. “Yes,” he whispered. “Oh, fuck, yes.”
She felt the tremors in his legs. Felt him drain himself inside her. Felt the anger lessen.
And very acutely felt their emotional bond strengthening.
He forgives me.
SEVENTEEN
Sam was caged by the fiery sensations Scarlet evoked and the brutal reality that he could fall for this woman.
The fury he’d experienced when she’d pushed his mother to finally put a voice to the abyss she’d been immersed in since starting a relationship with Mitcham had given way to the intensity of Sam’s feelings for Scarlet and the way she’d accepted his anger and literally sapped it from him.
His chest heaved against her back and his cock was still buried inside her. He couldn’t move just yet. Needed to feel her skin on his, needed to keep the physical connection with her.
Being pissed off at her had intensified his desire for her. But there was more to it than that. She’d wanted to steal his rage and he’d needed her to do it. Because even though Sam hated the hell his mother had lived in her mind, Sam knew that she had turned to Mitcham and had received his support—and kept his love. That was all that mattered. That Karina and Mitcham were still solid as a couple.
Sam had to let the morning’s confrontation be a bygone, and Scarlet had helped him to do that.
He kissed her cheek, then planted his hands on the desk and pushed himself up. He withdrew from Scarlet and swept her into his arms.
To Michael, he said, “How about a shower? Might relax us all.”
“Good idea,” his stepbrother concurred.
Scarlet wrapped her arms around Sam’s neck and snuggled close to him. She didn’t say anything and that was fine with him. Having her near him was what was most important to him, he now realized. Sam had been damn close to bypassing this visit to Michael’s apartment and flying back to Montana. As it was, he’d have to make it up to Layton for missing his birthday party. But Sam had recognized that blowing off Michael and Scarlet because he was irritated wasn’t the right way to go.
Michael had been spot-on earlier. What was happening with the three of them couldn’t be swept under the rug. Sam couldn’t walk away from it any more than Michael.
But that didn’t mean it was suddenly an easy-to-remedy situation. There were tenuous nuances and complicated logistics to consider, not to mention the fact that Scarlet had crossed a line at the estate that Mitcham would deem traitorous.
No, neither Sam nor Michael required his approval in this stage of their lives. But they’d become a family regardless of the difficult dynamic that came with the second marriage. Now, when Sam’s mother told her husband that she’d spilled all to Scarlet and the boys … There just might be hell to pay in the form of Mitcham Vandenberg.
Sam carried Scarlet upstairs to Michael’s room and passed through to the enormous bathroom. Michael turned the rain showerhead on and stripped off his clothes as Sam set Scarlet on her feet and divested her of her skirt, shoes, and lingerie. Then he got naked.
Scarlet’s hands skimmed over his chest as she stared up at him and said, “I’m sor—”