Strong (Stage Dive 4.50)

“Then you’d have had Jimmy dragging you off to rehab and offering to be your sponsor.”

“True.” I grimaced. “You were the only one in there today who wasn’t angry at me.”

“About holding on to the bag instead of letting the robber take it?”

“Yes.”

He half-smiled. “Martha, my dear, I was fucking furious. But it was neither the time nor place to get into it with all of the guys gathered around.”

“What do you mean?”

“What I mean is…if you were mine, I’d have turned your ass bright pink for what you did,” he said, all scarily matter of fact. “Thinking a handbag was more important than your life.”

My eyes opened wide in surprise.

“What kind of ridiculous shit is that?”

“Guess I’m not as smart as you thought I was.”

“No. You just don’t know how loved you are,” he corrected, his thumb stroking across my cheek. The man touched me like I was precious. But also like he already owned me and for some reason I didn’t have it in me to disagree. “For a woman with so much pride, Martha, you have a very thin grasp of your own worth.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. Yet what with his hands suddenly grasping my waist and lifting me onto his lap, any attempt at coherency on my part fled the tub completely. Since when exactly did we start sitting on one another?

“At any rate, you and I are going to start doing some self-defense work together,” he announced. “Should anything like it happen again in future, you’ll know how to react. Regardless of what fucking designer handbag you’re carrying.”

“Are you giving me orders?”

“Do you disagree with the idea?”

“Well, no. But you could have asked instead of phrasing it the way you did.”

“I’ll make a note of that for next time. Now,” he said. “I believe you wanted some sort of statement from me as to my intentions.”

“Your intentions?”

Sam lifted the bottle of champagne out of the bucket of ice and topped up my glass. Next his arms wrapped tight around me before any kind of escape could be attempted. The man knew exactly what he was doing. But if ever a man was bound to have a plan, it would be him. “Have a bit more to drink. It’ll make you feel better.”

“I’m fine. Or I was fine where I was. What am I doing sitting on your lap?”

“You never did like being out of control of a situation.”

“Stop acting as if you know what’s going on in my head all the time. You don’t!”

He chuckled, the sound and the vibration of his s

trong chest against my side much too pleasant. “Considering I’ve been waiting for you for almost a decade, I think I’ve got a pretty good understanding of what goes in that gorgeous head of yours.”

“Almost a decade?”

“Mm-hmm.” He took a drink from my glass, wrinkling his nose at the taste. “No, I definitely don’t think that champagne’s going to grow on me anytime soon. Anyway, where was I?”

“Almost a decade…”

“Right. So—”

“That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is.”