“That, I can’t wait for.” She cupped my cheek. “Look, just because I’m there, don’t think you have to…” Her gaze fell away. “I mean, I don’t expect to bake brownies with your mom or anything.”

“One, if you bake brownies with my mom, please get her recipe. She’s insanely stingy with it. Second, Samantha, I’m not hiding you. In fact, my parents want all of you to come over for dinner when we get there. You’re a part of my life, and I want them to know you.”

A small family gathering was exactly perfect to introduce her to our madness.

“I’ll wear a longer skirt,” she promised.

“Just be you, Sam. That’s all I need.”

She sat up on my lap and kissed me softly, sweetly. “I’m going to miss you.”

I captured her hand with mine and pressed a kiss to her palm, savoring her indrawn breath. “Same here. Have I ever told you what beautiful hands you have?” Everything was beautiful on her, fingers included.

“You’ll like them better once they’re on you,” she promised, her eyes darkening.

“Anytime you want, Samantha.” Sex wasn’t something we’d really discussed, and our hands had stayed strictly above clothes, although I wasn’t sure how much longer I could keep my hands off her skin without going insane.

“Soon,” she whispered.

“Soon.”

“Hey, you should be at the airport,” I lectured Sam, balancing my phone on my shoulder so I could check my watch.

“We’re pulling into the airport,” she said.

“Good. I just got here to help Jagger unload.”

“I’m glad you got out early today.”

“Me, too.” We’d all been able to catch an earlier flight, which gave me a couple hours to kill before I got my hands on Sam. Almost six days without touching her was killing me.

“Don’t be a dick!” Morgan yelled at Carter as he held the tiny strings of her swimsuit high above his head.

“Wear something that covers more than two percent of your body!”

“Or maybe not…”

Sam laughed. “I can hear them from here.”

Comfortable silence passed while I heard the doors opening and shutting. “I’ll see you in a couple hours?”

“Yeah…” She drew out the word.

“What’s wrong?”

“Hold on a sec.” She put the phone down while she said good-bye to her mom, and then picked it up again. “Sorry. She’s not one for good-byes, so I try to give her an excuse to not look all emotionally unavailable.”

“I’m happy to be your excuse. What’s really bothering you?”

She sighed, and I pictured her lower lip between her teeth. “I was at her welcome-home ceremony, and there was this woman there, balancing a little girl on her hip.”

“Okay.”

“It could just be that homecomings are emotional. Especially for me since Ember’s dad died? It’s probably stupid.” There was a rustling of paper. “Roanoke,” she told the attendant. “Thank you so much.”

“So you were emotional?” I kept at her because if I didn’t, she wasn’t going to offer up the truth.

“Yeah. This mom was maybe a year or two older than I am, but she’d held herself together through a deployment with a kid, and I was lucky to have not ended up a stripper.”

“I’m listening.”

“How freaking long is this line? Security sucks.” I heard flights called through her speaker while she debated, so I waited. “She was the kind of woman you’ll need. Someone who can handle her own crap and shoulder yours, too. Someone who isn’t a giant pain in the ass.”

“You’re not a pain in my ass. In fact, you have a very nice ass.”

“Focus, Grayson. It just hit me. You’re in the army. That means deployments, and PCS moves, and temporary duty assignments, and all the shit that comes with it.”

I clamped down on the panic that was clawing its way up my throat. “Does that bother you?” I waited. “Sam?”

“That’s the thing. It’s everything I’ve sworn up and down that I don’t want in my life. There’s never been a big enough pro to outweigh the cons of that lifestyle for me.” Fuck. “But even when I’m looking at all the cons, it still doesn’t stop me from wanting you, from choosing you. What does that even mean?”

That we’re done dancing around this. That I’m yours as much as you are mine. Fuck, why couldn’t she be here for this conversation? My hands itched to touch her, assure her.

“Just get here, Sam.”

“So we can beat this subject to death?”

“So I can kiss the hell out of you.” My voice dropped an octave.

“That may be worth standing in this line.”

Two hours, and then I had four days to introduce her to my family, my home, and maybe make her realize that I was the only pro she’d ever need on that list. “Oh, it will be, I promise.”

Chapter Fifteen

Grayson

“What do you have in here, an elephant?” I asked Sam as I carried her suitcase up to the third floor of the rented beach house.

“Oh, come on. Like you don’t have the muscles to carry a few pairs of shoes?” she teased, tossing back a flirty grin. The white, wide-brimmed sunhat just about did me in. Or maybe it was the flirty, pale green sundress, or seeing her here in the Outer Banks.