“I’m fine,” she told Scott. “I was pretty invested in winning, but you have to be to stand a chance. It’s never a done deal. Travis impressed the judges more.”
“You should have won.”
He sounded so resolute, she smiled. “Thanks. I wanted to. Fadeout could have turned things around for the Silver Daughters.”
“You’re still in the ballot, though. The emcee said it’d be drawn this week.”
“Yeah, but there’s fifty other artists in there, too. I don’t like the odds.”
“You’ll get it. I can tell.”
“Become clairvoyant since we last knew each other, Galahad?”
Scott’s expression remained solemn. “You deserve to be there. All you need is a chance and everything else will take care of itself.”
For a moment they stared at one another before looking away. Sam was grateful for the darkness, concealing the burn of her cheeks.
Is that what this is? Am I a chance you’re taking?
She couldn’t ask, though. Too much risk, not enough energy to handle the answer if it was no, if he’d just been roped into one of Tabby’s schemes. Out of any context, this Scott Sanderson was just a nice, handsome guy and she just wanted to go somewhere with a nice, handsome guy.
“I hope you’re right,” she said as they walked into the car park. “Otherwise I might have to start tattooing the Australian flag on xenophobes.”
“We wouldn’t want that.” His serious expression cracked as he gave her a wide, lovely smile. “So, where are we headed, Samantha?”
Oh, but how she liked the way he said her name, all three syllables of it in his crisp British voice.
“Anywhere but Trippy Taco.” Sam looked around. “Which one is your car?”
“Oh, right, sorry.” He pulled his keys from his pocket and the headlights flashed on an ink-black BMW.
“Nice,” Sam said, surprised as always to discover people actually owned luxury vehicles.
“Thank you.” Scott walked around the car and opened the passenger door. “After you?”
She shouldn’t have been surprised about the Beemer. Scott looked so natural standing beside his fancy car in his fancy suit, showing the subtle, glossy wealth Aaron and now her sister were practicing to attain. “It’s fine if you don’t want a lift,” Scott said. “We can walk or catch a c-c-cab—shit!”
“Galahad, it’s fine,” Sam said, a little unnerved.
He turned away, shaking his head. “I swear to Christ I never normally stutter. You don’t know how f-f-frustrating it is.”
From his fierce reaction, Sam believed him—it wasn’t typical, or at least it hadn’t been. She thought of the little boy at her window and her chest gave a tight spasm. “I want to get in. I was just thinking about Nicole’s fiancé, he’s always wanted a car like this.”
Scott took a deep breath, clearly trying to get himself back under control. “You don’t like him, I take it?”
“No. He’s a fucking toolbox.”
Scott laughed, throwing his head back so she could see the perfect angle of his jaw. She stared at it trying to manually slow the rapid pulsations of her heart. It didn’t work. She walked toward the BMW and climbed in. She settled into the seats, smelling leather and new car, cologne and a faint trace of laundry detergent.
Her ex-neighbor climbed in beside her and she smiled. She’d always liked riding in cars with boys, driving around listening to music, parking to make out on a hill. She had always been allowed to bring boyfriends home, but sometimes, just for the thrill of it she’d say she wasn’t, just so she and her date could stay on the street kissing where anyone could see her.
You mean where Scott Sanderson could see you.
Because shehadwanted him to see her. She’d imagined his gaze on her in the dark, judging her for being so dirty and simultaneously wanting to be the one touching her. He wasn’t the first person she imagined spanking her—that had been the bad guy from The Swan Princess, for some fucking reason—but he was the first ‘real world’ man she imagined blistering her ass—usually for whatever prank she’d last inflicted on him. When he left for London, she’d tried and, for the most part, succeeded in leaving him out of her BDSM fantasies. But now they had fresh blood pumping through them.
As she looked across at the man buckling himself in beside her, it was easy to see how she’d mentally made a disciplinarian out of Scott. He was classically handsome and simultaneously commanding and moderate—a kindly English professor who would have to be pushed and prodded and teased by a naughty, short-skirted student until he reached breaking point. He was, even when coating her garden path with homemade slime, virtuous and something about that just cried out for corruption. It was why she’d thought Galahad such a great nickname. The fact remained, she had no evidence he was actually dominant. She had probably been seeing things that weren’t there.
“So, where would you like to eat? That is, assuming you’re hungry?”