In Deep with the FBI Agent (8 page)

His palm pressed on her thigh, and she looked down at his hand, much larger now than it had been in high school.

“I'm not saying you are. I'm saying I apologize for joking about something that's not at all funny. Tell me about your anorexia.”

She laughed, slightly hysterical that he'd asked as casually as saying,
tell me about your trip to Bermuda
. “What do you want to know?” She'd only spoken about her eating disorder with two people: her mother and her therapist. And now Sam.

“When did it start? Is it something you're born with?” Casually, he put the car into reverse and backed out of the spot.

“It started during the beginning of our freshman year.”

He turned the car out of the restaurant parking lot and onto the main road. “I remember I bought you a pack of M&Ms from the vending machine during orientation. You ate it. You weren't anorexic then?”

“God, how do you remember stuff like that, Sam?”

He took his eyes off the road to give her a penetrating look. “Because I thought I was buying a treat for my new best friend at my new school.”

Regret stabbed through her. “I'm sorry.”

“I'm over it.”

Was he? She wasn't. It would take a lot of apologizing and inward reflection to get over how bitchy she'd been in high school. She told her therapist she'd been bitchy because she'd been hungry all the time, but the hunger was an excuse. The bitchiness had come from some place deeper, the same place that caused her anorexia. It had been her drive to be perfect, to be in control. Her mother had been a good mom most days, but then there'd be weeks when she called in sick to work and didn't get out of bed. Weeks in which Casey had to be the adult in the family. She'd had little control over lots of things, so she'd tried to exert control over what she could eat. With therapy, she understood that now.

“Anyway, don't you remember what it was like when we started at Montgomery Prep?” She snorted. “Never mind. Of course you do. You remember that I ate M&Ms on the first day of school.”

“I remember being terrified,” Sam said, “that I couldn't keep up. I'd been top of my class in middle school, but a public middle school in a low-income area is a world away from Montgomery Prep. Plus, I was scared of getting the shit kicked out of me in the locker room. I was a little smaller then.”

“I remember,” she said softly. “You've grown.”

A meaningful silence penetrated the car as Casey's word choice took on a double meaning. Her cheeks felt hot, but Sam laughed. “In lots of way. If you're lucky, I'll show you.”

“Sam!” Her fist bumped his biceps, which felt solid under her punch. “I'm confessing my soul here. Stop joking.”

“I've always felt soul-baring confidences should be doled out with a modicum of humor,” he said. “Life is only as serious as we make it. Every person on this planet walks around with their own cross to bear. Some crosses are more publicly displayed than others, and some are heavier than others, but everyone's got one. The goal is to carry yours with dignity and humor. The humor makes it lighter, and the dignity makes you remember that someone else's burden is always worse than yours.”

“Wow,” she murmured. “Deep.”

“There are a few folks who haven't found their cross yet. You know those folks. They tend to be overbearing know-it-alls. Carrying a burden around gives you empathy,” Sam said.

“You're amazing,” she said, wondering what his cross was, and staring at him as he drove through a dark suburban neighborhood of D.C. “I wish I hadn't turned on you freshman year. Maybe you would've helped me be less intimidated when we started Montgomery Prep. God, everyone there was smart and wealthy. And skinny.”

He glanced over at her emphasis on the word
skinny
.

“I remember the smart and wealthy. The skinny not so much.”

“Well, you were the skinniest, smallest boy,” she said, realizing that had been his cross to bear. He'd had four years, maybe more, of taunts and being the runt of the pack. “You were probably wishing to gain some weight, right?”

“Would've come in handy against Eric Cohen,” he said, shrugging.

They shared a moment of weighty silence in memory of Eric Cohen and the people they'd both been ten years ago.

Before Casey could think of something else to say, Sam turned onto a small side street and parallel parked in front of a typical D.C. row home.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“This is my house.”

“Why are we here?”

“Because our date isn't over yet, and I'm not taking you to another restaurant or a bar where it's too loud to talk.”

“Sam, I don't go to a man's house on the first date. That's asking for trouble.”

“So you admit it is a date.” His grin was infectious, and she shook her head as she exited his car and followed him into his home.

“You're making me break all my rules,” she said, but she was too curious about how Sam lived to insist he drive her back to her car.

“Live a little. Rule breaking's fun,” he said.

“This from the FBI agent.”

He grinned and ushered her into the entry of his home. She looked around curiously, but it was hard to see much until Sam walked through the darkness and snapped on a table lamp, which illuminated the dingy couch next to it. A floor lamp came on next, and she felt safe enough to walk deeper into the room without tripping on anything. Though there wasn't much to trip on.

There was no clutter lying around Sam's home. On her left, past the front door, was a tiny coat closet and then the space opened up into a nice size living room. A couch was in the center of the room facing a wall, which housed—well, Casey wasn't sure how to describe it—some kind of hybrid desk–wall unit. Three computer monitors were spaced along the main shelf. Books and other pieces of technology such as cables and metal black boxes were scattered along the upper shelves.

“No television?” she asked.

He pointed to one of the monitors. “I stream everything.”

“You don't entertain much?” she asked as she stepped fully into the living room.

“Nah. I bought the house last year. It was a bank foreclosure. I haven't had time to do much to it, and it's not like my degree is in decorating. I want it to look nice, but don't have a clue of what to buy.”

“It has potential,” she said. “The space is nice and open, but that desk is the kind of piece that belongs in an upstairs office.”

He followed her gaze back to all the computer monitors on the wall. “Probably,” he said.

She followed him through the living room to a narrow kitchen that was left over from a decade past. It wasn't quite avocado-colored appliances, but close. If this were her house, she'd tear out the wall and open the kitchen to the living room. It'd be gorgeous.

“Want a drink?” he asked. “Water? Soda?” He opened the fridge, and she saw some sugar-free flavored water.

“Yes, please.” They both reached for a grapefruit-flavored sparkling water and bumped heads. “Ouch.” She rubbed her scalp and let him get her drink.

“Sorry. Can I kiss it better?” He smirked at her and gave her the drink. As she sipped, she felt his gaze on her, watching her as if he wanted to say something but kept his mouth shut.

“What?”

“I want to ask you something, but I also want to be sensitive to your feelings.”

“You can ask, Sam.”

“Are you hungry?”

“What?”

“You didn't eat much at the restaurant, and you've got to be hungry. I'm a pretty good cook, and I can whip something up for us if you want. But I now understand that food is a sensitive subject for you, and I want to be a helpful friend but not an overbearing one.”

Her automatic rejection of food was quick on her lips, but she saw the sincerity within Sam, and she nodded. “Yes, I am hungry.”

“Great, how does an omelet sound? With a little goat cheese and mushrooms?”

“You really can cook,” she said in slight amazement as she watched him grab ingredients from the fridge with practiced skill.

“Of course. My mother taught me and my sister. She said she refused to send two adults out into the world without life skills. I took to it and ended up enjoying cooking. My sister is pretty hopeless. I think it's her politics.” He pointed to a tall, weathered wooden bar stool sitting out of the way. “Get comfortable.”

Casey obeyed and kicked off her heels to scooch up onto the bar stool and watch as Sam cracked eggs expertly into a glass bowl. “Your sister's politics make her a bad cook?” She vaguely remembered that Sam had a younger sister. Maybe five years younger, so she'd been an ignorable age when they'd been together in high school.

“Everything's a cause to her,” Sam said, whisking the eggs until they were frothy. “Produce needs to be picked by laborers that are paid a fair wage on land that has never seen pesticides and is within three hundred miles of her location. It needs to be purchased at a store where workers are given benefits, and, well, you get my point. She's the reason I drive a hybrid.”

“We have a few kids like that at school,” Casey said. “I love their idealism.”

“Me too, and I love my sister, but sometimes it's exhausting being with her. If she were here, I'd have to examine my carton of eggs to make sure the chickens were never caged against their will. I'd also better make sure my pots and pans are from democratic countries.”

“Sounds exhausting,” Casey said. “Where is she now?”

“She graduated college last year. She's off in Ghana with Doctors Without Borders.”

He deftly flipped the omelet in half, and her mouth started to water, both at the smell of the food and at the sight of a tall, muscular man at ease in the kitchen. The cheese was added last, and she watched with relief as he plated the omelet, cut it in half, then put that half on a another plate. Eating alone while someone watched her would have triggered all kinds of issues in her.

He placed her plate near her and lowered onto the stool facing hers. She sipped her grapefruit drink, which she didn't like all that much, but it kept her mouth occupied. She needed her mouth busy to keep from blurting things out, like how sexy she thought Sam was now.

He forked a mouthful of omelet into his mouth and chewed. He didn't say anything, but he glanced at her food, which was still untouched.

“Do you cook?” he asked.

“Not really.” She reached for the plate, which had a little wisp of steam rising from the fluffy yellow omelet. “I make a mean salad from the bag.”

“You should learn to cook. Besides the fact that it's fun, it could give you total control over what you eat, and I know how you like control.”

She glanced sharply at him around a mouthful of egg and saw that he was smiling at her as if he loved and admired the fact that she was a control freak. Most men hated that aspect of her personality. Sam had always respected her need to lead, and anytime they'd had to work on a class project in school, he'd let her take the reins, offering her support but never trying to take over simply because he had a penis.

“I've been told that learning to cook would be a healthy way to heal. Kind of like therapy,” she admitted, “but I haven't made time.”

“Make time,” Sam said. “I'm going to teach you. I also want to take you out on a date again; therefore we're going to hang out here and talk so I can learn more about what would be a fun date for you and what is going to push your buttons.”

“We're going on another date?” She hadn't meant to add that saucy tone, but it came out on its own. Here was the chemistry she'd been missing in her date with Matt Melles. He'd emailed to say he had a nice time at dinner, but he hadn't asked her out again, which maybe meant he was too busy at work or feeling the lack of chemistry. Fine with her, especially since she was finding chemistry with Sam.

He nodded and placed his empty plate on the counter. He stood, got in her space, and wrapped a long strand of her hair around his finger. “Yeah, Casey. We are. I let you get your way in high school, and I gave up on you in college, and then I tried to forget about you the last six years. I'm done. I've wanted this for a long time, and now it's going to happen.”

Words failed her, and her heart pounded at his nearness. She'd suspected—no, she'd
known
—throughout high school that Sam had a crush on her, and she'd wrecked him for it, mocking him and letting him know he didn't have a shot. If she'd had an inkling he would grow up to be this tall, smart, compelling man, maybe she would've paid attention when he was a teenager.

“We'll see,” was all she allowed. She didn't know how to react when he laughed.

“Can't let me win, can you, Case?” He leaned in, making their lips inches apart. “It's okay. I like a challenge.”

And then he kissed her.

His lips were soft but intent on hers, and her neck bent back as she craned for more of his taste. It was as if she'd been waiting her whole life to be kissed by Sam Cooper, which was ridiculous, since she'd been avoiding his advances long enough to have an advanced degree in it.

Yet he was the one graduating with honors in how to kiss your high school crush. His touch was gentle, and her body ached to be held, yet he kept space between them, allowing only their lips to connect. Their tongues brushed briefly and gloriously, then he pulled back to nibble at her lower lip and give attention to a different part of her mouth. Their breaths mingled as they tasted grapefruit on each other. Her body felt as if it were floating toward him, though she remained anchored on her chair. She hadn't realized how many sensitive spots there were on her lips, yet Sam unerringly found them all. The man could kiss. He'd learned a thing or two million since they'd last locked lips after graduation.