“I’m glad to hear you say that.” He put the orchid on a table and reached up to remove the pins from her hair. “Are you kidding me?” he asked as he watched her gorgeous hair spill down over her shoulders. “Three pins were holding that whole thing together?”

“Apparently, when you put them in the right places, that’s all you need. Who knew?”

Nick buried his fingers in her hair and tilted his head to kiss her. “You were so incredibly beautiful today, Samantha. You are every day, but today… you took my breath away.”

“When I saw you waiting for me in church, I’ve never seen you look so handsome.” She smoothed her hands over his chest and made quick work of divesting him of the onyx studs that had served as buttons. “I broke a lot of hearts in the Capitol region today by taking you off the market.”

“Right,” he said, laughing. “So my guy Terry and your girl Lindsey, huh?”

Sam moaned. She too had noticed his deputy chief of staff dancing most of the evening with the District’s chief medical examiner. They’d seemed positively smitten. “Why do our two worlds have to keep colliding?”

He kissed her nose. “Because all our friends want to be as happy as we are.”

“I guess,” she said as she dropped the studs in a pile on a table and turned around. “Unzip me?”

“If I have to,” he said with a dramatic sigh that made her giggle. “Is there something under here that’ll stop my heart?”

“Perhaps,” she said, sending him a coy smile over her shoulder.

His lips found her neck as he slowly unzipped her dress.

“My sisters gave me a frilly thing I’m supposed to wear tonight.”

“Is that so?”

She tipped her head to give him better access to her neck. “Uh huh.”

“Is it sexier than what I’m finding under this dress?”

Sam bit her lip and smiled. “It’s not quite as dirty as what’s under the dress.”

He wrapped his arms around her from behind and pulled her in tight against him. “I’m a big fan of dirty.”

Laughing, Sam said, “I never would’ve guessed.”

His hands slid up her front and nudged the dress down to reveal a bustier. “I haven’t even seen the whole thing yet, and I already love it.”

Sam’s laughter faded to a moan as he cupped her breasts through the cups, teasing her nipples until she was straining against him. “Nick…”

“What, baby?”

“I want you.” Her head fell back to rest on his shoulder as he kept up the mischief.