Sammy. Being outrageous yet again, trying to control what happened between them.

“Let go,” he whispered, bringing his mouth to hers. “Let go, Samantha.”

She said nothing. Instead, she squeezed her eyes shut tight and kissed him again. She started to pull at his clothes, quickly, frantically, and he grabbed hold of her wrists, pinning them behind her back and deepening the kiss, taking it slow, achingly so. She arched against him. “Come on,” she murmured. “I need you.”

“You need to let someone else be in charge,” he said firmly. “And don’t you give me that I’m always in control. It’s not true, Samantha.”

“Stop it,” she said. “Only you call me Samantha.”

“I know,” he said. “And I’m the only one who ever will. I’m your husband. I’m your best friend. And this is it for me. This is it for me,” he repeated. “I want to take my time.”

“Well,” she said, still sounding petulant and bratty. “If this is it for you, then we have forever.”

“Exactly,” he said. “So what does time matter anyway? We can make forever this moment if we want.” He looked at her, at her beautiful, slight curves, enticing and visible through the thin fabric she was wearing. She had some kind of witchcraft on beneath her top and skirt, and he could barely see what it was, but he was dying to get the view.

He lifted her up off the ground, and she protested for a moment, then gave in, as he carried them both down to the river. He set her down, and she just stood there, looking at him, her face beautiful, glowing, as the sunlight filtered through the trees. Unreadable by design.

“Why are you hiding from me now?”

“You’re crazy,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “Maybe I just want to think I know you. Maybe I never will. Not really.”

That idea filled him with despair, almost more than anything else. That he might never get down to the bottom of who she was. That he might never reach her heart.

He wanted to know her.

Every inch.

Inside and out.

He wanted her to know him in ways he didn’t even want to know himself.

Something about his words seemed to penetrate, and she registered fear on that beautiful face.

“Does that scare you? That I might not even know?” he asked. “That I might not be able to tell you?”

“Nothing scares me,” she said. “I’ve been to hell and back. I grew up in a house where looking at someone in the wrong direction would mean physical repercussions. My own father put me in the hospital. Nothing scares me.”

But he did. He scared her. Not in that way, but he could see it, could sense it.

And he had to wonder if even more than him, Sammy was scared of herself.

He stripped his shirt off, cast it onto the ground, and then he undid his belt buckle, the button on his jeans, kicked his boots off before sliding his pants and underwear down, leaving himself naked there by the river.