Free Voluptuous by Natasha Moore Page A

matter
that it wasn’t what he intended. It didn’t matter that he’d fallen hard and
fast for her. He’d hurt her and that was all that mattered. But how did he
convince her that he wasn’t lying to her now?
    Friday night, he waited for her as she left work. He stood
at the edge of the parking lot and watched as she left the building with a
group of coworkers. Her plain white lab coat hid her amazing body. The blank
expression on her face hid the emotions he knew were roiling inside her.
    He stepped into her path. “Meredith.”
    She froze, her eyes wide and sad. “Sam. Don’t.”
    “I just want to talk. Give me a minute? Please?”
    “Are you okay?” one of the other women asked her.
    She turned to the woman with an obviously forced smile. “I’m
fine. Go on home to your kids.”
    The woman nodded and headed away.
    Sam stood there and soaked in her closeness while the rest
of the employees stepped around them, climbed into their cars and drove away.
    She crossed her arms in front of her. “What do you want,
Sam?”
    “You,” he said, simply, truthfully.
    “I can’t do this,” she whispered.
    Sam never imagined he’d ever be begging but Meredith was
worth it. “Can we start over? Have a real first date. No lies. Nothing between
us.”
    “There’s already too much between us.”
    He took her hand. Her fingers were cold. “I miss you,
sweetheart. I want to see you again. I know you believe me. I know you feel the
same way.”
    She snatched her hand away. “I can’t, Sam. Okay? I just can’t.”
She dashed across the parking lot and was gone before he realized what it was
he saw in her eyes.
    It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t frustration.
    It was fear.
    Sam drove home, grabbed a pizza from the shop downstairs and
carried it up to his apartment. Instead of eating it at his little table in the
kitchen, he took it into the living room and sat on the floor the way he’d done
with Meredith the previous weekend. What had that fear in her eyes meant? What
was she afraid of? Who was she afraid of?
    He hadn’t come up with any answers after eating a couple
slices of the pizza. The beer was bitter tonight. He surfed channel after
channel on the TV, but finally turned it off in disgust. He tossed and turned
in bed and then finally fell asleep in time to dream about Meredith.
    Her eyes wide as she talked about all those bad dates. The
bravado in her voice. The I-don’t-care set to her jaw.
    Sam woke and sat up in bed, realizing she was afraid to
believe him when he told her he wanted to see her again. Afraid to trust him and
find out that trust had been misplaced. Afraid to care about him when, he was
certain, she already did. She was afraid she’d be hurt once again.
    He jumped up, threw on some clothes and grabbed the pizza
box. It was time to set her straight.
    * * * * *
    Meredith couldn’t sleep. Seeing Sam again had stirred up
everything she’d been trying so hard to forget. Seeing him made her want to
give in to him. Made her want to risk her heart again. But she knew how much
more it would hurt when he left her for good. She’d never really cared for any
of those other guys. Not like she did for Sam.
    She wandered her apartment, her aloneness, her loneliness,
hitting her hard. She’d tried to convince herself that she was happy alone.
That it was better to be lonely than risk being hurt again. It wasn’t working
tonight.
    She curled up in a corner of her sofa, a blanket wrapped
around her. She’d been humiliated when she heard the things Evan had said about
her. How could Sam blame her for feeling the way she did about her body when
people like his friend were so vocal with their opinions of big women?
    But Sam had been nothing but complimentary about her body.
Her bottom tingled as she remembered the spanking he’d given her. He’d actually
been angry when she’d put herself down.
    Was she wrong about him? After the lies he told her when
they met up that night, could she believe everything he’d