Samantha"s forehead stung when Daniel tapped it. He was truly scared because of her."Well It better hurt! So that you would remember not to do it again!", he said with an adorable expression of being annoyed.
"What did you want me to do?! Guns were pointing at you! I didn"t think about it too much, heck I didn"t have time to think at all… when I saw you, I just… acted on it.", she reasoned and it made him feel warm but he wasn"t going to have it.
"I want you to do nothing."
"What?"
"Nothing, Samantha. Do nothing. I can handle myself just fine, just promise me that you won"t do that again?", he looked into her eyes, asking earnestly.
"I can"t promise that… I would do anything for you.", Samantha looked back at him. "Besides, there won"t be a next time, right?"
"Right. And I would do anything for you too. Always.", he replied.
She tilted her head when she recalled something, "How did you find us anyways? And how did you get here?"
Daniel didn"t want to tell her so much as it wasn"t necessary to give her that many details. What"s important is that she was safe, so he responded with, "Who do you think I am? You should already know by now how capable I am. You"re lucky that I am yours."
This man and his ego. She still found it cute, though.
Samantha bit her lip and Daniel couldn"t help but smile, he bent down to kiss the spot where he just hit. "Thank G.o.d, you"re okay."
She nuzzled into his chest as she tried to absorb all his warmth. "It"s nice to be home."
"Home?", he asked.
"You… You are my home.", she started, making Daniel"s heart flutter. "We could be anywhere in the world, Daniel… as long as you are with me, I"m home."
"As you are to me.", he kissed her once more and longer this time.
Samantha was becoming more and more vocal about her feelings towards Daniel. And he"s very much happy for that. All she wanted was to feel secure… and all he wanted was for her to allow him to love her.
"Call me that again.", he said.
Samantha lifted her head and raised a brow, "Call you what?"
"Earlier when you were being Ms. James Bond, you called me your husband.", he smirked. He was clearly amused by the memory of Samantha"s boldness when she tried to save him.
She swallowed and averted her gaze, suddenly feeling shy about earlier. As if she could get away with it, she tried to escape, "Did I? I… I don"t remember that. You must have heard differently."
"Oh no… I remember every word that you have said.", he continued to watch her expression. It was always fun for him.
"No you don"t.", she insisted like a child.
"Yes, I do and very clearly."
This time, she didn"t respond to him. Instead, she just looked at him as if she was trying to plead for him to stop teasing her.
Seeing that Samantha isn"t saying anything, he began to mimic her, "Put your guns away from my- Hmmm!", she covered his mouth with her delicate hands, her cheeks blus.h.i.+ng bright red.
Although Samantha had already gotten engaged with Daniel, she was still sometimes shy about the whole idea of her being his wife; especially when Daniel teases her like this.
The couple continued to play for a little more before taking a shower.
Separately, of course.
…
It was already past ten in the evening, Samantha was drying her hair with a towel when she turned on her mobile phone. As soon as it got a signal, she received a few messages and voicemails from Daniel. Some messages from Hannah and her family. She was just about to open the messages when her phone rang, the caller ID showed Nathan Yun.
The last time that they had seen each other was back when she had her homecoming party on the day that she and Daniel arrived from Country D. They had treated each other in a civil way and Nathan had not done any move on her since then. But why was he calling her now?
She hesitated at first but then decided to answer his call.
"h.e.l.lo?", she spoke.
"Samantha? It"s me… Nathan."
"Yes… Hi…", she didn"t know what to say to him.
"Were you sleeping already? I"m sorry I called this late… I just wanted to check in on you… How are you? Are you… okay?", he asked with a voice that sounded really concerned.
Samantha wasn"t sure why he would call at this hour just to ask her how she was. Did he know about what happened tonight?
"That"s impossible though, how could he have known?"
Thinking that he really doesn"t know anything about the incident, she probed, "Of course, why wouldn"t I be?"
There was silence on the other line, Nathan was thinking and realized something, "Oh… um… I guess you don"t know about it yet. You… haven"t seen it?"
Her brows scrunched up, "Seen what?"
Nathan then explained something to her and sent a few links to her phone. She was still on the line with him as she browsed quickly through the articles that he sent.
"I"m sorry, Samantha. I thought you already knew about these articles. And I just wanted to ask how you are doing."
Samantha read the article hastily and stopped at the two names that were together in one article.
"Daniel Cho and Melissa Qin."
This was a new one that was issued during the afternoon when Daniel was on his way to see Samantha. He himself doesn"t know about it yet.
"Thanks, Nathan. Don"t worry, I"m okay. We"ll talk again next time.", she said before ending the phone call.
Just then, the bathroom door opened and Daniel got out looking very fresh and delicious after his shower.
Samantha looked up and spoke slowly, "Honey…"
"Yes?"
She smiled like never before, it looked a bit… scary, "Can you come here for a second?"