Sawyer
Tuesday afternoon, in study group, I stared absently at the notebook in my lap. Andrew’s voice droned in the background of my thoughts like a mosquito as he pestered Beth and Sanaa to quiz him. He monopolized the group, in a panic over the American Legal History final this week. Our last final, and, as with the others, I was confident I was going to pass. My eidetic memory had gotten my tired ass through so many late nights, not only would I graduate, but I’d do it with honors. But three days of grueling testing in Sacramento loomed ahead for the bar exam, and I was no closer to finding an angle for my brief to Judge Miller.
I can’t get distracted now.
But I was. I tapped my pen on my knee, determined to focus, as visions of red lips and a cherry; a black dress and long legs; a heated body pressed to mine wafted into my thoughts like a delicious scent to a starving man.
I was hungry for Darlene, in every way.
Henrietta once told me that it was hard for a person to imagine a better life than the one he had; to really know and feel that it was possible. It was the reason, she said, so many people worked so hard just to stay where they were. They never reached out for what they really wanted because they believed what they wanted was out of reach. But it wasn’t. Like words written on a mirror: Objects may be closer than they appear.
I still had so much work left to do, and even if I passed the bar and Judge Miller hired me, I’d have to work my ass off just as hard to keep that job, to keep providing for Olivia on my own. There would always be another finish line to cross. Was it stupid of me to not reach a little more for what I wanted? To imagine a life with something more than what I had?
My pen rattled against the denim on my knee.
The law that I had taken such refuge in for being black and white, was cold compared to Darlene’s smile. The sanctuary I had found in the codes and sections was an empty place. She was life, and maybe, if I didn’t screw it up, I had something to offer her too.
How about you start with a first date?
A slow smile spread over my lips. I shut my notebook with a snap, startling the others, and packed up my stuff.
“Where are you going?” Andrew demanded.
“Home.”
“We’re one final away from graduation.”
I clapped him on the shoulder. “I have no doubt you will pass with adequate colors.”
Andrew shook me off. “Asshole.”
I grinned. “Ladies. It’s been real.”
Outside, I fished out my cell phone and called Serenity Spa. The snobby sounding woman at reception told me that Darlene had already left for the day.
“Early,” she added with a sniff.
I had Darlene’s phone number programmed into my photographic memory, but I didn’t want to call or text her. I wanted to see her, to talk to her in person when I took the monumental, earth shattering, life changing step of actually asking a woman out on a date.
Jackson will shit his pants.
I laughed at myself, and called Elena. After asking about Olivia, I tried my best to sound casual as fuck. “Has Darlene come home by any chance?”
“She did,” Elena said. “She dropped off more chocolate chip cookies for the kids on her way out. Such a sweet girl.”
“Do you know where she was going?”
“No, but she looked dressed to practice her dance.”
“Right. Okay, thanks, Elena. I’ll be home on time tonight.”
“No rush, querido. No rush at all.”
Quickly, I recalled Darlene and my conversation at the park. She’d said she rehearsed at the American Dance Academy. I looked up the address on my phone for directions and headed to the Muni.
There was no one manning the front desk at the Academy, but a layout of the building on the wall guided me to the practice rooms. I headed down the pristine white hallway, passing open doors of ballet dancers at a barre, a jazz class for older couples. I expected to find Darlene with her dance troupe.
She was alone.
My breath caught. My heart stopped. Every part of me froze as I watched her from the doorway. She was wearing that damn black top with the crisscrossing straps along her back that made it hard for me to think. Her long legs were bare but for tight spandex short-shorts. Her dark hair spilled out of a high ponytail. A New Age-sounding instrumental played over the sound system, and Darlene folded and unfolded herself across the wooden floor in a series of flowing movements.
I was mesmerized, my eyes tracking her and when she stopped short, I flinched.
She tossed her head from side to side, as if her neck was stiff and rubbed one hand, then shook out her arms. She listened to some internal count in the music for a moment, then continued the dance.
Twenty seconds later, she stopped again, and she shook her arms, frustrated, and crossed to a small sound system against one wall. The music went quiet, and that was my cue; I’d lurked long enough.
“Hey,” I said, stepping into the room.
She turned around and the surprised smile that flitted across her face was like a gift.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I needed to talk to you,” I said, “but I got side tracked watching you. Sorry, I don’t mean to come off like a creepy stalker. You’re really good, Darlene. Incredible, actually.”
She shook her head, her cheeks turning pink as she walked to meet me in the center of the room. “It’s not a good show,” she said. “Or maybe it could be but…” She sighed and rubbed her fingers.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, indicating her hands.
“God, it’s my job at the spa,” she said. “My supervisor told me turnover was high when I first started working there. Now I know why. My hands hurt all the time.”
“You need a massage for yourself,” I said. “Don’t they give employees a discount?”
“They do, but I don’t like being there,” Darlene said. “No one is friendly. It’s not my scene. And all of the employees are stressed out and sore. The last thing we want to do is give a discount massage to one of our own.”
I reached out and took her hand in both of mine before I could talk myself out of it. Her hand was soft skin and delicate bone, and I gently rubbed circles into her palm with my thumbs.
“How is your show going?” I asked. “Has your partner learned to watch himself?”
“No,” she said, with a small laugh. “He’s a menace, as always, but I think I’ve learned to dance around him. Some added choreography. That’s why I’m here, rehearsing alone. Safer that way.” She glanced down at her hand in mine, then back to me. “That feels nice,” she said softly.
I nodded, and let go of her hand to take the other one, gently massaging and squeezing the tension out.
“I had a really good time the other night,” she said.
“You were an incredible dancer then, too,” I said. “With Jackson.”
“I wanted to dance with you.”
“I’m no good.”
“I’ll bet that’s not true.”
I smiled, concentrating on her hand. If I looked up at her beautiful face this close to mine, I wouldn’t do what I came here to do. “I’m pretty sure the only move I could pull off is the dip.”
“A dip is easy,” Darlene said. “All you have to do is be there for the woman. Hold her. Make sure she doesn’t fall.”
Slowly, I raised my eyes to meet hers. “I want to try.”
Our gazes held for a moment, the air thick between us. Darlene moved close into my space, and my senses were overwhelmed by the heat of her body and the perfume of her skin; daisies tinged with the salt of her sweat.
Her mouth was inches from mine, as she ringed her arms around my neck. Her breasts pressed against my chest.
“Hold your right arm out at an angle,” she said. Her breath was sweet against my cheek.
I did as she said and, effortlessly, she hooked her leg over so that my arm held her under the crook of her knee.
“Make a right angle out of your other arm,” she said.
I did, creating a stiff-armed frame around her.
“You got me?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, daring a glance at her eyes. “I got you.”
A smile spread over her lips, and slowly, with precise yet fluid movements, she bent herself back over my arm, her hands reaching for the floor, while her leg, hooked on my other arm, anchored her. I watched her bend, watched her breasts strain against the black material of her shirt as she flowed backward like water. She stretched her other leg behind her in a split, and her reaching fingertips grazed her foot.
Instinctively, I bent my knee to dip her lower, keeping my arms stiff like scaffolding while she flowed and ebbed around me.
I held her securely for a long moment, then slowly straightened. She came up with me, graceful in my arms, our gazes locked. Her leg came down but her arms were still around my neck. Mine slipped around her waist.
“How was that?” I whispered my mouth inches from hers.
“Perfect,” she said.
I watched her form the word. Her teeth grazed her lower lip over the ‘f’ and then I had to have her. Without thought or hesitation, I laid my mouth to hers.
She gave a little gasp and her lips parted for me. I deepened the kiss, while wondering how I’d lived twenty-four years without having kissed her before.
Kissing Darlene was kissing all of her. I tasted the sweetness of her, the energy she put into her art. Her breath suffused my mouth and I inhaled her.
This is life.
My tongue slid against hers, and the taste of her went straight to my head like a shot of whiskey. She moaned—not quietly—and I swallowed that, too.
Our gentle kissing turned harder and needier. I wanted to devour her, every breath, every touch…my hands skimmed down her back, to her ass, to fill my hands with her. Her fingers slid down my chest, then back up around my neck and into my hair, to pull me closer. Her leg hooked around my waist this time, and cinched tight, pressing herself against the erection that strained against my jeans. In every electric inch of her body, I felt how badly she wanted me too.
I kissed her until I was nearly biting her, and my fevered imagination wanted to know what it would be like to have her—this woman—in my bed, under me and naked. I wanted all of her skin on mine, and the soft little moans she was making now would turn to screams under my hands, my mouth, every part of me touching all of her.
“God, Darlene,” I ground out between kisses. My hands tangled in her hair, to angle her head, to kiss her more. “I want you, right now.”
She nodded against my lips. “Yes, me too. So much,” she breathed.
Voices sounded in the hallway outside the open door, prying the moment apart. With effort, I broke from her but stayed close, feeling her breath on my lips that were wet with her kiss.
“We should stop,” I said, striving to catch my breath. “This is not why I’m here. To hook up. I don’t want to just hook up with you. I want you. Fucking hell, I’ve never wanted anyone more. But I want to take you out. A real date. It sounds insane, but I’ve never done that.”
Her eyes were glassy and bright with desire. “Neither have I. Not at first, I mean. It always starts with this. But Sawyer—”
“I want you to have more,” I said. I pulled away, and sucked in a breath. “Will you have dinner with me? Tonight, if you can. Or tomorrow?”
“I can’t tomorrow,” she said, and the brilliant light in her eyes sparked with something like fear. “But tonight is short notice. What about Olivia?”
“I’ll take care of her,” I said.
The urge to touch her again was like a hunger in my entire body. But if I did, we wouldn’t make it out of this room.
“I’ll make reservations,” I said. “Someplace nice.”
“Not too nice,” she said quickly. “I don’t want you to spend a lot of money on me.”
“I do. I want to take you to a place nice enough where you can wear another dress like the one you wore on Saturday,” I said. “Something that will make every man in the room seethe with jealousy.”
Darlene’s smile was tremulous. She opened her mouth to speak and I dared to take her face and kiss her again.
“Tonight. Seven o’clock? A real date. Okay?”
She nodded, and with supreme effort, I pulled myself away and went home, toward something more.