Chapter 16
Delilah
“Always listen to your heart, not your fear.”
~ Grant Turner
I tried to think over the pounding of my heart. Sawyer had obviously just come back from a run and looked shocked to find me in his house. He didn’t look happy about the surprise either. He did look sexy, though. The damp material of his shirt molded to his body, advertising every carved dip, sculpted bulge, and chiseled line.
The chicken on the table wasn’t the only thing that looked finger lickin’ good.
Focus. I chided myself.
“When I was getting ready Coop called and said that there was a change of plans, your mom was making dinner and invited me to come over to your house. I was confused because you said you had plans, but he told me you were talking about this dinner. When I got here your dad let me in, he said he forgot something in the truck. I’m sure he’ll be right back.”
“He left,” Sawyer stated flatly.
“Are you sure?” My brow wrinkled. “He said he would be right ba—”
He cut me off. “He’s not coming back.”
“Oh.” I wasn’t sure I understood what was going on. I’d expected to walk into a Briggs family dinner. That was obviously not what this was. But there was food. “But… the dinner?”
“Is for us.”
My eyes flew up to his. “Just us?”
Sawyer’s chin dipped.
“This was a setup?” I puzzled out loud. “And Coop was in on it?”
He nodded again.
“And you had no idea about any of it?”
Again, his head dipped in confirmation.
Oh boy.
If I’d been in this situation a year ago, there would’ve been no question about what I would’ve done. I would’ve apologized and left. That was the socially acceptable, polite thing to do. But, I’d been polite and done the socially acceptable thing for twenty-five years, and it had gotten me nowhere.
Bold. Brazen. Blunt.
I needed to ask for what I wanted. I just wasn’t sure how to invite myself for a dinner that the host didn’t know was happening. My older sisters lived by the philosophy that it was easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. I figured I would take a page out of their book.
Still, thinking about doing it and actually doing it were two very different things, and I found myself having a difficult time executing my new attitude towards taking action vs. asking permission.
So, I went back to my self-help tricks, counted back from five and opened my mouth. “Well, the food looks and smells delicious. Shall we eat?”
Sawyer’s mouth tightened into a flat line, and I felt a little guilty pushing ahead with a dinner that he’d been ambushed with. But, I had to remind myself that he was a big boy, and not just physically. If he didn’t want me to stay for dinner, he could say so. I braced myself for him to do just that.
“I smell like a wet dog.”
Okay, that wasn’t what I was expecting him to say.
“So do I.” I lifted my hands. Chewy was damp when he’d run in and greeted me.
His jaw ticked and his shoulders tensed. “I need to take a shower.”
Is that an invitation?
That was the question I wanted to ask, but I wasn’t quite at that level of bold, brazen, and blunt. Yet, anyway.
Instead, I smiled brightly and said, “I’ll go wash up and meet you back here.”
Without waiting for his response, I rushed to the bathroom below the stairs that I’d passed on my way into the dining room. This was the first time I’d been in Sawyer’s house and I’d been trying to take everything in.
When I closed the door, I saw my reflection in the mirror and almost didn’t recognize the woman staring back at me. She looked…sexy.
I’d blown out my hair. I’d figured just because I was depressed and sad on the inside, I didn’t need to publicize it. When the plans changed, so did I. Instead of the jeans and boots that I’d planned on wearing to the bar, I’d grabbed a sundress and also applied a little extra eye shadow, mascara, and lip stain. The blush on my cheeks was natural and not store-bought. It had most likely appeared when Sawyer had mentioned the word shower. Thinking of him so near to me, naked, with water dripping down his body, was blush-inducing to say the least.
My shoulders shimmied as I attempted to shake off all thoughts of a dripping wet, nude Sawyer Briggs. I made quick work of washing my hands. I felt like Cinderella, except my ball was a weekend of renovations. And my unlikely fairy godmothers were Coop and Mr. and Mrs. Briggs. But at midnight, everything would go back to the way it was. The magic would be gone. The carriage would turn back into a pumpkin, and my dress would turn back into my Flower Pot apron. I needed to make as much of my time with the Prince as I possibly could. I didn’t want to waste a second in the washroom.
When I returned to the table, I found Sawyer seated and wearing the same clothes he’d been in.
“You didn’t want to take a shower?” I asked.
“No.” He started filling his plate, and I saw that there was now a glass of tea that had been set on the table for me.
I wanted to ask why he didn’t take a shower, but I figured I had more pressing questions, like the ones I needed to ask to finish the damn intimacy experiment. I had eight more to go and knew that it was a now or never situation.
After smoothing my hands down my waist and hips, I lowered into my seat and followed Sawyer’s lead, filling my plate.
I knew time was of the essence but I was sidetracked momentarily when I took my first bite of Dolly Briggs’ famous fried chicken. I’d heard stories about how amazing it was, but I’d never actually tasted it before. Rumor was she only made it once a year for Mr. Briggs’ birthday. I closed my eyes as my teeth sank into the crispy outer layer and then hit the juicy meat. Flavors exploded in my mouth, and a moan vibrated from the back of my throat.
“Oh my…” I exhaled after swallowing the first bite. “I’ve never tasted anything so perfect.”
My tongue slid between my lips, savoring every ounce of seasoning as I opened my eyes and saw that Sawyer’s gaze was focused on my mouth. My lips tingled under his attention causing me to lick them again. I hadn’t meant it to be a sexual gesture either time, I’d done it out of instinct, but from the heat in Sawyer’s stare that’s exactly how he’d interpreted it.
Finally. I’d been doing everything in my power today to inspire that kind of look again but had been unable to do it since we’d stood at my door last night. Cooper had been like a wet blanket that smothered the embers of desire that I had been planning on fanning the heck out of today.
Seeing his reaction, I figured now was a good time to try and wrap up the Q and A portion of the evening. “When is the last time you cried in front of someone?”
He blinked twice before slowly lifting his eyes to meet mine. He didn’t answer right away, but I was starting to fall into the rhythm of his communication patterns, so I waited.
I wasn’t even nervous anymore at his pregnant silences. They were actually liberating. When I was with Sawyer, I never felt any pressure to fill in awkward moments with idle chatter. The things that I said to him had a purpose and vice versa. It felt more honest, just like drawing out my own home renovation sketches instead of using a computer program.
“I was sixteen.”
“Wow.” My eyes widened “That was…twenty years ago. I cried in front of the pizza delivery boy last night because he showed up in the middle of Grey’s Anatomy.”
He grinned, and like every time I got him to crack a smile, I felt like I had done something worthy of a Nobel Prize…or at least an honorable mention. We continued eating, and I asked him several more questions, all of which he answered.
There had been a few that I’d been avoiding asking. It wasn’t because I was saving the best for last or anything. It was because I was scared of what his responses were going to be.
After inhaling deeply through my nose, I looked him right in the eyes. “What roles do love and affection have in your life?”
I expected there to be a relatively significant commercial break before he answered and we returned to regular broadcasting, but there wasn’t.
“None.” His response was instant, and there was conviction in his tone.
“Oh. Okay.” It threw me off, but since I still had one more question to ask, I got right back up on the interrogation horse. This next inquiry wasn’t part of the thirty-six that had been developed by a team of psychologists. It was just something I wanted to know. “Have you ever thought about me…about us…being together?”
Once the question was out in the air, it hung there between us. Sawyer didn’t answer. He just stared at me.
I’d promised myself that I would wait for him to say something, but I couldn’t. I needed to tell him how I felt. Using all of the courage I had, I answered my own question. “I have. I think about being with you all the time. I think about you all the time.”
His breathing grew labored but he remained silent. Then suddenly, he stood. “I need to go take a shower. You can show yourself out.”
He started to walk away, and good manners would dictate that I left well enough alone, but this wasn’t afternoon tea at a country club. My happiness was on the line, and I was going to do everything I could to fight for it, etiquette be damned.
I stood as well. “So you’ve never thought about me like that? You’ve never thought about kissing me? You’ve never thought about being with me?”
He stopped midstride. I could see the muscles in his back bunch. In slow motion he turned, and the look in his eyes caused my heart to shoot up into my throat. It was part savage and part sweet. There was tenderness and raw passion in it.
“Yes. I do.” He rasped. “I can’t stop thinking about that, about you. And I think about doing a lot more than kissing you. But it can’t happen. And that’s why you need to leave. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave. Now.”
With that unexpected confession, he turned and took the steps two at a time. My heart was no longer in my throat. It had traveled south and was pulsing in my core.
Did he really expect me just to leave his house? After he told me that he thought about doing a lot more than kissing me?
Um…Yeah. No way was I walking out that door.
Bold. Brazen. Blunt.