Chapter 27
Sawyer
“If you don’t jump, you’ll never know if you can fly.”
~ Grant Turner
I raised my fist to knock on Delilah’s door and hesitated. I’d been such an ass, what if it was too late to make her understand how I felt? The thought caused a sick churning in my stomach, but I pushed past it and pounded my fist against the door anyway.
After leaving the hospital, I’d stopped by my spot to read Laura’s letter. In it she’d thanked me. Thanked me. She said that I’d been the only person in her life that had seen what was going on and tried to stop it. She explained that she’d tried to go to the authorities and they’d turned a blind eye. She wrote that she’d been trapped and I’d set her free. She thanked me. I’d read it several times before it sank in that it was real.
I still hadn’t had time to fully process the letter, or my conversation with Mrs. Higgins, but I’d had enough time to know that I didn’t want to waste another second letting the past hold me back from the future.
The door opened, and Delilah stood in front of me, not saying anything. Nerves and adrenaline flooded through me as I waited. And waited. She remained silent. It was another eye opening experience. Was this what I put people through when I didn’t speak?
Clearing my throat, I asked, “Can I come in?”
I could see the internal debate that she was having, and I hoped that we wouldn’t have to have this conversation on the porch, but if that was how it had to be, then fine. I’d have this conversation in the middle of Town Square if I had to.
Still, I was relieved as she stepped back and held the door open for me. I walked in, and turned to face her. “I’ve been an asshole.”
A small spark of amusement lit in her golden eyes, maybe at my bluntness, but it flickered out just as suddenly. She nodded without saying a word, just like I’d done so many times. I was really getting a large dose of my own medicine and I had to admit it wasn’t going down easy.
Filing that in the ever-growing things-to-deal-with-later file, I pushed on. “I thought that I was protecting you. I was holding back because I thought that being with me would hurt you.”
Her chin jutted out in defiance, her eyes narrowing. “You didn’t stop to think that not being with you might hurt me even more?”
“No.” It was the truth. Whenever I’d considered her hurting because I was keeping my distance I then saw the alternative of her ending up in a hospital bed and it was no contest.
She let out a small huff of frustration. “I swear, sometimes, Sawyer. That head of yours is as thick as the silences you let hang.”
Yep, she was definitely doing the silent treatment thing on purpose, and I respected her even more for it.
“I know. But I was wrong. I thought I was protecting you, but actually, I was protecting me. I was scared. Scared of something happening to you. I’ve been in love before, and every time it ended badly. Really badly and I couldn’t live with myself—”
“Wait.” She blinked as she held up her hands. “What did you say?”
“I said that it ended really—”
“Before that,” she cut in again.
“I said that I thought I was protecting you—”
“The love part,” she clarified emphatically.
“I said that I’ve been in love before.” I smiled, I couldn’t help it. If she wanted to hear me tell her that I loved her, if she cared, there was hope. “I’m saying, that I love you, Delilah. I was just too caught up in the past to think that there could ever be a future with you. But, now I’m not.
“If it’s not too late and if you still feel the same way about me, I want to try. I’m not saying that I’ll be perfect. I can’t guarantee that I won’t drive you crazy by being too overprotective. I can’t promise you that I’ll know the right things to do and say. But, I can promise that I will always do everything I can to make you happy. I can guarantee that I’ll tell you how much I love you every day that you let me. And I promise that I will take care of you and protect you.”
Her eyes had grown increasingly wide as I spoke. I’d thought that it was the content of what I was saying that was surprising her. But, as it turned out, that wasn’t it at all.
The next words out of her mouth were, “Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that many words in a row. That was like the equivalent of a Ted Talk from you.” She trailed off for a minute and then took a deep breath before continuing. “And it was beautiful. Hearing you say those things is…everything.”
“You are everything,” I stated directly. “You’re everything to me.”
She opened her mouth as if she was about to say something, but then seemed to think better of it. Instead, she smiled, ran over to me, and leaped up into my arms, her legs wrapped firmly around my waist.
I looked into her beautiful face smiling at me. She ran her hands softly down my cheek with so much tenderness in her eyes that it stole my breath.
I expected the next words out of her mouth to be sweet, loving. Something that would cement the growing bond and relationship that we’d just solidified. But instead, she just sighed and said contentedly, “Can I say, I love how you can just hold me like it’s nothing.”
That made me laugh. A real, full, belly laugh. She joined in, and I wondered if there was a better feeling in the world than laughing with Delilah.
Well…there might be one. But laughing with her, was a close second.
Not able to wait a second longer, I captured her mouth and kissed her with all the passion and tenderness that I’d felt for years and couldn’t say. I carried her over to the couch and laid her down gently.
“I love you,” I whispered between kisses as I moved my lips slowly down her body, trailing my fingertips over her skin as I took off her clothes at an unhurried pace, measured, piece by piece.
Finally, she was completely naked there on the couch, trailing her fingers in lazy circles through my hair as I kissed and licked all over her body. Each new inch of skin was more delicious than the last. She was mine, and I hoped to have the honor of spending the rest of my life worshiping her.
I worked my way down her neck over her collarbone, down her chest, over her beautiful breasts. I stopped and paid special attention to her engorged nipples. My tongue flicked across them as I sucked them into my mouth. Then continued further down, over her belly, her hips, her thighs. Her skin shuddered and trembled under my lips, and under my tongue.
When I had finally made my way to her center, I pushed her knees apart. Her legs opened easily. I drank in the sight of her spread out for me like I’d pictured her on her kitchen table. Her folds glistened with her juices. It was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I lowered my head to her sex. The temptation was to just engulf her entire core with my mouth immediately and devour her. That would’ve been so, so sweet. But I held back. I wanted to tease her slowly, drawing out the pleasure and building it up for her so that when it finally exploded it would be something she’d never forget.
I trailed my tongue up and down her slick seam, following the inside of her outer lips as my guide. Her hands were tangled in my hair, urging me closer, but I resisted. I was going to do this in my own time, and she would thank me when the most intense orgasm my tongue could give her burst through her.
On one of the down strokes, I paused and then thrust my tongue inside her. This made her whimper and she angled her hips upward, so I did it again and again.
“Oh, yes… Yes!” Her thighs began quivering beside me as she tilted her hips, pressing her core more firmly against my mouth. “Right there.”
I covered the top of her glistening heat with my mouth, sucking her hard pleasure knob into my mouth entirely and using my tongue to flick it and tweak it. Her moans grew louder and more intense as she continued begging me not to stop and pleading for more.
Giving her exactly what she wanted, I buried two fingers inside her as I sensuously worked my tongue in small circles over her knob. She shook, and trembled, and got wetter and wetter by the second. Finally, her body clenched and the fingers that had been tangled in the back of my hair turned into fists.
She called out my name, and her muscles twitched as wave after wave of pleasure shot through her.
When she finally collapsed back on the couch, completely spent, covered in a sheen of sweat, her eyes still tightly closed, I knew I’d never seen her look more beautiful. In front of me, I saw the very picture of a fully satisfied woman, and that was what I wanted for my Delilah. That was what I would move heaven and earth to give her.
She opened her eyes halfway and looked at me through hooded lids. Her arms stretched high above her head, her movements languid and graceful. Then she smiled at me, and I thought that she was going to tell me that she loved me, that she wanted to make love to me all night, that I made her feel incredible, but none of those things came out of her mouth.
“Naked. Now,” she demanded.
I did love a woman of few words, especially when they were those words.