CHAPTER TWELVE

 

 

Sarah did end up having that date all by herself. But she did it with company. She watched the DVD with 200 pounds of very hot man wrapped around her, snoozing away. And when she said hot, she meant it in every way. She checked over and over to see if he was running a fever, because his head on her collarbone, his thighs laid over top of her legs, the flat of his hand against her hip? It was all burning freaking hot.

The couch was large and deep, but still, in order for them both to fit, they were sandwiched together. Seth didn’t seem to mind. And Sarah certainly didn’t mind. She was hungry, but she didn’t want to get up and lose her place on the couch, so after the movie, she just let herself drift off to sleep. She woke up at dawn the next morning and Seth was still plastered against her.

Thankfully, he’d shifted most of his weight off of her, but he was still touching her stem to stern, on his side while she laid on her back, his arm across her waist, her head tucked under his chin.

From the best she could tell, he was still sleeping. She wondered what the heck he’d done that had made him sleep pretty much from five in the evening until five in the morning. She’d stayed up a few hours later than him, but still, she was ready to get up and go.

She liked cuddling as much as the next person, but this was excessive. Besides, in the morning, she was an up and at ‘em sort of girl. She wanted to brush her teeth, she wanted a cup of coffee and then she wanted to hang out with Seth until he needed to go to work.

She slid out from his grasp and found her way to the bathroom in the dim light of early morning. She blinked against the lights when she turned them on and gasped. She hadn’t known it was possible for a bathroom to be this lovely.

The glassed-in shower had pristine white tiling and a frosted window shelf where a few shockingly green houseplants flourished, practically tumbling down the wall. The floor was done in big dark tiles and the toilet was one of those fancy, oblong jobs. The countertop was also dark, to offset the bright white walls, and the faucet made the water look as if it were falling smoothly from almost thin air. But the best part was the lighting. He’d arranged ten tiny lamps from the ceiling to cast a sort of prismed glow on the mirror, making one’s reflection look absolutely lovely.

Sarah looked in the cabinets for a spare toothbrush and found one. She brushed her teeth and took her hair out of her bun, finger brushing it as best as she could. She meant to go make coffee for them both but sidetracked back into the living room when she saw that Seth was stirring awake on the couch.

“Morning,” she said as he rubbed at his eyes with his free hand. He lifted his hand away and just stared at her.

“Morning,” he eventually replied.

His face was unusually inscrutable and she was suddenly wondering if maybe she shouldn’t have stayed the night. Maybe it had been a weird thing to do. Invasive, even.

“Are you a coffee person?” she asked, trying to clear the nerves out of her throat.

“Yes. Come over here.”

Sarah’s stomach flopped as she walked over to Seth, taking deep breaths. She stood next to the couch.

“I had a dream,” he told her. “That I held you all night.”

“Was it a good dream or bad dream?”

His arm snaked out and he caught her around the waist, tugging her back onto the couch and back into the cradle of his arms. “Neither. It was real life, wasn’t it?”

She nodded, suddenly a little overcome with delight that he was showing zero signs of regret. Normally, his pattern was to push her away when they got a little bit closer to one another. But not right now. Now, he was doing the opposite of that. He was threading their fingers together and pinning her to the couch with the weight of one of his legs.

He was being quite sweet, and this was all that Sarah had imagined it would be. But she couldn’t stop one of her feet from starting to jiggle up and down.

He pressed his warm foot over top of her jouncing foot to still it. Pretty soon, her fingers started to drum up and down against her chest. He pressed a hand over that. She started whisking air in and out of the cracks over her teeth.

“Um, Sarah?”

“Yeah?”

“I take it you’re not exactly a lounge-in-bed sort of person?”

“I can be!” she insisted. “…But if I don’t get some coffee in the next fifteen minutes I’m going to be forced to karate chop my way out of this snuggle prison.”

Seth laughed and unhanded her, sitting up and rubbing at his delightfully messy hair. She’d never seen him quite so disheveled. He was flushed from sleep, his hair was creased and the pattern from the couch cushions was pressed into one of his cheeks. She wanted to roll him up in a blanket and eat him like a cannoli. Or something to that effect.

“Coffee maker’s in the kitchen. I’ll meet you there.”

She jogged into the kitchen and was still attempting to riddle out the fancy chrome contraption when he came in, tugging a sweatshirt on and laughing at the expression on her face.

“Here.” He reached around her, flattening himself against her, and ground the coffee, dumping it into the right canister, filling up a tureen with water and then flipping the whole thing on.

Then, to Sarah’s delight and surprise, he turned her around in his arms so that she was facing him.

“I think this position must be one of your favorites,” she told him, remembering the last time he had her pinned against a countertop.

His eyes were roaming her face. “It has its appeal. Here. I’ll show you.”

He turned them around so that it was his ass against the countertop and she was the one crowding him.

“I hate to mention anything here that might put a stop to this delightful turn of events. But, Seth, I’m confused,” she said to him, her hands on his shoulders and his hands around her waist.

He knew exactly why she was confused. Because he’d been so rigid about rejecting her. And when he couldn’t make himself reject her, he’d outright avoided her instead. Because he’d been the one telling her that this wasn’t going to happen. And now he was flirting with her in the kitchen, pressed up against her and letting it happen, encouraging it to happen.

The reason?

How it had felt to hold her last night. Something had occurred to Seth the many times he’d dimly woken to see her sleeping soundly in his arms.

It felt good. It hadn’t felt as if he were destroying her life by wanting her. It felt freaking good and not a bit life-ending.

He’d pulled her closer and had a very agreeable thought. That maybe he’d been wrong before, thinking that he couldn’t be with her because he’d want everything from her. Maybe, just maybe, they could explore this thing between them and not have to worry about it coming crashing down in the end when he couldn’t be one hundred percent honest about who he was. Maybe they could explore this thing and keep it light.

Keep it casual.

Maybe, just maybe, for once in his life, Seth Durant could have his cake and eat it too.

He looked down at her amber eyes, her messy hair spilling over her shoulders. He traced a finger over her shoulder, where her tank top strap overlaid her sports bra. “I can’t believe you slept in this last night,” he murmured. “Wasn’t it uncomfortable?”

She shrugged in that matter-of-fact way that she had. “Never my first choice, but I definitely wasn’t going to do anything to wake you up and break the spell.”

He softened even more for her. She really wanted him. There was no question about that. And suddenly, his reasons for holding out on her seemed a hell of a lot quieter. Hope rose within him. Maybe he could do this. Hell, two nights ago he’d even connected with his wolf in a different way than he ever had before.

Yesterday morning it had seemed exceptionally bleak to him. Just how far he’d have to go before he was even remotely safe for Sarah. If ever. But now, he realized his misjudgment. He’d been thinking of Sarah as if she’d be a wife or a partner. But if he thought of Sarah as someone fun and lovely to indulge in, then there was no reason to beat himself over the head for not being able to control his wolf. He’d keep things light. He’d never have to explain why he left on full moons. He’d utterly keep his secret from her and that way she’d never have to lie about knowing he was shifter. Because she’d never know.

Hell, knowing Sarah’s lack of inclination for drama, there might not even be a bad breakup. Maybe things with her would just fade out. There was every chance that they could even just jump back into being friends.

The thought buoyed him even further.

Without too much more thought, Seth leaned down and kissed her neck as he fiddled with the straps of her sports bra. “Maybe we should take it off now, you know, to counterbalance your long night wearing it.”

She leaned back from him, her eyebrows creeping up her forehead. “Well, that was very smooth.”

He laughed and kissed her firmly. “I’ve gotta be honest, Sarah. I’m pretty smooth.”

“Apparently,” she laughed when he gripped her behind her thighs and lifted her up, her legs naturally going around his waist.

“Hey, Seth!”

Seth groaned and let his head drop forward onto Sarah’s shoulder as Raphael’s voice sounded from the front entryway.

Sarah laughed again. The sound was bright and unfettered, a little breathless and filled with happiness.

“Whoa,” Raph said as he came into the kitchen. “Wake up and smell the coffee. And then have sex in the kitchen, apparently.”

Sarah tipped her head back, still in Seth’s arms, her legs around his waist. “Hi, Raph.”

Raphael tipped his head to match the pitch of hers, a grin on his face. “Hey, Sarah.”

Seth let Sarah slide down his body. He hadn’t even gotten to really kiss her yet. He had a healthy scowl for his brother. Sarah took a step away from Seth but he hauled her back close to him. “Where are you going?” he asked her.

“I was gonna let you two have your moment.”

“What moment?” he demanded.

“Whichever moment he came over here to have with you.” She pointed a thumb at Raphael.

“You’re going back to your house?” he asked.

She nodded.

“But you haven’t even had your coffee yet.”

“I have coffee over there, Seth.” She was smiling at him in a slightly perplexed way. He didn’t blame her. He’d done an abrupt about-face. One night snuggled against her on the couch and he’d gone from avoiding her to being a level ten clinger.

“Just hold on a minute.” He turned and started digging through a cabinet for a to-go cup. He found his favorite one and filled it with coffee, adding a dash of cream, the way she liked.

She was smiling at him in a much more genuine way now, as if these actions didn’t surprise her in the least. As if she hadn’t been expecting him to want her to stay, but she had been expecting him to take care of her. That, at least, partially soothed him.             

He handed over the coffee and she went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. That soothed him as well.

“I’ll see you later,” she said firmly.

“After work? It’s a Friday. We could do that movie thing you suggested.”

“The rest of us are going out again if you kids want to join,” Raphael threw out from where he leaned on the kitchen door.

Seth scowled even harder at his brother.

“Oh!” Sarah said. “That sounds fun.”

“All right,” Seth agreed, mostly just to keep her smiling like that. She flashed him one more perfect slice of her teeth and then she was jogging out of the kitchen, high-fiving Raphael on the way out.

Seth waited until he heard his front door slam. “I thought twins were supposed to have some sort of mental connection. Or at least solidarity.”

“What?” Raphael asked guiltily, a goofy smile on his face.

“You know what.”

“I didn’t come over here planning to interrupt you getting freaky in your kitchen.” Raphael strutted over and pulled a coffee cup down. Seth couldn’t wait for this fool to start trying to get to the coffee pot. “Besides, I thought you’d made the noble decision to leave Sarah alone.”              

Raphael tried to side-step around Seth to get to the coffee but Seth shifted his weight. His brother tried the other direction, but Seth shifted that way as well. It dissolved into a headlocked wrestling match about three seconds after that.

Raphael had weight on Seth, but Seth had always been a better wrestler.

“I did decide that. And then I changed my mind,” Seth grunted, trying to sweep Raphael’s legs.

“What—ow, shit!—made you change your mind?”

“I don’t know. I was taking it too seriously. Already planning out our futures, our devastating breakup. I’m just gonna try to have fun with her.”

“Why did God give you such a low fucking center of gravity?” Raphael shouted, using all his weight to attempt to bring Seth to the floor. Then Seth’s words seemed to register. “Dude, I’m impressed. You never just have fun with girls. You’re always hyper-obsessed with their feelings, always scared of stepping on anybody’s toes.”

“Fuck you,” Seth panted, shoving an elbow into Raphael’s side.

“I’m giving you a compliment,” Raph panted back, planting an elbow of his own. “Sarah’s cool. If you two are kicking it, your life is gonna get a hell of a lot more interesting.”

Seth finally swept Raph’s legs, but Raph had a good hold on him and they toppled to the floor in a swearing, laughing mess.

 

 

***

 

 

There was at least a fifty percent chance that Seth was going to have changed his mind about hooking up by the time this group date thing rolled around.

“Maybe even a seventy percent chance,” Nat corrected Sarah as she came up behind her in the mirror.

“Did I say that out loud?”

“Talking to yourself and not realizing it?” Kaya called from the armchair she was currently draped across. “You’ve got it bad, sister.”

Sarah grimaced but didn’t refute that. She played with her hair in the mirror a little more. She’d let Nat blow dry it. “You really think he’s changed his mind?”

Nat pinched her face up in a chagrined little expression. “Probably? And not because you’re not seriously kickass, Sarah. But because Seth doesn’t really ever let himself… have what he wants. Even when he was younger he’d leave half his ice cream in the dish because he knew it wasn’t good for him.”

“Wow.”

“But that’s why we’re gonna make resisting you a lot harder than resisting a bowl of Rocky Road,” Nat said, waggling a makeup bag at Sarah for the fiftieth time that night.

Sarah groaned. Ever since she’d come over to their apartment and told Nat and Kaya about what had happened that morning, Nat hadn’t stopped waggling the makeup bag. She was a makeup-waggling juggernaut. She really, really, really wanted to give Sarah a makeover.

“Give it a rest, Nat!” Kaya called, clicking at her phone. “The woman has politely declined a makeover like fifteen times. Get the message already.”

“Who doesn’t want a makeover?” Nat asked, looking back and forth between Kaya and Sarah.

“Um… the two of us?” Sarah said, pointing between herself and Kaya.

“It’s my lot in life to be surrounded by females who are completely comfortable letting my talents go to waste.”              

Kaya shrugged, as if she didn’t care a whit what her sister was complaining about. It wasn’t a wonder to Sarah why Kaya wouldn’t care about makeup. The girl was a natural sexpot. She was incredibly beautiful. But not in a classic sort of way. More in an I’ll-bet-I-can-get-you-to-throw-yourself-off-a-ship-and-into-the-sea-and-die-on-the-rocks-just-to-get-to-me sort of way.

Sarah looked at herself in the mirror and decided to indulge Nat. “I guess a little eye makeup wouldn’t hurt.”

“Yes!” Natalie cha-chinged so hard she went down on one knee.

Sarah sat down and let Nat get to work. “Kaya, do you date?”

Kaya looked up from her phone when Natalie laughed.

“Was the laugh really necessary?” She raised her eyebrows at her sister.

“Kaya turns down more dates than anyone I’ve ever met in my life.”

“You’re picky?” Sarah guessed.

Kaya shrugged, a little pink rising to her cheeks. “I guess I just don’t see the point in it. I’m not going to get married anytime soon, and I’m not lonely. I get plenty of companionship from my sister and from the Durants.”

Sarah furrowed her brow and Nat ferociously smoothed it out as she went after her eyebrows with a pencil. “But what about sex?”

Sarah observed the way Kaya’s cheeks went bright red.

“Oh, shit. I shouldn’t have asked. That was so rude of me. I’m sorry.”

“No, no.” Kaya waved a casual hand in the air, as if she wasn’t offended, and for that Sarah was immensely grateful. “At twenty-two, it’s natural you’d assume that I was having sex with people. But I haven’t… um, I don’t… yeah. I’m in no rush, I suppose.”

“I didn’t have sex until I was…” Sarah counted backwards on her fingers, making both Nat and Kaya laugh. “Twenty-three? Yeah, that’s about right.”

“Really? Why not?” Nat asked, pulling at Sarah’s chin to get her to face her dead-on again.

Sarah shrugged. “I was always busy with archery and training and traveling. I was homeschooled until I got my GED, so there weren’t a lot of chances to meet people. And I told you that my friend died. Simon. It took a while to get over that.”

Nat and Kaya exchanged eye contact. “Were you in love with him?” Nat asked in a small voice.

Sarah thought about that for a long minute. Surprisingly, she’d never really given that much thought before. She considered her warm and lovely feelings for Simon. How it had felt to get to know him. How it had felt for him to share his shifter secret with her. “No,” she said eventually. “But I loved him very much as a person. And I had a little bit of a crush on him. It took a long time for me to get close to anyone after he died.”

Sarah was surprised and touched to see that both Nat’s and Kaya’s eyes were capped with glossy domes of tears.

“Oh, jeez,” she said with a chuckle. “Quick, somebody say something light and breezy!”

“I lost my virginity at seventeen. In Sawyer Ferragamo’s basement. His mom came down like ten seconds afterwards and I fell down, bare ass up, trying to get my band uniform back on.”

Sarah’s eyes went so round that Kaya burst out laughing, which made Sarah laugh, which made Nat laugh.

“I think that’s the worst story I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Sarah said through gasping laughter.

“Imagine if it had happened to you. Then it wouldn’t be just a story. It would be a moment in your life. That other people experienced along with you,” Nat said, brandishing a mascara wand like a tiny sword. “Poor Sawyer. He didn’t have another girlfriend for two years after that.”

That sent them into more hysterical giggles. “The first time I heard that story scarred me so much it’s probably the reason I’m still a virgin,” Kaya said through tears of laughter. She was hanging halfway off the armchair now.

“Did we miss the pillow fight or are we just in time?” Raphael asked from the doorway of Kaya and Nat’s apartment. Apparently, the women had been laughing so hard they hadn’t heard the Durant brothers knock.

Sarah’s laughter stopped abruptly as she glanced at Kaya, who practically had heat waves of embarrassment rising off of her face. It didn’t take a PhD to see that she hadn’t particularly wanted to share that detail about her love life with the Durants. And Sarah could see why. Raphael was looking like it was total joke, Seth looked mildly embarrassed and Jackson, his expression freakishly serious, looked as if the word ‘virgin’ was bulldozing itself in circles around his poor, Y-chromosomed brain.

“Hi, guys,” Nat said, wiping tears from her eyes and obviously trying to move past the moment. “I thought we were supposed to meet you at the restaurant.”

“You were late,” Seth said. “So we thought we’d come see what was holding you up. But now I wish I’d waited for the big reveal.”

His eyes met Sarah’s across the room, warming with attraction and desire and pure happiness at the sight of her.

She looked down at herself in confusion. Big reveal? And then she realized what Seth was talking about. Even though she’d come over to Nat’s house in jeggings and a V-neck shirt, slowly, over the course of the last hour and a half, Nat had talked Sarah into letting her blow dry her shower-damp hair, shoved her into a sweater dress and was just putting the finishing touches on her eye makeup.

Sarah narrowed her eyes at Nat, who was briskly snapping makeup cases back together and zipping bags and looking altogether suspiciously busy. “Did you plan this?” she muttered at Nat.

Nat’s already gigantic green eyes got even more gigantic and even more doe-like. Her glossy, dark hair brushed her shoulder as she tipped her head to one side. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t be fooled, Sarah,” Kaya said, boosting herself off the couch. “My sister is always planning something when it comes to love. Whatever the word is for someone who is both conniving and incredibly well meaning, that’s Nat.”

“Amen,” Raphael said with a good-natured smile on his face. “You girls ready? The restaurant is holding our table.”

From the back of the group, like a silent, black storm cloud, Jackson pulled out his phone. “Looks like I’m getting called into the office,” he said in a low voice.

“I didn’t know you were on call tonight.” Raphael had a skeptical expression on his face.

Jackson said nothing in response. Just shrugged his shoulders. “Gotta go. Goodnight, everyone.”

And then he was gone, back into the hallway and down the stairs.

“Should we get going?” Kaya asked, jumping to her feet, her expression a strange mixture of relief and disappointment.

Seth strode over and reached a hand down to Sarah where she knelt on the floor. “Let’s get this date over with,” he said to her quietly. “The sooner we go home, the sooner I can get you alone.”

“Perv.” She rolled her eyes at him in flirty delight.

“Yeah, but just for you. I’m your personal perv.”

“That’s weird, bro,” Raphael cut in, shamelessly eavesdropping. And for what felt like the millionth time that night, Sarah burst into laughter.