But, when Tucker came back with the dried glue name taped to a pink piece of construction paper, she’d thanked him again, smiled, and put it in her backpack. As far as I knew, to this day, he didn’t know that she’d thought it was disgusting.
Now, as Brady sat between us, she took off the kid gloves that she’d used for Tucker.
“What are we drinkin’?” Brady picked up the bottle that I’d brought.
“We,” Jade emphasized as she took the bottle out of his hand, her southern charm and smile firmly in place, “are drinking Moscato. And this blanket is a two-seater, but thanks for stopping by and saying hi.”
“Wow.” Brady mimed as if there were a knife twisting in his chest. “If you wanted me to leave, you could’ve just said so.”
Her smile never faltered, “I think I just did, darlin’.”
Inside I was slow clapping for her. Outside, I was trying not to laugh.
After a few more back and forth exchanges, Brady finally left. When he did, like a magnet, my eyes were immediately drawn back to the man that I wished was sitting on my two-seater blanket, no offense to Jade.
Sawyer stood talking with Hayden Reed, and both men were looking our way. I immediately swung my head back so that I was facing forward, feeling like I’d been caught with my hand in the cookie jar when our eyes met.
“What?” Jade asked, noticing my behavior. “Is Brady coming bac—”
She looked in the direction that I’d just been looking in and then proceeded to spin back around as fast as I had. Hayden Reed had been back in Wishing Well for about a month now after serving as an Army Ranger for over a decade. I think that Jade was the only person in town that wasn’t ready to throw a ticker tape parade for the decorated war veteran.
And no one knew why. Not her best friend Bella, not Tami Lynn a waitress at the Spoon who knew everything about everyone, not my sisters who were the hub of gossip central. No one. It’d been the source of many a water cooler conversation.
As the movie started to flicker on the screen, I leaned in close to her so I wouldn’t be heard by the people sitting around us. “Ever think you’re gonna want to talk about what happened between you and Hayden?”
She didn’t miss a beat, shooting back, “Ever think you’re gonna want to talk about what happened between you and Sawyer?”
No. I tapped her wine glass with mine. “Touché.”
As we sat back and sipped our wine, I tried to lose myself in Princess Buttercup and her farm boy, but instead, my eyes shifted over my shoulder back towards Sawyer. But he wasn’t there. He was gone…something I needed to get used to.
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…th
ere 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.
Chapter 28
Delilah
“Dreams have a funny way of coming true when you stop sleeping.”
~ Grant Turner
I was alive with sensation. It seemed like every cell in my body was alive. In fact, I half expected it to be making sounds like the snap, crackle, and pop of a bowl of Rice Krispies after you pour the milk in.
Yep. That’s what it felt like. Like my skin was made of Rice Krispies, and somebody had just poured a big ol’ helpin’ of milk all over me.
Part of it was the pleasure that Sawyer had just given me, but the other part was the words he’d spoken just before that. I felt as overwhelmed as Sally Field accepting her Oscar. All I kept thinking was, he loves me. He really loves me.
I watched the show as Sawyer undressed, relaxing and just enjoying the incredible sensations flooding through my muscles, the almost unbelievable level of happiness and contentment filling my belly. I swear, if there was a more spectacular sight in the universe than Sawyer’s naked body, I sure couldn’t think what it might be.
When he finally got every last stitch of clothing off and had taken care of protection, he smiled down at me. An open, raw smile that made tingles explode from my center. I held out my arms to him and let my knees fall apart, an invitation for him to climb on top of me and make love to me.
My heart was pounding so hard it sounded like a gong being struck in my head. All my life I’d dreamt of being with Sawyer like this. Him on top of me, his body pressed down the length of mine, my arms and legs wrapped around him, holding him tightly to me as he moved inside me. Me kissing his face and neck, totally free to whisper any old thing that came into my mind to him—absolutely anything that I wanted to say, up to and including the fact that I loved him because I knew that he felt the same.
I wondered if it would be uncouth or break the mood if I held up a finger and asked him to hold on just a minute while I pinched myself to make sure that this was actually real.
Sawyer climbed onto the couch and spread my legs even further with his knees. I smiled. I had a big, comfy, overstuffed couch. However, even still, I wasn’t sure it would be wide enough—or overstuffed enough, for that matter—to handle both Sawyer’s body and mine. But, thankfully, it was.
He positioned his body at the opening of my sex, and a thrill of anticipation raced through me. I closed my eyes expecting his body to plunge into mine. When it didn’t, I opened them to find him staring down at me.
“I’m ready,” I whispered.
“I’m not,” he replied flatly. My stomach dropped, afraid for a moment that maybe he’d changed his mind about us. About his love for me. But my fear was short-lived, because he immediately continued, “I need to do this first.”
With that, he lowered his lips to mine and gave me the sweetest, loveliest, gentlest, and yet somehow, most passionate kiss I’d ever experienced. While his lips were still moving against mine, I felt him slide gently into me.
It wasn’t the same sensation as when he had entered me with a powerful thrust. It was like the slow blooming of a flower rather than the sudden explosion of fireworks. Each was so beautiful in its own way.
“God, that feels so good,” I whispered against his lips.
In response, he deepened the kiss and intensified it as his strokes in and out of me gained in speed and intensity.
This was it. This was the experience, the feeling that I’d been waiting for my entire life. This was me and Sawyer. This was more than sex. This was real lovemaking.
I’d always wondered if I’d be able to tell the difference when it finally happened. Now, I knew that that question was as silly as when I had wondered if I would recognize what an orgasm felt like before I ever had one. The sensation was unmistakable and powerful, and there was no way in hell to miss it.
As he moved back and forth, in and out and in and out, and I wrapped him up in both my legs and my arms, I tried to clear my mind and just let the sensations flow through me. Not overanalyzing them, and not trying to hold on too tight to any one feeling. Trying to hold onto something from the past, I’d learned, was a good way to miss the next amazing thing coming in the future. I didn’t want to make that mistake anymore in any part of my life, but especially where Sawyer was concerned.
He was too important to make mistakes with. He was everything, just like he’d said I was.
/> One of the things I was able to notice while I focused on letting feelings pass through me naturally was that there was a constant. One sensation that didn’t go away. It stayed, persisted. That was the solid and safe—yet somehow still thrilling—it was the feeling of Sawyer’s skin pressed against mine, all down the lengths of our bodies.
My belly held firmly against the iron muscles of his, my breasts against his massive chest. It was incredible to be able to feel even the smallest of his muscle twitches immediately in my own body because we were pressed up so tightly against each other.
I couldn’t think of a single way that we could get closer to each other. Still, the urge burned in my belly. I wanted to get as close to Sawyer as I possibly could. God, I think if there had been a way to curl up and crawl right inside him at that moment, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. I was operating on pure animal instinct, and I loved it.
Up until a few weeks ago, I’d always done the safe thing. I’d always done exactly what people expected of me. I’d never once given into my baser desires. I’d always thought through all of the consequences and made the choice that made the least waves.
This recent devil-may-care attitude, especially when it came to sex and Sawyer, may be a new way of operating for me, but it felt so natural that I suspected it was what I’d been suppressing all along. I think that, through all of those years of being the good girl and doing exactly what everyone else wanted me to, there was a secret rebel hiding deep down inside. She was a wild woman, and she did whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
I’d kept her chained up for as long as possible, but now she was free.
What she wanted was to make love to Sawyer Briggs.
When she wanted it was all the time.
Sawyer rose up a little, then, propping himself up on his elbows, framed my face with his arms. I loved it. I loved looking into his eyes as he made love to me, loved feeling the weight of his body above me. Loved that the leverage of his new position gave him access to drive into me at a deeper angle.
Seducing Sawyer (Wishing Well, Texas Book 7) Page 17