Chapter Eighteen
The cabin lights were still dim as the sweet scent of shampoo and a woman’s soft, supple body coaxed Sawyer awake.
Taking even breaths, a warm, safe Angela slept under his arm.
He wasn’t sure what to make of pulling her to his side, but he couldn’t imagine a better way to wake.
A long time had passed since he last fell asleep beside a woman.
An even longer time had elapsed since he’d wanted to fall asleep next to a woman.
The appeal hadn’t been there in far too long.
Was it here now? That didn’t matter. Sawyer couldn’t break his rules.
Not even for Angela. He breathed deeply and realized the piling tension of the last few days had dissipated, replaced by an entirely delicious pressure in his chest that he wasn’t sure how to handle—or ignore.
This wasn’t fair to Angela. Hell, he wasn’t sure it was fair to him.
The jet bumped as the pilot navigated turbulence. Angela stirred and sighed, burrowing into Sawyer’s fragile hold. He didn’t want her eyes to open. Her mind would go into overdrive, fixing and correcting and explaining what he wanted to simply stay.
After another rumble of turbulence, the jet angled up and changed elevation.
Sawyer prayed for smoother skies. Too many more jolts might force the flight attendant to ask them to buckle up.
He waited, wishing for more than he had a right to request, and when the aircraft leveled smoothly, he stayed awake.
How much longer did he have? They were scheduled to touchdown at five in the morning local time.
He couldn’t check his watch without possibly waking Angela.
Sawyer tried to savor what wouldn’t happen again.
His eyelids shut, but he never drifted back to sleep.
Then, her soft posture became rigid. The easy rhythm of her breaths stilted. If he could’ve read her mind, Sawyer would have been certain the wheels were spinning at a breakneck speed.
“Morning,” he whispered, not moving a muscle. She could turn to face him or run away. He wasn’t sure which option was better.
Her body straightened, but she didn’t flee. Instead, with her head still resting on him like he was her pillow, she asked, “What time is it?”
He exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath for an hour and finally checked his watch. “A little after four.”
She lifted her chin, offering him her sleepy, semi-panicked eyes. “We’ll be wheels down soon?”
He nodded. “In forty-five minutes or so.” There was a fifty-fifty chance that Angela would not acknowledge how they slept.
The situation would be easier that way, if he were being honest. If she peppered him with questions, all the vulnerability and unknowns would dissolve. He didn’t want her to say a word.
The sleepiness faded. Angela eyed their bodies and then studied him. “Sawyer…” The questions were about to start.
“You’re very good at scripting a narrative,” he said.
Her eyes widened at the apparent accusation. “Oh, really?”
The corners of his lips quirked. “Yup, and I’m wondering how that will work out right now.”
Angela tried to elbow him, but that only brought their bodies closer. She blushed. “Well, I’m feeling a little out of my element at the moment. Scripting might help.”
She wasn’t wrong. Still, he didn’t want her to explain away what had drawn them together. “You know what I think?”
“I have absolutely no clue.”
In truth, he didn’t know what to think. “Me neither.”
Maybe, subconsciously, pulling her to sleep at his side had been an unspoken offer to handle their conversation and erase what she hadn’t wanted to face. She had ceded her tight grip on her world and melted into his. He had her. He’d held her. He’d protect her. Like he always had—but more so.
“Should I move?” she finally asked.
That question wasn’t easy. He couldn’t be anything like she needed.
Safe. Secure. Stable. In it for the long haul.
The realization made his empty heart ache.
Still, he couldn’t stop himself. “Do you want to?” Hope, unfamiliar and unwelcome, danced in his chest. He’d asked too much.
“I mean.” He cleared his throat. “If you’re comfortable, stay. No big deal.”
She scoffed and shook her head. “No big deal…” She repositioned herself and stared blankly at the wall. Her walls of control and scripted narrative would arrive shortly. Sawyer hated them and was just as annoyed at himself.
He closed his eyes. Soon enough, the plane would land, and everything would return to normal. He hated it even as much as he needed it.
“Sawyer?”
Her no-nonsense tone made him smile. “Hm?”
“I have a proposition for you,” she said.
His curiosity was piqued. A proposition wasn’t what he had on his bingo card. “What’s that?”
She propped onto her elbow and rested her head in the palm of her hand. “Well, don’t decide right now.”
He grinned.
“You don’t do relationships—”
“Ange—”
“Don’t interrupt either.” She waved him to shut up. “Like I was saying. You don’t do relationships.” She gave him a stern look to keep his mouth closed.
Sawyer managed to stay quiet.
“And I have a lot of figuring out to do,” she said.
Angela paused, waiting for him to slip up and ask questions before she was ready. But this wasn’t his first rodeo when it came to her speeches. He didn’t take the bait, though he was curious as all hell.
“We’re on this trip where everyone has already told me we’ll hit dead ends and have nothing to do…” She blushed in a way that went straight to his groin. “What if we mess around?”
Straight, straight, straight to his groin. The woman had knocked the air from his lungs without moving a muscle.
“Like for practice or something,” Angela tried to explain as if he hadn’t heard a word she’d said. “Or fun. I don’t know.” Her blush intensified. “I don’t have practice doing this. But you do.”
Was that insulting? He couldn’t parse underlying meanings and possible jabs when all the blood in his body had caught fire. Sawyer swallowed hard and arched his eyebrows, failing to assume the unaffected manner he’d hoped to achieve. “I do?”
“Yeah. Sure. Your dates. No relationship. That kind of stuff.”
Everyone he’d dated casually was very different from her.
“For a finite amount of time,” she continued. “For the duration of this job.”
He blinked and tried to match her words to meanings, but his brain wasn’t operating as expected.
“We’d have rules. Expectations. Safe words?” Her brow furrowed. “No, that’s probably not what we’re going for.”
She was negotiating a contract for them to go to bed, and he hadn’t managed to speak yet.
“So that’s my proposition.” Now her face skewed. “If you could say something, I’d feel less like an idiot.”
“Ange…” The warmth from lying beside her was gone.
She was leaning into her role as the queen of control, asking for a time-boxed friends-with-benefits situation, all while he’d been enamored with—and confused by—the fact he held a woman while she slept.
They’d inched close to something very personal, and she ran.
Hell, worse than that, Angela was asking for a walking, talking vibrator to teach her the ropes.
A distant cousin of disappointment bubbled thickly in his chest. “I don’t think I can do that. ”
Her face fell. She played her change in mood off with a shrug. “It was just an idea.”
She wanted a teacher? Why didn’t she want romance? Angela deserved to be swept off her feet after a ho-hum time with the ex who should not be named. Not that Sawyer was the right guy to shower her with attention. “I’m just… not in the right headspace for something like that.”
“Seriously, Sawyer. A simple no is all that’s needed. You don’t have to make up excuses.” They were still so close, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Can you forget what I said so this isn’t weird?”
“It’s only going to be weird if you move to another seat.”
“Don’t patronize me. Okay?” Angela wriggled and repositioned herself to face away from him but stayed on the couch.
“That wasn’t my intention, sweetheart.”
She hmphed, and he could practically feel her eyes roll. But after a minute, she added, “You’re a very good big spoon, Sawyer. Never would have guessed it.”
“Not so bad yourself, little spoon.” He hid his regret in a forced laugh against the back of her head. “That’s just one of my many talents.”
An hour later, coffees in hand, they had landed, stepping off Titan’s jet and into a waiting SUV. The drive to Emerald Isle wouldn’t take long. Angela was eerily normal. The same couldn’t be said of himself.
Their driver left them at a safe house on the beach that came with a car and a fully stocked refrigerator. An updated briefing book sat on the kitchen counter. Sawyer didn’t know who’d made the arrangements, but they’d done a great job.
He bypassed the kitchen and living room and proceeded upstairs. The floor had two bedrooms, the larger one with an ocean-facing balcony. He tossed Angela’s bag onto that bed and dropped his belongings in the bedroom across the hall. “Good view up here.”
He didn’t hear a peep.
Sawyer wandered to the main floor again and found Angela at the kitchen table with papers spread before her, pen in hand. “You don’t want to see your room?”
“I want to find Mylene.” She had grouped the crime scene photos next to those taken from a vacation rental website. Law enforcement notes were categorized by agency: Local PD. Military police.
He walked around the table and read the notes she’d scribbled in her little notebook. Her proposition was apparently a distant memory. At least it was for her.
Angela dropped her pen on the table. “We’re a block away from where the murders took place.” Her eyebrows arched. “I don’t know what we’re going to find, but we should take a look.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Sawyer grabbed an apple from a fresh fruit bowl. “Can you imagine staying at a vacation rental where a woman killed her husband and sister?”
“Except Mylene didn’t kill them.”
He bit into the apple, chewed, and swallowed. “That’s our working theory.”
Angela glared.