NINE A Spring in My Step
SADIE
I’m eating my chicken salad with cucumber and avocado sandwiches—presented with crusts cut off and sliced into cute little halves, apparently thanks to Dom since Max never does this—when I realize that my date hasn’t spoken in a while. Not once since returning to my room with all this edible booty.
We’ve situated ourselves in the seating area between the bed and the wall of windows, and he brought our meal in a woven basket I don’t recognize. The concept of a picnic dinner is novel and thoughtful. Not something most men would utilize as their go-to in the middle of winter.
I like it. Even if his gaze keeps flicking to me and wandering away again while he annihilates his half of the food as if he hasn’t eaten in a year.
Of course, I haven’t been a slouch on the putting away the sandwiches front, either. Normally, I’m not a huge eater, but I’m famished. Vigorous physical activity will do that to a person.
With Dom, our activity was more than vigorous. The man essentially fucked me into next week, and I’m still recovering from the experience.
It’s the best time I’ve had in years. Maybe ever. And not once did he make me feel anything weird about my scars, even if I did dress the second he marched out to retrieve some sustenance.
So, why am I getting the sense that he’s become more anxious around me now?
I wait him out, observing the guy out of my periphery. He unloads this container of sliced fruit and nudges the whole thing over to me. I choose an orange slice and pop it in my mouth, then proceed to dig out each and every piece I can find before pushing it his way.
Dom eats everything else, the berries and banana chunks, pausing to offer me one last slice of orange that’s been hiding on the bottom. I open my mouth to see if he’ll feed it to me.
He does.
“Oranges are your favorite, I take it.”
“How’d you guess?” I deadpan.
He quirks one of his dark thick brows upward, the same side of his mouth mimicking the motion. “I like the fruits of the citrus family, in general. I’ve even been known to down raw lemons on occasion. It helps to complement the sourness of my personality.”
He narrows his gaze at me as if unsure what to say. I let go of a snort. “Point one for the sarcastic bitch.”
“Are you teasing me, right now?”
“About my personality? Maybe a little. About the lemons? No. I really have eaten them like some people eat apples.”
“Seriously? Just straight lemons?” I tilt my head to the front in agreement. “Didn’t it make you pucker up like a cartoon character?”
“I like it,” I insist, even if his example makes reels of those cartoons revolve through my head ad nauseum.
He leans forward, elbows on the tabletop separating us. “You’re telling me if I challenged you to suck a lemon, you’d do it?”
“On purpose,” I tell him. “And without finding it the least bit offensive.”
Half of his lips rise all the way into an actual grin, something I seldom see from Dom. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen it.
“That almost sounds like you’re asking for me to do it. To dare you to do it.”
I don’t mention that I’m the least impulsive and most risk-averse person he’s likely ever met. He doesn’t need to know that.
It hits me that we’re having this light and carefree conversation after a date that was a mixed bag. I used to be so good at pool and darts. Maybe that’s why it irked me so much to fail at stuff I used to excel in.
Thankfully, air hockey doesn’t require the finesse those other games do. Neither does sex with a talented and patient partner.
And Dom and I... Something about him makes me think we might have introverted natures in common. Maybe it’s all his quietness. I don’t know. So much of the time he lets me make the first move or say the first word. I didn’t know that I would like that, but I do.
That’s why when the last of our meal is gone, I scoot around the table and position myself in his lap. Immediately, his arms loop around me as if we’ve done this for years.
It’s ironic because I’m not much of a touchy-feely person. Especially not since the accident. But maybe due to the satiation he’s provided or how sweet and quaint his picnic idea was, I’m craving his nearness. I’m craving having him close.
My ear is over his heart, and with my gaze on the crackling wood logs—thank God for that gas starter—I feel myself melting into him. I’m warm. I’m safe. And though I maybe shouldn’t trust a man I’ve known for such a short amount of time, I do.
I do.
When I stir hours later, I’ve been tucked into bed, my blankets and sheets gathered around me. Dom isn’t here, and despite falling asleep on him, I’m glad.
I need to process what occurred between us last night.
Considerately, he closed the curtains so that the sun wouldn’t shine in here like a laser beam. Even better, he must’ve taken the remnants of our picnic dinner and the soda cans with him. As I blink at my space, it strikes me that it looks not only uncluttered with the detritus from yesterday, it also appears as if Dom may have tidied everything since nothing’s out of place.
And that’s not even mentioning how he must’ve stacked my firewood into the hearth to keep the blaze going. It’s low now, but there’s no way he didn’t feed the flames for me. Even if he’s going for all these brownie points with me because he’s in it to win it, that doesn’t account for the degree of kindness he showed me.
To be honest, it’s sort of a shock to my system.
I inhale the faint scent of Dom’s cedar cologne and notice the coverlet on the bed. It’s barely rumpled despite our activities. Yet for some reason, I’m tempted to drape it around me like a shawl and keep breathing in his fragrance.
It’s comforting to me. Soothing.
I glance over at my clock and notice the time. Eleven in the morning. Not only did I sleep through the night, I did it without becoming restless and sitting up through the wee hours. That’s often my problem. If I can get to sleep, I usually don’t remain that way. Yet I did last night. I don’t even remember any nightmares or dreams of any kind.
That’s almost unheard of for me.
I prepare for my day, feeling a spring in my step as I do. Amazing what some solid shuteye and a couple of phenomenal climaxes can do for a woman.
When I amble toward the breakfast table—yes, yet again I’m the last to arrive—I cast Dom a furtive glance. He’s already observing me, so our eyes meet fleetingly before breaking away again. Those full lips of his edge up along one corner slightly, his gaze growing soft as he peers at some spot midway between me and the table.
It’s such a departure from the only other time I had sex on a first date.
The circumstances are different, of course. But once during my freshman semester of college, I had a one-night stand with a stranger. It occurred after my first real relationship imploded. I’d believed it might help me get over my heartbreak from my ex, the boy I’d na?vely thought at the time would be it for me.
Wood.
Blech.
That other guy, the one-night stand, had plowed into me without regard for my pleasure at all, made up a ridiculous excuse to leave before I could even protest, and avoided me in the lone class we shared the following day. It had pissed me off. Royally. In fact, I was so furious that at the end of the session, I marched across the room to make him account for what he’d done.
I wanted an apology. For him to make it right. If he refused, I don’t know what I’d been prepared to do. In my head, I was thinking about slapping him, maybe even kicking him in the balls. But the instant I approached, he slithered away like the snake he was. He didn’t return, either. Must’ve dropped the class.
Coward.
But if I’d anticipated any drop-off in behavior from Dom, I needn’t have worried. As soon as I sat, he stood and strolled to the kitchen. With that same minuscule cockeyed grin floating over his features, he brought me orange juice, waffles, and a side bowl of orange slices.
The fruit even appeared to be freshly cut, though whether he’d done it or had asked Max I’d have to unearth later.
“Thank you.”
“You’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed this morning,” Zach says. Not a taunt or any sort of mockery, I realize. A genuine reflection as he munches on some oranges himself.
I glance around at these men, men I’ve painstakingly vetted and researched, men I’ve spent time with in what might be a questionable endeavor. But my date with Dom has filled me with hope.
He and I communicated well despite some early bumps in the road, and as long as we can keep that going, I think there’s a chance that he might wind up being the most viable solution for me.
I should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe I should give them all the benefit of the doubt.
I twist toward the man I’ve assigned the rest of my day to. “Have any plans you care to divulge, Jerome?”
“Nope.” There’s humor in his voice, even if he’s not actually smiling.
“Should I be concerned about that?”
“Oh, no. I just like for events to unfold without being announced sometimes. Lends it an air of mystery.”
“Mystery? Is that code for flying by the seat of your pants?” Zach coughs after this and the, “Oops, unprepared,” within it is easy to identify.
“It’s called providing a lady with a bit of intrigue to go with her evening,” Jerome corrects him, but there’s no reproach in his tone. He cuts into a waffle with his fork and dips it into his maple syrup without so much as batting an eye at Zach or anyone else. Nothing seems to ruffle Jerome’s feathers.
I like that about him. But I am curious about whatever he’s concealing. It’s not like there’s that many options that I won’t be familiar with inside these four walls. Although if Dom can think outside the box, I suppose there’s no reason Jerome can’t do the same.
“Thought I’d collect you around noon,” Jerome requests. “Unless that’s too early?”
“It’s not.”
The man is true to his word and knocks on the door to my suite with a preciseness I could set a watch by.
“Come in.”
He breezes in not like someone who owns the place, but like a man who’s so comfortable in his own skin that he can make himself at home anywhere.
“Did you choose how this room would be decorated?” he asks me.
“I did.” I actually redecorated my suite right before heading off to Harvard. The original version had been too immature and little-girly, I’d expressed to my parents. Mom had already been updating the aesthetic and had been all too eager to include my personal bedroom in the details.
I’m weightless for split seconds that feel like much longer as we descend toward the Earth at breakneck speed... Smoke fills the cabin with its acrid odor while flames lick at the fuselage like some evil monster intent on consuming us...
I jolt, halting the memory in its tracks. The last thing I need to think about right now is the worst day of my existence. Luckily, Jerome has wandered past where I’m standing to scan the contents of my living quarters.
“So, this is you. An aspect of Sadie Vincent I’m guessing few ever witness.”
Since I hear him as though through a long tunnel, it takes time for his words to register. When they make their impacts, I’m puzzled.
What does he mean by that? Is he insinuating that I don’t see much action? If so, I’m not sure how to feel about such presumptuousness. It doesn’t matter that he’s correct either, that prior to him meandering through that door, Dom has been the only other unrelated person of the male persuasion to enter.
“Are we staying here, then? Is that your stupendous gesture meant to inspire me with awe?”
My tone is dripping with venom, I admit it.
Yet what spreads across Jerome’s face is the slash of his bright white smile, one that accentuates those prominent cheekbones of his. Two diamonds gleam from each of his earlobes, and while I’m not typically into guys with piercings of any kind, they suit him. I was right before. Nothing phases him.
“Do you think that should be my grand scheme? Because I can certainly make that work.” His already soft tone has grown more feral. More daring. “I can bend you over that end table or up against that hearth. Is that want you want, Sadie?”
This notion shouldn’t make my nipples pebble or my pelvis ache, but it does. This man has been in more adult films that I can count and has likely bedded even more women than that. There’s no telling what he knows and the extent to which his experience lies.
I swallow so that my voice will sound normal.
“Not necessarily.”
He chuckles under his breath. “Not to say that those things can’t be arranged, but they’re not a part of my plan. Would you be opposed to checking out what I have in store for you?”
In store for mesounds promising.
“I wouldn’t be.”
“Then I’m honored and thrilled to be yours. Are you ready?”
I square my shoulders, my words a challenge. “I am.”