Page 28 of Our Sadie
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 naïvely 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.