Getting His Way: Sapphire Falls Book Seven (9 page)

Derek nodded as he wiped down a bottle of Jack. “Oh, I know. Everyone knows that Tess has been waiting for you. That’s why it’s been funny having you warn guys off.”

“Funny how?” Bryan asked.

“The only guys who would actually ask her out are from out of town. Everyone around here knows they wouldn’t get anywhere with her.” Derek replaced the Jack on the middle shelf in front of the mirror that covered the wall behind the bar. He pulled a bottle of Jose Cuervo down next.

“Meaning she would say no?” Bryan asked, wanting that clarification for some reason.

“Meaning they wouldn’t get anything more than a goodnight kiss,” Derek said, wiping the shelf and setting Jose back up there.

Something prickled along the back of his neck. An awareness, or a realization, or something. “You mean on the first date?” Bryan asked.

Derek finally turned to face him. “Ever,” he said. Then he peered closer at Bryan. “Do you not know?”

“Not know what?” Bryan asked, a prickling awareness dancing down his spine.

“Tessa’s a virgin.”

Bryan leaned his butt back against the cooler behind him. Shock, and maybe even a very teeny tiny bit of guilt went through him. But the absolute pleasure and
fuck yeah
feeling that followed immediately wiped anything out.

Tessa was a virgin. She’d never been with another guy.

“She’s been saving herself for you,” Derek said.

Again, a
teeny
tiny thread of guilt went through his mind. But the
damn right
obliterated it a millisecond later.

Tessa was
his
.

No matter what she was telling him—and herself—for whatever reason, she was his. She always had been.

“She told all these guys she was saving herself for me?” Bryan could admit he was reeling a bit. She was a
virgin
. It fit, he couldn’t lie. But he’d always assumed she was just inexperienced and didn’t go out much. He knew she didn’t date a lot and the guys she had gone out with hadn’t gotten serious or lasted long. But he wasn’t sure Hailey knew Tess was a virgin. Surely that would have come up at some point when he had asked Hailey about her over the years Hailey had been coming to Denver to see Ty.

Derek chuckled. “I don’t think she’s put it quite that way,” he said. “But everyone just kind of knows it.”

“How?” Bryan’s ego had taken a beating when he’d been hospitalized and needed people to help him with
everything
for a while there. But it was quickly reflating being around Tessa, the woman who’d put him on a pedestal so long ago. And now to find out that not only had she been waiting for him, in every way, but everyone knew it… Yeah, this was definitely healing a few ego bruises.

“Well, the girls know,” Derek said, wiping at a nonexistent spot on the bar top suddenly.

“The girls? Her friends?”

Derek nodded.

Bryan knew she hung out with Kate Spencer and Delaney and Hope Bennett now, but all those women were newcomers to Sapphire Falls. He tried to remember who she’d been close to in high school. Her best friend growing up had been Kacey Sherwood, one of Phoebe’s cousins, but Kacey’s family had moved away before junior high. Tessa had been one of those girls that everyone liked, but he couldn’t remember her being especially tight with anyone after Kacey.

“And one of her friends told you?” Bryan asked. No way. For one thing, Kate, Delaney and Hope all had husbands—the men who had stolen their hearts on their supposedly temporary visits to town. For another, they were all very nice women who would never share a friend’s confidence.

Then again, he’d also seen her in the Come Again with Peyton Wells a few times. Peyton was almost eight years younger than Tess, but they worked together at the bakery. Peyton had been there for a couple of years, but Tess had started helping out after Caitlyn had left the shop, and town, to go with Eli. Peyton was a bit of a wild child and definitely came off as more mature…or maybe it was just streetwise. She’d settled down a little since her half-sister, Hope, had come to town, but she still had an edge. But Peyton was loyal and wouldn’t spill a friend’s secret.

Derek rolled his eyes. “I’m a bartender, Bry. People talk in bars.”

“So you overheard this,” Bryan said. That made sense.

“You know the kinds of things we overhear.”

Even growing up in the small town where everyone knew everything about everyone else, Bryan was sometimes surprised by the private conversations people had inside the Come Again.

Liquor did that to people.

He nodded. “Yeah, I get it.”

“So, anyway,” Derek said, propping a hip against the back counter and folding his arms. “I just wanted to be sure you realize what was going on here with Tess. And make sure it doesn’t mean more to her than it does to you.”

With him being all protective of Tessa,
his
Tessa, Bryan realized that Derek was a pretty big guy. He had impressive biceps under the sleeves of his black T-shirt. He was probably six-two or three and in good shape. He was also three years younger than Bryan. Oh, and had a fully functioning spinal cord.

Bryan narrowed his eyes and nodded. “I completely realize what’s going on with Tess. But thanks for looking out for her.”

That seemed to be all Derek needed to hear. “Okay then.” He pushed off the counter and returned to his cleaning activities.

Bryan thought it all over, and three minutes later, he realized he had no idea what the hell was going on with Tessa. She’d loved him for a quarter of a century—that sounded impressive when stated like that, and he thought maybe he’d use it the next time he talked to her. Now here he was, declaring that he wanted the relationship she’d been writing about in her diary all these years. She was a fricking
virgin
for God’s sake. She’d been saving herself for
him
. But she was fighting him?

What
?

And he was even more confused about the banging-on-his-desk stuff now. She was a virgin. What did she know about banging on
any
surface? And could he ogle her or not? Because he really wanted to. But there was surely some special care to be given a virgin.

Though Bryan was absolutely not the guy to know about that.

“Hey, Derek?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“You ever dated a virgin?”

There was a beat of silence and then Derek started laughing.

Bryan just waited for him to finish. “So that would be a no?” he asked mildly after Derek quieted down.

“Uh, that would be a not-on-purpose,” Derek said. “My high school girlfriend was a virgin, of course. But I never got past third base there.”

“So you’ve never been someone’s first?” Bryan asked.

“Nope.”

“Damn,” Bryan muttered, racking his brain for a friend of his who might have some experience with virgins. He came up very lacking.

“But,” Derek said.

Bryan’s head came up. “But?”

Derek shrugged. “Not to be crude, but it’s kind of a blank slate then, right? I mean, she might not know what she likes and what she doesn’t like, but that just means you should try it all out. Give her the whole buffet. Figure it out with her.” He grinned. “I can think of worse ways to spend my time.”

The whole buffet. Indeed. Bryan matched Derek’s grin. “You know what? You’re a fucking genius.”

Derek nodded as if this was not news to him. “You’re welcome.”

Bryan headed for his office. This was so good in so many ways. He fucking loved that Tess was a virgin. No guy had touched her. She was
his
, so this was awesome. And…she didn’t know what all was even
on
the buffet, so they could stick with Bryan’s specialties and he didn’t have to worry about her wanting the dishes he could no longer serve.

Oh yeah, this was great.

He couldn’t think of anything hotter than teaching Tessa all about how to touch him, how to touch herself, how to move…

He most definitely was whistling again. And now he knew exactly why.

Chapter Four

Tessa felt the familiar, very welcome burn in her quads and glutes as she finished her last mile. She got to the big oak tree on the edge of Tucker Bennett’s property where she’d started her run eighty minutes ago. She’d done ten miles only two days ago, but she needed it today. Her adrenaline had been running high, and there was only one sure way to get rid of it—put on her shoes and go out.

As she walked the mile back to the road where she’d parked, cooling off and shaking out her limbs, Tess took a moment to marvel at the fact that she’d just run ten miles. Ten. Miles. There was a time not that long ago where the very idea of that would have made her laugh. She had never been a runner. She’d never really been an exerciser. Now she was going for a
run
to deal with emotions that would have sent her straight to the bakery a few years ago. Not that Adrianne’s bakery wasn’t amazing and not to say Tess never took advantage of her employee discount. But she liked that her first inclination when she got worked up was to use the energy more positively.

And just like that, her thoughts were back on Bryan.

She wasn’t sure running was going to solve this particular problem.

Because the churning emotions simply produced more energy the minute her thoughts were back on him. Like a turbine making electricity from the winds that swept the Nebraska plains, thoughts of Bryan made all of her inner wheels turn and filled her with energy that felt difficult to contain.

She was going to need another outlet for it other than running. Her work wasn’t going to do it, because as long as she was working on the festival, her thoughts would keep going back to this morning with Bryan and the older ladies. Her work with Delaney on the home renovation projects Delaney had going wouldn’t do it. Tess would love to take a wall or two down, but they were past that point on everything they were doing right now. Her yoga classes she taught for Hope wouldn’t do it. Yes, yoga was supposed to calm a person, but only if you could let go of all the thoughts and emotions stirring you up. Tessa was still learning a lot of that, and she suspected it would take years of intense practice to get to the point where she could override years of intense feelings for Bryan simply by breathing and stretching for an hour.

Maybe Hope had some herbs she could recommend. Hope seemed to have natural remedies for everything. Maybe there was a potion somewhere that could help with memory loss—as in causing it. Or help with heart problems—as in helping her get over the only man she’d ever loved.

She could
not
believe that she’d talked about him banging her on his desk. Banging. She’d said
banging
to Bryan.

Tess groaned as she remembered it. What was she doing? That was like poking a bear, and she knew it. She knew Bryan Murray better than anyone. And she knew that she’d essentially waved a red cape in front of the bull.

Bear, bull, whatever. He was going to see that as a challenge.

She shouldn’t have said that, but she’d been lashing out at him because he’d been getting to her. By being sweet. He’d not only completely rolled with the situation she’d put him in with the lingerie show—and his ability to handle any situation with humor and heart had always gotten to her—but he’d been sweet with the older ladies and their self-esteem issues.

Sweet was supposed to be safe. It was supposed to help her
not
want him.

Dammit. That whole thing had totally backfired on her, and she’d let her frustration seep out. And she’d said the word banging.

And while she absolutely, for sure, wanted to go to Denver to take the next step in her running, and while she absolutely, for sure, did not want Bryan to romance her, she also absolutely, for sure, would not be able to resist him if there was banging involved.

Of course, Bryan taking it as a challenge wasn’t the only reason she wished she hadn’t said that. She was willing to admit she was maybe a little bit kind of nervous about the whole thing.

She read lots of romance novels. She knew that the women enjoyed sex. She knew her girlfriends who were sleeping with someone said it was amazing. But everything was banging, pounding, nailing. Words that didn’t make it sound all that fun.

That was another reason that she’d always hoped it would be Bryan who would teach her everything she needed to know sexually. She trusted him. She knew he’d never hurt her. Not physically anyway.

So now she was torn. Sleeping with Bryan would make it impossible to ever get over him. She was already worried about if that would ever really happen anyway. But the idea of
not
sleeping with Bryan meant she would sleep with someone else. And that felt…wrong. And a little scary.

Hating everything, especially her stupid, romantic heart, Tess pulled into her driveway and headed inside to quickly shower so she could get back up to the Community Center in time for the talent show rehearsal. She stubbornly kept thoughts of Bryan at bay as she soaped her foot…in spite of being in her shower and in spite of the fact that she braced her hand against the very wall she wanted him to put her up against.

She strode into the Community Center at quarter to six.

She had not been looking forward to this in the first place, and considering how she was stirred up from earlier with Bryan, she was feeling grumpy. But she plastered on a smile and greeted the participants who were already there.