Having Faith (19 page)

"Maybe it's because of last Friday night. We'd been drinking. Our inhibitions were down. Maybe that set off the need for sex, and maybe it's the memory of that that's turning us on now."

He doubted that. "If it was so, why would I get horny just thinking about what's under your sweater?"

"Because you remember Friday night. You remember feeling satisfaction.

It's the memory that gets you horny. "

He shook his dark head slowly.

She tried again.

"If it hadn't been for last Friday night, we'd still just be friends. We'd be laughing and joking the way we always have.

We wouldn't be seeing each other in any kind of sexual way. "

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked, irritated that he wasn't grasping onto her suggestions.

His gaze was direct. He wasn't any more eager to see something negative in her eyes now than he'd been a little while ago, but he felt strongly that she should know how serious he was.

"I think last Friday night was the catalyst for something that's very right."

"You're saying that it was inevitable? Come on, Sawyer."

That wasn't what he'd been saying at all, but the fact that she'd come up with it was telling. It made a statement as to the direction of her own thoughts, and she could deny them until she was blue in the face, but he wouldn't believe her.

"I think that if last Friday night hadn't happened, we might well have gone on forever and ever not knowing any better about what could be between us. But it did happen, and I think it happened because there's something between us. We could have stopped. Faith. We weren't that far gone that we couldn't have stopped if there'd been something so wrong with what we were doing. If we hadn't wanted it, we would have stopped. If the potential wasn't there, if we weren't attracted to each other, if we didn't like each other, we'd never have made love, no matter how much wine we'd had."

She was listening. She didn't rush to argue with what he'd said. That gave him the courage to go a step further.

"It's not just sex. It's a lot more than that. We share a profession. We know each other, respect each other. We have fun together--we said that a whole lot on Friday night, and it's true. We've always had fun together. So now we desire each other, too, and that takes the relationship to a different level.

It's the next step in the progression. " He took a slightly shaky breath.

"I think we have the potential for a really deep thing here."

Faith sat very still for several minutes. With a swallow, she tore her eyes from his and focused on the fire, but that didn't seem enough of a diversion. So she took the sleeping bag from around her shoulders, unzipped the top and shimmied inside. Moments later she was sitting cross-legged inside the thing, enveloped by it, looking at the fire again.

"Faith?"

"I'm a little cold."

That wasn't what he wanted to know.

"Talk to me, Faith."

But it was a minute before she did, and during that time she cursed herself as a fool for not running to the nearest motel, locking the door and burrowing in a large, lonesome bed. Then again, she wasn't a runner--at least she'd never been before--and she didn't like the way she was doing it now. She wondered if it was time she faced some of the things that had been hovering at the edges of her mind since Sawyer had made her his.

Her voice was small, muffled by the sleeping bag she hugged to her throat.

"I don't want to be involved in a really deep thing."

He caught both her words and a thread of timidity so uncharacteristic that his insides clenched. Faith was a woman of strength. He couldn't fathom the cause of her timidity, didn't like it, resented it.

"Why not?"

"I'm not ready for it."

"You're thirty-three."

"I'm not ready." "Because of what you went through with Jack?"

She didn't answer.

"Faith?"

"I don't know."

"Talk to me. Tell me what you're feeling. Did your marriage to Jack leave a bad taste in your mouth?"

She thought for a minute.

"Not really."

The pause worried him. He wondered whether there was more to the story of her marriage than anyone knew. "Did he hurt you?"

"Hurt me? As in beat? Of course not."

Still her voice lacked its normal zing. She sounded distant, confused, as though something had indeed happened and she was just now trying to figure it out.

"What is it?" he coaxed, letting his voice tell her that he wanted to help. He was still a friend. No matter what else ever happened, he was still a friend.

Her eyes flicked from the fire to his, and the concern she found there tore at her.

"Nothing. Really. My marriage was innocuous." But she paused, disturbed, and focused blindly on the floor. "It was disappointing. I've told you that. It was just a big fat zero."

"Better a zero than hell, I'd say."

She didn't smile.

"I'm not sure. It's healthier sometimes to fight than to do nothing at all. At least that shows some kind of feeling.

But there wasn't any between Jack and me. Not for a long time. "

"And that bothered you."

"Yes, it bothered me. It wasn't the way marriage was supposed to be.

It wasn't the way / wanted marriage to be. "

"How was that?"

"Close. Warm. Fun. Satisfying. Supportive. I wanted my husband to be my best friend, but he wasn't. We were roommates. Period."

Sawyer was watching her closely, but he couldn't read anything more on her face than she was saying.

"So you were wrong for each other. We all make mistakes. God only knows I did. And our clients? Mistakes all the time. So your marriage didn't work out. That's no reason to punish yourself by spending the rest of your life alone."

"I'm not punishing myself."

"What would you call it?"

"Making sure I don't make the same mistake twice."

"That's crazy. Faith. I'm not like Jack."

Abundantly aware of that as she looked at him, she caught in a breath.

"That's the problem."

He didn't make the connection.

"What do you mean?"

"You're more vibrant than Jack. You're more fun, handsome, ambitious, interesting, sexy. You're more of just about everything. But I'm still the same."

He stared at her in confusion before muttering, "I still don't get it."

"You're special. Sawyer," she cried, then stopped when her throat grew tight. Dropping her eyes, she tried to regain her composure.

It was while she sat cocooned to her ears in the shiny blue sleeping bag with her eyes downcast that Sawyer began to understand.

"Babe?" When she didn't look up, he came forward, dug her chin from the slinky folds of the bag and tipped up her face.

"You're afraid you can't make it in a deep relationship?"

She tried to look away, but he wouldn't allow it.

"Is that it. Faith?" He couldn't believe it.

"Is that what you took away from your marriage to Jack?"

She swallowed the knot in her throat, but no sooner had she done that when her eyes filled with tears. Trying to maintain what little dignity she had left, she looked straight at him and said in a soft, wrenching voice, "I think the world of you, Sawyer. If I were to pick the one man I like and respect most, I'd pick you. I don't think I could bear it if we got into something deep and then it died."

What her tears started, her words finished. A tight fist closed around Sawyer's heart.

"So you'd rather not try at all? Faith, that doesn't make sense!"

"It does to me. I'm the one who has to live with myself knowing that I've failed at something important."

"Is that what you've been doing for the past year? I thought you were fine after the divorce."

"I was. I was relieved to be free. But that didn't mean I didn't feel guilty about not making it work. Now, here you are, and suddenly the stakes are higher. You're more special than Jack any day."

Sawyer wasn't sure he believed that, but the fact that Faith did made the clenching around his heart ease into a gently kneading caress.

Without another thought to what she might or might not want, he drew her, sleeping bag and all, to his chest. He pressed her cheek to his throat, where he could feel the velvet of her skin, while the long arm he coiled around her lower back anchored her to him.

"Y'know," he began softly, "for a bright lady, you can be damned dumb at times. Did it ever occur to you that I'd have an active role in whatever relationship we have? If I'm so special, would I really let it fail?"

She didn't answer. She was too comfortable being held in his arms, listening to the indulgent caress of his deep voice.

"Did it ever occur to you that you and I have a hell of a lot more going for us than you and Jack ever had? We're mature. We're established. We have money. We're both lawyers, and we're good friends. So now we're lovers. I think that sounds pretty nice."

"It sounds scary," was her muffled reply.

"Not scary, because we're not making a life-or- death commitment.

We're just going with the flow. "

"What flow?"

Closing his eyes, he tightened his arms around her and drew in a shuddering breath.

"The one through my veins that says I need you."

"I don't want you to need me."

"Too late. It's done."

"Make it stop."

"I can't. It's too strong." "But I want to go back to being just friends. It was more fun that way."

"How do you know? You haven't given this way a fair chance."

"I don't want to spoil what we have, Sawyer." "How about making it better? What would you say to taking what we have and building on it?"

She'd say that it was a dream and that she'd lost dreams in the past.

She'd also say that it was a risk.

She could lose everything if it didn't work out.

"I'm frightened."

Sawyer loosened his hold on her only enough to give him access to her mouth. He kissed her long and deep, offering her a taste of his hunger. It was his way of telling her not only how much he wanted her, but how satisfying she was. By the time he raised his head, her lips were moist and swollen.

He touched her cheek with a trembling finger.

"Let's try," he whispered hoarsely.

"Let's see how good it can be."

Faith wanted to do that so badly she hurt, still the fear remained.

"What if it isn't?" she whispered back.

"Then we'll go back to being friends. We're both adults. We're experienced. We'll know if what we're doing isn't working." His gaze touched each of her features, pale in the fire's light and as fascinating to him as the spiraling tendrils of flame, themselves.

"I'm not asking for a commitment. All I'm asking is that you give it a shot. Because I can't not do that, Faith. You've given me a taste, and now I want more." He paused and his voice went slack.

"But maybe that's my problem. Maybe you don't feel the hunger."

"You know I do."

He let out a small breath.

"So we share the problem. We could ignore it, but then we'll always be wanting and wondering. I don't want to live that way, Faith."

Looking up at him. Faith knew that they'd reached a crossroads. She saw it in the virile planes of his face and the quiet demand in his eyes. He'd never make a scene. He wouldn't push her to do something she didn't want to do, but he knew her well. He knew that she wanted him. What he didn't know was whether she had the courage to take him.

It hit her then, suddenly and convincingly, that there was no contest.

If she refused him, she'd be disappointing him anyway, and that was the last thing she wanted. She'd take the risk. She had to. Far better to see where the wanting would lead than to live forever with the wondering.

"I don't want to live that way, Faith," he repeated in a pleading whisper.

"I don't, either."

For what seemed an eternity, they looked at each other. Only gradually did they realize that they'd reached an agreement.

"So," she whispered, feeling strangely awkward. "What do we do now?"

"Sit and talk."

His answer pleased her, enough to allow for a glimmer of her usual spunk.

"You don't want to just strip and do it?"

"No. I want to sit and talk."

She glanced down at her voluminous cocoon.

"Like this?"

His lips twitched.

"No. Not like that."

Setting her carefully on the floor, he added another log to the fire.

When it caught flame, he turned to his own sleeping bag, unzipped it, opened it wide. Seconds later he had Faith's unzipped, and while she knelt by the fire, he connected the two. Then he sat back on his heels and looked at her. "I want to hear more about your family. Will you tell me?"