“Reid…”
I looked down at her. She twined her fingers through mine. A sudden calm passed over me and I sat back down, slowly, at our table. She said, “It’s okay. I’m here with you. Not with them.” And then she smiled at me reassuringly, putting an immediate halt to the withering glare I was inflicting on anyone who dared to so much as tilt their head in our direction.
“Yeah,” I muttered, “I know. But after last night…” I shrugged and leaned back against the plush upholstery. “Well, I think it’s just better to err on the side of caution, you know?”
Sarah frowned. “Do you really think it could happen again?” she asked me.
I shook my head firmly. “No. Not while I’m around.”
I wasn’t about to let what that fucker did yesterday ruin our day today, so I did my best to shrug it off and change the subject to something more befitting a date. I focused on convincing Sarah to order a double-bacon cheeseburger, French fries, and a chocolate milkshake, an All-American trifecta I could hardly believe she’d missed out on as a kid. Knowing the place she came from was so vastly different than the world I’d grown up in was still surreal to me, and I wasn’t sure how deep the rabbit hole truly went. Every word I said, I had to look at Sarah to make sure she understood. But instead of it being off-putting, I relished the opportunity to introduce her to all kinds of new experiences and concepts, and with each passing moment, she seemed a little more confident and at ease with me.
That was exactly what I wanted—for Sarah to let go of her inhibitions and just open up to me. I wanted to get to know the girl under all the rules and regulations she’d been led to believe would keep her safe. I knew there had to be something more to her than just the shy Amish babe. I could see it in her eyes whenever I taught her something new about my world—that spark. The one that told me she was inquisitive and intelligent and capable of so much more than anyone had ever given her credit for. I got the distinct impression that Sarah had been forced to adhere to “her place” for decades now, and that nobody had realized you can’t put everyone in a box.
It struck me that she didn’t belong with the people she’d grown up with. Not really. She didn’t fit with them, in all the right ways. But with me, in my arms? It was like a puzzle piece that had finally found its mate. The one place in all the world where the parts came together and made sense. I was thinking all of this… after only three days.
What was this girl doing to me? Why did I care so much? Where was the guy who’d committed to a shitty bet at her expense? Where was the Reid Brody who would love ‘em and leave ‘em and never look back? That guy never got attached, let alone so quickly. He would’ve had Sarah bent over by now, her skirt hiked up around her waist, his hips slamming into the backs of her pretty thighs. He would have gotten his dick wet and saturated with the virgin scent of her, and then he would have sauntered up to his brothers and threw his victory in their faces.
But that guy wasn’t me. At least, not now. No matter how badly I wanted it to be—no matter how simpler things would’ve been—I just couldn’t bring myself to not give a shit about Sarah.
“You like it?” I asked her as she took her first bite of the cheeseburger. Christ, she ate like a bird—tiny bites that made me wonder if she could even taste it—but I could tell by the way her eyes rolled back into her head that this was some kind of spiritual experience for her. Her first taste of cholesterol and grease.
“Oh, wow,” she moaned around a mouthful of cheese, bacon, bun, and ground beef. I grinned. “This is… incredible. I’ve never tasted anything like it!”
“Try the fries with some ketchup,” I urged her. I felt like I was living vicariously through her, enjoying the way everything was so new. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt like that; I missed the rush of joy and wonder that came with doing something totally and completely different from what you were used to. I’d blown through most extreme sports. Skydiving, BASE jumping, racing cars and bikes, skiing and snowboarding—you name it. The adrenaline rush was always there, but it never got better than your first time out. I’d spent a lot of time chasing that particular dragon.
It didn’t escape me that I’d been responsible for many of Sarah’s first times already. But there was one in particular I was aiming for. Whether I cared for her or not, I had a reputation to uphold. All my feelings meant was that it might not be a one-time thing. Especially if she chose not to return home.
I couldn’t let my brothers know that, though. They’d think I’d gone soft. I needed to nail her right away. The rest could fall into place later. This was going to be a balancing act, for sure.
Sarah was halfway done with her burger when I realized I hadn’t even touched my own plate. As I started in on triple-decker, she said, “Since I picked the restaurant, you should pick the movie. It’s only fair.”
“You sure?” I asked her. “It’s your first movie ever, right? Seems to me like you should choose.”
She laughed then, taking a sip from her long milkshake straw. Her lashes fluttered when she tasted that sweet chocolate. “What do I know about movies? I’ve never seen one before!”
“You have a point,” I conceded, considering what Sarah had told me. There was nothing out that I really wanted to see, but if there was a horror movie, that might be my ticket to intimacy. A little scare might make Sarah cling to me, might get her blood pumping, and if there was anything I’d learned thus far about Sarah, it was that she was very suggestible when she was a little scared.
And unlike the Ferris wheel, the movie theater would be a controlled location. No actual chance of somebody getting hurt. It was a perfect and devious plan. And if I played my cards right, there was a chance that Sarah wouldn’t want to sleep alone afterward.
Oh, yeah. This was good. Even though I was having second thoughts about making the bet in the first place, what’s done was done so I might as well win the damn thing—and all of a sudden I was feeling more confident than ever. Three days in and it was practically in the bag.
Until we actually got to the theater, anyway.
My choice in movie turned out to be a little bloodier than expected. I was loving it, of course—what can I say? I’m a guy—but the way Sarah was gripping my hand made me feel like I’d made a wrong move. Sure, she was all over me, hiding her pretty face in my jacket and squeezing my fingers so hard I thought they might break, but this wasn’t exactly what I’d thought it would be. Her face was so pale she looked like one of the walking dead up on the screen, and her eyes were so wide I was starting to fear they’d pop out of her head at any minute. About halfway through, she’d even stopped eating her popcorn and had shrunk back into her seat, eyes closed, breathing deeply.
“Hey,” I whispered into her ear. She jumped at the sound of my voice. “Sorry. Uh, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea…”
“Maybe not,” she murmured, cringing as a jump scare, accompanied by the shrill keening of a violin, got the best of her. Groping for my hand, she found it and dug in her nails. “I’m so sorry, Reid. I just… I can’t do this.”
Shit. Once again, I’d read Sarah all wrong, and instead of pulling her closer to me, I’d pushed her away. Goddammit… she was so unlike any woman I’d ever met. So delicate. So easily startled. I sighed, rubbing my face.
“It’s all right,” I said. “We’ll go do something else. Do you wanna—”
“I need air,” Sarah answered, standing up on wobbling knees. Muttering another apology, she hurried away from me and out into theater lobby, the door swinging loudly behind her.
For a moment, I didn’t follow her. I just slumped in my seat, my face in my hands, thinking long and hard. Why was this so difficult for me? Why was Sarah so damn hard to read? Trying to figure her out should’ve been easy—she had no idea what she wanted, after all. Maybe that was why I was having such a hard time, though. I was used to being with women who knew what they wanted, who just needed me to give them permission to ask for it—or beg, as the case might
be. Sarah had no earthly idea what she liked and didn’t like, and so neither did I. The most I really, truly knew about her was that she liked the quiet life, and that for her, home was where you were surrounded by acres of land and not much else.
Which reminded me of something Ash and I had talked about just yesterday. A plan B, in case things here didn’t exactly work out. Or in case courting Sarah took a lot longer than I thought it would. I hadn’t thought it would come to that, and definitely not so soon. But it was becoming clear to me that I was going to have to execute a Hail Mary here, because I was running out of time with Sarah. And not just because of the bet, but because I knew that even an Amish girl’s patience would be wearing thin by now. We needed to do something she would enjoy before she only came to associate being with me with bad experiences… and this was my last hope.
Slowly, I stood up and ducked out of the theater. I was a man known for going to extremes… but this one seemed so much more daunting than all the others, even to me.
I found Sarah not in the lobby, but standing outside. I watched her through the glass doors. She was standing very still behind one of the columns, her hand over her heart, her eyes closed as if to shut out the entirety of the world around her. It must have seemed so big, so… overwhelming to her. I frowned and made my way outside.
“You all right?” I asked her when I was near enough.
Gradually, Sarah opened her eyes. She caught my gaze and I felt myself falling into her, spiraling into the welcoming embrace of her stare. It was so easy to get lost there, so easy to drown in the color of her eyes. But right now, they glimmered behind a veil of unshed tears.
“I’m sorry,” she rasped, her breath still coming harsh and uneven. “I’m so sorry, Reid.”
I wrapped my arms around her, and she let me, holding onto me as I cradled her head against my chest. Lowering my face into her hair, I asked her, “For what?”
At first, Sarah would only shake her head. I felt her breathing turn more shallow and her shoulders gave a little hitch. She was trying so very hard not to cry. Brushing a few loose strands of hair away from her pretty face, I cupped her cheeks and looked down at her. “What’s up, darlin’? What do you think you did wrong?”
“Everything!” she answered with a biting laugh. “I’m doing it all wrong. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.” Her nose scrunched, but it wasn’t cute this time. This time, I could tell she was in pain. “You keep trying to take me places. Do nice things for me. Show me your world so that maybe, at least for a little while, I can be a part of it. But every time, I go and… and mess things up. Like a child. Like an overstimulated infant…”
“You’re none of those things,” I assured her, venturing to kiss her forehead. She didn’t pull away, and when I drew back, her eyes were closed. She seemed a little more relaxed. “And it’s me who’s screwing things up. You… were right last night. When you said it was too much, too fast. But I didn’t listen. I just keep throwing this new world at you like you’re gonna be able to make up for over two decades of avoiding it all in one go.” I shook my head. “You wanna blame somebody for how you feel right now, Sarah? Blame me. Of the two of us, I’m the one who ought to know better.”
Slowly, Sarah opened her eyes again. They were still a little wet at the corners, but she didn’t look so ready to cry anymore. The redness had faded from her cheeks a little and she wasn’t biting so hard into her lower lip. “I just… want to have a good time with you. I don’t want to ruin things with how… weird and inexperienced I am. I want us to find some common ground.” She looked away. “I know that won’t be easy…”
“It might be easier than you think,” I told her, guiding her face back toward mine with my finger under her chin. She obeyed, blinking up at me. “I’ve had an idea of how we might be able to spend some time together someplace both of us are comfortable with. Someplace… private, but familiar.” I wet my lips. “It’s gonna sound strange at first, but I want you to think about it. Okay?”
Warily, Sarah nodded. “Tell me what it is.”
I took a long, steadying breath before answering her. “When our grandfather died, he left Ash his cabin out in the middle of the woods. Well, technically it’s supposed to be split between the three of us, but Ash was named the main benefitting party, so…” I could tell I was losing her, so I shrugged and moved it along. “Anyway, it came up in conversation last night, and it turns out he’s got no plans to use it anytime soon. So…” I grinned. I was nervous as hell, but I would be damned if I was gonna show it. “I thought maybe we could take the next few days and enjoy ourselves. Get to know each other on neutral ground. I’ve been to the cabin before, and it’s like a second home to me. You like a more rustic existence, right? So it’ll feel safe to you too. Or at least, I hope it will.”
Sarah looked at me a long time before speaking. Her brows knit together as she said, “You want me to go to a cabin in the woods with you and stay there—alone—without any chaperones… so we can get to know each other better? Away from our families. Away from… all this.” She looked around us at the passersby, the theater ticket counter, the nearby street where cars languidly drove by. “So that we can be… comfortable. So that we can be ourselves.”
I nodded at her. “Yeah. That’s it exactly. I wanna figure out what we’re doing here. I want you to feel like you’re somewhere you belong. I don’t think either of us are gonna have a handle on where the hell to go next until you’ve had the chance to really think about it, without any distractions.” I smirked. “Or input from your sisters.”
“I don’t know, Reid,” she said at length, dropping her gaze.
Once again, I tilted her chin up so she had to face me. “Well, I know, Sarah,” I said. “I know what I want. The question is… do you? Because I’m sure as hell dyin’ to find out.”
Those big, doe eyes of hers widened even more, and the color of her cheeks flared from a soft, dusty rose to vibrant poppy. I watched as Sarah bit her lower lip hard enough to turn it white under that pretty red lipstick. She gazed up at me through her lashes, her shoulders curled inward, as if she was trying very hard to disappear into herself. And yet she looked so intrigued. So curious as to what a few days alone with me could ultimately offer her.
I knew exactly how I was going to play it. Exactly what tricks up my sleeve I would employ to win this bet, get Sarah out of her shell, and treat us both to the best sex either of us had experienced in our lifetimes. I had a plan, and the more I watched her struggle with her desire to throw caution to the wind, the more genius I realized it was. This was it. It was going to work.
I just had to get her to agree to it, first.
14
Sarah
I absolutely could not believe I’d said yes.
This was such a bad idea—that was what my parents would have said, anyway. In fact, there wasn’t a person within our whole Amish community that wouldn’t have been shocked at my acceptance of Reid’s invitation. Myself included. That was why, initially, I’d been ready to say no. But then Hannah spent a good part of yesterday convincing me, and well…
She had a way with words. For me, she had always been a figure of authority. And that was especially true here, in this place I had yet to fully embrace or traverse—this alien world that Hannah seemed such a part of, despite how we’d grown up. Sometimes, when I looked at her, when I heard her talk about the lives of English men and how things here were properly done, I wondered if she’d forgotten all about us and our village. Did she remember those years at all anymore? Did they hold any importance in her heart?
They must have, in some fashion, because whenever I brought up our parents, she got this faraway look in her eyes. A thousand-yard stare. She looked… haunted. In private, Beth had encouraged me to stop bringing them up.
Yet how could I? And why was I the only one who wanted to remember? Why were Beth and Hannah so keen on leaving behind everything we’d ever known? Had our parents not been good to us? Had our community n
ot kept us safe and sound for years? The way they immediately tried to distance themselves from their heritage seemed… ungrateful.
Still, the fact remained that at the present time, we weren’t there. We were on an ill-advised Rumspringa in the English world, and no one knew more about how to navigate through it than Hannah. I had to trust her word. On this, at least.
“Hey,” Reid said, looking over at me from the driver’s seat. “How’re you holding up? I know it’s kind of a bumpy ride…”
We’d turned off our last paved street several miles ago. Now we were on rural back roads, Reid’s car—the Shelby—jostling on the uneven terrain. It didn’t bother me much. I was used to buggy rides, after all. They were hardly smooth sailing, although thinking of them inflicted a pang of nostalgia I hadn’t expected. I remembered playing string games with Beth when she was younger, teaching her how to make a cat’s cradle while Hannah begged Father to teach her to drive. Father never gave in to her demands, though. Was that why she found it so easy to leave us?
“I’m used to it,” I told him, playing with the cell phone in my hands. Now here was something I definitely wasn’t used to—technology. Especially the kind that could fit in your pocket, connect you to anyone else around the world as long as you knew the right number. It felt cold in my hands. So foreign and inorganic. I ran my thumb along its face, flipping it open and closed, relishing the repetitive nature of the sound.
Click, click. Click, click.
“That’s some ancient tech you got there,” Reid continued, doing his best to keep up our conversation. Admittedly, I’d been mostly silent on the drive out. I felt a little bad about that, but I had no idea what to say to him. I was still coming to terms with the idea of us spending the night in a house together… alone. “Can’t believe Hannah set you up with such a throwback.”
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