Authors: Jess Dee
Sam was everything Sarah had ever looked for in a man—and had she met him a month ago, before Sebastian, before Charlie’s cuddles and snuggles, she suspected she would have been the happiest woman on the planet.
But she hadn’t met him a month ago. She’d met him after spending three tumultuous weeks with her neighbor. Which meant Sam didn’t stand a chance. End of story.
Because as sexy, handsome, sweet, kind, funny and interesting as he was, he just wasn’t Charlie. He didn’t make her heart thump or her breath catch. He didn’t make her breasts tighten or her pussy clench.
Sarah had no desire to rip off his pants and lick his balls—or his dick for that matter. And regardless of how devastated she was by Charlie’s rejection, she still desperately wanted to rip off her surfer dude’s boardies. Wanted to spend hours exploring him…with her tongue. Wanted to spend hours being explored…by his tongue. And she wanted to spend hours—years—snuggling up to him once all tongue—and other physical explorations—had been exhausted.
But Charlie had firmly put an end to all future exploration and snuggling of any kind. Their booty calls were officially, and quite devastatingly, over.
“Sarah?”
She forced her attention back to her date.
“Are you having a terrible time?”
“God, no. Not at all.” She wasn’t. Not with Sam. The terrible time was all compliments of Charlie.
“Then would you mind me asking why you look as if your world is coming to an end?”
Of course she minded. She hardly knew him. How could he ask about something this personal? Yet his question was so filled with concern and his voice so gentle, instead of taking offense, Sarah burst into tears.
Horrified by her response and mortified by her lack of control, she just sat at the table, staring at Sam with wide eyes, while streams of tears tracked down her cheeks.
“M-maybe b-because I feel as though my world has come to end.”
And dear God, wasn’t that just the truth?
Ever since Charlie had rejected her outright, she’d felt as though the future she’d once seen as sparkly, rosy and exciting now just lay drab ahead of her. Sarah loved going to work, loved the challenge of her research, loved teaching her students. Loved making new discoveries or disproving theories. She bounced out of bed each morning eager to start her day.
Yet these last two mornings just opening her eyes had been an effort. Getting out of bed had tested every muscle in her body. They howled in protest as though she’d run a marathon the day before.
And that didn’t begin to touch on the emptiness in her chest and the ache in her heart, or the constant need to fight tears—or just give in to them.
When Sebastian had told her he was in love with another woman, Sarah had been disappointed.
When Charlie told her he was not the man for her, she’d been gutted. Her heart stripped bare.
Sam wrapped his two large hands around hers, holding them tenderly, carefully. “Want to tell me about it?”
They were strong hands. Trustworthy hands. The kind of hands any patient would feel confident in.
It took a good few minutes before Sarah could speak through her tears, before the lump in her throat dissipated enough for words to form.
“Y-you know, someone told me you were a good man, Sam. The kind of guy I could marry. In…in fact, he suggested I
should
marry you.”
Sarah had to give Sam credit for his response. He didn’t look at her as though she were crazy, didn’t yank his arms away and run for the door. He just continued holding her hands and answered in his soothing voice. “Someone…as in Charlie?”
A stab of pain hit her at the mention of his name. “Y-yes. Charlie. He, uh, mentioned wedding bells.” God, why? Why? “But, see, the…the thing is…”
Sam smiled his encouragement. “The thing is?”
“The thing is…” She took a heaving breath. “I don’t want to marry you.”
“Well, now that’s perfectly okay with me.” Sam smiled. “Especially if you’re equating the idea with your world coming to an end.”
Surprising herself, Sarah smiled back. “Marrying you wouldn’t be terrible at all.” As suddenly as her smile had come, so it vanished, and there were the tears again.
Sam extracted one hand, but just to hand her a serviette.
She blotted her eyes to no avail. “What is terrible, though, is that…is that…”
“Is that?”
“Is that Charlie’s the one who wants me to marry you.”
“And that’s terrible because…?”
“Because the man I love wants me to marry someone else.”
“You love Charlie?” There was no judgment in his voice, no surprise. It was just a simple question.
Sarah’s jaw dropped. Her heart beat jaggedly and she stared at him, bewildered. “Uh, um…” Incapable of speech, even though the shock seemed to have halted the tears, she nodded.
Of course
she loved Charlie. She was hopelessly, madly in love with him. She probably had been all along, and had just been too focused on her work to notice it.
For all that mattered now.
Now the only thing farther down Charlie’s to-do list than marriage was Sarah.
“You seem surprised.”
“I am.” Though she shouldn’t be. If she’d just opened her eyes and seen what she and Charlie had together all along, she’d have realized inevitably this would be the end point. Her falling in love with him. How was it she could spend her life analyzing biochemical reactions and data and hard facts, but have no idea how to analyze her own heart?
Regular hook-ups, an inability to sustain a relationship with other men, a compulsive need to see Charlie whenever relationships with those other men failed… Of course she was in love with him.
She mentally slapped herself on the side of the head. And as she did, something occurred to her. Something she’d never considered before. The whole reason she’d had a string of failed relationships wasn’t because there was something wrong with her.
It was because there was something right with Charlie.
Everything was right with Charlie. He was her perfect guy.
It wasn’t that she was too boring for other men to find attractive, it was that other men could never live up to her surfer dude, no matter how perfect they might be. And Sam was a key example.
In fact, if she were totally honest with herself, she’d acknowledge that the night Sebastian dumped her, she couldn’t wait to get over to Charlie’s place, couldn’t wait to knock on his door, because Sebastian had never been the guy for her. Charlie had.
She looked at Sam, blinking in disbelief. “I can’t believe it took me this long to realize how I feel about him.”
“So he doesn’t know?”
Sarah frowned then, a frown she felt all the way down to her belly. “Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“I told him the other night that I wasn’t interested in meeting anyone else, wasn’t interested in a date with you… Uh, I’m sorry. Please don’t take that the wrong way.”
Geez, Sar, way to show your tact.
Sam just gestured encouragingly.
“I told him he was the only one I needed, and he shut me down so fast, my head’s still spinning.”
It was Sam’s turn to frown. “What did he say?”
“He fed me some garbage about the two of us living in different worlds. How he lives to surf, can’t think beyond the next big wave, and how I live to study and learn. Said he was the last person I needed in my life. He said—actually, he insisted—that I needed someone like you. Someone academic and smart. Someone who’d fit into my life, further my career, support my studies.”
“Thus your reason for being here tonight.”
“No. I’m here tonight because the thought of being at home alone almost killed me.”
“And after spending a few hours together, what’s your conclusion? Am I what you need? Or someone
like
me? Is Charlie right? Would your life be better and your career more successful if you had someone in it who thinks like you?”
Sarah was shaking her head before he’d finished asking. “I have heaps of people in my life who think like I do. My parents, my colleagues, my department. If I need support academically or work-wise, I have it in spades. I’m not looking for any more.”
“Then what were you looking for with Charlie?”
“That’s just the thing. Nothing.” Well, apart from sublime sexual satisfaction, but she could hardly confess that to Sam. “In the beginning I never had any expectations of him, never wanted more than we had, until…well, until now. And now I want everything, and he…he wants the freedom to surf in peace. He doesn’t want anyone needing him like I do.” He didn’t even want to sleep with her anymore. Or have sex, for that matter. With Charlie she’d learned that sleeping together and having sex were two very different entities.
And just like that she missed being in his arms all over again. Missed being cuddled, being snuggled so close to him she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.
“So you think he doesn’t care for you?”
Sarah dropped her head into her hands and rubbed her eyes, grateful she hadn’t had the heart or energy to put on makeup before coming out with Sam. Her mascara would be smeared all over her cheeks if she had.
How could Charlie not care about her? He knew her. Had offered to save her from a burning building. Surely someone who cared nothing for her wouldn’t put her first on his list to save? Surely?
But then why had he ended everything? Why had he found her the perfect guy to marry?
Heck, she wasn’t even interested in marriage. Not yet anyway.
She looked up at Sam again and held her hands out helplessly “It’s the only conclusion I can draw. Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless he’s projecting his needs onto me.” Now that made more sense.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, maybe Charlie’s concern isn’t that I need someone like me. Maybe it’s that he needs someone like himself.” Perhaps marriage wasn’t really the bottom of his to-do list. Perhaps it was just marriage—or commitment—to Sarah that bothered him. Maybe Charlie was the one looking for someone he could relate to better. Someone who understood him. Someone who lived for the same things he did. Maybe Charlie was looking for a woman who loved to surf as much as he did.
Which excluded Sarah right off the bat, since the closest she’d come to a surfboard was the one signed by Kelly Slater.
Sam considered her for a while before responding. And when he did, he looked puzzled. “Now your theory might hold some water, except for one thing.”
She sniffed loudly. “And that is?”
“If Charlie really was looking for someone like himself, why do you suppose he told me he was in love with you?”
It took Sarah a good few minutes to respond. First she had to lift her chin off the table, but every time she succeeded it only dropped back down again. Then she had to think of something to say, but her mind had utterly blanked and not a rational thought entered her head. And finally, if she ever did begin to think logically again she’d have to voice her words, but her throat was so parched the only sound she could form was a nonsensical rasp.
“H-he’s in love…with me?”
“The guy’s a goner.”
“B-but I don’t understand.”
“Nothing to understand. He’s crazy about you.”
“And you knew that?”
“I did.”
“Th-then why did you agree to ask me out?” It was crazy to focus on Sam when he’d just blown her world clean apart, but Sarah was just too stupefied by his question to comprehend what it all meant.
“Because Charlie asked me to. It seemed important to him that he find you a, uh, well a nice man.”
“You are nice. Like, really nice.”
Sam grinned. “I didn’t ask you out because I thought I was a nice guy. I asked because I was curious. I couldn’t figure out why Charlie would want me to date a woman he’s so obviously in love with. I guess I just wanted to see if the woman he set me up with was as in love with him as he was with her.”
A tear fell down her cheek, one she hadn’t even realized was there. “As it turns out, I am.”
“That you are.” There was a speculative gleam in his eye. “So, we’ve established two things. You love Charlie, and Charlie loves you.”
She sniffed. “Three things. You forgot the fact that Charlie is so eager to get me out of his life he’s trying to match me up with someone else.”
“Yeah. I don’t think that’s fact at all. I think it’s fiction on Charlie’s part. So let’s just let that one stand on the side for a while. Which leaves us with two facts. You love him and he loves you.”
“Whatever that’s worth now.” She felt as morose as she sounded.
“Are you just going to ignore those facts?”
“I tried tackling the one head on. Charlie kicked me out of his flat.”
“So you’re giving up?”
“What else can I do? Hit Charlie over the head with his surfboard? Think then he’ll tell me how he feels?” She felt more hopeless than ever. If Charlie really did love her, as Sam insisted, then it made even less sense that he tried to set her up with someone else. If anything, it hurt even more. Did he abhor the idea of loving her so much he was willing to take any step to avoid it?