So it was no surprise that she was close enough to see the little muscle in his jaw tighten. She just didn’t know what to make of it.
“Sawyer.” His voice was as warm as the sunlight that glowed around them. “Call me Sawyer.”
“Okay, Mr.—”
“Just Sawyer,” he said with a little more edge—like he wasn’t in the mood to be prodded with questions just to fill the very long stretch of very awkward silence.
“Yes. Absolutely. Just Sawyer it is. You can call me . . . Well, I guess that’s TBD. But that would be a terrible name, right? T-B-D? What kind of name—”
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you ramble when you’re nervous?”
She had to smile; she might have blushed. Because, turns out, awkward silences weren’t her thing at all. “Well, now there’s at least one thing we know about me. Or two, I guess. After all, you know Alex, so you already know me better than I do.”
He looked like he wanted to say something, but he shifted instead, trying to get comfortable on the very hard deck. She started to scoot away and give him his space, but an arm shot around her waist and pulled her closer.
“No. Don’t. The tarp can’t move and we don’t need your foot sticking out, so . . .” He shifted, and suddenly, parts of her were intertwined with parts of him, and she felt herself stop breathing for reasons that had nothing to do with covert operations.
“Right. Yes. Thank you for the reminder that we are currently in the middle of a slow-speed getaway. Did they teach you how to do this at spy school?”
“There’s no such thing as . . .” He trailed off and shook his head, but she saw the corner of his eyes crinkle—just a little. His jaw ticked again. And there was a note of wry amusement to his voice when he said, “No. Nothing in my training prepared me for this. Exactly.”
“Great. So we’re the same then.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say we’re exactly the—”
“Just winging it. Sawyer and the Denominator.”
He was looking at her like her head wound might be far more dangerous than he’d previously thought, but then his jaw did that thing again—that little tic. And, suddenly, she was warm for the first time in her entire memory, with the tarp blocking the wind and the sunlight filtering down and the heat coming off the man beside her.
She thought about giving him a little more space but didn’t. Because when cuddling with a hot guy is a matter of life and death, you just go with it. And, soon, her cheek was resting on his shoulder and her feet were nestled between his and the world felt quiet and still, despite the gentle rocking and listing of the boat.
“We’re probably to the Eiffel Tower by now,” he said softly.
“Really?” She desperately wanted to peek out and look, but his grip around her tightened.
“Don’t. Move,” he warned, shifting until her hand ended up resting on his chest because where else was she supposed to put it?
“We’ll just wait here until we get some distance,” he told her.
“Right. Good.”
So she lay there in that golden light, still and warm and oddly comfortable for the first time in her entire memory, while Paris passed her by.
Chapter Fifteen
Her
“Hey, lady. Hey . . . you. Alex’s sister . . .” The words filtered through her hazy mind, as soft and warm as the light. “Hey, Denominator!” he said a little louder, and she bolted up just as a strong arm pulled her down and pinned her to the deck beneath him, and that was how she came awake, staring up at the most beautifully rugged face she’d ever imagined.
“It’s you.” She didn’t even try to hide the wonder in her voice.
“Yeah.” He chuckled softly. “Who else did you expect it to be? As far as I know . . .”
“You’re the only person I know?” She remembered gunfights and bridges and snow falling through streetlights. And him. He was the only thing in her entire memory that didn’t make her want to cry.
“Well, yeah.” Well, duh.
“I thought you were a dream. I thought this”—she gestured to what she’d started to think of as their Tiny Cocoon of Not Dying—“was a dream. Or a nightmare.”
“That’s understandable,” he said then inched away. “Anything coming back yet?”
She stretched as much as she could without really moving and racked her mind, but it was as blank as the canvas that covered them. She shook her head and bit back a yawn. “How long was I out?”