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Dinner Anyone?
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Cassandra Scott watched with amusement as her brother fussed and churned over his brilliantly put together outfit. His hands trembled slightly at the last button of his shirt then he immediately reversed the processed.
"No, no, no, this will never work," he mumbled at his agitated reflection in Cassie's bedroom mirror.
"It looks fine," she said, and sighed. This was the third shirt not meeting his approval.
"Rubbish, I must look better than fine."
"Jer," she protested, hugging him from behind, her eyes peeking over his shoulder to meet his in the mirror, "you look smashing. Relax; if this Sarah Williams doesn't appreciate you then she hasn't got eyes or she's profoundly psychologically flawed."
'
Hopefully not as flawed as Melinda,' she thought without betraying emotions on her face.
Gerard inhaled a deep, calming breath allowing his sister's wisdom to filter through his nerves. The alabaster skin of his slender throat and tone chest lie exposed between the open edges of his shirt; its pale reflection in the mirror reminded him of his lost days of athleticism. How he missed playing in the sun! Its warm rays basking him in their life-giving glory—he never tired of the sensation. He hated the dark; he always gravitated to the light as if breaking free from the shadows. He reminded himself that he must soon shrug off his tireless office hours and regain his love of outdoor activities.
"What if she doesn't meet me?" he asked and Cassie detected the small waver in his voice, a feat few others were capable of discerning in the always supremely confident Gerard.
"If she stands you up?" she asked. He turned around in her hug and nodded. She saw the shades of the insecure boy torn away from his younger sister in his unique eyes. He rarely showed his vulnerability to anyone; Cassie topped his short list of trusted friends and family.
"I've never been stood up before," he declared in a soft voice and Cassie tightened her embrace.
"Do you think she will?"
"She might...I was..."
"Your usual imperial self?" she finished for him. He shrugged, a sheepish expression on his face and a faint blush coloring his cheeks. Cassie laughed, loudly, and added another hug to her current one.
"I'm sure you were unbearably charming, and the poor dear likely doesn't know what hit her, like most women you meet. But perhaps I should send a letter of recommendation with you?"
"Hardly!" Gerard stepped from Cassie's arms, "As long as she continues bemused enough to arrive this evening I will happily prove myself worthy." He hoped his early puffing display for Ms. Williams demonstrated his merit without overdoing it. In his considerable experience, he found confidence the secret to winning a woman. However, this woman seemed cut from a different cloth, and his lips still tingled where he inadvertently brushed them too close to her ear when he whispered his parting message. Both these things set to undo him before he fully began his pursuit. He worried that he went too far.
His original intent had been to speak kindly to her, apologize for any misunderstanding, then offer dinner as recompense to her displacement. However, Ms. Williams possessed a way about her than set off his cad, he couldn't help himself. He deliberately pushed her buttons which were so obviously displayed—in brilliant neon above her head no less! He wanted to push quite a bit more, but held back for the sake of public decency and the law itself. Besides, he wanted to win her heart not frighten her off.
Oh bollocks...he wanted to what with her what? "Of course you will," she agreed pleasantly, unaware of Gerard's drifting mind and patted his upper chest still covered by his shirt. He gifted her with a narrow-eyed glare. "Now let's get you buttoned up and on your way," she said, proceeding to refashion his polished, Egyptian cotton dove gray shirt as if he were a toddler; it wouldn't do to risk the swooning of anonymous women on the public streets.
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"You have a
date?" Sarah's best friend, Kathy, exclaimed over the telephone.
"You don't have to sound so surprised, you know," Sarah replied, unable to keep the irritation from her voice.
"Sorry, it's just that you've avoided dating and men in general since breaking your engagement to Tony."
"Well, don't you think two years is plenty of time to get over it?"
"Sure, Sarah, I'm glad you're finally going out. You need to go out. You've been turning into an underground dwelling hermit and it worries me. I've told you as much."
"I have not! I go out!" She protested vehemently.
"Weekends away in Rhode Island with your family don't count."
"But..."
"And neither does dinner out with my husband and me, as much as we enjoy spending time with you."
"Whatever," Sarah said huffy. After a long, silent, awkward moment, Kathy spoke in an upbeat voice.
"
So...tell me everything," she insisted, unrelenting as only a decades old best friend has the right to be.
"You wanna know how he insulted me or how I nearly castrated him?"
"What? Oh, hell, only you could turn a disaster into a date. Details girl, everything until you picked up the phone and called me and then you call me again after the date and spill more details. You know how this works...you haven't been out of the dating world that long!" Kathy said, laughing. She loved Sarah's hammerhead honesty. Sure, it tended to break things and people and it definitely influenced in more of a how-dare-you-you're-now-my-enemy-sort-of -way, but Kathy never doubted where she stood with Sarah and knew how trustworthy she really was; one of the few truly decent persons of integrity in the world. Just don't piss her off or trip up her routine.
"Well..." Sarah hedged before giving her best friend since college all the juicy, embarrassing tidbits regarding her first and second meeting of Gerard Scott. She did, however, exclude her private knowledge of his uncanny resemblance to Jareth—really, how does one rationally explain the Goblin King or her journey through his Labyrinth? Exactly, one doesn't. Not even to one's best friend. No one knew of Sarah's secret teenage adventure –and near life altering mistake—other than those directly involved, and they weren't talking anymore as far as Sarah knew.
Approximately an hour later, Sarah hung up the phone with Kathy and checked the time—a little before 6 p.m. Hmm...a date. Did she want to go through with this insanity? Afterall, he didn't really ask her so much as command, and didn't that just rub her the wrong way. No one commands Sarah Williams! But his voice kept buzzing in her memory along with the spark of his lips tingling on the skin of her ear, and it fogged her better judgment with sticky lust. Two years without sex—interactive with a live person sex—tends to make a person highly susceptible to aggressive advances from Goblin King Look-alikes.
Finally deciding that a—yes, please take me to dinner and perhaps kiss me senseless with your obviously talented lips—was more interesting than a—no, I have no life and prefer refusing evenings out with gorgeous, if maddening, men—Sarah sprang up from her couch and rushed to her bedroom to clean and dress for her tingle-inducing date.
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Several minutes past 7 o'clock and Gerard forced patience throughout his mind and body. He disliked,
immensely, advertising his emotional state, and allowing anyone—most especially strangers—to know of his current unease would be objectionable in the extreme. Every chime of the front door brought his head up, and with it the discovery that his Sarah's arrival continued to be delayed. Each minute she did not present herself, Gerard's internal anxiety expanded, and added to his increasing stress until even his massive self-control faltered causing his bent knee to bounce faintly as he sat in her chair. His entire body a wound coil waiting to be sprung.
At twenty after, he saw Sarah breeze through the glass door, take a few steps into the café, spot him in her seat, and freeze. Her beauty impacted him before, but now... His knees shook as he demanded they support his standing weight. The gentleman within his cad wrapping exploded with a righteous mission; Sarah looked as anxious as he felt with the hint of something sharp glittering in her eyes. Her rigid stance warned him that while she conceded to his command for her presence she refused to step further into his trap, forcing him into her personal space.
'
Very well, challenge accepted,' he thought, loving her obstinacy, '
never did fancy milquetoast women.' Gerard sauntered the remaining distance to her taking his time to admire how her dress pants and shirt clung to her hourglass curves. Her low heels brought her to the perfect kissing height; he only needed to dip his head a few inches...
"So, I guess you're not a liar...so far," Sarah stated icily. His smooth gait faltered momentarily, but recovered easily.
"Ms. Williams," he clenched at his chest melodramatically, "you wound me!"
"As if," she replied, rolling her eyes, her smile barely hidden, "I'm sure it'll take more than one insult from me to damage
your ego." Gerard's responding light-hearted chuckle made goosebumps erupt all over her skin.
"I'm sure you don't know me quite well enough to make such accusations." He presented his elbow to her allowing Sarah the choice to slip her arm through his or not and grinned, showing off his sparkling, devilishly off-kilter teeth, "But I'm willing to give you the opportunity."
'
Damn, he's smooth,' she thought, kicking herself mentally even as her body made an executive decision by accepting his proffered arm. She waited for the odd spark whenever they touched, but nothing occurred. She wondered if his long sleeved shirt blocking his skin from hers made any difference, but quickly forgot as he lead them regally from the café of ironic fate.
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She was in so much trouble. Quicksand-to-the-neck-no-low-hanging-branches-within-reach kind of trouble, and his name was Gerard Scott. Enjoying her dinner of sushi and sashimi—using chopsticks because Gerard choose to and he made eating with primitive-looking wooden sticks look simple which it
soo was not, damn him—Sarah studied the man sitting across from her making a concerted effort to hate everything about Mr. Scott. Which, of course, worked much like a double negative and fell under the category of: the very thing one tries so very hard not to do is the exact thing that happens.
The more she worked to convince herself how awful Gerard laughed, his sexy baritone turned her insides to pudding, the tasty kind of warm, straight from the stove butterscotch pudding. His eyes were freakishly weird so he gazed soulfully at her. He chewed funny; she couldn't stop watching his well-formed tongue and lips and wondered what they would feel like against her skin. Stupid highlighted hair which begged her fingers to do their walking through the bleached roots.
"Sarah, Sarah? Are you well?" Gerard's extremely
not sexy voice cut into her daydreaming.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I'm good," she answered, feeling her face heat up and dropped the useless, offensive chopsticks to her plate. The wood clattered dully upon the ceramic, splattering her mix of soy sauce and wasabi. Gerard arched an eyebrow and quirked his lips.
"You don't appear to be well," he replied and Sarah was hard pressed to differentiate the sincere concern from the veiled sarcasm in his voice. He cocked his head staring at her, waiting for her answer. Could he truly care? But he's the Goblin King, isn't he? Since when does he care about me or my health? Sarah met Gerard's curious gaze over the small, candlelit table, and for a few seconds thought...maybe...he does care.
"Sarah?" he asked again, this time the sincerity thickly obviously in his drawled voice.
"I'm alright," she replied softly, ducking her head, unsure if she liked the thought of this man caring for her or not. Gerard reached a hand across the table and laid it lightly on her forearm, wanting to offer...something...to this exceptional woman who blazed so brightly in his vision, but hesitant to overwhelm her as he was wont to do. Another zip of energy jumped between them. Both made valiant efforts to ignore it.
"You've hardly spoken all evening. I do hope you don't find the company odious?"
"What?" she said, her head snapping up to meet his teasing eyes, "No, of course not." She heard him sigh and it dulled a bit of sharpness within her. Why could she not hate this man? Everything about him affected her, made her self-control slipperier than an oily eel. She decided to emotionally leap forward, bracing herself she asked:
"Why are you here?"
"Here?" he queried, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. "I wanted to have dinner with you: a beautiful, amazing, but very suspicious woman."
"Not
here, here," she said, exasperated as she leaned back into her chair, her arms still resting on the table. "Here in New York, here."
"Ah, I see," Gerard carefully placed his chopsticks upon their ceramic rest, wiped his hands and face with his cloth napkin, and leaned to one side using a hand to support his chin. "You're perfectly right, I should tell you about myself first. It is, afterall, the gentlemanly thing to do." Drawing out the suspense, Gerard watched Sarah for nearly a minute before he continued. "I'm an architect sent over from my London firm to compete for the 9-11 Memorial contract."
"An architect?"
"Yes, you disbelieve?"
"Well, it seems rather a thin excuse to drop back into my life."
"Pardon?" Gerard started, pulled his chin from his palm, his eyes wide, "
back into your life?" Then his face relaxed in contemplation, "Ah, yes, this Jareth you spoke of before. You still mistake me for him?"
Sarah gritted her teeth, still playing games would he? "You still deny it? You look, sound and act just like him. You even smell like him. How can you be anyone else?"
Shaking his head, Gerard 'tsked' her, "Yet I am not he, and did you just say I smell like him?" his eyes dilated as the full ramifications of her statement hit his intellect. The candlelight softened his sharp features, reflecting in his darkening pupils.
"
No!" Sarah nearly shouted.
"And do I smell...good?" he asked in that oh-so-sultry drawl of his while his zappy fingers caressed her forearm.
"Absolutely not!" Sarah replied too quickly and even in the dim lighting Gerard saw her face flush from the neck up. Pulling her arm away with a jerk, Sarah nearly knocked over her water, but Gerard's rapid reflexes saved her new silk shirt from a drenching. A deed he later regretted as thoughts of Sarah in a wet, silk shirt haunted his erotic dreams.
Instead he laughed amiably," Oh, Sarah, you needn't be embarrassed to admit such a thing. I think you smell good, too."
"Y-you do?"
Well, huh, that's interesting.
"Oh, yes, however, I can't say I like the thought of you sniffing this Jareth bloke," he stated in a firm tone causing Sarah to almost knock over the water again. His pupils constricted and Sarah swallowed at his rapid emotional shift.
"Allow me to just move this out of reach for now," he said, lifting her water glass to his side of the table, his lips curled up at one corner.
"You must think I'm a total spaz," said Sarah, suddenly worried that Gerard disliked her; that emotion both thrilling and unsettling her.
"No, not a
total spaz," he said, teasing the first smile from her all night. Sarah laughed pleasantly, feeling herself relax for the first time all evening.
"So...you're an architect?" she said easing her body back towards his, her hand brushing the edge of his where it rested on the table. That strange static electricity arced between them again and both wondered at the random ionic discharge, their eyes catching each other's in the romantic lighting. Gerard took advantage by gently wrapping his fingers over hers, not too firmly, not too loose—just enough to generate a clenching warmth in Sarah's abdomen.
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Moira: Hope dinner was a interesting to read as it was to write. And yes...it is my duty to tell the story, lol! And I will, muhahahahaha!
Dinner was surprising weird to write, not difficult but I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted it to go until I got here. But now I'm happy with this result and it's the direction I wanted. They're both neurotic and pushy, but perfectly suited to each other. Things are about to get interesting and hotter in here... Please Review! Cause they make me happy! :o)
