A/N: You have no idea how fun this is to write.
Thank you so much for all the encouragement in your reviews.
I meant to have this up a couple of days ago, but I tend to got distracted by trivialities, such as the new Tarantino movie, going out, clothes shopping, keeping up my Free cell stats and watching Gordon Ramsay verbally destroy people on the telly.
Hope it was worth the wait.
//WARNING//: rating change, it's nothing too graphic, but if you're the kind of person who blushes when there's an advert for condoms on the telly don't say I didn't warn you …
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She had never felt this nervous in her entire lifetime.
Juliet Burke was a genuine good girl, the kind who always made sure to never cross the line, the kind who felt bad when the guy behind the till in Starbucks forgot to make her pay for the muffin she had had with her latte. So getting all dolled up to meet with a man she had only met the night before with every intention of stepping out on her husband was absolutely out of character, even if her husband was the biggest ass-hole of all times.
She nearly chickened out of the whole thing at several occasions on her way to meet Sawyer.
Every single time the cab got stopped at a red light, she almost asked the driver to make a U-turn and take her back to where he had picked her up, but every time she thought about turning around, Edmund's smug grin would appear in her head. She could just imagine him on Monday morning, waltzing through her office door like he owned the place, with his -guess what I was doing with my twenty something research assistant this weekend, and before you ask, nope, it wasn't research- smile.
Well at least this Monday, she would be able to greet him with a -and guess who spent her weekend with a handsome charming Southern guy (who looks like he was hand picked out of a Calvin Klein commercial), not talking about the weather, if ya' know what I mean- face.
And that thought alone gave her the strength to go on to the next traffic light, and then the one after that, until finally she reached her destination.
Now she was standing in front of the bar, debating whether to enter or not. It's not that the prospect of giving Edmund a taste of his own medicine wasn't enough anymore, it's just that she wasn't one hundred percent sure she was capable of doing this. She had never been a social butterfly, and she had been out of the dating scene for quite a while now, and she wasn't exactly sure she remembered what the codes used to be back then, and had absolutely no idea of what the standards were today.
Suddenly her dress felt far too tight, far too uncomfortable She was petrified.
No, she couldn't do this. It was impossible. She couldn't go in. This wasn't her.
But maybe she didn't have to be her. Perhaps for one night, she could just not be Juliet the geek, maybe just for tonight she could be that -how had Rachel put it? Smart, sexy, sassy and confident.
She took a deep breath, she could do this!
"Smart, sexy, sassy and confident. Smart, sexy, sassy and confident," she chanted over and over again in her head as she pushed to entrance door to the bar open.
She looked around. The place was rather crowded, small groups of people were clustered at each table. She didn't spot him until he waved at her. She walked over to him, relieved -now that he had seen her she couldn't bail out anymore.
"Nice dress," he commented. She blushed when he leaned into her and whispered to her ear, "I know you said, you don't fall for flattery, but I'm just stating out loud what every other man in this room is thinking."
The sensation of his breath against her neck sent chills down her spine causing her to blush even more.
The first couple of minutes were rather awkward, she didn't really know what to say, if or whether she should initiate anything. She could ask him about his job, where he was from exactly, what he enjoyed doing during his spare time, or something, but his answers would turn him into a real person in her eyes, and then she wouldn't be able through with this. He would no longer be the mysterious stranger she happened to have a one night stand with, he'd be Bob the Builder from Tennessee or Ted the insurance man from Alabama. And she just couldn't allow that.
The atmosphere got tremendously lighter once she had had the first couple of sips of her cocktail and he had launched the conversation on a neutral topic.
She loosened up as he told her exactly why he thought Dan Brown's Deception Point was so much better than the Da Vinci Code. She had agreed before arguing that, while Deception Point was superior to the Da Vinci Code, Brown's best book was, without contest, Digital Fortress. He then admitted that he hadn't gotten around to reading that one yet.
As the evening progressed and drinks were downed, Juliet felt more and more at her ease. Momentarily she forgot why she had asked him to meet her at this bar, and just enjoyed the evening. Yet again she was surprised by how totally and completely comfortable she could feel with a person who would have been a stranger for her just yesterday afternoon.
All too soon, the evening came to an end and the bartender called for last orders. She could hardly believe that she had been at bar until closing time two nights in a row.
As they stood outside the bar, waiting for a taxi, she knew this was it. This was her chance, it was now or never. Her future, or at least the next couple of hours of it, was entirely in her hands.
She took a deep breath, mustered up all her courage and kissed him.
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* * *
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He had absolutely not anticipated this turn of events.
It was one thing for her to have called up and set up this little rendez-vous.
It was one thing for her to turn up at the bar in that dress -a dress that would drive any sane straight man insane.
It was another thing entirely for her to jump on him while they were waiting for a taxi.
Either the woman was schizophrenic or she had a twin sister, who was her exact opposite when it came to social behaviour.
He had been prepared for this one to be a slow job.
He would have had to become her friend first, then her confident, then he would work his magic Southern Charm with a hint of dimples on top, she would fall for him, he'd lay out his scam, she'd her husband to give him the money, and voilà. Mission accomplished.
But here he was, in the middle of a street in Miami, with his tongue halfway down the throat of the woman he had every intention of conning, barely a day after he had first met her.
It was unbelievable, even his usual trophy wife marks put up a little resistance at first. Juliet Burke was not only surrendering, she offering everything she had on a silver platter.
He had been so sure of himself when he had pegged her as a woman of honour, the kind of woman who wouldn't be unfaithful to her husband, no matter what. Well, apparently he had been very very wrong and had lost his ability to read women, that or every woman, no matter how attached she was to her moral values, had a breaking point after which values meant nothing anymore.
Oh well, he wasn't about to complain about his job being to easy, especially when it meant that he was going to get some tonight, with a really hot woman.
They broke apart long enough to ask him breathlessly, "Where are you staying?"
Her hands were all over him in the taxi, through his hair, up the back of his shirt. How they managed to stay dressed in the taxi was beyond him, he was inches away from just taking her right there and then in the back seat when the driver announced their arrival with a, "That'll be eleven dollars."
She tossed a twenty dollar note in his hand and told him to keep the change as he pulled her out of the taxi. Before they had reached the room, he pinned her against the wall, finally allowing his hands to roam all over her body, her neck, her breasts, her back, her ass.
He pulled her up and she wrapped her legs around him, he was kissing the crook of her neck passionately when she asked huskily, "which room?"
He let her down, grabbed her wrist and dragged her down the hall, in front of the door, he quickly fumbled in his back pocket and unlocked it. He pulled her inside with him, kicking the door closed behind him. He immediately got working on the zip of her dress. Soon enough they were both in their underwear He got his first glimpse of her body. And wow, she was beautiful, slim, but curvy in all the right places, and one hundred percent natural. And God only knows how long it had been since Sawyer had last seen a woman who hadn't at least had a boob job naked.
He kissed her while he orientated her towards the bed, before pushing her down beneath him.
While he started working his way down her body, her hands were on his back, slightly grazing his skin with her nails. He was just about to unhook her bra, when …
"Stop," she said out of breath.
She couldn't be serious. He stopped what he was doing and looked at her straight in the eyes.
"I'm so sorry," she apologised, pushing him off of her, and standing up. He caught her by the wrist, forcing her to turn around and face him, she was fighting it, but he could see that she was on the verge of tears.
"What's the matter?" he asked softly.
"I can't," she replied simply, as the first tear rolled down her cheek. "I'm married. I thought I could do this. I thought that after everything he put me through I could do this … but I just can't. As much as I would like to, I can't."
"Hey," he said, pulling her back down on the bed to sit beside him, and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "It's okay."
"No, it's not," she said defeated. "He goes out and has dozens of affairs, and when he comes home he treats me like the help. And I don't have the guts to leave him."
"It's going to be okay," he soothed, running a hand through her hair.
"I'm sorry ..." she stood up again and retrieved her dress from the floor and hastily put it back on.
He was stunned.
Everything had been going so well, until it went completely off track. He hadn't been that wrong about her after all, she wasn't one of those women. What to do now? If she walked out the door, he would never see her again, he would lose his way in. And his con would be screwed, and he'd have to go back to Los Angeles with his tail between his legs and admit to Hibbs that he hadn't been able to finish the job.
She had her hand on the handle, ready to open the door when he blurted out, "Wait."
She spun around, looking at him uncomfortably, with anxiety in her eyes, her whole body was tense, all she wanted was to get out of here, fast, and go far away -he could tell.
"Listen, Juliet, I'd understand if you say 'no', but truth be told I really enjoyed spending time with you, just talking and stuff," he paused. She looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. "And I'm going to be in Miami for a while on this job, and I don't know anybody here, so could I call you sometime? And we could meet up again?"
He recognised a mix of horror and mortification in her eyes, seeing him again? That was the last thing she wanted to do, it would just remind her of the fiasco that was this evening. For some odd reason, he felt uneasy pressuring her, but he had to, it was the only way he'd get anywhere near getting the money.
"I don't mean in that way," he tried to reassure her. "We could see each other during the day, for lunch or something. I liked our conversations yesterday, and earlier this evening, I have a feeling that we could be friends."
She looked at him with scepticism.
"We'll just act like all of this," his eyes circled around the room. "Never happened."
For a while she just stood there, as if she was lost for words, and unsure of what to do next. Sawyer waited anxiously for her reaction, just as he thought all hope was lost, she grabbed the pen and pad of paper that were lying on the desk and scribbled something down.
She nodded, gave him a little nervous smile, and let herself out.
He walked over to the desk and picked up the pad, she had scribbled her cell phone number down, he sighed of relief.
The game was back on.
It was back to plan A, but still the game was back on, and the hundred grand back in sight.
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TBC …