She grabbed a towel from a basket and handed one to Lincoln after keeping one for herself. She watched out the corner of her eye as he scrubbed the towel over his head, the strands sticking every which way. He stripped his shirt off and looked at his pants ruefully.
“It’s going to be a wet ride back to the city,” he mused. “Though I did bring back the shorts you let me borrow.”
Sadie checked her watch. It was well after eight and she didn’t like the idea of his going back to Boston, despite the fact that it wasn’t that late.
“You could always stay. In the guest room,” she tacked on. “I’m sure Gordon would love it. We can talk about where you want to go with his training in the morning.”
He watched her closely, those blue eyes narrowed as he assessed her.
“If it’s not too much trouble, I wouldn’t mind,” he said. “In the guest room.”
What kind of trouble was she setting herself up for, she wondered. Inviting a man she’d loved since she was a young girl, a man she’d just kissed like it was her last moment on earth, to spend the night.
In the guest room.
She nearly laughed out loud.
If she were a betting woman, which she wasn’t, she’d put fifty on them waking up in the same bed in the morning.
6
Later, Sadie would blame it all on Gordon.
She’d endured a tension-filled hour, watching television with Lincoln, before heading to bed, then torturous moments of helping him get settled in the guest room. The heated looks he’d sent, while not saying a word, haunted her as she tried to doze off. She tossed and turned, sleep completely eluding her, thoughts of Lincoln just down the stairs too distracting for her over-sensitized brain.
The kiss they shared had been nothing like any other kiss she’d ever experienced. For her, it was one of the most authentic things she’d ever felt. There were so few feelings she opened herself to as an adult. In her younger days, she’d lied her way through life. That had been easy. As an adult, she’d limited her scope of interactions to something so narrow, she only dealt with things and people she knew. To her, it was one of the only ways she knew how to keep her life on track.
Being one of the only things she controlled, her limited environment and small piece of property were her sanity. Her true north.
But that kiss had her bearings out of whack. Her true north was suddenly a flashing neon sign pointing down the stairs and directly to the guest room.
Then came the scratching at the door.
She’d closed the dog’s crates herself so she knew they should have been shut in and sleeping.
Gordon, no doubt, looking for a place to lay his head.
Sadie slid out of bed and tiptoed to the door, barely opening it a crack.
“Go bug your father,” she whispered.
Paying her no mind he backed away a few steps and then a few more. He jumped forward, nudging her knee, and then backed up again.
“What do you want?”
Gordon jumped a little, his front paws coming right off the hardwood floors, then he backed up again.
She scowled a little. “You’re not getting in my bed tonight.” She grabbed her robe and tossed it on before leading Gordon back downstairs. When they got to the landing he took off, barreling into the guest room. Sadie hot on his heels.
Lincoln sat on the bed, going over some paperwork in nothing but the shorts he’d borrowed. He looked up when Gordon ran into the room, stopping short when he saw Sadie standing there.
“Are you working?” she said stupidly.
“I had my briefcase in the car.” He shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”
She knew that feeling all too well. Apparently, so did Gordon.
“What are you doing awake?” he asked, sitting up and inadvertently showing off his chest. It wasn’t one of those over-muscled, front-of-a-magazine type chests. He clearly kept fit, probably belonged to some fancy gym in the city, but he wasn’t overdone. He had a smattering of light brown chest hair that ran down his flat stomach. Sadie was well past the point in her life where she was looking for perfection, and while Lincoln may not have been movie star perfect, he was enough to make her mouth water and her insides quiver.
She got the uncomfortable feeling that her attraction to him had less to do with the way he looked and more to do with the way he was looking at her. It wasn’t just the interest in her, which was most definitely there. It was his interest in the answer to his question she found most alluring. His genuine attentiveness to what she said was a strange kind of variation on attraction she’d been searching for her whole life.
“Gordon seemed to have something really important he needed from me.” She rolled her eyes as the traitor in question trotted out the door and headed to the kitchen. She heard him flop down in his crate not two seconds later.
Lincoln’s lips turned up into a half-smile. “Maybe he’s a bit of a mediator.”
“More like a busybody,”
He shuffled a few papers and held out a hand. “Want to sit for a few minutes?”
Again, it was a terrible idea. She wanted Lincoln. There was no questioning or denying it. She wanted him and she was smart enough to know that if she went into that room, they’d probably end up sleeping together.
She wanted to sleep with Lincoln. Her body was completely on board with the plan. But as she kept telling him, it was not a good idea. They did live in two separate worlds and she wasn’t welcome in his. What was the point other than just sex?
And was just sex really a bad thing?
“Is it that hard of a decision?” he asked, eyebrow raised, when she didn’t move.
Sadie crossed her arms over her chest and leaned against the door frame.
“If I come in there, we’re probably going to end up sleeping together.”
His eyebrows popped up innocently. “You think?”
“You don’t think it’s bound to happen?” she asked.
“It crossed my mind,” he admitted. He leaned back on his pillow and stacked his hands on his stomach. “I’m not opposed to the idea. Are you?”
“If there’s sex, it’s just sex and it’s just here. I don’t have any desire whatsoever to live in your world, Lincoln, and I know you don’t want to be a part of mine.”
“You don’t know that,” he argued.
Sadie rolled her eyes. “I moved here to get away from the life you’re living, the life you’re building in the city. I’m really happy for you. You, Brady, Grant and Dylan, you’ve all worked hard and I’m proud of you. I really am. I think you’re all brilliant and bound to be successful, and that’s everything you guys have ever wanted. People like you and me want very different things in this world, Lincoln. If it’s just sex and we’re on the same page, we’ll be fine.”
“Say I don’t want sex for the sake of sex?” He didn’t seem offended by her observations, merely curious. “Say I want something like candlelit dinners and walks in the park?”
“Do those things have to be in Boston?”
“So, you just want to keep me a secret,” he accused. “You want to wine and dine me but keep me locked up out here, all for yourself.”
Now she laughed and looked away because he was being obtuse. “I’m trying to help you keep your reputation, Lincoln. If anyone finds out you’re sleeping with me, your name will be ruined.”
“Just to clarify, this is all for my sake?”
Was it all for his sake, she wondered. She wasn’t sure. Maybe she was protecting herself a little bit too. Unsure, she shrugged.
“Why don’t you let me worry about my reputation, Sadie?”
“I don’t have that luxury,” she told him as she made her way to the bed and sat next to him. She picked at the comforter, a handmade quilt she’d bought at a local craft fair. “I have this uncanny ability to turn things to ash. Not just my life, but everyone around me. It took me a long time to see the kind of damage I do to people.”
“That was a long time ago, Sad
ie.”
“It was, but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen again.” She looked at him then, hoping he’d see the plea in her eyes. “I’ve ruined lives, Lincoln. More than I can count and I can’t stand the thought that I might do it to you.”
“Why, Sadie Charles, you make it sound like you care about me.”
His smile was sly but there was a genuine empathy in his eyes. He was trying to make her feel better and God, it made her chest ache.
She rested her cheek on her raised knee and smiled back at him. “You were my first love,” she admitted.
He nodded, as if he knew. “You were mine too,” he replied.
For a moment, she just watched him, stunned. “That’s not true,” she argued.
He just shrugged in response. “You were probably my first hate, too, if that makes it more believable.”
“Now that I can see.”
“The one thing I can say about you, Sadie, is no matter what, you always get under my skin, one way or another.”
She absently fiddled with the corner of his papers, digesting his statement.
It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, was it?
“I hated you sometimes too,” she admitted. “You. My brother. Your friends. All I ever wanted was my father to teach me something, to take me under his wing, like he did with Brady, and show me that I could do something other than sit like a lady and host a tea.” She smiled up at him, remembering the times her father would walk by her in the hallway as if she wasn’t even there, Brady following behind like a puppy. “I suck at tea, by the way. What’s the point of tiny sandwiches? People need real food.”
The levity helped push the old memories back. She’d forgiven her father a long time ago. They’d all suffered in their own ways after her mother’s death and they’d all dealt with it in different ways.
“I’m also a fan of full-size sandwiches,” Lincoln went along with the subject change easily enough.
She handed him the papers she’d been toying with. “What’s all this?”
“Going over the board of director’s bylaws. Anticipating fourth-quarter growth. Nothing thrilling. I probably would have still been at the office if I hadn’t come out here tonight. I figured I might as well take a look.”
“Will any of these tell me if Brady’s still making me money?” she asked, jokingly.
She assumed he was. He’d set her allowance to be deducted from the interest on the trust fund her mother had left years ago. It was usually more than she needed. The rest, Brady had access to for investing purposes.
“Your monthly statement should detail that,” he told her.
“I don’t open those,” she admitted. “I assume if things were going poorly he’d let me know. To be honest, managing my monthly bills is almost more than I can deal with. Not exactly something I ever learned in life.”
“I told you I’d help you with that, if you wanted. You told me Brady had you all set up.”
She had said that. More accurately, she’d lied about that in an effort to cover her ass, which she’d just readily exposed.
“Now you have this look on your face like you forgot you told me that.” His brows drew down in confusion. “I don’t mind, Sadie. Gordon’s having the time of his life out here and he hasn’t even eaten your couch. You’ve made a huge difference in him and it’s only been a week. Helping you get your finances in order would be the least I can do. I’m good at it, I promise.”
Of course he was good at it. It was his job.
But just like she’d done when Brady had insisted on seeing her finances, she’d lied to Lincoln, telling him she had it under control.
What she really had were secrets. Secrets she never wanted to see the light of day.
“I’ve got it,” she told him, glazing over the subject and hoping he’d let it drop. “But if I need anything, I’ll let you know.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” she said. “You can tell me more about me being your first love if you want. Or, we can go back to the beginning when we were talking about the consequences of sleeping together.”
He pulled the papers from her hand and shoved them on the nightstand. When he turned over onto his side, shirtless and smiling, she knew she was a goner.
And it was all Gordon’s fault.
He propped himself up on his elbow, a smile stretched across his lips at the brusqueness of her tone as she changed the subject from boring financials.
“Sex is fine,” she told him flat out, laying down her own set of ground rules. “No telling Brady or Dylan or Grant. No telling anyone in our families. No dates or weird relationship drama.”
“What constitutes weird?” He reached out a hand, his fingertips blazing a hot trail over her collarbone.
“No jealous fits.”
“If I’m sleeping with you, I’m only sleeping with you. I’d expect the same.”
“Agreed, but I don’t like game playing or manipulation. I’m not trying to maneuver you anywhere and I expect the same from you. If you’ve got something you want or need from me, just tell me.”
“Who the hell have you been sleeping with, Sadie? I’m thirty, not eighteen.”
His soft touch meandered from her shoulder and down her arm, caressing her bare fingers, trailing warmth wherever they touched. It was deliciously distracting.
“I know and neither am I.” Her eyes closed as sparks tingled along her body, his touch setting her on fire from the inside. “I just want us to be able to walk away when it ends and not ruin each other. You’re my brother’s best friend. You’ve been close to my family for a long time. I don’t want to ruin that for you but I want you too much to turn down the chance to have you.”
He leaned forward, slowly, far enough that the tip of his nose rubbed her cheek, their lips right next to each other.
“I want you too, Sadie, but I don’t need you to protect me all the time. If things end, I’ll still be Brady’s best friend. Your family will still be a part of my life. You’ll still be a part of me.” Her eyelids fluttered, kissing his cheek with her lashes as his lips pressed gently against hers.
What had she been saying?
The thoughts that had been running through her mind, her all-important rules, dissipated in the steamy air, leaving her breathless. Lincoln’s lips trailed kisses down her neck; his hands wandered to her backside, pulling her in close.
She went willingly, holding onto him for stability as she let him ravish her. It was something she’d imagined more times than she could count and she wasn’t going to stop him.
Her legs tangled with his, wrapping them closer together. She was disappointed when her bare thighs came into contact with the stiff fabric of his shorts. There was a need building inside of her and his skin against hers seemed so important. Her hands were on his chest, rubbing along his arms, but it wasn’t nearly enough.
Brazenly, she began undoing the button of his shorts.
He didn’t resist, leaning back to accommodate her hands and watching her, his eyes alive with desire. Momentarily distracted, she lunged forward, slamming her lips against his, taking him in a way she’d always wanted to. Her desire for him, not just the residual longing of a child, but the deep hunger of a woman, raced through her body.
She pushed his shoulders back, her lips never leaving his as she straddled him. He held her head, somehow desperate but reverent at the same time. He was gentle, almost careful, but when he tore her shirt over her head, it was with an enthusiasm that rivaled her own. He wasted no time with her bra, removing it within seconds, throwing it to the floor.
His hungry hands devoured her bare skin, not just her breasts but her back and shoulders, holding her close and kneading her body with his strong fingers.
Sadie went for his zipper again, the feel of his shorts underneath her damp core nowhere as desirable as the idea of him naked.
“Sadie.” The word sounded forced as she divested him of his shorts and boxers, throwing them carelessly to the floor.
He was gloriously naked in front of her. Fascinated, she ran her palms up and down his thighs, studying the way the hair on his legs thinned the closer it got to his hips. His quads, she noted inanely, were thickly muscled and she made a point to massage them between her thumb and fingers. His hands on her shoulders flexed, his hips bucked under her attention, bringing his hard length closer to her face.
The temptation was too great, the opportunity not one she planned on passing up. She took him in her mouth, his hands automatically weaving through her hair.
“Oh God, Sadie,” he whispered, his hips flexing under her palms, lifting him even closer.
If anything, her appetite for him increased. The more she touched him, the more he gave, the hungrier for him she became and the more she wanted.
She pleased him with abandon, pleasing herself in the process. Her body alight with passion, she could feel herself dampening, preparing for him when the time was right. The thought had her squeezing her thighs together to ease the ache between her legs.
She wanted him.
When she let him go, Lincoln shot up off the bed, crashing his lips to hers, his tongue plunging into her mouth. It felt wild and frenzied, her hair spilling between them, sticking to their sweaty skin. She still wore her pajama shorts, though Lincoln was quickly working on removing that barrier. Through heated, sloppy kisses he hooked his thumbs in the sides of her bottoms and pulled them off. Awkwardly, she raised a knee, her lips still fused to his, and let him slip them off.
When she lowered herself back down there was nothing between them, and a thrill shot through her at the naked contact. He was long and hard against her damp folds, and she couldn’t help but rub herself against him. It would be so easy to let him slip inside. She was ready for him, wet and wanting.
She broke her mouth away from his. “Condom.”
It was enough for him to put a few inches between them. She loved that he was just as flushed and out of breath as she was.
No Love Left Behind (Boston Billionaire's Club Book 1) Page 8