He scowled. “I’m not going anywhere and you know it. We’re going to go in and make sure nothing is missing, get the dogs and get the hell back to the city. I’m not leaving you out here in an unsecured house alone. We’ll call someone to make repairs and get you back here by the end of the week.”
“I can’t just spend the week in Boston and pretend this didn’t happen, Lincoln. I have a life out here and things I need to do—”
“Certainly none of them more important than your safety?” he challenged. “No one respects your independence more than I do, Sadie, but not at the expense of your life. Take a few days while this gets cleaned up. Take a minute to process what happened here so we know how to handle it.”
She rubbed a hand down her face and pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’ll go to Brenda’s. The dogs are already over there and we’ll be close to home.”
“Close enough that you’ll be back here the second I leave,” he said. “You want to stay, we’ll stay.”
Sadie glared at him, hands on hips, with fury written all over her face. He’d rather that any day compared to the defeated woman he saw earlier. He’d take her anger, even if it was misdirected at him.
“Let’s finish up with the detective. She said she wanted to go through some of your things with you. If you want some privacy, I can go get the dogs from Brenda and grab some dinner. We’ll get this stuff cleaned up and get a game plan of how to fix some of this stuff.”
“You don’t have to do this,” she argued.
With a grunt, he grabbed her by the front of her shirt and pulled her close, crashing his lips onto hers. She was waiting for him to leave, like she expected him to take off on her. Just like years ago when she’d run into trouble and everyone she knew disappeared.
It wasn’t a quick kiss, though it wasn’t intimate. There was no gentleness, no lead up to it. Just a raw reaction to a whirlwind of emotions. They both needed the contact, not just him. When his lips pressed against hers, she fisted her hands in the sides of his shirt, holding him close, her eyes squeezed shut. They were both on the razor’s edge, having gone from one emotional extreme to the other.
When he pulled back he stared down at her. “I’m not leaving, Sadie. Let me know where you need me, but it isn’t going to be back in the city. Not tonight, unless you’re with me.”
Her shoulders sagged a bit as she leaned into him. “Can you get the dogs and dinner?”
“No problem,” he assured her. “Call Brenda and let her know I’m coming.” He tilted her chin up so she could take a moment to not just look at him but see him. “Stop expecting me to leave, Sadie. We’ll handle this.”
He left the rest of the sentence unspoken but he knew she heard it.
Together. They’d handle it together.
Later that night, when most of the house’s contents were put to rights and the dogs were settled in, Lincoln called his sister.
“Everything okay?” she asked by way of answering.
He’d never called to ask for help with Gordon before and never with such urgency.
“Yeah, it’s fine,” he told her. “I just got hung up out of town and won’t be able to make it back tonight. Did you get Gordon okay?”
“Well, I practically had to drag him out of your house. He’s like, the mopiest dog I’ve ever seen. What did you do to him?”
He took his girlfriend away.
“He’s just learning to settle down, that’s all. I should be back tomorrow. If you can get him to daycare in the morning, I’ll handle the rest.”
“Lincoln, this is really unlike you. Are you sure everything is okay?”
“It’s all good Audrey—” Lincoln stopped talking when he heard a male voice in the background. “Who’s that?”
“No one,” she rushed to say. “Talk tomorrow?”
“Audrey,” he said again but she’d hung up.
So, his sister was seeing someone and keeping it a secret. Sounded like a familiar story. If it were up to him, he’d invite Sadie for Sunday lunch at his parents’ house and escort her to her father’s upcoming birthday party, but that wasn’t what Sadie wanted and they were playing by her rules.
He rose from the kitchen table and headed up the stairs. When he got to the top, he found Sadie’s girls gathered in the hallway, sitting outside the bathroom door. They all looked at him and then back to the door. Brow furrowed, he leaned in and listened but heard nothing.
“Sade?” he asked, his voice gentle.
There was a distinct sniffle and then a muffled cough. “Yeah?”
“You okay?”
Even from the other side of the door her laugh was humorless. “Super.”
Without asking, he turned the knob and swung the door open. Sadie was sitting on the floor, her back against the vanity, surrounded by the things that had been thrown on the floor. Her bright eyes were rimmed with red, her face a bit blotchy.
“What if I was going to the bathroom?” she asked.
“I’d have still come in,” he told her with a laugh. He joined her on the floor, his back against the bathtub as he sat across from her. “What’re you doing in here?”
“Crying. In private.”
“You can keep crying if you want,” he invited. “You’ve got good reason.”
“Not so private anymore.” Her tone was blistering as she threw a sneer at him.
He wasn’t bothered by it. He’d seen far worse from her before, when she was Mercedes. If she thought one or two barbs would hurt him, she’d soon learn different. Besides, she’d been through a trauma. She had a reason to lash out and he was closest.
“Want to talk about it?”
“Sure. Let’s have a little chitchat about someone pawing through my underwear drawer.” Her lip was turned up and there was a fire in her eyes that chased away some of the tears.
“How about a chitchat about whoever Connor is to you and why you’re protecting him.”
It had been eating at him all evening, yet he’d said nothing. He’d helped put the house back together, picked up dinner and the dogs, all while mulling over the fact that she’d come out and said it was Connor.
Who was this guy and had she told the police her suspicions?
Sadie slowly sucked in a breath and leaned her head back, staring at the ceiling.
“Connor is Dani Page’s brother.”
Her voice was quiet and nearly lost in the bathroom.
“Dani as in…”
“The woman I killed,” she confirmed with a nod.
His head reared back. “What’s her brother doing out here?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“It’s not a big deal,” she insisted.
“It’s a really fucking big deal if he’s coming out here and breaking in, Sadie. It’s an even bigger deal that he’s out here threatening you.”
“He just…” She shook her head again. “He’s angry. He comes out once in a while when he’s feeling mad.”
“You served your time, Sadie and paid your price. He doesn’t get to come out here and treat you like his emotional punching bag. Get a restraining order.”
“He’s never done this before. I think he’ll cool off and disappear for a while.” She didn’t even sound like she believed what she was saying.
“I’m not willing to take that chance,” he argued. “You shouldn’t be either.”
11
Was she taking an unnecessary risk by not reporting Connor?
He’d never gone so far as to break into her home, destroy her things. This was beyond what she thought he was capable of. For years, he’d preyed on her guilt and she’d paid him, but she wondered just how much damage she’d done. It became clearer every time she saw him that he was spiraling out of control.
The display he’d left with her underwear had been a very clear message, just as Lincoln had said.
Connor’s next visit would be his last.
This
was the final straw in their sick relationship.
“You’re right,” she told Lincoln. “I’ll tell him he needs to stop coming by.”
“After this, I find it hard to believe he’ll be willing to follow such a polite request. You need to send this guy a message, Sadie. A legal one that creates consequences for his actions.”
“You think I should have him thrown in jail? The brother of the girl I got sent to prison for killing. Seems a little twisted, doesn’t it?”
“To be honest, I don’t really care how it seems. I only care that he’s not going to show up here and hurt you. There’s no doubt in my mind that if you’d been home when he came to break in that he would have tried to cause you physical harm.”
“He’s just confused,” she reasoned.
Why was she reasoning? Lincoln was right. Connor would have hurt her if she’d have been home. She almost wondered if he didn’t come for just that reason only to find the house empty.
Her stomach clenched when she dug deeper, searching for her hesitation to tell Lincoln the truth.
Her shame was a living and breathing thing inside her. Connor knew how to play it and she knew how to hide from it. Admitting to Lincoln that she’d been emotionally blackmailed by Connor would not only expose the guilt she still felt for killing Dani but also her embarrassment for going along with it in the first place. She was smart enough to know she had nothing to hide. Connor had no hold over her other than fear and guilt.
The problem was, when it came to Connor, Sadie had those two things in spades.
“What was he confused about when he peeled out of your driveway last Friday? You know, when you told me he was just a guy that does some work for you,” Lincoln challenged.
“Again, I don’t owe you an explanation for everything that goes on in my life. Just because we’re sleeping together—”
“It’s more than that and you know it. At the very least we’re friends.”
“I don’t have friends,” she told him, standing from her spot on the floor and bending down to throw some things back in the vanity cabinet. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m working on building a life for myself out here. Not anyone else. Not my friends. Just me.”
“Just you, the dogs, and Connor, huh?” he bit out as he stood, as well, arms crossed over his chest.
Yeah, she agreed silently, that was about the extent of what she had. At least, that was how she felt today.
“Must be nice living on that high horse,” she quipped as she faced him and copied his pose. “I wonder, how many of your good friends have turned their backs on you? How many screw-ups does it take for them to write you off, Lincoln? How about your family? Do they ask you to stay away from functions because they’re too embarrassed to be seen with you?”
“Sadie—”
“I can’t afford to worry about having you for a friend because in the end, friendship means nothing. You’ll go, just like everyone else did. Just like before. Whatever we’re doing doesn’t make me ingratiated to tell you things about my life that I don’t want to. I don’t owe you anything and you don’t owe me.” She swiped at her eyes as her tears threatened to spill over. “Go back to the city, Lincoln. Forget you ever came out here. Forget about me.”
She slid past him and out the bathroom door. The dogs all stood at attention, waiting in the hallway.
Sadie sucked in a breath when Lincoln grabbed her arm and spun her around, ruining her grand exit.
“You think you get to tell me how to feel and what to do?”
Lola growled, low in her throat, the hair on her neck raised, eyes trained on Lincoln. He wisely moved his hand to cup Sadie’s butt and pulled her closer, though his eyes never left hers.
“You think you can scare me off with some sad story about what a loner you are?”
Sadie instinctively put her hands on his chest for balance, the heat from his skin radiating through his shirt. She’d never seen him so intense before and she wasn’t sure if it was anger or lust or both. Whatever it was, it was seeping into her bloodstream, her insides glowing at the thought of his hands on her while he wore that expression on his face. His light brown hair was a wild mess, untamed and disheveled after the day they’d had, his eyes alight with passion.
“You don’t get to tell me how to feel, Sadie. You want to pretend we’re just fuck buddies, that’s on you. I respect the hell out of you and what you’re doing out here—”
Her throat clogged with emotion. “Stop.”
“Stop telling you how much I respect and admire you? Not a chance. I’ll keep doing it until you understand that I’m not like them. I’m not embarrassed to be seen with you, Sadie. I’m proud as hell.”
She meant to retort with a sassy remark but his lips covered hers before she could come up with anything. There wasn’t even a millisecond where she considered not participating, her arms wrapping around his neck as he pressed her into the wall. She was hungry for him, her anger and frustration seeping out as wildness set in.
She clawed at his back, his shirt in the way, and it was gone in a heartbeat, his skin smooth and hard under her hands.
“You promised,” he growled, nipping her neck as he roughly palmed her breasts.
Her body sizzled when he grabbed the front of her shirt and ripped it over her head.
“You promised you’d stop trying to protect me.”
He stripped off her bra and toyed with her nipples and while there was a roughness to his ministrations, he wasn’t stroking her with anger. He was turning her on and he knew it.
When Lincoln pulled her shorts and panties down right there in the hallway, she didn’t protest, especially when he went down on his knees in front of her.
His eyes held hers as he placed a kiss on her thigh. “Will you admit we’re at least friends, Sadie?”
She nearly melted when his tongue peeked out and swiped her heated skin, so close to where she wanted him.
“Linc,” she whispered.
“Not until you say it.” He switched to the other leg, nibbling the inside of her leg and licking her there. “Tell me the truth, Sadie. Respect me as much as I respect you.”
“I don’t want to ruin you,” she breathed, the back of her head on the wall as she looked to the ceiling. She needed to look away so she could concentrate, but it didn’t last.
Her hands squeezed his shoulders when his tongue ran up her center and her chin dropped to her chest. The heat in his eyes was mesmerizing and she didn’t bother trying to look away again.
“Do I look ruined?” he asked, his voice low.
She shook her head. “You look like a god.”
“Bowing at the feet of his goddess.” He licked her again, his gaze never leaving hers. “Talk to me, Sadie.”
“I can’t have a conversation with you right now,” she whimpered.
“I’m going to make you come, Sadie. Just like this. Right here.”
“Please.”
“But if we’re not friends, I’ll stop. I wouldn’t ever disrespect you like that.”
It was a twisted logic and if she weren’t so far gone, so desperate for him, she’d have called him on it. They’d gone from being a casual thing to her leaning on him in times of need and becoming friends. Of course Lincoln was her friend. There was no one she’d talked to more in the last few weeks, no one she wanted to see more. She looked forward to his calls at the end of the day. She valued his insight when she asked questions about forming a charity or building her business.
His broad shoulders were still under her palms and he was right—he looked like he was worshipping her.
“This is kind of everything I ever dreamed of when I was younger.” There was nothing she could do to stop the smile that bloomed on her face. “You on your knees in front of me, begging to please me.” When he didn’t crack a smile, his face stoic as he watched her, she gave in. “You’re my friend, Lincoln. You and I are friends.” When he didn’t move, just stayed where he was, staring at her, she lifted her palm to hi
s cheek. “We’re more than friends, Lincoln. I care about you, deeply. I might not always like it or admit it, but you’re special.”
He closed his eyes as if he were savoring her words before he spread her legs and dove in.
Sadie made a high-pitch squeak, bracing herself on the wall, as he licked her up and down. There was no slow buildup. There was no learning her body or her quirks. This was a man who knew what he was doing and had a mission.
She let him build her up quickly, racing along with him, and then she flew like a car speeding off a cliff, her head thrown back, a moan falling from her lips.
When he scooped her up in his arms, she felt limp and spent, not just physically. The day had been intense, going from content and romantic to terrifying when she’d seen her front door open. From there, the police wandering around, her things on display. It had all been too much.
Stress was not her friend. She’d reacted poorly.
She was thankful Lincoln was clearheaded and patient, otherwise she’d be on her own.
“Thank you,” she whispered when he laid her gently on the bed and covered her with a throw blanket. He laid his lips on her forehead and she held him close when he tried to pull away. “Thank you for staying with me. For being my friend.”
“Get some rest, Sadie,” he murmured as he peppered her cheek with kisses. “We’ll figure the rest out the morning.”
“The dogs—” she began.
“I’ve got it,” he assured her. “Just relax.”
Body and soul exhausted, she did as he said and was asleep in seconds.
When she woke hours later, darkness had settled in, the cool night breeze coming in through a window. Still on top of the comforter, her nakedness covered by a thin blanket, she patted the bed beside her, but Lincoln wasn’t there.
Rolling on her side, she was surprised to find him sitting in a chair near the window. The lights were off; he wasn’t doing some late night paperwork, as he often did. Instead, his hands were steepled under his chin as he looked to the outdoors and contemplated something.
No Love Left Behind (Boston Billionaire's Club Book 1) Page 13