"Well well well," a very familiar, slightly accented voice said as she turned to face me, brow raised. "I stopped in to say hello. And I have been getting to know this lovely young lady here."
I knew that tone.
She was pissed that I was keeping things from her.
She'd always been nosy about my personal life.
As my acting mother figure, I imagined she thought it was her place to do so.
"Aunt Cat, things have been busy, and I haven't been able to..."
"Find five minutes to call me and tell me you have finally found the woman who will put an end to all that foolish bed-filling?"
This was never going to be a comfortable conversation. My aunt was an outspoken woman, someone for whom boundaries didn't exist.
And there were some things I hadn't explained to Gemma yet.
I had a feeling it was all about to come out now, though.
TEN
Gemma
Lincoln and I did a lot of talking.
It never occurred to me that there was a fair chunk of his life that I actually didn't know much about.
We had this tendency when we talked to fall into common topics. Like our friends and family members, like the inside jokes we had shared, the things we were passionate about in life, the places we'd still like to see, the things we would like to do.
I guess that happened because he knew so much about my life before the office since Jules and I used to talk about it all the time. There wasn't much left that he hadn't heard about. And he even knew my parents pretty well.
Because of that, I had never asked much about his own upbringing.
It honestly never occurred to me until the moment I saw a woman being led upstairs by Finn, who had very, very similar grown eyes with golden flecks.
I knew that his father had been Jamaican and that his mother was English.
So I had naturally assumed this was his mom.
Until she corrected me, dropping a bomb that had left me feeling completely shaken.
Lincoln's mom died when he'd been away on his first tour.
His mom had died.
And I didn't even know that.
He'd never told me that.
No one had ever told me that.
How was that not something that was known?
And maybe most importantly... why would he feel the need to keep that from me?
"You didn't know?" Cat asked, brows furrowing at the look that must have been on my face.
"No," I admitted, gaze moving over to Bellamy, who looked more serious than usual, shaking his head. He hadn't known either. And Bellamy knew a hell of a lot, something he hid under his lighthearted outward demeanor.
"I know this likely won't make you feel any better, but I had no idea about you either," she told me, looking apologetic. "I think Lincoln has a lot to straighten out with both of us now."
Within five minutes of Cat arriving, I could hear familiar footsteps on the stairs.
One look at his face said it all.
He was at once shocked, guilty, and apologetic. Likely toward both of us.
"Just this once, Aunt Cat, yes, I have been too busy for that. Gemma isn't staying here to be closer to me. She's staying here because she is in the middle of a very dangerous situation. Things have been a little crazy. I absolutely did plan on telling you about her. She's important to me."
"Well, I guess I can accept that. And I think I have accidentally created a need for the two of you to have an important conversation," she admitted. "I'm sorry, Linc, I had no idea you still weren't talking about Lizzie."
Lizzie.
There was a stricken look on Lincoln's face for a long moment before Bellamy--much to his credit--broke in to lighten the mood.
"Linc?" he asked, beaming. "As in the missing one? Why the hell have I never thought of that? I have to tell the whole office about this childhood nickname. Can I walk you to your car, Aunt Cat?" he asked, both of them having a silent agreement that it was time for me and Lincoln to have some time alone.
"That would be great. I have an appointment to go get these grays handled," she said, waving a hand at her head. "It was so nice meeting you, Gemma. I hope that when you are out of danger that we can go out to dinner somewhere."
"Gemma loves to cook," Lincoln said, making Cat shoot him a knowing look, implying deeper meaning, something I hoped he would share with me.
"That's fantastic. I, unfortunately, can't even boil an egg. But I would be happy to come to your house when you guys are back at it for a meal. Bellamy, dear," she said, taking his arm.
She stopped for a second to kiss Lincoln's cheek, whisper something into his ear, then allowed Bellamy to lead her out.
"Gem..."
My hand rose, my head shaking. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me anything if you aren't ready to."
"We agreed to be honest with each other," he reminded me.
"Yes, but there is a difference between dishonesty and simply not being ready to discuss something."
Hearing that, his chest expanded then deflated, but there was a ghost of a smile--a sad one--on his face.
"I think it is probably time to talk about it."
"There's no rush. I know you'll tell me eventually."
Moving away from the door, he came over to sit with me, reaching out to give my thigh a squeeze. "I appreciate that. But it's time. It's not a secret really. It's just..."
"Like ripping a scab off a barely-healed wound?" I supplied.
"Yes, that is exactly what it feels like. But it will heal over again. So, where to begin?"
"One day in Fall, you were born..." I supplied for him, watching as his eyes warmed.
"Yeah, I guess that works. My mom had taken a vacation in Jamaica. She came home with more than a spare suitcase of souvenirs."
"Did she know when she left?"
"No. Not a clue. By the time she found out, she was back in the States. She'd worked for years at her company in London to open up a branch in New York. It was her baby. There was no way she could go back to Jamaica. And, to be fair, it had only been a vacation fling anyway. It wasn't like she was deeply in love with him, or he with her. So my aunt left university to move here, to sort of act as my nanny while my mom worked."
"Did you ever get to see your father?"
"Yeah. My mom was a very independent woman. As is my aunt, in case you couldn't tell. But they both believed that he had a right to be in my life should he want to be. When I was a baby, of course, they wouldn't let him take me. From what I understand, he did come up a few times those first few years. Once I was older, though, and could understand what was going on, my mom let me decide if I wanted to start going to stay with my father over my summer breaks from school."
"And, of course, an adventurous little boy wanted to go explore a whole new country."
"Of course," he agreed, nodding. "I had-- have--a giant family there. It was a little overwhelming as a six-year-old. That first summer, my mom used her vacation time to come with me for two weeks just to see how I handled it. And, I think, to see my dad."
"Did they grow closer through the years? Helping to raise a child together. Even from a distance."
"Yeah, yeah, they did. I think--though she never said it--that they continued an on-again-off-again thing whenever he came to visit for holidays and when she came with me to Jamaica."
"What was--is--your father like?"
"Is," he told me. "Ah, he's the exact opposite of my mother. He's practically a cliché when you think of a man from Jamaica. Long hair in twists, very chill, nothing gets a rise out of him. He has always been perfectly happy with a low-key island life. Nothing rushed, nothing in haste. I've never met someone more at peace with their life than my father."
"And your mother was more driven."
"Yeah. Both because she enjoyed it, but also because she was supporting me on her own. And, for a while, Aunt Cat too since she was taking care of me. She was at peace with her life as well, but in a differe
nt way. Her days were rushed a lot of the time. But she always found time to make me hot school lunches, to make home-cooked dinners. I'm sure she would have liked Aunt Cat to take on the cooking, but she wasn't joking when she said she could fuck up eggs."
"That's why you like someone cooking for you so much, isn't it? Because of your mom?"
"Yeah," he agreed, nodding, eyes far away, lost in his memories.
My heart ached in my chest at that look, at the love and loss there at the same time.
I couldn't even pretend to understand that loss. My parents meant the absolute world to me. I couldn't imagine a world without my father to turn to for help with projects, or general life advice or my mother around making grand holiday dinners, showing up randomly on a weekend to hang out with me.
I knew that, eventually, their absence would be a hole I would have to learn to live with in my heart. But later. After my father had walked me down the aisle, pretending he wasn't holding back tears. After I gave my mother more grand babies to coo over.
Knowing that your mom would never be there for that had to have been a daily struggle for him.
I scooted closer, draping my legs over his, resting my head on his chest, wrapping one arm around him to give him a squeeze.
"Then I decided to go into the service. Mainly out of a misguided urge for adventure. But also because they would pay for the college my mother demanded I attend."
"Did you, though?" I asked, not sure I had ever heard him mention it before.
"I always planned to. But then Aunt Cat called me one night. And she told me that she had accidentally overheard a conversation with my mom on the phone with her doctor. A doctor she had been seeing for months. To try to get ahead of the cancer that was spreading all over her body."
"Oh, Lincoln," I said, squeezing him harder, hearing the thickness in his voice at the memory.
"She had six months left at that point. They had decided to stop treatment. Let her live out the rest of her time in peace. I planned to get off and visit her. Of course. But, fuck, you know how it is. Lots of paperwork. A couple nos before you get a yes. Wasting precious fucking time. I never made it back before she passed."
He stopped there, voice cracking, losing his fight for control.
Pushing up, I moved over him, plastering our bodies together, wrapping my arms around him fully, holding on. His arms paused then went around me as well, crushing me, making it impossible to breathe.
It took a long time for him to find the strength to keep going.
"I got to come back for the funeral, of course." The words clipped out, dripping with a bitterness that seemed completely understandable given the circumstances. "Aunt Cat gave me a letter she'd written for me right at the end, when she seemed to sense it was coming."
He wouldn't have brought it up if he didn't want to tell me. So I asked. "What did the note say?"
"That she changed her mind. That she was releasing me of the demand for me to go to college. She told me that while she had enjoyed her job, it had fulfilled her in one way, the endless pursuit of upward mobility, that she realized as her time was running out that she wished she had taken some of that time and spent it pursuing love. And that she wanted me to promise her to do that myself, to find a woman, to love her with everything I had, to not let anything get in the way of that. She wasn't around to make the promise to anymore, but I made that promise to her memory."
Suddenly, it all made sense.
And I felt badly for any negative thought I may have ever had about his endless string of girlfriends.
It wasn't that he was fickle, or that he thought one woman was just as good as the next.
He was trying to keep a promise his dying mother had asked of him.
Maybe the actions were a tad bit misguided, but he was doing his best.
"Hey, none of that," Lincoln demanded softly. It took me a long moment to realize I'd been crying into his neck, unexpectedly overwhelmed by his attachment to his mom, the loss of it, and his effort ever since to make her final wish come true.
I'd never had any doubt about Lincoln being a good man, but knowing this about him was only reinforcing what I already knew. And I was maybe a bit overcome with how lucky I felt to call someone like him a friend, let alone something more than that.
"Sorry," I told him, sniffling, as I pushed back.
Before my hands could even raise to swipe the tears, his were there, doing it for me.
"Is it a pain in the ass to feel things so deeply all the time?" he asked. Not condescending, genuinely curious.
There was no use trying to deny that I was definitely an emotional person. I felt. And I felt it to the core. All the good and all the bad.
"It can be," I admitted. "It's why I can't watch the news. My heart just can't take it. But I think I prefer feeling it all then not feeling it."
"Even if it makes you cry?"
"Maybe especially if it makes me cry. We're supposed to feel things. Denying them or pushing them down is why people are such a wreck of nerves and unhappiness. I might cry more than everyone else, but it lets me get it out. I don't have to have it living inside me for months or years. I feel it, release it, and I can move on. What?"
"Some day," he said, voice serious, "I would like to bring you to go meet my father. I think the two of you would really get along well."
"Yeah?" I asked, feeling a sting behind my eyes, but this time, it was out of pure joy. That he was thinking that far down the road, that he thought I was important enough to meet his father.
"Abso-fucking-lutely," he agreed, the sadness gone from his eyes, replaced with a brightness that warmed me from the inside out. "We'll have to get you a giant brimmed hat," he went on, fingers tapping across the top of my cheek, touching my freckles. "You have to sunburn with skin like this."
"I sometimes get sunburn on my left arm from driving with it resting near the window. I don't mean on a long road trip, either. Just driving to work."
A low chuckle moved through him, vibrated into my own chest.
My hand lifted, pressing against his cheek for a second as I tried to memorize the look on his face.
But at my touch, his gaze heated.
And, well, my body responded.
My lips sealed over his.
And his greedy hands moved down my back, sank into my ass, yanking me higher onto his lap.
We were good at this.
At giving into the seemingly insatiable needs of our bodies.
We spent a lot of our time the past few days exploring one another's bodies, but somehow, each time felt like the first, like something entirely new.
My body trembled as his cock pressed against me, as my body moved against him on pure instinct, the pressure at the exact right place making a ragged moan escape me, muffled by his lips on mine.
His teeth snagged my lower lip, biting hard enough to sting, to likely leave little bruises on the inside for a day or two, a fact that made a thrill move through me.
I'd never been into the idea of being branded by someone, having their marks on me, but there was no denying that I was excited at the idea of having evidence of his desperation for me even when he wasn't around.
Wanting more, my mouth ripped from his, my lips pressing into his neck for a second before nipping in, dragging a surprised hiss out of him as his fingers dug into my ass.
Any control he normally possessed slipped away.
His fingers yanked at clothing, desperate for skin.
My shirt hit the floor.
I was never more thankful for my dedication to not wearing a bra unless I absolutely had to as I was in that moment as his lips closed around my nipple, sucking deep.
My head feel back on a moan that got caught in my throat as his teeth suddenly bit, as his thumb and forefinger twisted the other, sending a shock of pain and pleasure through my system, unexpectedly strong in its intensity.
"Oh, my God," I cried out as he continued, my hands raking down his shoulders, my hips grinding dow
n against him.
Desperate for more, I yanked away, gaining my feet, reaching out to push my pants and panties off my legs, stepping out of them.
Lincoln wasted no time in undoing his pants, in rolling on protection, then getting to his feet, grabbing me, turning me, bending me forward over the arm of the couch, leaving my ass high in the air toward him.
His body moved in behind mine, his air rushing out of him. "Great fucking view," he rumbled a second before his hand slapped down on my ass, making my whole body jolt at the smarting sensation, the burn left in the aftermath.
I could never claim to be innocent. I had my own experiences before Lincoln just as he'd had before me.
But I'd never been slapped during sex before.
I don't know if that was because I had never wanted it or because the men I had dated wouldn't have even suggested such a thing. Or maybe it was a combination of both.
I, by all accounts, was a rather gentle soul. I liked all things soft and sweet and loving.
I never could have known I might enjoy rough, let alone painful.
There was no denying that I was enjoying it, though, as his hand landed another slap in almost the same spot, making the pain a little more intense.
My thighs pressed tightly together, trying to calm the chaos building between, the aching need for fulfillment.
Sensing it, Lincoln's fingers moved between, thrusting inside me without warning, dragging a moan from me as my walls tightened around him.
"Soaked," he rumbled, thrusting lazily, twisting, turning, stroking over my top wall, finding my G-spot with expert precision, leaving me writhing and breathless, so close, so ready.
Only to be denied.
"Nope," he told me, pulling his fingers back out, landing another slap. Then another, lower, closer to where my ass met my thigh. Then inward slightly.
Then right over my sex.
So unexpected.
So unfathomable.
"Fuck," I cried out, thrusting my ass up further, begging for more, something he happily gave me, slapping a little higher, this time landing a bit more pressure on my clit.
I was pretty sure I came up out of my body for a long moment at the impact.
The Middle Man Page 16