But before I could even gather a single thought, Lincoln's cock slammed inside me. Hard. Deep. So deep there was a delicious little pinch that had me whimpering out his name.
His hands moved out, grabbing both my arms, pulling them backward, trapping them at the wrists at my lower back, taking away any ability to move, putting me at his mercy entirely.
There was nothing slow or sweet or loving about Lincoln in that moment, no quiet, unhurried exploration.
His body slammed into mine, each thrust somehow harder than the last, taking every inch of me every time, leaving me writhing, my hips working in impatient circles when he was as deep as my body would allow.
His free hand moved upward, curling into the hair at the nape of my neck, curling, twisting, then yanking almost violently back, forcing my back to arch upward.
The pain across my scalp, the fullness of him inside me, the position allowing him to rock against that hidden place inside, it was all too much.
I lost my ability to cry out, to move, to breathe, to do anything at all but feel the orgasm assault my system, an almost painfully intense sensation that rolled and rolled and rolled until my chest felt tight, until my head felt light.
Just when I was sure I would pass out from the lack of oxygen, the last wave ceased, allowing me to pull in a gasping breath.
Lincoln cursed, planting deep, hissing out my name, releasing my hands, my hair, half curling over me, hand planting right beside my head.
"Fucking hell," he groaned a moment later, his free hand trying to move my hair out of my face. "You alright, baby?" he asked, voice silky, sated, but also proud. "Worried me there for a second."
While I was capable of processing his words, that seemed to be the extent of my abilities right that moment.
I couldn't seem to string thoughts to vocal cords, to force out words.
Hell, I couldn't even breathe normally yet.
The aftershocks came hard and fast, racking my body with their intensity, my system unable to process all the sensations and thoughts.
"Oh, honey," he said, but there was a small chuckle underneath the concern as he moved away from me, fumbling to close up his pants so he could gather me up, cuddling me to his chest as he carried me back to our room, dropping me down, covering me up. "One second," he demanded, going into the bathroom. "And one more," he added, emerging again, going out into the main area, coming back with my pile of discarded clothing.
With that, he locked the door, stripped out of most of his clothes, then climbed in the bed with me, curling me onto his chest, hiking my leg up over his waist, wrapping his arms around me, just holding onto me.
It was just, well, perfect.
"You alright there?" he asked a long moment later.
"Yeah. That was, um..."
"Intense," he supplied for me.
"Yes." That was the only way to describe it.
"Gem?"
"Yeah?"
"We're going to have to tell them soon."
A selfish part of me wanted to keep it between us, to hold onto it.
But the other part of me knew that Bellamy was now in on things since he'd overheard me and Cat talking. To his credit, he had said nothing.
I knew Bellamy well enough at this point, though, to know he could be incredibly loose-lipped. I was sure there were secrets he kept. I just wasn't sure if this was one that he would try to. Or if the allure of being the first to know something, to share something, would be too good to resist.
If that happened, well, Jules was going to kill me.
Not because she would be mad. At least I didn't think so. But because I had been keeping so much from her already.
That wasn't the relationship we had. We were raised to be close, to rely on each other, to trust that our secrets would be kept when we shared them.
Admittedly, there were several times when I was better at sharing than she was. Being the older sister, she seemed to take the role seriously, always trying to be strong and stoic and have her life together at all times, to be a good example.
But I had always been a sharer. Or an over-sharer, if I were being completely honest.
It would hurt her to know that it wasn't just a work mission thing. She would overlook that one for the most part just because she would think that I thought it wasn't my secret to share. And there was some truth in that. But to know that I had begun a relationship right under her nose with the guy I'd once had an all-consuming crush on, yeah, that she wasn't going to let slide as easily. Especially if I let too much time pass before letting her in on things.
"I know," I agreed. "A selfish part of me wants to just keep it between us, but I know we need too soon."
"I've been preparing myself for the lectures since we first crossed the line."
"They're not going to lecture you."
To that, he laughed. "Oh, honey. They already have."
"Wait... what?" I asked, pushing up to look down at him, my hair falling forward like a curtain. "All of them?" I asked, feeling my stomach drop.
"No. Not all of them. But Finn and Bell. And they have gotten to me with the lectures. As far as I can tell, though, no one has blabbed to Quin or any of the others. I don't think they want to have to deal with him if he finds out."
"Quin isn't going to care that much," I assured him. "I'm more worried about Jules."
"I think you underestimate how much Quin cares about you. He sees you like a little sister. And if he finds out that I--of all people--am with you, he's going to have some shit to say about it."
"Don't say that about yourself," I insisted, not liking him thinking that about himself, especially now that I knew the truth.
"Look, Gem, you and me, we know the truth of why I have been looking for the right woman in all the wrong places. But not everyone else knows that. They see me going from one woman to the next, and they assume I am just careless or just using women to keep my bed warm. And they won't like thinking that I am careless with you, or, worse yet, using you."
"I will tell them," I assured him. "I mean... not about your mom, of course. But about how this is different."
"They won't buy it, babe."
"Come on. They love you too. There's no way they think so lowly of you that they think you are actually planning on screwing me over."
"I don't think they think I intentionally break things off with women."
"They think you just rush into things."
"Yeah. And they know you feel things deeply. If I rushed into this with you without thinking, then you had feelings, then I changed my mind, you'd be hurt. Deeply. And they'd be pissed about that."
"Did you?"
"Did I what?"
"Did you rush into this? Have you stopped to think it through?"
"No, I didn't rush into this. I've done little else but think about it, analyze it, come to grips with what is happening here. And that is something real. Something lasting."
"Good. Because you're not wrong."
"About what?"
"About me feeling things deeply," I admitted. "I'm feeling this, Lincoln."
"I'm feeling it too," he admitted.
It wasn't a declaration of love. I wasn't expecting one. It wasn't time yet. He was deeper than I had ever realized, but he was not the wishy-washy kind of person I was, the kind of person who--with one deep look--could see the future generations our bond would create.
He would get there.
In time.
And I, well, had nothing but time now.
"That's good. Because we have to have Aunt Cat over to dinner sometime soon. She's not afraid of carbs, is she?" I asked, mentally flipping through all my best recipes, trying to figure out which would be the most pleasing.
"Nope. She would go crazy for your homemade bread."
"I can make my own homemade rosemary butter."
"You make butter?"
"I mean, I don't go to the tap and milk the cow, but I have been known to churn butter once in a blue moon. For special occasions.
Kai demands I make it for Thanksgiving since he joined the family. It's amazing."
"You know... I think you should make it once before our dinner with Aunt Cat. Just to make sure you have perfected it and everything."
"Yes," I agreed, lips curling up, "that would probably be wise. And I should probably make some fresh bread to go with it."
"I mean, we want to make sure you haven't lost your touch with that either."
"That's true. It is a real possibility. Just to make sure, I think it would be smart to maybe make some spinach and ricotta ravioli to go with it as well."
"From scratch?"
"Is there any other way?" I asked, resting back down on his chest.
I liked that his love language was food, that there was no guesswork in the quickest way to pick up his mood, to make him feel warm and appreciated and loved.
Because I liked to show my love by taking care of those around me. Very little made me feel better than to see someone eating food I had prepared them, watching how the joy of good food could wipe away even the roughest of days, could reset their mood.
"Gem?" Lincoln said a while later, long enough that I figured the epic sex session had caught up to him, dragging him off to unconsciousness.
"Yeah?"
"I'm really fucking glad you came back into my life."
It took the worst period of my life to do it.
And yet...
"So am I."
Whatever Lincoln was about to say was cut short by the sound a knock on the door.
"You two might want to get dressed and fix your sex hair," Bellamy called, making us both spring apart immediately. "Daddy Quin is on his way up. Seems he wants to talk to you guys about the next step with Blairtown Chem."
Somehow--and I was inclined to blame his military training--Lincoln was fully dressed while I was still trying to find my arm holes in my shirt.
"Take your time. I will tell them you were taking a nap. I will meet you out there," he assured me, pressing a quick kiss to my temple then throwing himself out into the hall.
From the sound of things, just in time to greet Quin.
I went ahead and changed my clothes, threw my hair into a ponytail, checked myself over for any visible love marks, then I walked out to hear about my future.
ELEVEN
Lincoln
"Hey, babe. Come sit," Quin demanded, waving toward the couch, choosing to stand himself.
I didn't like his tone.
It sounded tired, maybe a little defeated.
Anyone who knew Quin knew that tired and defeated was not what you wanted to hear from him.
"To put it plainly, your boss is a lazy ass," Nia supplied, throwing herself down onto a chair. "I have sent out dozens of emails to him. Clickbait ones and official-looking ones. He hasn't opened a single one of them, let alone clicked on one of the links so I could get into his computers or even his cell."
"That makes sense," Gemma agreed, pulling her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees. "Most of his emails filtered through me. When I first started there, one of my tasks was to clear out his emails. There were seventeen-thousand of them. It hadn't even been that long since he'd had an assistant, so that goes to show how negligent he is with his emails."
"Can't do a damn thing for himself, huh?" Nia asked, shaking her head. "Well, without a way in, I can't find out anything about him. And there is a surprising lack of personal information about him online. Usually, people who get to the level of success he is at, there are all kinds of goodies out there about them."
"We are figuring that he has hired people like us a few times over the years to get rid of the skeletons he had to have had in his closets. And with no exes or children to spill some dirt or use against him, we've just... hit a wall."
"What does that mean? I should change my name, dye my hair, and move to a new country?"
"I think what we do is we get copies of the shit you sent to the Rylan guy. Then we go have a talk with Phillip."
"You want to try to reason with him?" I asked, shaking my head. "I can't see that ending well."
"If nothing else, he is a businessman. He doesn't want that shit going public. He'd likely rather just pull the product."
"But it is going to go public," Gemma insisted, brows furrowing. "Rylan is going to make it public. All you'd get by saying it wasn't going to be public would be to delay my possible death by a few months."
"You're not going to die, babe," Quin insisted, shaking his head.
"You didn't see Rylan, Quin," I piped in. "He's losing his damn mind. I think you should be more worried about him not sticking to a plan than getting Phillip to agree to it."
"Let's face it," Quin was quick to shut me down, "Rylan will be much easier to silence than the CEO of a giant chemical corporation. We have to pick our battles."
"He's not going to give in. What happened to his father is too important to him. It's all that mattered," Gemma insisted.
"I'm not saying it is going to be something he is going to like, but he won't be given a choice but to accept it."
And when Quin said things like that, he meant by whatever means necessary.
He wasn't always an all-or-nothing kind of man. More so than anyone else, he understood that there were gray areas in the world, that there was a give-and-take in all situations. It was why Miller and I were on the team. Every situation required a middle man and a negotiator. That was how most situations were handled. Not by brute force, not by murder and clean up, not by disappearing someone. But by talking shit out, finding that precious middle ground that both sides didn't love, but accepted.
That said, though, this was not just some client.
This was Gemma.
When it came to those that Quin knew and loved, there was nothing he wouldn't do for them. It was a trait we all shared.
I didn't hate this Rylan guy. I sympathized for his loss and what seemed to be some pretty serious mental illness he had going on.
But if it came to his safety or Gemma's, I would choose Gemma.
Maybe that didn't make me the most moral of men, but that had never been a badge I had tried to wear.
I think most people, when given the choice between their loved one and someone else, would choose their loved one. Maybe the other person--in the grand scheme of things--had a higher value, but to the chooser, their loved one had that value.
Hard choices had to be made sometimes.
Consequences needed to be lived with.
We understood that.
But Gemma? Maybe not so much.
"How would you go about taking his choice away?" she asked, eyes a little cooler than any of us were used to seeing them.
"There are several options. He would be presented with them all. Then he would have to make his own hard choice," Quin informed her, trying to be as tight-lipped about one of those options as possible. I wondered if that was why Bellamy--after telling me Quin was on his way--had ducked out; he didn't want to serve as a reminder of what lengths this team was willing to go to if a situation required it.
"You can't propose rational options to an irrational person. I mean, Lincoln hasn't told me yet how things went with Rylan, but judging by how he was the last I heard from him, he is not doing well."
To that, Quin's eyes squinted a bit. "He didn't tell you how it went with Rylan? The fuck have you guys been doing since he got back?"
"My aunt was here," I cut in, dragging Quin's attention away from Gemma, knowing that her face would show him exactly what we had been doing, whether she meant to or not. Judging by the way Nia was watching her, though, it seemed like we had yet another person who had sussed things out on their own.
We needed to get everyone together and let them in on things before someone blabbed. It would only be worse if the information came from someone else.
"Cat? Why was she here?"
"Probably because I missed our usual weekly lunch. She decided to track me down. Bellamy brought her up."
"He brought her up here?" Quin repeated, trying to put the pieces together in a way that would make sense.
"Yeah, I don't know."
"He knew you weren't even here. Why would he bring Cat up here to wait for you instead of putting her in your office? Or the waiting area with Jules? Or tell her that you were off on a job, and that he would leave word that she stopped by?"
"Quin, this is Bell we are talking about here," I reminded him, forcing a smile that felt fake. "Who the fuck knows why he does anything that he does?"
"Yeah," Nia agreed, jumping in to help our cover, "I mean... last month I came into my office to find he had built me an Hershey Kisses castle. Literally a castle. There were turrets. And a Hershey bar drawbridge. The man is an enigma. A very generous enigma," she added, clearly having a soft spot for him since he once heard her talking about that new iMac Pro that costs like eight grand. Then came into the office a week later to find it set up with a big white bow.
"Why the fuck did I decide to hire him again?" Quin asked, raking a hand down the scruff on his face. "He's more of a distraction than an asset, I swear."
"He keeps things interesting," Nia defended.
"I imagine he is really good company to anyone you guys need to hide up here," Gemma added.
What could you say? Bellamy was popular with the ladies. And tolerated by the men. I wasn't exactly sure he would have it any other way, either.
"Anyway," Quin said, shaking his head as if trying to clear it, trying to refocus. "Oh, right. Rylan. Well, Lincoln called me on his way back from his visit. Your coconspirator seems like he is losing his grip on reality. I don't know what you know about obsession, Gem, but it can really fuck with the mind after a while. It can eat it up, become all that is left. Honestly, it sounds like he is on that path, unfortunately. It will come to a point where he will be so lacking credibility because he is so out of it that even if he did have a good story, no one is going to take him seriously."
"People like him get pegged conspiracy theorists. And those guys get relegated to little holes in the dark web where they swap ideas with others like them, collectively trying to bring down the Illuminati and infiltrate the Bilderberg group," Nia added. "There are a lot of brilliant people trapped in the paranoias created by their own imagination."
The Middle Man Page 17