Hard to Handle

by Jessica Lemmon

  She cleared her throat. “Whatever you do, don’t confess we’re not really engaged. Perry doesn’t need another thing to tease me about. And Rick might get angry enough to cancel our contract.”

  She felt the weight of Aiden’s stare and turned to find him frowning. “You’re seriously worried about losing Rick’s account.”

  Sadie wasn’t sure if worried was the right word, but she was concerned. Who wanted to lose anything? Be it a client, a game of checkers, a fiancé…“If I do, I’ll find another,” she said, not feeling the conviction of her words.

  “Sadie,” Aiden grasped her hand. He’d touched her a lot tonight, and damned if she didn’t like it. “You have to know people work with you because of who you are, not because of your dating potential.”

  She thought back to when she’d first encountered him at Axle’s. Aiden had offered to sign the contract if she went out with him. “And when you tried to bribe me into dating you?” she asked.

  She didn’t know what answer she hoped for. While being bribed wasn’t flattering in the least, the idea that he’d done it because he wanted to date her was. And, she realized now, even if she hadn’t then, part of her wanted to date Aiden again. She’d enjoyed this evening with him. Enjoyed the way he touched her, was touching her now, like it was the most easy, natural thing. Enjoyed the way she’d kissed him, also the most easy, natural thing. She wanted this, she decided abruptly. Even if it was temporary.

  Aiden dropped her hand and gripped his beer bottle in both of his. “That was—I owe you an apology. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  A more solid no could not have been uttered.

  Disappointment settled on her shoulders, but she rolled them back, brushing it off, refusing to show it. She shouldn’t long to be closer to this man. She shouldn’t harbor any feelings for him. Not after everything he’d put her through, after everything she’d put herself through. But she wouldn’t get angry or pout because he didn’t say what she hoped he would.

  “No, you don’t,” she said, meaning it. “If you apologized to me, I’d have to apologize to you. I got you to sign because I dared you to argue with me in front of Axle. Now you know my tricks,” she said, picking at the label of her bottle. “Looks and bribery.”

  “Yeah right,” Aiden said, his voice flat. “Which is why you come to this party every year. Just to keep Rick as a client, string him along?”

  She frowned.

  “If that were the case, you’d still be dating him. And what about Axle’s? You do plenty of things that aren’t outlined by your contract. Like the extra hours you spend rearranging the shelves, or when you help sell merchandise to customers. And what about the front window display? That’s not something you do because you have to.”

  He’d noticed. He’d noticed the way she’d been pouring herself into Axle’s, the work she’d done to ensure she left the store better than she found it. Her heart swelled the tiniest bit. She liked that Aiden noticed. And had pointed it out. It made her proud.

  “And I know you’re not hanging out all those extra hours just to be near me,” he said.

  That wasn’t entirely true. Sadie opened her mouth to protest, but thought better of it and stayed quiet.

  Aiden only winked at her. “Admit it.” He leaned in and bumped her shoulder with his. “You care.” He was close enough to kiss, his green eyes reflecting the firelight, his lips pursed slightly.

  She did care. About her clients, about her friends. About Aiden. Maybe she’d never stopped caring. Eyes trained on his mouth, she found herself wanting to steal another kiss, but not the thank-you peck she’d stood on her tiptoes to give him earlier. A real one. With tongue and everything.

  “And your customers know it.” Aiden said. He sat back in his chair and robbed her of his scent, of his attention.

  Sadie made a tiny sound of protest in her throat. She covered it by coughing. Then she sat back in her chair, finished her beer, and considered drinking about four more of them.

  Chapter 7

  Sadie said her farewells, endured a few more hearty congrats on her engagement—insert eye roll here—and walked with Aiden back to her car.

  “I’ll drive.” He held out a hand for her keys.

  “You played Flip Cup, too,” she said of the drinking game they were talked into at the last minute.

  “Yes, and I was disqualified after one round.” Aiden lifted and dropped the front of his damp shirt. “I’m wearing more than I drank, trust me.”

  “I didn’t have much more than you,” she said, yawning. The beer may not have her stumbling for the car, but it had made her tired. Or maybe she was tired because it was after midnight. Truly sad. She relinquished the keys and buckled up. After a few lingering seconds, she noticed the car hadn’t moved.

  “Aiden?”

  He was staring out the windshield. “I shouldn’t have told everyone we were engaged.” He turned his head but kept his grip on the steering wheel. I’m sorry. It was immature. It was…” He shook his head instead of continuing. Sadie started to interrupt and tell him it didn’t matter. She saw these people once a year. Next year when she arrived without Aiden in tow, she could easily pass it off like they’d broken up.

  And why did that thought cause an echoing ache in the center of her chest?

  “I was jealous,” Aiden admitted.

  Sadie blinked at him. “Why?”

  “Why?” Aiden reversed over the bumpy ground and navigated onto the drive. He spared her a wry glance before turning onto the road. “Because you went out with that guy. And you don’t hate him.”

  Sadie heard what he wasn’t saying. “I don’t hate you.”

  He remained quiet.

  “I only went out with Rick for a few months…” She paused, understanding. She’d only gone out with Aiden for a few days and had fallen ass-over-teakettle in love with him. Suddenly she understood his concern. “Rick and me weren’t anything like you and me,” she murmured.

  Never would she have shucked her bra and shirt in a steamy make-out session on the couch with Rick. And she never would have let Rick tuck her into his bed and hold her through the night. She wouldn’t have let anyone do the things Aiden had done with her. Only Aiden.

  There went that ache again. She rubbed her breastbone.

  Streetlamps above cast his face in light then shadow as he drove. “I guess we were different,” he said.

  They didn’t say anything more on the way home, and despite Sadie trying to distract herself by flipping through the radio stations, she still felt the tension snapping between them.

  Tension echoing a memory of the night they met, the night she’d invited him home with her. The night they’d spilled their guts, told their unflattering tales of woe. Sometime in the wee hours, she’d walked him to the door. She’d wanted to kiss him, to touch him, all evening. Instead they’d sat, their backs against opposite pieces of furniture, and talked.

  He’d stepped outside, and leaned on the door frame, watching her. “I know you only do first dates,” he said. “But I don’t think this counts, do you?”

  Her heart had kicked into overdrive. She’d decided earlier to toss out the rule and make an exception where Aiden was concerned. To hear he wanted the same thing was…thrilling. Almost as thrilling as the idea of getting to kiss him.

  She’d played it cool, crossing her arms over her breasts and lifting an eyebrow. “I think we might be able to throw it out. You know, over a technicality.”

  ”Good,” he said. Without warning he brushed her lips with his, and she’d heard the low groan of approval in his throat. When he pulled away, he tweaked her chin and smiled. “I’m not nearly through with you, Sadie Howard.”

  The car came to a stop and Sadie blinked back to present to find they had arrived at Axle’s. She gave herself a mental shake and reminded her brain not to dwell. Thinking about the past was dangerous. Going there risked her safety, her ability to wall off her emotions. Besides, memories of the past hurt. The memory of Aid
en declaring he wasn’t through with her would only remind her of the day he called to tell her he was.

  She’d spent a lot of time tonight thinking of Aiden, of all the good things they shared. If she wasn’t careful, she could get nostalgic enough to wind up braless and in his bed again. Heat pooled between her legs at the memory of his hot hands around her waist, his erection pressing into her backside as they slept. Intimacy but no sex. Who knew what a turn-on that could be?

  And we don’t want to end up there again, she sternly reminded her inner Pussycat Doll.

  Aiden turned off the engine and sent her a sideways glance. Sadie wondered what he’d been thinking about the entire time she’d sat here and thought about him.

  The glint in his eye, the sexy curve of his lips, matched the expression on his face a year ago when he’d lingered in her doorway. Heart thudding heavily, she waited…waited and hoped and prayed he’d erase her mind with his tongue and the heat of his lips.

  Aiden unbuckled his seat belt and leaned an elbow on the steering wheel, his bicep flexing in the pale moonlight. He locked her into place with his steady gaze. “I had a good time tonight.”

  She gauged the distance over the console, the position of their bodies, and undid her own seat belt before turning her body slightly toward his. “So did I.”

  Here it was. The dating dance. How many times had she been in this very position? Waiting for her date to dredge up the courage to lean in and kiss her, or trying to make her getaway before he did.

  Though she didn’t remember Aiden having to steel himself to approach her. And she certainly hadn’t been planning on running. He had a way of busting through all her defenses before she realized she’d had a breach in security.

  He glanced at her mouth. “Thanks for inviting me.”

  Sadie nodded, licked her lips, and balled her fists together so tightly her fingernails bit into her palms. She wanted the kiss his eyes promised.

  But instead of coming closer, Aiden leaned back, opened his door, and got out.

  Got.

  Out.

  The driver’s side door shut with a whump! wobbling the car and leaving Sadie alone and thoroughly unkissed. Fury simmered on her brow. Why she was angry, she had no idea, and before she wondered at her own indignation, she’d already climbed out and slammed her own door.

  Aiden had crossed behind the car and approached, his hand out. His brows raised in surprise when he saw her standing there, seething. She forced her shoulders to relax.

  “I was going to get your door for you.” He studied her a little too intently, the quirk of his lips a little too bemused. “Something wrong?”

  Other than a gross overreaction I can’t explain? No, nothing at all.

  What had she planned on doing anyway? Bursting out of the car and demanding he kiss her before he left to go home? “I need to get something else.” She gestured to Axle’s. “Inside.” Worst lie ever. She’d be amazed if he bought it. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.” He paced to the door as he dug in his pocket for the keys. Giving her a final wary (disbelieving?) glance before unlocking the store, he shut off the alarm code and let her in.

  So. Here they were. Sadie made a show of looking for the imaginary “something” she needed badly enough to insist on coming in. She vanished behind a shelf to collect herself. Boxes were lined up in neat rows, the front window display orderly. There wasn’t so much as a discarded pen or scrap of paper lying around.

  She crossed to the counter, where Aiden leaned against the cash register, waiting for her. There, peeking out of a drawer was a form. A Midwest price sheet. Good enough. She came behind the counter, latched on to a corner, and pulled it free.

  “Here it is,” she announced brightly. Now she could leave with her dignity intact.

  “You needed your own price guide?” Doubt clouded Aiden’s eyes. Evidently, his BS-o-meter was in working order.

  “I…” Sadie flagged. “I don’t have one at home. I don’t want to go back to the office.”

  Aiden’s expression said he wasn’t buying it. Was it too late to pretend she was drunk? She could stumble to the front door. Of course, then he would offer to drive her home and she’d get to replay that Will he kiss me or not? nightmare all over again.

  “Well, if you have everything you need…” he drawled. The low timbre of his voice galloped down her rib cage like a troupe of Riverdancers.

  He didn’t mean to speak so seductively. She must have imagined it. Like she imagined the hand that looked a lot like hers fisting the front of his shirt. Like she imagined the voice that sounded like a huskier version of her own, saying, There was one more thing.

  Only it wasn’t her imagination.

  Sadie’s out-of-body experience ended the moment she pressed her lips against Aiden’s for a very solid, full-on lip smash of a kiss. It was a little longer than the peck she’d given him at Rick’s party. And a lot more needy. She pulled back and flattened her hand against his solid chest, her stomach flopping like a dying fish.

  With a clumsy smile she hoped would disguise her rattling nerves, she said, “Thanks for driving.” She’d taken one step toward the finish line—the glowing red EXIT sign over the front door—when Aiden caught her wrist.

  “No, no, no,” he said as he brought her to stand before him again. “That was not an acceptable good-night kiss.”

  Embarrassed, Sadie blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. “Why not? What was wrong with it?”

  He clasped on to her other wrist and tugged her close, so close her thighs bumped his. “Wrong is such a harsh word.”

  Sadie heard herself snort-laugh, not because it was funny but because her nerves were rattling like a game of Boggle. “Like you can do better?” she asked, her voice weak and edgy.

  His grin was slow, sliding into place as he held her eyes. “Definitely.”

  He released her wrists and skimmed his palms down her sides to the flare of her hips. His hot palms burned through her jeans as he bent and gripped the backs of her thighs. She sucked in a breath of anticipation at what might come next.

  “Up,” he breathed into her ear.

  He lifted her and Sadie let out a yelp of surprise and gripped his neck for support. Aiden deposited her on top of the counter. She pulled her arms from his neck and attempted to put them at her sides. She bumped the cash register with one wrist and the credit card machine with the other before giving up and holding them in front of her awkwardly.

  Aiden’s lips twisted in amusement. “Like you haven’t kissed me before,” he teased, moving her hands back to his neck.

  “That was a long time ago,” she said quietly, heart pounding.

  With her arms locked around him, their faces inches apart, there was nowhere to look but into his eyes. Eyes erased of the trace of humor they’d held earlier, replaced by a deep, dark want she knew reflected in her own. Aiden wrapped one of her ankles around his waist, then the other, and tugged her until her butt was at the edge of the countertop. His big body settled between her legs. She crossed her feet around him, her breasts brushing against the front of his shirt, her body humming with excitement.

  “Now, let’s see if we can remember how this goes,” Aiden said.

  Lust plugged her throat, rendered her speechless. She nodded.

  Aiden clutched her hips, kept his eyes on hers as he came nearer and nearer to her lips, his pace purposefully slow. When he finally dipped his head and touched her lips, a moan of approval sounded low in Sadie’s throat.

  This was no peck on the lips, no, no. Aiden was taking his sweet time, his speed downright leisurely, the pull of his lips hypnotizing. Sadie was pliant beneath him. She easily matched his rhythm, savoring the faint taste of beer lingering on his lips.

  Oh yes, she remembered this. She remembered him. The heat of his mouth, his full but firm bottom lip. The tiny bit of hair beneath it was new, and she enjoyed that, too. Enjoyed the prickling sensation against her chin as he slanted his mouth
over hers and deepened the kiss.

  He teased her lips with his tongue and Sadie gave in, all too willing to open to his exploration. He swept his tongue in her mouth and out again. Then in, then out, the mind-numbing tempo sending her hormones over the edge like lemmings.

  If the heat between their mouths didn’t make her orgasm where she sat, the feel of his wide hands might. He slid them from her hips to her ribs, his thumbs brushing her bare skin just under the hem of her shirt. She waited for the counter beneath her to reduce to ash. For the first time since the last time she’d kissed Aiden, she found herself not wanting to stop. She wanted him to keep going—to run those wide, slightly rough palms of his under her shirt and cup her full, sensitive breasts.

  She needed him closer. Wanted to kiss him until their teeth clashed and his stubble caused a rough rash on her jaw. She reached for his hair, to grab the length of it and haul him down to her like she used to. She encountered prickly growth at the back of his neck instead. She’d forgotten he cut it. And she whimpered.

  Actually whimpered.

  Aiden smiled so wide her next kiss landed on his teeth. “It’ll grow back,” he said against her mouth, then finished her off with one final full-lipped kiss before sweeping her hands away from his neck. He brushed her fingers with the pads of his thumbs, his breathing far more even than hers. Sadie’s chest rose and fell in a stuttering rhythm, like she’d just run a mile. Underwater.

  “I can tell by your face you’re not impressed.” Aiden sighed.

  Sadie felt her mouth drop open. Her entire body hummed like a speaker blaring too much bass, and he thought she felt…nothing?

  He gave her a brief wink to show he was kidding. “Although…” He ran a thumb over her cheek. She felt heat bloom on her cheekbones. “Maybe I didn’t fail entirely.”

  He stepped away from her, taking his warm, hard body with him. He held her hands and helped her down, only letting her go when she was steady on her feet. Well, as steady as she was going to get after a grade-A lip lock.