by T. L. Haddix
“Of course. They send their condolences, by the way, and if you need anything, you’re to just ask.”
“Yeah. Rachel called. So did Lee. He’ll be out tomorrow to get the perishables from the fridge.” It was after eleven now, and he knew he wouldn’t see a bit of sleep tonight. Regardless, morning would come early. “I’ll get out of here, let you get some rest.”
Sydney nodded. “Holler if you need me.”
He gently closed the door as he left the bedroom, then made his way through the rest of the rooms, shutting the house down. By the time he settled in on the couch, he could hardly hold his eyes open. Within minutes, he was out.
Soft hands woke him some time later. “Shhh, Sawyer, it’s okay. It’s just a dream. Come on, wake up.”
He sat up with a start, his heart pounding. Drenched in sweat, all he could do was stare at Sydney. She’d turned the small lamp on just outside the bedroom, and it didn’t do much to take away the gloom in the living room. He could make out that she was wearing the Hello Kitty sleep shirt and that she didn’t have her glasses on. Her eyes were filled with concern.
“You were dreaming,” she told him softly as she touched his cheek. His wet cheek.
He remembered then what the nightmare had been about. Instead of getting ready to attend his father’s funeral, he’d been preparing for hers. He swallowed roughly, closing his eyes as he nuzzled her hand.
“What time is it?” he rasped.
“Just after midnight. Here, have some water.” She placed a cold bottle in his hand, and he opened it, greedily sucking it down. “Better?”
He nodded. “Sorry.”
“You’re fine.” Gentle fingers pressed against his lips. When those fingers disappeared, replaced with her lips, he gasped.
“What happened to being co-workers?”
“Hush.” She moved back in to kiss him more fully. Sawyer could have stopped her, and he probably should have. But the week had been filled with too much hurt and pain. Pain he needed to make go away.
In seconds, he was on fire, desperate to feel her, to kiss her. He shoved back the quilt he’d covered up with and pulled her on down top of him, whipping the gown over her head. He’d been naked under the quilt, and the feel of her bare skin against his was too intense for words. Sliding his hands down her back, he cupped her behind for a moment, then curved his fingers down between her thighs. When he reached her wet core, she cried out quietly.
“No. Not yet.”
Backing away, she settled between his legs, the brush of her hair against his thighs the only warning he had before her warm, hot mouth settled over the head of his erection, sucking him down with an intensity that had his hips lifting off the couch.
His hands came to her head, locking her in place even though she didn’t offer to withdraw. Without a condom, the sensations were overwhelming, and it didn’t take long before he was reaching the point of no return.
“Sydney,” he gasped, trying to warn her.
She pulled back, and even in the dim light, he could see her lips glistening. Her chest heaving, she ran her hands up and down his thighs as he fell back from the precipice.
“Don’t you dare think you’re going over without me,” she told him huskily as she straddled him, her wetness sliding against his length, making them both moan.
Sawyer reached down, using his hand to guide his cock to her entrance. She obliged him by sinking down, not stopping until they were sealed together fully. He let her take over and set the pace, rising slowly only to fall back down with a gratifying urgency.
She grasped his hands, placing them over her breasts as she rode him. When he’d learned how sensitive they were, he’d taken full advantage of that to drive her to distraction when they made love. Now, he used that knowledge with a vengeance. Sitting up, he cupped her breast and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, biting down just hard enough to cause a spike of pleasure-pain to shoot through her. With his other hand, he pinched the nubbin of flesh between her thighs. She cried out, her intimate muscles clamping down on him rhythmically as she came apart.
It wasn’t enough. He needed more. He needed to come inside her with a fierceness that punished him as much as it pleasured him. Withdrawing, he raised her up so that he could slide out from under her, then turned her so that she was facing the back of the couch. Using his knee, he spread her legs as he slid an arm around her hips, pulling her back toward him as he penetrated her from behind.
“Hold on,” he told her, gathering her hair in one hand as he bit down lightly on her shoulder. He used her roughly, holding on to her hips as he drove into her. Far from rejecting him, as he’d half feared she would, she instead pressed back into his thrusts, driving his desire up into the inferno range.
Taking one of her hands from the couch, he pressed it between her legs. “Do it,” he growled. “Make yourself come.”
But she was already there, her hand turning to clasp his as she screamed with pleasure. Feeling the contractions that rippled through her pushed him over the edge, and with a hoarse shout, he buried himself to the hilt inside her and let himself come. The orgasm lasted forever, it seemed. By the time he was done, Sawyer felt like he’d emptied every bit of his soul into her.
Limbs shaking, he managed to brace himself on the couch, curled around her trembling, sweat-covered body.
Sydney’s breath was coming in shuddering gasps, and her hand, still around his, was squeezing so tightly it hurt. He didn’t care.
“I can see why women are willing to follow you from other states,” she surprised him by saying. “Oh, my God.”
A startled laugh escaped him as he cradled her close. Once it started, he couldn’t stop. Before long the laughter had turned to tears, and he buried his face in her neck as he cried.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
When she’d come out of the bedroom to check on Sawyer, Sydney had never expected to end up wrapped in his arms, naked and trying to recover from mind-blowing sex while he cried. However, aside from cursing her stupid tongue for the other women comment, she didn’t have a single regret.
Positioned as they were, she couldn’t turn around and hold him, so instead she tightened her hands over his and held on.
His tears didn’t last long, but she had a gut feeling that for a man like Sawyer, crying was something he’d probably only done a handful of times as an adult. Once he was down to the occasional sniffle, he slowly unlocked their hands and moved back. He didn’t go far, just swung around to sit on the blanket.
Sydney had to move fast to get her hands on the nightshirt, which she stuffed between her thighs.
“Good thing the couch is leather,” he said quietly. “Are you okay?”
“I think so. I might not be able to stand up, though,” she said as she got to her feet. She was a bit wobbly at first, but her legs held. “I need to, um, excuse myself, I guess.”
He didn’t protest, just buried his head in his hands. He looked utterly dejected, and Sydney didn’t know what to think. She settled for placing a kiss on his head and making her way to the master bathroom.
Sawyer came in, still naked, a couple of minutes later. “I need a shower,” he said apologetically.
“So do I. Mind if we share?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.”
Though he touched her and vice versa while they got clean, the caresses were less sexual than loving, if she dared to even think that way. Once they were out and dried off, Sydney held her hand out.
“Come to bed?”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am.”
In mere minutes, with Sawyer pressed tight against her, Sydney was sound asleep.
They slept through the alarm the next morning. Sydney was the first to wake up, and when she glanced at the clock and saw it was nearly eight,
she gasped.
“Oh, crap. Sawyer, we’re late.” She jumped out of bed as he rolled over. Grabbing her bag, she headed for the bathroom. Her hair was a wild tangle around her head, but she managed to tame it enough to put it in a loose twist. She’d just finished getting dressed when he came in.
“I can’t believe we slept that late,” he said, moving to the sink to brush his teeth.
“I’m sorry. I feel like it’s my fault. I know you wanted to get an early start.”
He rinsed his mouth out and set the toothbrush down, then cupped her face. “Hush,” he said, right before he kissed her.
Sydney clung to him. “I’m not sorry about what happened.”
He searched her face. “No?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Good.”
They were on the road a short time later. Sydney took the first leg of the driving, and they didn’t say very much for a while. Sawyer seemed lost in thought, and Sydney was happy to let him stay there. Too much conversation might break the spell that seemed to have captured them.
When they were a few miles outside Morgantown, West Virginia, though, curiosity was starting to set in.
“Tell me what we’re walking into?” she asked. They’d switched places a short time earlier, with him taking the wheel as they prepared to enter his old stomping grounds.
“What do you want to know?”
“Who are we liable to see, what protocols should I observe, what toes do I avoid stepping on unintentionally, that sort of thing.”
“As far as protocol goes, you know what to do. Be yourself. Who we’ll see?” He rubbed a hand over his hair. “Frank and Jana, my next oldest brother and his wife. Matt and Leslie, the baby brother and his wife. Their kids.” He listed them. “Mom, Nan, a few cousins on Dad’s side probably. Business associates, people from the community… a pretty high-flying crowd in all likelihood, so prepare for that. And uh, we might run into my ex.”
Sydney paused in getting a sip of water. “Your ex-wife? She’s still around?”
He tried to give her a casual smile, but he couldn’t quite pull it off. “Remember I told you she’d remarried, had her first kid before a year was up?”
“Yes.”
“The guy she married was my best friend since grade school. They got hitched about two weeks after our divorce was final. And he works in one of the companies the family has an interest in. He’s a VP there. So she’s never really lost touch with the family.”
Sydney had to take a deep breath to calm down. “What’s her name?”
“Christie.”
“She sounds blond.”
Sawyer laughed so hard he snorted. “She is.”
“Your best friend?”
He shrugged. “I guess it had been building for a while. He had a couple of kids by a former wife, so she knew he was fertile. Match made in heaven.”
Sydney had a few choice words to describe what she thought of that, and none of them would have been allowed in a church.
“So she’ll just be there? And you have to put up with her?”
“Probably, yes. My parents were always closer to her than they were to me. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head, outraged on his behalf. “I hate people. They’re so ridiculous. And I’m the one who should be saying sorry. I wish you didn’t have to go through this, especially not right now.”
In response, he held his hand out. She gladly took it.
For the rest of the drive, he told her about where he’d grown up, the small trailer park he and Nan had called home. “The house we’re going to, though… I imagine it’s a lot closer to what you were used to with your in-laws,” he said.
“Good thing I brought my good dress, then.” She squeezed his hand. “Are we staying there?”
He shot her a disbelieving look. “No. I figured we’d get a room close by.”
“Why don’t I go ahead and do that? Give me the address.”
By the time they reached Pittsburgh, she’d made reservations in a good hotel near his parents’ house. Sawyer’d given her a side look when she asked for a suite, and she’d held up a finger. “I’ll explain in a second,” she told him.
“So what’s with the suite?” he asked as he made the turns that would get them to their destination. “Not that I don’t think it’s fine if you want your own room.”
“I don’t particularly want my own room, thank you very much,” she chided softly. “But with a suite, if someone wants to come over and visit away from the house, they can. It makes a big difference during times like these, believe me. I learned that when Eli’s wife died.”
Once they were checked in and had their luggage in the room, Sydney took a few minutes to freshen up. Now that she had an idea of what they’d be facing, she wanted to make sure she looked her best. If her worst expectations came to fruition, she knew her appearance would serve as a kind of armor.
“Sure do hope I’m wrong,” she told her reflection. She’d changed out of the comfortable jeans and loose top she’d been wearing into the more formal casual wear of slacks, a dressier blouse, and high-heeled sandals. Gold-knot earrings gleamed at her ears, and a tasteful gold watch adorned her wrist. The effect was one of understated elegance, something she’d learned from both her mother and Adam’s.
A casual stranger wouldn’t understand the message behind the ensemble, but they’d come away thinking she was well put together. But someone from that world, someone who was used to assessing a person from head to toe in ten seconds and tallying their net worth to within a few thousand dollars, would look at Sydney and know very quickly that she was at the very least on their same societal level. That was exactly the image she wanted to project.
When she went back to the suite’s living room, Sawyer was standing at the window, gazing out across the city. She moved behind him, sliding her arms around his waist.
“You okay?”
“No. But I will be. Thanks for being here.”
She tightened her arms. “Thanks for letting me come with. Um, not to bring up an indelicate subject, but how in the world are you planning to introduce me?”
He turned to embrace her, taking a moment to look at the changes she’d made. “Snazzy outfit.”
“Thanks. I know I’ll be on inspection. I want to pass.”
“Sydney, you’d pass if you were wearing that silly Hello Kitty gown thing,” he told her with a cheeky grin.
She goosed him. “I’d pass your inspection, yeah. I never thought of that thing as a negligee before last night. And you didn’t answer the question.”
He sighed. “I guess I’ll introduce you as Sydney. And when people ask who you are, I’ll say you’re with me. If they can’t make the deduction past that, they have bigger problems.”
“Are you planning to tell them I work for you?”
“Well, I’m not ashamed of that, if that’s what you’re getting at. Though I do feel a bit like a cliché, if you want the truth. Not unhappily, but I never thought I’d be a stereotype.”
She ducked her head, amused and embarrassed at the same time. “Neither did I. Think that about myself, I mean.”
He drew her close, holding on for a few moments. “I don’t want to go.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
She could feel the tension in his muscles, and thinking about what had worked so well last night, she reached for his belt at the same time as she rose up on her tiptoes.
“Did I ever mention to you the fact that I love how it feels when you use my mouth?” she whispered as she lowered his zipper. “The way you hold my head like you’re never going to let go, like you can’t get inside me deep enough? The way you taste when you come?”
A dark flush spread across his cheeks and his lips parted. She clos
ed the distance between them to nip sharply at his lower lip, then took her glasses off and set them aside. While he was still struggling for breath to respond, she went to her knees and pushed his pants and briefs out of the way.
Loving him like this wouldn’t fix the pain of the loss, but it wouldn’t hurt, either. After all, this was a different sort of armor for a different sort of battle. On top of him losing his father, he’d likely be coming face to face with the woman who’d destroyed his heart and dented his manhood because of his sterility. Taking him this way now would hopefully stave off any self-doubt he had, and it wouldn’t be terrible for Sydney’s ego, either. After all, she told herself, it would be hard to feel insecure when facing his ex if she still had the taste of him in her mouth.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Once they were in the car and driving to his parents’ house, all the emotions Sawyer had been pushing back since he’d received the call from Frank threatened to rise up and overwhelm him.
“You okay?” Sydney asked.
He blew out a breath. “Working on it.”
The feel of her hand tucked securely in his helped, as did the memory of what had transpired before they’d left the hotel. He knew that had been part of her intention all along.
“How long has it been since you’ve been home?” she asked quietly as they drove slowly down the oak-lined avenues near the house.
“Three years. I saw everybody last winter in Florida. Dad had had some issues then, but nothing major, I didn’t think. I guess I should have asked more questions.”
“Was it a good visit?”
He considered the question. “Yeah, it was. As much as my relationship with them has never been all warm and fuzzy, I have to say that last year, we had fun. Mom’s going to be devastated without him. He’s been her life since she was just a girl.”