Driven to Distraction

by Olivia Dade

  Another anguished wail from above. “Did the venue forget? Or throw in the extras for free?”

  Farther down the row of seats, Angie got to her feet and quietly made her way to the huge wooden door at the back of the room. From the fury and determination on Angie’s face, Con suspected Thornfield Hall’s management was about to receive the verbal bitch-slap of a lifetime.

  Several minutes later, the noise from above ceased abruptly. And when Angie returned to the library for the tail end of the ceremony, she appeared both amused and satisfied.

  “Tell you later,” she mouthed in response to Con’s questioning look.

  Free of further interruption, the ceremony came to its inevitable conclusion. Husband and wife, kissing, applause, and tear-filled eyes. Even, to Con’s embarrassment, hers.

  Not because she envied the married state. Because her friend Penny had turned incandescent with happiness. Because Jack gazed at his bride with the sort of abject devotion that couldn’t be faked and wouldn’t fade over the years. And because the man beside Con had choked up at the sight of his newly married sister, like the most adorable and sweetest suit-clad lumberjack in the history of the world.

  Somehow, his emotion had unlocked hers, and she was sniffling and dabbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. At least until he silently handed her a tissue unearthed from the travel pack in his pocket.

  “Sorry it’s not a handkerchief.” Clearing his throat, he stood and offered his arm. “The idea of washing something I’ve blown my nose on doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “Understood.” She got to her feet and accepted his support. “I didn’t even bring tissues. I never cry at weddings.”

  He smiled down at her. “Until now.”

  “Yeah.” She shook her head. “Don’t remind me. It’s an embarrassing lapse.”

  His lips parted, as if he were about to say something. But after a moment, he just nodded.

  “Let’s chat with Angie before we head to the ballroom.” Con tugged him toward the shining head of blond waves visible above the crowd. “I want to find out what she said to the management.”

  Angie met her halfway. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

  “Were they trying to force Penny and Jack to accept the upcharges?” Con glared at the library doorway, where several staff members were hovering solicitously. “Because I’ll go over there and tell them where they can shove those charges. In the deepest, iciest glacier crevasse anyone has ever traversed.”

  Sam’s big body vibrated next to her. But when she looked up, he shook his head and waved away her concern.

  “No.” Angie smirked. “The manager was just as horrified as we were. Because Jack’s cousin, Mellie, and Penny’s twenty-something nephew were going at it on a priceless antique bed in the room directly above the library. The thumps were the sounds of a very expensive mahogany bedframe hitting the wall. And the groans were—”

  Grant appeared by Angie’s side. “I think we get it, sweetheart.”

  “Not sure those stains will ever come out of the toile.” She sighed. “Should have been us, Grant. I consider this a real wasted opportunity.”

  “Your best friend was getting married,” he pointed out. “You’d never have missed that. Not for all the kinky, semi-public sex in the world.”

  “Hmph.” She didn’t sound appeased.

  “I’ll make it up to you.” With a single, rakish grin, Grant transformed from a handsome but endearingly geeky lover of spreadsheets to…well, simply a lover. Angie’s lover. In every sense of the word. “Trust me.”

  Angie appeared to forget the presence of everyone else in the room. She didn’t spare either Sam or Con another glance, just gazed up at Grant with the widest, most lascivious smile Con had ever seen on her friend’s face. Which was saying something.

  “Let’s discuss how,” she said, and yanked her willing boyfriend out into the hall.

  Con and Sam stared after them.

  “I wonder which room they’ll choose.” She tilted her head. “I’m betting on the cellar. Angie enjoys the use of chains every now and then, although she always complains about the chafing afterward.”

  Sam cleared his throat again. “Should we go find the happy couple?”

  “I’m sure they’re still posing for wedding pictures.” She thought for a second. “Let’s go sit somewhere private and rest before the real party starts. Are you as exhausted as I am from the stops we made this morning?”

  After an early shift in the Bookmobile, they’d both taken the afternoon off from work. Iman and Sybil had handled Bertha for the rest of the day, while Con and Sam had prepared for the wedding. And stupidly, as soon as he’d disappeared from her sight and headed home at lunchtime, she’d missed him.

  Sam Wolcott, she’d concluded for the millionth time, was a menace.

  Even more so when he donned a suit, as she’d discovered upon her arrival to Thornfield Hall. No other man had ever left her speechless when she saw him slicked up for a special occasion. Then again, no other man had ever appealed to her basest female instincts as much as Sam did.

  He’d tamed his hair, and it swept neatly away from his forehead. His beard had been trimmed to exactly the right length: long enough to remain soft, short enough to appear well kempt. The dark gray suit fit him perfectly, and he wore it with casual ease. He wasn’t tugging at his sky-blue tie, fiddling with the cuffs of his pristine white shirt, or picking at his yellow and blue patterned pocket square. No hunching. No dishevelment. No hint of discomfort.

  She wondered whether she’d ever met a man who seemed so confident in his own body. And even more, she wondered how else he could use that body. How his confidence and ease would translate into sweaty, unapologetic sex.

  “I guess I’m a bit tired,” he responded in answer to a question she’d forgotten asking.

  For a moment, she simply stared at him in confusion. And when she didn’t respond, he frowned down at her.

  “Con? Do you have another headache?”

  He lightly rested the fingertips of his right hand on her temple, as if he could gauge her condition through touch alone. As if he were trying to take her supposed pain into his own body.

  Sam Wolcott was a genuinely good, caring man. He was also six feet of bearded, heart-stopping sexiness. And he was her platonic date for the wedding. Yippee.

  Well, at least she’d gotten a newly organized office out of their sexless arrangement.

  “Sorry.” She gave him a tight smile. “I was distracted for a moment. Let’s find a quiet place to sit until Penny and Jack finish their photos.”

  He offered his arm again, and she gripped it as they skirted the velvet rope dividing public areas from private, dodged the staff—newly eagle-eyed after the earlier, bedroom-despoiling intruders—and escaped down the dim hall to the right.

  They passed by a formal dining room, all dark wood with crimson accents and the biggest damn table she’d ever seen in its center. Mirrors on the walls reflected and redoubled the battery-generated candlelight from the wall sconces.

  “That’s the sort of dining room where people get murdered by butlers with candlesticks,” Sam muttered.

  Con stuck her head inside, noting the height of the table. “Nah. More like where the master of the house seizes his governess, pushes her against the table, shoves up her skirts, and goes down on her.”

  Sam made a strangled sound. And by mutual, tacit agreement, they kept moving down the hall.

  “I read a book of Gothic erotica from Angie’s smut room last week,” she confessed. “Normally, I’m into nonfiction about gardening and home repair, but…” Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. “What can I say? It looked interesting. And Angie highly recommended it.”

  “I’m sure.” His bitten-off words did not invite further discussion.

  They encountered the billiards room next, a high-ceilinged space dominated by an extremely large and ornate pool table.

  S
he paused in the doorway. “Then again, the height of this table might be better for—”

  “Not another word.” He gave her arm a firm tug.

  Sam marched her past doorway after doorway, clearly searching for a place where they could be together without undue temptation. When they finally reached the end of the hall, he peered into the last room on the right and sighed in resignation.

  “Good enough.” Letting go of her arm, he waved her forward.

  No sturdy tables in sight. Con figured that fact alone had enticed Sam into picking this space. It appeared to be a sitting room of some sort. More feminine in décor than the other rooms they’d seen, it boasted a writing desk with a slender-legged wooden chair in front, an upholstered couch big enough for two, and a couple of fragile end tables.

  The two windows offered a gorgeous view of the moonlit grounds. Rolling green hills and trees, with mountains standing sentinel in the distance. Even formal and kitchen gardens, which Con would love to survey more closely sometime.

  She ran a caressing hand over the cerulean blue fabric of the couch. “Silk. And it almost matches your tie.”

  He went very still when she walked to within a hairsbreadth of him and stroked the length of that tie, admiring its sheen and softness. Admiring the man beneath it, covered so inadequately by so few layers of clothing.

  Why was she pushing him this way? For that matter, why was she tormenting herself by touching what she couldn’t have?

  Was it wedding pheromones? The natural result of a busy month or two without enough free time for a booty call? Had her defenses against him crumbled in the face of his suit-clad gorgeousness or the way he’d helped her the last couple days?

  “This isn’t fair, Con.” His voice was quiet, his brown gaze direct as it met hers.

  “I know.” She moved away immediately, ashamed of herself. “I apologize.”

  Perching on the edge of the sofa, she smoothed down the purple jersey of her dress. After a moment, he sat next to her. Near enough to share the same air, but not touching. They didn’t look at each other.

  The hush in the room took on its own weight, pressing on her chest and shortening her breath. Rushing in her ears until she could only hear her own heartbeat, only feel his presence searing her side.

  She leaned forward and clasped her hands between her knees. “Maybe we shouldn’t be alone together. Even in a room without a fuck-ready table.”

  “Probably not.” He exhaled slowly. “Coming as your platonic date seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “It was a good idea. But whatever this is”—she waved a hand between them—“tends to overrule common sense. At least for me.”

  “Yeah.”

  In her peripheral vision, she could see his hands flexing and relaxing, as well as the veins that brought oxygen to those blunt, talented fingers. His thigh muscles pushed against the smooth material of his suit pants, and she wanted to squeeze him there. Run her mouth up to his hip and bite him.

  She crossed her legs tight, needing pressure against the ache in her pussy. “Too bad you want a relationship.”

  “And even if I didn’t, any sort of romantic connection with you could make things awkward with Penny. Including one based only on”—his hands flexed again, so close to her leg she almost grabbed them and put them on her flesh—“sex.”

  She nodded. “I agree. No offense, but guys tend to confuse sex and love. Even when I explain what I want from the beginning, they usually get angry or sad when I won’t give them more. You might too. And then Penny would hate me for hurting her brother.”

  His shoulders stiffened, and the lines bracketing his mouth deepened.

  “I wouldn’t.” He sounded offended. “If I knew the situation from the beginning, I wouldn’t become upset when things ended or stayed totally sexual. I’d enjoy myself while it lasted and keep looking for a real relationship in the meantime.”

  “Really?” She cocked a skeptical brow. “Because you seem like the type to get very attached, very quickly. Which is a good trait, don’t get me wrong. Just not a good trait when it comes to me.”

  “You’re mistaken.” His voice had regained the sharpness, the angry intensity that had characterized all their early interactions. “And you’re condescending as fuck too.”

  She spread her hands. “I call ’em like I see ’em. And because of the whole Penny situation, it’s a moot point, anyway.”

  He dragged in a sudden, deep lungful of air. Like he’d had a brilliant thought or was bracing himself for…something.

  “What if…” His throat bobbed above the collar of his white shirt as he swallowed hard.

  When he didn’t continue, she couldn’t resist laying a hand on his arm. The muscles under his suit jacket and shirt reminded her of the quartz countertop she’d installed in her kitchen. Unyielding. Firm. Probably less speckled, though.

  “What if…?” she prompted.

  He tilted his face toward the ceiling, closing his eyes for a moment. Then his chin lowered, and he met her gaze for the first time since they’d sat down. His brown irises had disappeared, either in the dim light or because his pupils had dilated. She didn’t know which.

  But she did know the look in those eyes. The voracity. The intent. The heat.

  That look made her so many promises. Promises about hands that clutched and teeth that bit. Legs spread wide and high. A cock pushing deep. Hard, rough shoves of his body against and into hers. Naked, unadorned sex.

  Or maybe sex was too polite a word. Fornication. Fucking.

  Exactly what she wanted.

  This time, he didn’t stumble over the question. The words tumbled from his lips, smooth and bold and confident. Easy as the way he moved that big body of his.

  “What if Penny didn’t have to know?”

  10

  Two hours later, Sam and Con were sitting at a large, rectangular table with Penny, her new husband, her father, and the rest of the happy couple’s family members.

  And an empty chair for the woman Sam had known from the start wasn’t going to arrive. Not even if she’d had months of warning and received an invitation to the wedding via skywriting.

  The casual, dismissive text Penny had received an hour ago—after the actual ceremony, for fuck’s sake—had only confirmed what he already understood. Joan didn’t give a shit about her children. He just hoped the fresh proof of maternal indifference hadn’t caused his sister any pain.

  From all evidence, he’d say it hadn’t. Brenda, Jack’s mother, clucked over her daughter-in-law with the sort of warmth Penny had never received from her own mother. Penny appeared to drink in each moment of cosseting, each embrace and compliment, blooming under Brenda’s affection. Casey, Jack’s adorable daughter, clung to her stuffed turtle with one hand and Penny’s arm with the other. And when Brenda and Casey weren’t occupying Penny’s attention, Jack captured it with private whispers and discreet kisses.

  But even Brenda and Jack had to move aside when Penny’s circle of friends trooped over to the table. Helen, Sarah, and Mary descended on Penny with joyful hugs and happy shrieks.

  Con rolled her eyes. “Chicks.”

  “It’s sweet.” He lowered one hand beneath the concealing tablecloth. “Not everyone has a heart of steel, Con. Some people are…soft.”

  Soft. Like the skin above her knees. Her flesh passed beneath his stroking fingers like warm silk. Especially when he trailed a fingertip to her inner thigh, which quivered at his touch.

  She blinked innocently at him. “You’re right, Sam. My heart is hard. Very hard.”

  Her hand caressed his cock with assurance and wicked skill, and his eyes nearly rolled back in his head.

  “Sam? Are you okay?” Helen had offered Penny a hug, but was now frowning at him. “You look… I don’t know. Not well.”

  Con’s hand stilled, but she didn’t remove it.

  Wes, ever-present at Helen’s side, cocked his head as he studied
Sam. Then he turned to his girlfriend with a smile. “Once we get back to our table, I’ll gladly explain everything. For once, I’ll be the one telling a way-too-graphic, inappropriately sexual story.”

  The line between her brows only deepened. “What do you mean?”

  “Congratulations to the happy couple.” Wes nodded at Penny and Jack and pulled at Helen’s hand, guiding her away. “Don’t worry, baby. I can stage a dramatic reenactment of the tale, if you’d like.”

  If Wes had guessed what was happening beneath the tablecloth and chose to share it with Helen, Sam sincerely hoped she wouldn’t tell Penny. Because that would ruin the agreement he had just reached with Constance. Nullify it before he’d even had the chance to reap its rewards.

  And by reap its rewards, he meant make her come.

  By mutual agreement, they hadn’t kissed on that couch earlier. Both of them had known how quickly they could reach a flashpoint. And when they did, he wanted time, space, and a big bed to explore Con. Not a muffled, hurried fuck on a hard couch with disapproving strangers in breeches hovering nearby.

  And that’s why he removed his hand from her leg now. The first time he touched her intimately, he wanted her to moan and gasp. Not bite her lip and hide her reactions from her friends.

  Constance stroked his cock again, and his breath caught. But then she let him go, demurely clasping her hands together on the table.

  He told himself it was for the best. He supposed Thornfield Hall had dealt with enough soiled linens during this particular wedding. God only knew what Angie and Grant had done before the reception.

  Just then, Angie spoke from Sam’s other side. “Mary, you’ve been on your phone all night, which isn’t like you. Is everything okay?”

  “I’m so sorry.” With an embarrassed wince, the young librarian hastily shoved her cell back into her purse. “A patron needed some extra help downloading his e-books.”

  “Then he should have called whoever was subbing at Battlefield this afternoon. Or better yet, waited until we returned tomorrow.” Angie scowled. “You’re too sweet, Mary. Patrons will try to take advantage of that, and you shouldn’t let them.”