Sadie gripped the back of her empty chair.
“Mom was convinced the center we moved her into would save her life. Angel, Landon, and Evan tried to convince me to get her back into chemo.” He shook his head, remembering arguing with them in private, or via text, fighting with them as hard as he fought to keep their arguing a secret from Mom. “Mom didn’t want to have chemo. I refused to hound her about it. I figured she was where she wanted to be, and she seemed a little stronger, definitely more hopeful. “And seeing the hope in her eyes…” He blinked back tears of his own. “I just…I couldn’t take it away from her, you know?”
Sadie rested a hand on Aiden’s shoulder, her attention completely on him. Selfish, my ass. If she could see her face, she’d never for a second see herself as anything less than the radiant, supportive woman comforting him right now.
“When it was obvious she wasn’t going to recover…” He swallowed, felt like a bowling ball was lodged in his esophagus. “I brought her home.” And then his mother, his beautiful, strong, amazing mother, lost her fight.
“She lived ten more days,” Aiden said, feeling the pain of losing her spread across his chest like wildfire. “Landon, Angel, and Evan had barely had time to come home and visit before she passed.” They still held it against him.
“I should have made her get chemo,” Aiden said. He’d thought it a thousand times—a million times—since the funeral, but this was the first time he admitted it aloud. And hearing it now…God. He could hear the truth in his words.
He’d been thinking lately how he hadn’t really fought for her. Sure, he’d sat in waiting rooms for acupuncturists, nutritionists, and even a hypnotist. He’d scheduled her appointments, pushed her thinning body around in a wheelchair; he’d filled out her paperwork and written checks and reported back to Dad. But he hadn’t fought. Not for her.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he told Sadie. “But all I did was sit around…and wait for her die.”
He was suddenly seeing things so clearly from his siblings’ points of view. Whoever came up with the saying “the truth hurts” deserved an award for that golden nugget of accuracy. The truth did hurt, and right now it was slashing at his insides like Freddy Krueger.
Sadie put a palm over his forearm, and when Aiden tilted his chin down, a tear splashed onto the top of her hand.
* * *
Vulnerability was not Sadie’s forte. If asked, anyone she knew would say she was as stoic as a Viking ship in gale force winds in the middle of a raging sea storm. And yet, Aiden had been here no more than ten minutes and she’d opened her case of secrets and laid them out like prized jewels.
Here you go, have a look at all my shit.
Like the last time she and Aiden had entered the bubble of safety that was her apartment, Sadie shared her unfiltered, uncensored feelings. And yes, she may have been lubricated with a glass of California white, but the moment he’d touched her face and complimented the hell out of her, she’d remembered that Aiden was a strong wall on which to lay her burdens.
When she’d first met Aiden, hot-handed, dead-sexy-smile, two-hundred-pounds-of-delicious-golden-muscle Aiden, he’d been to hell and back. Now he’d been to hell and back, and returned for one more round trip with frequent flyer miles. And he was still clawing his way out of the depths. Not that he’d burden anyone with the crap he hauled around with him. No, he was too busy making everyone else feel better about themselves.
But Sadie didn’t have a problem coming to his rescue the way he’d come to hers. She kept her palm firmly on his arm and watched the single drop of salt water trickle off her hand.
“Aiden.” Despite the silent promise she’d made herself not to cry again, her emotions teetered on a needle-thin point. “You did exactly what your mother wanted. In spite of what everyone else said. You were the strong one. You did the right thing.”
She knew firsthand when a loved one got sick, how hard it was to make clear-headed decisions. After Sadie’s father’s accident, she’d been too young to fully understand what was happening. Only that her father was in a coma and wouldn’t wake up. Her grandmother had to make the gut-wrenching decision to turn off life support, and Sadie knew now that Grandma Howard had done the right thing for Daddy. In spite of Sadie’s mother’s instinct to hold on to him for as long as possible.
Aiden, in his own way, had done the same for his mom.
“I would have kept my dad hooked to a breathing machine forever,” Sadie told him. “But you put aside your own agenda. You knew what your mom wanted. And it wasn’t to spend her final days throwing up and losing her hair. It wasn’t, Aiden. And you knew it.” She squeezed his arm. “Didn’t you?”
Aiden met her eyes. Pools of green swimming in unshed tears. Sadie’s heart cracked when she thought about what Aiden had gone through in the last year. He’d put his life on hold to move his mother to Oregon, invested nearly all he had left to pay for her continuing treatment. How long had Aiden been setting aside his own wants and needs? Harmony certainly hadn’t had a problem betraying him. And the strength it must have taken for him to stand firmly against his family and fight for his mother…
In a blink, she saw Aiden very clearly. Saw his abundant love for others, his deep compassion for people. His kindness. His unbreakable spirit.
Was it any wonder she’d fallen in love with him a year ago?
“God, Aiden,” she whispered, stroking her fingers through his hair. The tears came and Sadie stopped trying to quell them. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for all of it.” Every heartrending moment of the last year, including the hard time she’d given him at Crickitt’s wedding…He deserved her support. Then and now.
Sadie wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him, unsure if she was comforting him or if it was the other way around.
Chapter 10
Aiden clutched on to her shoulders, his big arms bracing her body, and buried his face into her neck. He took one ragged breath, then another, and while she didn’t hear or feel the sobs wracking his body, Sadie felt his breathing grow slow and shallow, and a damp spot on her shoulder where he’d rested his cheek.
When he pulled away, he gave a mighty sniff and wiped his eyes on one shirt sleeve. In true Aiden fashion, he laughed. It may have been raspy and watery, but it was a laugh. A lesser man would be embarrassed, maybe even make an excuse to leave. Not Aiden.
“Wow.” He coughed into one fist and, keeping his chin down, turned his eyes up to Sadie. “Was that sexy, or what?”
But it was.
“I don’t make a habit of barging into attractive single women’s houses and crying over my mother,” Aiden said with another smile. His unflappable optimism had snapped firmly back in place. “I didn’t mean—”
Sadie grasped the back of his neck and smothered whatever words he would have said with her mouth. This was a kiss of pure need. She needed Aiden. And she told him with her tongue in his mouth, her hands gripping his shoulders, and her breasts mashed against his chest.
Aiden latched on to her just as desperately, locking her in his arms, his tongue sparring with hers. Like he needed her, too.
I’m ready.
The thought came with so much conviction, she didn’t even question it. Thirty years of waiting to have sex hadn’t been easy. Being engaged and enduring a long-term relationship without getting physical had challenged her in a whole new way. After Trey dumped her for Celeste, Sadie had to choose how she felt about it—about herself. Either she could A) believe the only way to keep a guy around was to have sex with him or B) believe that if a guy couldn’t go without sleeping with her, then he didn’t deserve her anyway.
She chose B.
What may have started as a why-buy-the-milk-if-you-get-the-cow-for-free theory had morphed into another layer of protection. Sadie simply didn’t want to get hurt ever again. Keeping sex out of the mix had been a no-brainer. But Aiden, while he had hurt her in the past, maybe even worse than Trey, had never once pushed her, pressure
d her, been anything less than good to her. And that, she thought solidly, was worthy of the whole damn dairy farm.
Sadie pulled her hands over Aiden’s solid chest, shivering with anticipation at feeling his hot skin against hers, of getting him out of his thin cotton tee. She lifted his shirt and ran her fingers over the bumps of his abs, then up to his nipples. They pebbled beneath her nails and Aiden clasped onto the material of her dress, his teeth raking over her lips as a low, guttural groan emitted from his throat.
Sadie smiled against his mouth, sure, so sure, of her decision. So sold on stripping this man of his clothes and dragging him into her bedroom.
She needed more. And she needed it now.
Fingers diving into the waistband of his jeans, she tugged him and he stood, bracing one hand on the counter, the other around her waist. He let her back him against the sink, keeping his lips fused with hers. His hip hit the edge of the counter, rattling the dishes in the drainer.
With the idea of making love with Aiden firmly planted in her brain, Sadie’s actions came at the pace of a runaway train. Thrill bloomed in her belly, and lower, as she straddled his leg, rubbing her body against him while her hands explored his torso. She traced a circle around his belly button, plucked the stud on his jeans. When she reached for his zipper, Aiden’s hand covered hers.
His lips curved against hers and he laid another damp kiss on her mouth before blowing out a warm, wine-scented breath.
Sadie opened her eyes, met his gaze. He watched her, his pupils wide and dark, want warring with intent. Or maybe not, Sadie thought suddenly. Maybe Aiden didn’t want her. Maybe last night’s kiss was just a kiss.
There was a sobering thought.
She stepped away from him, sliding her hand out from under his. He snapped his jeans, scrubbed his face with both hands, and ran them through his shorn hair. His tongue darted out to wet his lips as all of Sadie’s girly parts sang his mouth’s praise.
“My fault,” he rasped, voice rough. “I didn’t mean to…”
He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Sadie understood that he’d been responding to her and she’d gone too far. A kiss was a kiss, but sex was so much more. And Aiden clearly didn’t want to invest quite as much in her as she did in him.
So…this was new. Sadie had never had a guy try and stop her from going too far. For the first time, she understood how frustrating it was to receive a cease and desist when things were starting to get good.
“No, geez, I’m sorry,” Sadie said, rubbing her eyebrow with two fingers to partially hide her face. She gave Aiden a carefree smile and shrug, trying to play things way down.
Way, way down.
She straightened her dress and fished for an excuse. “The wine—”
“It’s not that I don’t want to sleep with you,” Aiden said.
She hazarded a look up at him. He gripped the countertop with white knuckles, holding his body in check as he sent a longing gaze down hers.
Sadie shivered, the words sleep with you causing a flash of X-rated visions dancing merrily in her brain. Heat gathered between her legs.
“Believe me.” Aiden lowered his chin, his expression menacing in the sexiest way possible. “It’s not that I don’t want to.”
She pressed her knees together in a vain effort to control the thrumming pulse at her center.
Aiden sucked in a breath and blew it out, recalibrating his thoughts. “But you have had a hell of a day, Sadie.”
Right? And after the day she’d had, the very best thing for her—for both of them—would be to strip him of those inconvenient clothes and invite him up to her mattress. The thrumming quickened and Sadie wondered if anyone had ever died of lusty, sinful thoughts.
Aiden rested his hands on her upper arms and Sadie would have melted into him if not for the hand she raised and anchored against his chest.
“You’re upset,” he said, “you’ve been drinking, and I won’t let you make a decision you might regret later.”
Sadie huffed. Foiled again.
After he left, she was going to finish the bottle of wine they’d been sharing and open another. Maybe once she was slobbering drunk, she’d lose the needy ache pounding relentlessly along her every vertebrae.
“You’d be surprised how sober I feel,” she mumbled. She took a drink, swallowed. Took another. “Sorry I attacked you.”
Aiden laughed, a hearty ha! “Never, never apologize for that.”
He was so easy to like. How did someone who’d been through some of the hardest things in life maintain his level of easy? Aiden brushed by her and Sadie turned to tell him good-bye. He surprised her by snapping up the wine bottle and emptying it into his glass. “Have any more of this stuff?” he asked, dropping the bottle into the recycling bin.
“Yeah. In the fridge.”
“Good,” he said, digging out a fresh bottle. “Because I’m going to need to come to terms with the decision I just made.” He shot her a self-deprecating grin. “Parts of my body will never forgive me for turning you down.”
Her smile returned.
“Only another glass or two,” he told her. “If I have more than that I’ll be tempted to make up a story about how I need to sleep on your couch.”
She snickered and Aiden pressed a kiss to her mouth. It wasn’t a long kiss and it wasn’t overtly romantic, but it curled her toes inside her four-inch heels all the same.
He worked the corkscrew into the bottle and refilled her glass, sending her a wink that had her sagging against the counter behind her. Then he took both their glasses and swaggered his sweet ass into her living room.
Sadie knew because she kept her eyes on it the entire time.
* * *
Three hours later, Aiden was still trying to talk himself into leaving, and his feelings for Sadie into submission. The moment she wrapped him up in her sweet scent and came out swinging in his defense, his heart gave a dangerous squeeze.
Do you love her?
I don’t think I ever stopped.
And then that kiss, and an offer he’d somehow been able to refuse. Good God, he was insane for turning her down. He was tempted to excuse himself to the kitchen and repeatedly bang his head against the refrigerator.
He wanted nothing more than to peel back that black dress and reveal her tight little body. To finally feel the warmth of her—all of her—sliding beneath him. To taste her nipples, find out what made her scream his name—
Aiden shifted, rearranging his going-for-the-world-record-for-endurance hard-on.
He’d like to convince himself he didn’t love Sadie, that what he felt for her was lust, pure and simple. No doubt something any red-blooded man felt when he laid eyes on her.
He looked over to where she lounged on the opposite arm of the couch. She’d changed into low-cut jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, and had kicked off the shoes that could’ve doubled as weaponry. Her outfit was considerably less sexy than the clingy dress she wore earlier, but Aiden couldn’t tear his eyes off her. Or those hot pink toenails peeking out from beneath the cuffs of her jeans.
He glanced toward the kitchen. Maybe after he banged his head on the fridge, he’d go a few rounds with the stove.
This wasn’t just lust. There was more. There’d always been more. The way he got her to confess with no more than a word or two. How protective he felt of her. Even now, when he should be on his bike riding off his every horny thought, he didn’t want to leave her. Like the night he tucked them into his bed last year. He hadn’t wanted her to go then, either.
Maybe he should admit out loud, to both of them, that he loved her. But he was pretty sure, to paraphrase a famous movie, Sadie couldn’t handle the truth. The thing was, Aiden could handle it. Handle loving her, handle slipping a gold band onto her finger, and certainly handle sliding into her bed. Not just tonight, but each and every night until they were so old they had to gum their food.
“I should go.” Aiden stood suddenly, knowing if he didn’t make that pronouncement so
on, he wouldn’t make it at all.
Sadie unfolded her legs and stood. Aiden caught a glimpse of her breasts as she bent over, the dark shadow of her cleavage and the flash of her black bra. He ground his molars.
“You sure you’re okay to ride?” Sadie asked.
He nodded at the wine bottle on her end table. “My last glass was over an hour ago.”
“I meant…in the dark,” she said, twisting her fingers as she looked out the front window.
Aiden had ridden in more elements than she knew. Weather ranging from stinging needle-tipped raindrops to air so cold it frostbit his nose. He took a step closer to her, already anticipating a lengthy good-night kiss. “Why, you worried about me?”
“Just being polite,” Sadie snapped, her tone saying How dare you accuse me of caring.
Damn. He did love her.
“I promise to be careful,” he said. At the door, Aiden experienced been-there-done-that when he stepped onto her porch and told her good-bye. Light reflected in a halo around Sadie’s golden hair. Her face was placid, angelic, and didn’t reflect the heavy emotional toll the day had taken on her.
Aiden leaned in and pressed his lips to hers and Sadie sighed into his mouth. The soft, feminine sound tore into his chest and pulled out his still-beating heart. Her fingertips grazed his stomach, lighting twin trails down his legs. He needed to end the kiss before he hauled her legs around his waist and pushed her up against the nearest wall.
God. This woman.
When their lips parted with a subtle smooching sound, Sadie uttered one word. A word that floated out on a breath, curled around his heart, and squeezed. “Stay.”
His nostrils flared, his earlier good behavior incinerated by the jolt of lust hitting his gut like an electric shock.
“On the couch,” she added, fizzling out the pornographic images in his head. “I promise I won’t drag you to bed and make you take advantage of me.”
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