After the baseball game Lindie had come home, showered and changed into a simple A-line black knit dress with a bright orange and pink flower print. It was sleeveless, with a scooped neck and a hem that reached just below her knees. She’d left her hair loose and wavy, the way she knew he liked it.
She’d reapplied a light dusting of blush and mascara, and added a soft eye shadow, too. Then, because it was still warm and she knew she’d be staying at home, she’d skipped nylons and put on only a pair of ballet flats so she was comfortable cooking for Sawyer.
When he’d arrived she’d poured pre-dinner glasses of wine while her dogs had forced him to pet them all, and they’d briefly talked about the baseball game in which the girls had won by one run.
But once that was out of the way and the dogs had settled in various spots around the house, she had, indeed, given Sawyer a no-holds-barred proposal for Camden Incorporated.
And he had listened patiently.
But now they’d moved from the dining room into the living room where he’d taken her hand to pull her to sit with him on her overstuffed white sofa.
He kept hold of her hand between both of his, resting them all on his thigh in a way that was comforting and sensuous at once. Then he said what he had said multiple times since they’d met.
“No. No, I will not take Camden Incorporated on as a client.”
Every word was spoken slowly and was overly enunciated as if to make sure she understood a foreign language.
“I need you to accept that,” he went on. “I decided today, thinking about coming here tonight, that I had to put a stop to it once and for all. I’m beginning to feel like a tease. As though I’m leading you on somehow, even though I’ve been pretty clear. So hear what I’m saying. Lindie, I will not ever work on the side of Camden Incorporated.”
“Not even if I guarantee that by doing it you’ll be working to make things better for communities?”
He shook his head and rather than addressing what she’d asked, commanded firmly, “Tell me that you’ve heard what I said.”
Lindie took a deep breath and sighed.
“And you will report back to your family that it isn’t going to happen,” he added.
“They’ll be disappointed. We all thought that growing your business by having you work with Camdens would make up for what was done to your father’s business years ago.”
“Maybe you can count what you did with Harm’s dental practice,” he offered hopefully.
“Still, if getting Sam’s stepfather’s dental practice more business doesn’t work to keep Sam here—”
“It’s important to me that this business of persuading me to go to work for you ends here and now. Put it behind us. Please,” he said without waffling.
“You’re sick of hearing it,” she noted.
“I just want it over with. Because then I need you to tell me where that leaves us.”
That seemed like the important part and what all the rest of what he’d said had been leading up to.
Because if they weren’t together for her to make the past up to him and subsequently convince him to stop being such a thorn in her family’s side, that left them without a reason to see each other.
And only with a whole lot of reasons not to...
She couldn’t bring herself to say that, to face it. Not when her hand was nestled so snugly in the cocoon of his hands and they were sitting there together and the entire time she’d been talking business what she’d really been thinking about was how much she wanted him.
“I don’t know...” she said quietly. “Do you?”
He chuckled a wry, helpless sort of chuckle and shook his head. “No, I don’t. But even though I’ve told myself a million times that it has to, I don’t want it to leave us nowhere,” he confessed in a voice equally as quiet as hers had been. Almost a whisper, as if it went against something sacred to say it out loud. “Is that possible? Or am I really, really barking up the wrong tree?”
There were so many issues standing between them.
How could they possibly go anywhere together from here?
“We aren’t really in a normal situation, are we?” she said, sorry that it wasn’t different.
He had on jeans and a pale gray summer-weight cashmere V-neck sweater that accentuated every inch of his very fine torso and made her itch to touch him. Plus he was clean-shaved, he smelled fantastic, and combined with those blue eyes, that sculpted face of his, and the memory of where Thursday night had ended, the last thing she could think about was watching him walk out right now and never seeing him again.
“No, we aren’t in a normal situation,” he agreed with a sigh. “We’re not in a good situation at all. But...” Another sigh. “I don’t think I can just walk away. Can you?”
It was not fair to ask her that and then kiss her. Especially not when Thursday night had left her with so much longing for him that a simple brush of his lips against hers was enough to reignite her desire.
She wanted this man in the worst way and the minute their lips met, her hunger for him wiped away all thought of everything that stood between them. There was only him—big and brawny and masculine and sexy—and her wanting him.
“Can we just have tonight and worry about the rest later?” she suggested when he ended the kiss and looked expectantly into her eyes, waiting for her to tell him if she was any more able to walk away than he was.
“So one step at a time?” he said for clarity.
“One step at a time,” she confirmed.
He agreed to that with another kiss, taking one of his hands away from hers to brace her head for a kiss that was much more intense.
Intense enough for lips to be parted and tongues to reacquaint like old friends eager to meet again.
Lindie raised her free hand to his chest to feel that sweater and the honed wall of his pectorals through it. So soft over so strong. And she liked it so much.
They went on kissing and kissing and kissing, and it spun her back to Thursday night, reawakening with gusto everything he’d aroused in her then. Her breasts, her whole body, yearned for his touch, and her thoughts were again of relocating—though not to a backseat or the grassy ground outside.
He stopped kissing her as if he were coming up for air and dipped his forehead to rest against the top of hers. “So what’s the next step?” he asked in a raspy voice full of clear insinuation about what he wanted that next step to be.
This could be the start of a real relationship...or this could be a single, stolen night for them to share before they parted ways. Lindie had no idea where things would go from here. That made tonight—this moment—very precious to her. It made it important that she have it all at least this once before any of the complications intruded again.
“I have until dinner at GiGi’s tomorrow at six,” she whispered.
“I only have until noon when I pick up Sam.”
Two of the many complications trying to intrude.
Lindie shoved them away and allowed herself to think only of him and how much she wanted him.
“So you could spend the night,” she said.
He smiled a slow smile. “That’s the next step I was hoping for. If you’re sure?”
Lindie smiled, raised her hand to his cheek and tipped her face up to kiss him.
“I’m sure,” she said.
Both of his hands rose into her hair, cradling her head to the kissing that was unleashed then. To the hunger that he must have been keeping under control until he knew it could be released.
And it was released. Opening floodgates in Lindie, too, as mouths went wide and tongues went wild and she gave herself permission to forget everything but Sawyer and being with him.
Immediately giving in to one of the many things she craved, she found the bottom edge of his cloud-soft sweater and raised it up his back, breaking away from kissing him only long enough to pull it over his head.
Kissing him again, she tossed it behind the sofa and flattened her p
alms to the broad expanse of his shoulders, memorizing the feel of taut muscles that arrowed to his much narrower waist.
One of his hands came out of her hair, dropping to her arm, her elbow, skipping across to her side where it didn’t hesitate to rise up to her breast.
She’d been tempted to go braless tonight because, yes, getting here had been on her mind. But telling herself that their dinner was about business, she’d put one on—a lacy demi-cup that matched the panties she was wearing.
She regretted it now when even that thin film of lace beneath the not-much-thicker knit of her dress formed what seemed like far too bulky a barrier.
If only there were buttons or a zipper in the dress that she could open...
But it was a slip-on and while she was inclined to do the same thing with it that she’d done with his sweater, she wasn’t sure she wanted to be naked in her living room. She wasn’t sure what could be seen through the draperies with all those lights on.
So she tore her mouth from his a second time, took his hand from her breast and held it as she got up from the sofa, bringing him along with her.
Off went the lamp on one side of the couch, then the other. Followed by the overhead in the entryway as she passed by it, leading Sawyer to her bedroom.
The night sky was clear, the moon nearly full, and there were three large windows to let in just enough light.
Sawyer let her take him to the foot of her bed but when they got there he yanked her around to face him and recaptured her mouth with his while he wrapped one arm around her and brought the other hand to her breast again.
It felt good even with the obstacle of clothing so Lindie just enjoyed it and explored his own carved-and-cut pecs.
He did have such a fine body...
But just as she was considering ridding him of the rest of his clothes so she could see it all, he tugged her dress up by slow inches until it was ready to be disposed of much the way the sweater had been.
She was a little glad she’d gone with the bra then because he looked when he saw it.
He leaned back a little and gazed down without any reservations, muttering an “Oh yeah” of approval before he met her lips again with a new frenzy that was something almost too primal to be called kissing as he ravaged her mouth and she ravaged his.
He unhooked her bra and cast it aside, taking both of her bare breasts in both his hands, doubly giving her a taste of what she’d been striving for.
Kneading, caressing, he molded those pliable mounds of flesh that fit perfectly in his palms. Her nipples turned to diamonds delighting in everything he did to them.
Then those talented hands abandoned her breasts, taking her shoulders instead so he could playfully push her to fall onto her king-size mattress.
Still standing at the foot of it, he shrugged out of his shoes and socks—taking something from his front pocket to toss onto the bed as he did. Then he unfastened his jeans and gave her another thing she’d wanted since they’d met. The unrestricted view of him completely naked.
If she hadn’t been wishing for it since they’d met, one look at him told her that she should have been because he was incredible—muscular and well-proportioned and all man, sporting impressive proof that he wanted her as much as she wanted him.
With a quietly guttural growl he pulled off her panties and joined her, lying on his side to kiss the tip of her chin, the hollow of her throat, the highest crest of her shoulder, her arm, and the dip between her breasts, before he finally took one of her breasts into his mouth while his hand found the other.
And, oh, yes, the man was good at that, too!
Drawing her in, flicking her nipple with the tip of his tongue, teasing with tender nibbles and gentle tugs and altogether building such a need within her that she almost lost control before she remembered she could work a little magic on him, too.
Finding that long, hard staff, she closed her hand around him, exploring, learning what he liked, what drove him to moan and writhe and show her with a growing urgency of his own hand and mouth how crazy she was driving him.
Then, while his mouth still tormented her breast, that hand at the other flattened against her rib cage and smoothed its way down her stomach, between her legs, finding yet another spot that was crying for his attention, and slipping into her to take things up another notch.
There was nothing she could do to slow the desire he ignited in her then or the small climax that rippled through her as an appetizer before his mouth deserted her breast so he could search for what he’d taken from his pocket earlier.
Rediscovering her mouth with his and tantalizing her with a tongue that gave preview of things to come, he unwrapped the condom and sheathed himself.
Then he opened her knees with his and found his way between them, replacing his hand with something so much better that slipped inside as if it were a missing piece of her.
Burgeoning, he filled her, easing so deeply into her that she wasn’t sure he would ever find his way out, and staying very still there for a few minutes to let her get the feel of him.
But only for a few minutes before he started to move. Lithe and limber, powerful, forceful, into her and almost out again, he went from slow to fast to faster with her keeping pace, matching him, rising to him and falling back only to rise once more.
Her legs curled around his waist, her arms held him steadily, and she went where he carried her into a white-hot realm of pleasure that burst so exquisitely it arched the small of her back, angling the way for him to come even more deeply into her. Blinding her with a bliss she’d never known before until she could only cling to him and let it have her for the moment that it lasted.
That moment when she realized it was taking him, too, because she felt him tense above her, in her, under her hands.
That moment that fused them together and then ebbed, flowing out of reach little by little, inch by inch, until they were both spent and breathless.
Slowly, only slowly, did they come back to themselves.
When she was there, Lindie reveled in the softness of her mattress beneath her and the weight of Sawyer on top of her. In the heat and sleekness of him, in his pure potency. She was too weary to open her eyes even as she lost that weight for a moment when he retreated to her bathroom.
Then he returned to lie on his back, to pull her to lie beside him, orchestrating it with arms that held her so tightly that every curve of her body meshed with his and even she couldn’t tell where one of them began and the other ended.
Once he had her where he wanted her, one hand went to her head on his chest to comb her hair away from her temple in soft strokes.
He breathed a replete sigh and she felt exhaustion overtake him.
“Well, that was a nice start,” he said, his voice passion-gravelly in understatement.
“That was only the start?”
“We have all night, remember?”
She smiled, liking that. “I remember.”
“So intermission, maybe a really quick trip to that drugstore down the street for more...supplies, and then act two?”
“Well, since we do have all night...”
“Don’t worry, in the morning I’ll replenish you with pancakes—they’re my specialty.”
Lindie laughed and craned her head so she could peer up at him. “Somehow I thought what we just did might be.”
He grinned. “That, too.”
His eyes closed then, his arm around her and his hand at her head growing heavy as he drifted into sleep.
For a moment Lindie laid there studying him, every sharply drawn line of his handsome face, his angular jawline, the thick column of his neck, the cove of his collarbone and the very fine mounds of his chest.
And still she didn’t have any sure or certain vision of where they could go from here.
She only knew that there beside him, in his arms, at that moment, nothing had ever felt so right.
Chapter Ten
Sawyer spent from noon until seven-thirty Sunday n
ight with his son, and as he drove home after dropping Sam off he was aggravated with himself.
He might have been with Sam physically, but his head had been with Lindie. And as much as he loved Sam and missed Sam and never felt as if he had enough time with Sam, a part of him had spent these past hours since leaving Lindie missing her and wanting to be with her. And wrestling with guilt for feeling that way when he should have been completely involved with Sam.
But now that his day with his son was over, he had a small morsel of good news, and Lindie was all he could think about. Lindie was who he wanted to tell that morsel of good news to. Lindie was sure as hell who he wanted to get back to.
There weren’t plans for that, though.
There weren’t plans for anything. From the moment she’d taken him to her bedroom it had just been about the two of them and that one block of time they had together. They’d slept a little—maybe three hours total—between lovemaking and more lovemaking and more lovemaking even in the shower this morning rather than having those pancakes he’d promised.
Then one of her brothers had called to say he was coming over.
Everything between them had come to a screeching halt. And instead of making love again, or making any plans to get together later, they’d raced around her house, tripping over dogs that thought it was some kind of game, to be sure every scrap of evidence that he’d spent the night went with him when he’d rushed out the door with his hair still wet.
Before he’d even known what had hit him, he was in his SUV on his way home and everything had been left hanging in the air.
Maybe some people liked sneaking around or thought that keeping a relationship a secret added spice. But as he left Wheatley on Sunday night and headed for the highway he was thinking that that wasn’t for him.
He didn’t want to sneak around to be with Lindie. He’d already had enough of that just since they’d met. Enough of keeping her true identity from the people at the community center. Enough of worrying about anyone connected with Huffman Consulting knowing he was seeing her. And he certainly wasn’t looking forward to hiding from her family.
He didn’t want to have to hide anything from anyone. He didn’t want to lie. He didn’t want to rush out of her house as if they were doing something wrong and should be ashamed of themselves.
A Sweetheart For The Single Dad (The Camdens Of Colorado Book 8) Page 15
