Hard to Handle

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, pressured 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.”