Hard to Handle

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 soon, 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.”

She was teasing, but the part of him pressing painfully against his fly didn’t know that. He glanced at the garden hose hanging on the brick wall behind her flower bed and considered sticking it down his pants and turning it on full blast.

“I am worried,” Sadie admitted, her eyes going to Sheila, parked right next to Sadie’s car. “I would sleep better knowing you were safe on my couch instead of wrapped around a tree.”

The weather was moderate, the roads practically empty this time of night. Aiden didn’t live all that far from her place. But those reasons paled in comparison to the gorgeous woman asking such a simple request.

“Okay,” he heard himself answer. “I’ll stay.”

*  *  *

Sadie wasn’t a morning person, but she found it impossible to sleep later than six a.m. knowing Aiden was sprawled across her couch.

She crept down the stairs, careful to skip the overly creaky one in the middle, and sat on the second to last step, peering at Aiden around the banister. He showed no signs of stirring, asleep on his stomach, his arm dangling over the couch. The sheet she’d given him was on the floor, his body bare save for the black briefs stretched over his amazing butt. She’d always thought of herself as a boxer kind of girl, but seeing Aiden laid out like he was had her fervently switching sides on the debate. She allowed her gaze to roam over all his tanned flesh, liking how much space he took up, one leg nearly off the couch, his bare foot hanging off the edge of one cushion. His breathing was steady, his hair a mess over his forehead, his lips parted in the most seductive, tempting way.