she’d never been before. His jaw tightened and she knew he was holding back. For her.
Trailing her fingers down his ribs and around to his ass, she tried to give back everything he was giving her. “Come with me, Lucas. Come with me.”
The thrusts grew stronger. Faster. His head dropped to her shoulder and she curled against him. With her legs locked around his hips, she pulled him home and experienced the most amazing orgasm of her life. She’d read a million times about bursting into a million pieces. In that moment, she understood the description.
As her body began to reassemble, Lucas jerked against her, throwing back his head with a sound of utter triumph.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Lucas lay awake the next morning, watching sunlight pour through the window to dance across Sid’s bare skin. Skin he’d spent the night touching, tasting, and memorizing for future nights when he’d be alone. He’d tried covering her more than once, but even sleeping naked, she never left the covers on for long. Sid’s free spirit couldn’t be held down, even in sleep.
He’d come to love that spirit as much as he loved the rest of her. Which made him a complete idiot and, oddly enough, put her further out of his reach. Sid would hate living in the city. Hate life hemmed in by all the buildings and societal rules amongst his peers. Many of the wives had careers of their own, with busy days that included lunch meetings, business suits, and keeping up appearances as much for their own careers as for their husbands’.
Forcing Sid into that world would be like putting a great white in a fish bowl. No. His world could never be hers.
Since he’d kept her up most of the night, both only nodding off shortly before sunrise, he let her sleep, leaving a note that he’d gone to speak to his parents about Will. He took the time to feed Drillbit, who had warmed to him considerably in the last week. The tiny ball of fur seemed more interested in curling up against his neck than trying to slice his jugular.
Another pint-sized female who’d managed to win his affection when he wasn’t looking.
“Anyone home?” Lucas yelled in greeting, stepping through the kitchen door and breathing in the rich aroma of his mother’s favorite coffee. Patty Dempsey may look like a tea drinker, but she preferred the more bitter brew in a potency strong enough to peel paint.
“You’re up early this morning,” Patty said, rising on tiptoe to plant a kiss on his cheek. “You don’t look like you’ve been running, but I’d say you’ve been up to something.”
Lucas fought the blush and lost. He was not going to talk about the activities of the previous night with his mother. “Is Dad around? I need to talk to you guys about something.”
With a tilt of her head, his mother studied him. He could practically hear the gears working in that sharp mind of hers. But he doubted she knew why he was there.
“Is this about your intentions toward a certain sharp-tongued boat mechanic?” she asked, a smile crossing her face.
The question hit like a bucket of cold water to the face. What were his intentions toward Sid? The truth—he was going to love her and leave her—made him feel like the jackass that he was. Definitely not something he wanted to discuss with his mother.
“This isn’t about Sid,” he managed, staring through the window to watch the birds fighting over the offerings of his mother’s bird feeders. “If Dad’s in bed, I can come back.”
“He’s up.” Her voice turned stern. “You’re not toying with that girl, are you? She’s been in—”
“Thought I heard your voice,” Tom said, entering the kitchen looking healthier than he had since Lucas arrived. “Where’s your little partner in crime? I was starting to think you two were attached at the hip.”
What was this constant talk about Sid? So he’d lived at her house for a week. They were consenting adults. That was their business. Except he’d forgotten that on Anchor Island, everything was everyone’s business.
“Sid is sleeping. She had a long night.” Well shit. That wasn’t the answer he wanted to give. Maybe he could leave the house and come back in again.
“I’m sure she did.” His parents exchanged a knowing smile that made him feel like a schoolboy caught necking in the backseat of their car.
“I’m here to talk about something else,” he blurted, desperate to change the subject. “I have an idea for the restaurant I’d like to run by you.” Odd to feel nervous, but then he’d never tried to tell his parents how to run their business.
They exchanged another look, but this one he had no idea how to interpret. They didn’t look angry, and neither told him to keep his nose out of things, so he took that as a good sign.
“Bring us over some coffee, Pat.” Tom pulled out a chair from the kitchen table. “What do you have in mind?” he asked Lucas.
“Well,” Lucas hedged, pulling a chair for his mother, then taking the next one over. “I have no doubt you’ll be back on your feet soon, but this heart attack is a pretty obvious sign you can’t keep up the pace you had going before.”
“My pace?” Tom asked.
Lucas looked to his mother for backup, but she remained silent.
“Running the place alone, working six or seven days a week, just isn’t good for you. Hell, it’s about to do me in and I’ve only been at it for a couple weeks.”
His dad leaned back in his chair. “If you’re looking for time off, then just say so.”
“I’m not talking about me.” He was making a mess of this. “I simply think you need help. You deserve help.”
Patty finally spoke up. “Are you volunteering?”
“What?” he asked, stunned by another question he didn’t expect. “No, not me. Will.”
“Will?” the pair asked in unison. “What does Will have to do with this?” Tom asked.
He was losing them. “Just hear me out. Will has worked for several businesses on the island and been behind the bar at O’Hagan’s for nearly a year. She’s also worked other bars and restaurants up and down the coast.”
“What does that have to do with Dempsey’s?” Tom asked, but Patty shushed him and motioned for Lucas to continue.
“You need some kind of assistant manager. Someone to take the everyday weight off your shoulders. She could work the bar. Create the schedules. Anything you need her to do.”
The elder Dempseys sat silently as if absorbing the suggestion. “Have you talked to Will about this?” Patty asked.
“Yes.”
“Without coming to us first?” Tom nearly leapt from his chair but Patty’s grip held him in place. “You can’t go around offering people jobs whenever you feel like it.”
“I didn’t offer her a job,” Lucas defended, ignoring the knot forming in his gut. He never meant to offend his parents. Especially not the man who’d raised him like his own. “I wanted to make sure she was interested before I came to you. She understands this isn’t a done deal. You have the final say, of course.”
“How gracious of you to let me decide what happens in my own damn restaurant.”
“Tom,” Patty scolded. “He has a point. You can’t go back to working so many hours. His intentions are in the right place and the idea is worth discussing.”
Finally. Someone on his side.
“You’d be doing Will a favor, too. She could stop flitting from business to business, picking up hours wherever she can get them.” Lucas clasped his hands on the Formica tabletop. “No one is suggesting you can’t run the business, but this is an opportunity for you to relax a bit. Let someone else do the heavy lifting for a while.”
“Heavy lifting takes money,” Tom grumbled.
“What does that mean?” Lucas asked, confused where this reaction was coming from.
